Sunday, July 16, 2023

The trees in our lives

The Bible Reading for today talked about the trees as a lasting witness to the glory of the Lord. Rain again today and the trees are soaking it up; this has been a dry summer in comparison to others but the last week we have had a lot of rain and it shows in the trees. A small quiet wind is blowing in those trees today and the Black Walnut mostly covers the one side of my window now with just a little blue sky showing. The wind is beautiful; God is ever near. Today is Sunday and Church by bulletin for the rest of the summer. I will read and sing the service starting at the usual time of 10:30 a.m. 

As we try to manage the world with Climate Change ever rearing its dangerous head with extreme heat being experienced around the world yet again we hear from the psychopathic Nazi Putin who always has to have a word in to create grief as he is unwilling to accept that we are tired of war but not willing to let Nazism break out once again (the cost is too high to the human race). Nazism is a sickness of the mind where individuals afflicted see themselves as being righteous in their cause. But there is no righteousness in killing children.  Remember what Jesus told us that we must love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourself. Russia does not love their neighbours; dominating is not loving; killing their children is not loving and invading their sovereign land is not loving. Go home Russia and wait for God's forgiveness. You have no right to Crimea; you have no right to Ukraine.You are continuing to destroy the environment with your bombing; the rich fields of Ukraine (and that is what your nazi imperialism is all about) have been the bread basket of the world and you deny that to the peoples that Ukraine was feeding with the produce of their rich earth. You think you can frustrate us Russia but God is all powerful and we are a God-loving; God-fearing people. You do not frighten us. 

 Today we put together all the journals that were received to give to the Ontario Ancestors Ottawa Branch/BIFHSGO Library to go with the runs of journals that Edward collected through the years. Hopefully visitors to the library are finding lots of information from all of his genealogical efforts. He did love doing genealogy. He loved helping other people do their genealogy. The desire to learn more about his family was already part of him when I first met him but a very minor part but it would come to dominate his free time once we had a car. But interestingly enough he never became involved with the Ontario Genealogical Society now Ontario Ancestors until he went to that first meeting he ever attended with Gordon Riddle back in the early 1980s here in Ottawa. There was an active group in London, Ontario but as a couple we spent our time doing Astronomy in our spare time which was a shared interest. He and Ed Phelps at Western University used to talk about the early history of the area and when we went to farm auctions (after we bought a car) then Edward would buy up boxes of books and what he did not want he gave to Ed Phelps if he wanted them. I wasn't really part of that although Ed Phelps did remind me way back then that I was related to Sir John Carling through my maternal great grandmother Grace (Gray) Pincombe. But my mother was into genealogy and my interest level was mostly in my surnames - Blake and Pincombe although I never really got into that until much much later in my life and definitely I was not going to go to the Ottawa Branch meetings (I was doing copyediting and proofreading in my spare time when my children did not need me). But actually Edward, once he got to know everyone, liked going on his own to the Ottawa Branch meetings. Although once I had gotten into working with images and text (that was part of my copy-editing that I did at work) he did draft me to set up a display at the Gene-O-Rama meetings. But I liked my time with my children before they grew up and moved on since my work kept me pretty busy. It did take George DeKay to get me to return once again to my interest in surname studies in 2003 and when he first contacted me and then a couple of months later again he contacted me to do the Pincombe Profile - a little arm twisting and I did it mostly in memory of my mother who had passed away recently at that time. So in a way Gordon Riddle was entirely responsible for Edward getting into genealogy in such a big way as it did come to be his entire life after he retired. He loved every minute including the United Empire Loyalist trips down into New York State with George Anderson and his wife. He finally drafted me to help with that as well and I did go as I do like to see historic things and that was something we did together those ten years or so while I was still working and he was retired but then I finally persuaded him to go to Europe/The British Isles and then I was in for sure. I retired and we were off on the journeys of our life as we flew back and forth/back and forth across the Atlantic seeing everything there was to see in our bucket list. It was great fun. 

The list of items we will prepare today and then can move all of that on to a new owner/new location where it will be useful to lots of people. Anything in there I have already gleaned for my one name studies in BLAKE and PINCOMBE. Although BLAKE is a big item in the United States with many researchers PINCOMBE is very much less so. But I can always go and look things up at the library if I want to acquire material on BLAKE but I mostly leave the American Blake family to other members of the group - they know it so much better than I do. 

Rain again and it is lovely; the trees are glorying in it as you can measure with your eyes the uplift in the branches as the rain comes down. For God all is well in His world; we are but a small portion of the living life on the planet and we need to be much more careful how we manage our living with the other living items on the planet. Climate Change is real and threatening mostly to Homo sapiens I think; the animal and plant life just migrates to where it is safe for them. 

On to breakfast; the best meal of the day awaits me.



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