A PREACHER I WAS

1967 Graduation

I have preached a lot of sermons in my life.

I am seventy and I am entitled to be reflective.

I grew up in a family that attended church in an era when attendance meant Sunday mornings and evenings. Such churches are hard to find today. Not that I want to find one. I can remember as a preacher with 23 years of making and delivering sermons under my belt, the silent squeal of pleasure when the elders first and then the congregation approved the end of regular Sunday evening services.

As a boy and youth I had heard some effective preachers. Their fluency and colorful story telling and insightful examination of scripture inspired me.

MISSIONS FEST 2013 - A MINI REUNION & MUCH MORE

This is the logo of Mission Fest, recognizably registered and used here simply to draw attention to a remarkable gathering of Christian agencies, service organizations, schools, camps and missions both local and international.
Each year a three-day conference is held under this name here in Vancouver and in other major cities across Canada. Informative programs, seminars and exhibits interest, enlighten, and recruit thousands of people because there is something for every age group.

HEAVY-EYED CONUNDRUM

What prompts one’s unconscious mind in the middle of a dream as a race starter to say inaudibly,  “On your mark, get set,” and then shouts as loud as he can, “Go!”

From the person next to me in bed came a most exasperated “Good Grief.” The start of the race had roused me too, so I got up and went, downstairs, and I’m writing about it now.  I’ll learn what my bed partner truly thinks in the morning. It might be a long night.  

LOOKING FORWARD AT YEAR'S END

LOOKING FORWARD AT YEAR’S END

At precisely the stroke of twelve last night,

My birth year came to a progressive end.

Seven decades furnished to me to tend.

I reflect on them with grateful delight.

I crowded this gift of years with child’s

Play, aspiring art and a loving wife,

Came children, studies, work, a selfless life

Lived in service to others and God smiled.

Sounds immodest perhaps, I speak of call

From God to whom I’ve been obedient.

No option when seeing the greater gift

Of Jesus who by dying gave it all.

Here I am Jan 1 conscious I’ve been sent,

Years to invest and then divine uplift.

(Although I prefer free verse, I like the occasional challenge traditonal poetry. Here is a poem styled after the Scottish sonnet, with rhyming pattern of ABBA,ABBA, CDE,CDE and with ten syllables to each line) 

MY MOST NOTABLE MEMORIES OF 2012

MY Most Notable Memories of 2012                                   Ron Unruh

This is my own personal list of cherishable memories over 2012 , arranged to reflect their value to me during this year of my 70th Birthday, during which many events were part of a 12 month celebration of that milestone.

UNRUH CHRISTMAS 2012

 Christmas 2012, and happily I slept until 6:30 am this morning. Neither a mouse or my spouse is stirring just yet. I am reflecting just now on how life and customs adjust with the years. Enthusiasm has evolved into satisfaction. A morning kiss will softly communicate our thankfulness for one another. Christine and I will give the other a gift we have chosen for ourselves. Santa is quite out of this picture.

MIGHTY MERCY

God loves to "magnify His sovereign strength." This is the answer to the question John Piper poses in the poem "Mighty Mercy": Why did God choose such "strange and roundabout" providence "[t]o get Messiah where He must be born?" This poem exalts God's absolute sovereignty in the "flukes of history."

LIKE MY FATHER

I used to hear that as one ages, the increasing tendency is to look like one's parent. I loved my dad but he lived for 28 years after retirement so I saw what old age is and does. I believe that I have managed to stave off the look alike predictability pretty well, that is, until a few months ago. I suppose it was when I turned 70 in September that I began to acknowledge that I am looking like my father; wearing my teeth like my father; struggling to wage a battle against skin irritations like my father; wearing my pants like my father; wearing my hair as short as my father; beginning to shrink in height like my father, becoming deaf like my father; having sight impairment like my father; living with unfulfilled dreams like my father. I am my father's child. That said, I know that I will do well if I can be as content for the next twenty years as my father was and if when I die, my family loves me as we have loved him. One other commonality with my dad ... I am married to a beautiful woman.

HAPPY DECEMBER 12,2012

Happy Dec. 12, 2012!

Today is a numerical marvel, 12-12-12.  Consecutive date sequences are rare occurrences and somewhat mysterious. This one is the last major numerical date of this sort on the Gregorian or Christian calendar for a long time. So, today is the last time that the month, day and year will all be the same number — at least until the next one which I will not personally experience on January 1, 2021.

LESSON FROM NEMO

Captain Nemo lost faith in humanity and had no interest in the affairs of the world.

Given what we hear and what we see, it would be understandable if more of us developed the same deliberate detachment. But then we would be uninterested in any recovery program. Good thing humanity’s creator did not similarly choose to divorce from his creation.

That observation was prompted as I watched a 2005 movie, Jules Verne's Mysterious Island.  

Entertaining, suspense-filled, and totally fictional.

The Creator of humanity however rather than disconnecting himself from his creation, came to live among us and then sacrificed himself in order to redeem the race and quite noticeably while this too sounds like fiction, it is after all a matter of faith, isn't it?