ICE CREAM CONE SUNDAY REMEMBERS MY FATHER

Update Edward Richard Unruh was born on March 8th, 1915. He was 93 when he left us. He would be 100 years of age on Sunday. He loved ice cream in a cone, and one always tasted like one more to him. So that’s how we celebrate. Our family in Ontario and British Columbia have honoured his memory with ICE CREAM CONE DAY. Eleven of us in BC will come together for lunch and cones.

I recall my father, who was 5’6”, being a strong young man; hard working, predictably content, gentle, soft spoken, a man who always whistled current and favourite tunes, had a pleasant tenor voice, could harmonize vocally with ease, who became a committed follower of Christ in his mid-thirties; whose primary passion was his family; whose great love was Tina Martha Doersken to whom he was married for 66 years until she died 6 months before his own departure; who viewed as his greatest achievements, providing a home for his three sons, and seeing his boys acquire post high school education & each become involved in full-time Christian work, marry beautiful girls whom he loved, and then being ready himself, to go home.

ZOOM ZOOM

ZOOM ZOOM on March 2nd

2016 MX5 … no longer a girlie car, on the wish list

We cruised with the wind
Luminous in the sun
And only March, an early spring
Room for two, an ideal number
After a lifetime filled with people
Top down, our sports car took us
To Porter's Bistro Coffee and Tea House.
Apple Strudel, Strawberry and Rhubarb,
And on to White Rock and Crescent Beaches.

a SONG for CHRISTINE for VALENTINE’S DAY

Hi Babe,
Happy Valentine’s Day Christine. 47 years married and into our 48th, edging ever closer to the magic milestone of 50.
thanks for beginning this with me and for being with me all along the trip.
I love you and I am grateful for your love.

Here is a little song, a love song, recorded just for you … like I used to sing for you before we were even married. I couldn’t afford a full orchestra, just a couple of guys with a tin pot and a 1920’s harpsichord.

NOTE TO EASTERN FRIENDS

So, sympathetically I hear
That Canada's buried in snow
And my grinning face sports a tear
Our rain needs no shovel you know.

The East coast's on a storm alert
It's buried and bundled all day
And here I'm wearing a T-shirt
Pineapple Express came to play.

Exceptional winter days
When I'm glad to live out west
If snow falls it seldom stays
Why not come and be our guest.

But don't come in order to ski
Still pretty but the mountains are bare
Rocks and trees is what you will see
Still, it's milder out here than there.

© Ron Unruh, February 2015

WHERE DOES THE TIME GO?

1958, age 16

Where does the time go? For that matter, where did I go? from 1958 at age 16, to 1967 at age 25 to 2012 and I’m not telling you my age for that year. I’ll make you work for that conclusion. The me that once was, the me who was becoming, and the me who is now. I did not say, the me who has been. No way! But I’m still in there, somewhere. The added weight and lines and sags, hair loss and flaws, speak to experience and experiences, to living life, to trying and proving, to learning and knowing, to mistakes and recoveries. I can truthfully say I would not want to go back to relive the years. I might enjoy a youthful body, a blemish free skin, the joy of hair on the top of my face rather than over it. Yet, I do not wish to revisit the uncertainties, the unknown, the questions of those earlier years. Once around the track turns out to be good enough. I am thankful there is still much to enjoy, and I shall do that but because it is predictably troublesome and terminal, I am not eager to live through all that must yet be learned in this stage. I consider myself fortunate rather than deluded, that I have a sure and certain hope about life beyond this, which is the outcome of faith in God who accepts me as his child and has prepared me for whatever is next, by an act done by someone else other than me. Ask me, if you cannot fill in the blanks to your satisfaction. I remain on course.

1967, age 25

2012, age ??

I DON'T GIVE A …

I want to paint, I want to read, I want to play.

I can do all three or none at all; I'm home all day.

I want to nap, I want to dream, I want to walk.

I don't want to work, don't want to phone, don't want to talk.

I have no drive to commence what I'd like to do;

I am completely unmotivated; that's true,

So I sit here with coffee in an enormous cup,

Resigned to my lethargy, and prepared to give up,

Knowing I'll never be famous, a star or a starlet,

Self-assuredly I whisper to myself, "Frankly Scarlet …."

© Ron Unruh, January 2015

FAÇADE OR AUTHENTICITY

FAÇADE OR AUTHENTICITY

Wish fulfillment or answered prayer

Depends on posture of the heart,

When surprised by some provision

And persuaded of God's part,

Comes the inclination to give thanks

But begs an important question.

Can I remember praying for this outcome?

Or did I merely crave possession?

Did I trust in God's involvement,

Or was I pretending to be devout?

Now abruptly God's got my attention

Of his attention there's no doubt.

I must be genuine since he is true

I cannot play a religious game

God is demonstrating his investment in me

I must bring honour to his name.

 © Ron Unruh, January 5, 2015

IF THEY ONLY KNEW

IF THEY ONLY KNEW

I will always wish that my children could have known us and seen us when Christine and I were young. When Christine walked with long legs under pleated skirts, with her waspish waist, and confident stride. When she sat with her long, brunette hair cascading over her shoulders, and smiled so infectiously the room became happy. I wish my children could have heard her sing as she sang in the years before they were born. The young voice, trained and still finding its way but with the promise of accomplishment and joy. I wish they might have known her when her faith was fresh from God’s work in her heart at age seventeen.

I wonder what my children might have thought of me if they had seen me as a young man of eighteen, with strong body, legs of power, lean and muscled torso. Would they have said, “wow” when they watched me on the track or rolling over the bar at the high jump pit. I would like to have them see my hair swept to the sides and dovetailed together at the back, held in place by Brylcream, a curly whisp of hair falling at my forehead. If only they might have heard me sing when I was sixteen and winning vocal contests as a boy soprano and then within months singing a baritone. And what pleasure they might have to see me baptized at seventeen years of age, and later at eighteen attending Urbana Conference in Illinois and telling God I will serve Him with my life.

And my grandchildren, who know nothing about Papa and Nana, Grandma and Grandpa Unruh but what they have seen since their births and through their young years. They know us as we are now. They may not even have interest in learning about who we were and what we were like and how life shaped us. They are as expected preoccupied with their own happy lives, homes, friends and opportunities. They nonetheless love us and want us around, not merely for the things we give them, but for the unconditional loving embraces they know they will predictably receive from us. I can wonder and I can wish, yet, for a seven year old to phone and ask to come over to hang out, or for a ten year old to want to come over to paint with me, or another ten year old want to play golf with Papa, or a twelve year old to come over to bake with grandma, or a fourteen year old to want to shop with grandma, certainly not grandpa, is good enough. It's as good as it gets.

I am writing the history. It can endure beyond my time. It will remain available to the grandchildren if and when they have an interest to learn about the young man and woman who fell in love in the late 1960s and married on an August 12th afternoon in 1967.  

OUR HABITAT FOR HUMANITY TRIP was a HAND UP

Two weeks out of December, two years in succession, and Christmas just around the corner. On December 7th Christine and I joined a team of volunteers to fly to Kauai where we served with Habitat for Humanity. Our 16-person group was daily divided on two different work sites, coming together for lunch each day, and of course driving home each afternoon. We met the Habitat leaders each morning in their Hanapepe work yard, did our circle, prayed, and then holding hands, extended out and then up as we recited, "we don't offer a hand out but a hand up."

Countries I have visited

Ron Unruh has been to: Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bonaire, Saint Eustatius and Saba, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Egypt, Fiji, France, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Martinique, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Saint Martin, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Vatican. Get your own travel map from Matador Network.

35 countries of the world that I have set foot in … not so much … not enough if Christine could have her way.