We’re back from Ottawa. Once again we have proven we’re a driving family…we drove straight through to Ottawa (25 hours of driving) and straight back. We stopped on the way to watch Wall-e in Grand Forks – VERY GOOD MOVIE.
General Assembly was awesome. We re-elected our worthy president to a third and final term. We also voted to have our next general assembly in Istanbul, Turkey. Sweet homage to our missional focus as a denomination.
I spent some quality time with my sister April who lives only a few blocks from the Congress Centre where the conference was held. Also got to spend some time at my mother-in-law’s cottage in Quebec right on the Ottawa River. Fantastic. Matt is staying in Ottawa till the end of July (we miss him already) with his grandmother and aunt.
Got some reading down as well. I had a chance to read J.R.R. Tolkien’s book The Children of Hurin. Wow. It is one of the Lays of Beleriand found in the Book of Lost Tales in mini-form. It appears in The Silmarillion in miniature as well. Here we have the completed nearly 300-page narrative only edited together by son Christopher with no additions or subtractions.
The story is about the unfolding of a curse laid upon the family of Hurin – most notably his son Turin – by Morgoth, one of the Valor who has fallen. Morgoth, for those who don’t know had a servant by the name of Sauron who comes into his own thousands of years later with the forging of the rings of power which are the backdrop for The Lord of the Rings. Turin is Elrond of Rivendell’s great uncle.
The story is written in very polished prose and contains elements reminiscent of the great Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf as well of shades of Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet. A very powerful story with some exceptional quotes. At one point Turin is expressing anger at his friend Gwindor:
"…you have done ill to me, friend, to betray my right name, and call down my doom upon me, from which I would lie hid."But Gwindor answered: "the doom lies in yourself, not in your name."
There is a deep truth in what Gwindor says that applies to all of us I think.
Anyhow the book is really good and I highly recommend it. I am now reading the fourth book in Thomas Cahill’s seven book Hinges of History series entitled – Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter. For those who don’t recognize this series you might recognize the title of the first book – How the Irish Saved Civilization.
Harnessing Chaos 