5th Anniversary to the Diaconate

Five years ago, this night, at this very hour, I was made a deacon by the Rt. Rev'd Bruce Stavert (now the Archbishop of the Province of Canada) in Trinity Cathedral, Quebec City.

Today, the Rev'd Chris Hayes, my clerical neighbour and friend, came out to St. James' Centreville and blessed my vestments, given by my parents for this occasion.

Deanery Meeting Plaster Rock

Today the clerics of the Deanery of Woodstock got together in Artherette, at the Church of St. Helen's.


St. Helen's


Here are all the Clerics in our deanery. Archdeacon Walter Williams (Woodstock), The Rev'd Elaine Hamilton (Prince William & Dumfries), The Rev'd Jane Arnott (Canterbury), The Rev'd John Mills (Andover: ie. Perth-Andover), The Rev'd Fran Bedell (Deacon in Charge in Madawaska: ie. Edmundston), The Rev'd Douglas Painter (Wicklow, Wilmot, Peel & Aberdeen: ie. Florenceville), The Rev'd Terrance Chandra (transitional deacon in Woodstock), The Rev'd Chris Hayes (Richmond: ie. Richmond Corner)


The light of Christ upon us??? Certainly upon Fr. Mills!

The Look of Advent

The back of the Rectory, but used as the front door by near all.


The front of our home


And here from the otherside


The stairs have been trimmed


The Family Advent Wreath

Advent Parish Sevice

Some sights of the day.






Pippa was caught helping.

Advent 1 Sermon

Advent1b2005.wav Have fun and keep watch. If you would like the reading for today go below and get the bulletin.

Scale Link

Ever feel insignificant? Ever wonder how great God is? Well do I have the site for you... A Sense of Scale Go all the way through, it is way cool! God is indeed very great!

First Sunday of Advent Bulletin

Here it is:
Advent1BNov272005.pdf

It Won't Go Away

This morning, if you consider a little after midnight morning, I woke with new abdominal pain.

You need to be brought up to speed that yesterday morning I went in to the hospital again for my persistent swollen throat. Dr. Marco got me in that x-ray room fast and said, look, your sinus is blocked. I'd like to have blocked him at that point as it was stating the obvious :-) Anyway he did the x-ray and that cleared up the thought that it may be in my lungs. He gave me a spray for sinusitis and yet more antibiotics.... It did not go well with me.

So back to the top of this para... I woke in great pain. All I can say is it lasted all night, with no sleep, and was bad. After two talks with the nurses at the hospital we went in at 7:30am. Dr. B. Lockhart was in and did bloodwork, urine and a cardiogram.

Turns out I am well, except from what he suspects as a stress ulcer (I wonder how a priest could ever get one of those... we live in peace and prayer, everyone loves us and only work one day a week ;-). Any-whoo, my sinus is not as well as I had thought and he tweaked the dose of the spray and gave me Amoxil (I've had it before so good on me). Please recall that I just finished ten days of Ceftin! I've now seen all the doctors in the Bath Hospital just for this one illness. I will not digress and give marks out of 10 for fear my own "body" results may condemn me. You can't have bad doctors if your body doesn't want to listen -- I may therefore rename my "body", Guinness or Tempest.

If you've been wondering where's the blogs Douglas+... now you know. I have felt well in the days but I pay hard at night. So blogging may be a bit sporadic the next few days. I will do the weekend bulletin and sermon.

Prayers for Andrew

Andrew, our eldest, has had a rash for a few months. It came to our attention just a few weeks ago. This Monday Sherry took him to the local hospital... they don't know what it is.

Friday, tomorrow morning at 8:00am AST (7:00am Eastern... LNS time as well), Andrew will have a biopsy of a segment of this odd rash. It is on his arms and legs. Please pray, as it is not excema.

Advent / Lenten Chasuble

My Mom and Dad have wonderfully given me a great present of a Purple Chasuble and Stole for my 5th Ordination to the Diaconate on the Eve of St. Andrew's, Nov. 29th. They arrived today. Thank you M&D, I love you... see I tell the world wide web :-D


Here is both the stole and the chasuble... I love the crosses


Here is my previous stole, bought in Mexico City '00, with the new chasuble.


Here is my Alb with the new stole

Lots of options... just great!

Sermon: Reign of Christ

A stuffed up rector preaches... RoCNov2005.wav

Newly baptized

Today at the Church of the Good Shepherd we had four Baptisms... all uncharacteristically, for Anglicans, older individuals. Here they are, ringing the bell for the first time since the lightning strike. What a treat. Speaking of treats what a great cake!

Sights: Bristol Parade

Tonight Northern Carleton County held it's annual Christmas / Santa Claus Parade. Here are pictures of our Parish Float. Great Thanks to all who helped out. It is picture intensive... sorry dialup folks.



Here are Cam, Liam and Madeline


Neighbouring Floats before we left

Andrew and Amy led our way

Sher in the choir.. who'd a thunk it??? :-)

Pippa and the choir

Myself... bundled up in my coastal parka... it was -3 C this evening

Is that the blog famous Allison... sticking his toung out at me :-P


What a great evening folks!

Reign of Christ Bulletin

Here she is... Pr34RofCANov202005.pdf

Rejuvenating the Parish

I can not begin to tell you all the joy of Spirit I had today at this diocesan / deanery meeting that was held in Centreville this day. Often meetings spending the day listening to talks on Stewardship are dull, repetitive and scary. Scary? Yes, because there is an expectation that one will talk stewardship within one's own parish. No one likes to talk about money. Well today it was honestly exciting to talk about money... for Stewardship is much bigger than funds. We listened to Scripture and a vision of our parishes which met where the Lord leads and tells us to be. We examined our mission and looked at welcoming and growth, as well as honest reality of the 21st Century Anglican Church. It was great and I implore anyone who has an opportunity to attend the last conference next Saturday. Jim Morell will excite you about stewardship, and Don Thompson gives great encouragement and commitment to the call of Christ. What a great witness these two gave us.

Growth Spurt

Andrew has surpassed Mom... when will dad go down to the evergrowing first son.

TEMPEST!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words... all but three or four are swears :-(

Igloo Cathedral Unusable

I'm personally fed up with illness updates, and so I decided to surf. Here are some links to a very sad story. The Diocese of the Arctic's Cathedral, St. Jude's, fell victim to a fire few weeks ago. Please keep Bishop Andrew Atagotaaluk, and all his clergy and laity in your prayers.... Especially the one "hurting bad."

Story 1 on Nov. 7th
Story 2 on Nov. 11th

Illness update Week II

OK, I went back to the Doctor... for those in the know; Tuesday Dr. Tuelly, Thursday Dr. C Lockhart, Today Dr. Tompkins.

Diagnosis: I have a bad sinus infection.

Therefore they have put me back on antibiotics... this time not the ones I am deathly allergic to. It was suggested I get a medic alert bracelet for Erythromiacin. It was really bad: REALLY. And added at least 3-4 more days to my illness. Next was the cherry-candy-syrup (CO Actifed Syrup) from the psychedelic 60's. It's made me dopey.. er. Now something called Cefuroxime.

Prognosis: I'll live... duh... in 3-5 days. But I'm no longer infectious :-)

Bulletin & Update

Pr33%20ANov132005.pdf

Though I am beginning to feel a bit more myself, I am still coughing, filled with "stuff" in my sinus, can't hear and have a bad sore throat. I guess then it's odd to say I feel slightly better after that litany of woe :-$ I've also been prescribed a codeine Syrup, for the cough and congestion, that is knocking me out... mainly why I haven't been able to blog. So once again I miss Sunday, as per Doctor's orders. Thank you all for your prayers. Now it's time for my syrup and the appropriate music: Doors & Jefferson Airplane

RAID for Bugs

In my continuing blow by blow account of this flu/cold, the count so far is Sherry, Andrew, Pippa and Liam, a day and a half of illness; Daddy a 6 day stint... so far; and the latest victim, Cameron,: a bad night last night indeed: he's in bed today.

Late last night I got the image of the old 70's "Raid" commercial, where the bugs are scurrying around and suddenly the Raid can shows up launching a caracature of a bomb... BOOM! They all die. Well this odd story is a weird way of saying that at 10:00 pm my temp rose suddenly and I began to cough quite a bit. So Sherry and I left for the hospital, a 10 minute drive.

It turns out I have quite a severe lung and nasal infection. I was prescribed an immediate Ventolin aerosol treatment (the oxygen mask that smokes a dilator and a steroid). Then I received meds for the infection and to open me up.

I feel odd today. A bit better with the sinus infection but I am coughing with a bad sore throat, which means no contact with others, until I stop the coughing.

RAID for Bugs = penicillin and steroids... I hope they haven't snuck out to a new location :-)

Sights of Sickos

Well Chris+ challenged me to "take a picture" of the poor sick, unshaven, Douglas+. So that no one can accuse me of vanity I place my sick face on the net for all to laugh and cry... sympathy accepted!

Here are just two of the sickos at the beginning of this flu/cold:


Andrew gets comforted by the Pie as she holds his ear??!


Mr. Hayes, here's to you! (guess who I was on the phone with?)

Sickos

This is just to say we are sick. Very much. It's day five for me, and day one for Sherry, Andrew and Liam. This flu is very bad... or we just aren't used to NB germs. Probably the later.

Anyway sorry there is no sermon this week as I handed service over to Marjorie and Allison.

Thanks for the prayers.

Bulletin Nov 6th

In WWP&A we are celebrating All Saints & Remembrance Day. Here is the bulletin:
All%20SaintsANov62005.pdf

Please keep me and the family in your prayers as this cold seems to be much more persistent that we thought! It's difficult just to get one's head off the pillow.

Site Down?

I can't get the site up on my laptop. Please e-mail me if you can see the blog. I'll deal with the problem in the morning.

Prepare for the Pie

While I was just blogging, feeling sorry for myself and my overwhelming head cold, I heard a sound from my study. I went in and had to grab the camera for this one. Yes, the hazards of a priest are there all the time... luckily they were not blessed!

Cable Movie to See

I see that on the Movie Network (MFun MFest), on both cable and satellite, they are showing the movie "Seducing Doctor Lewis." This movie was filmed in Harrington Harbour, Quebec, and is only a few hundred kilometers away from where we lived while on the Coast. It's in French with English subtitles but it is great fun and shows the sights we lived for four years. Keep an eye out for it... and yes it is a good movie.

Ratchet: New Threat

Sony CD's, commercial... bought at a store... have "ratchet technology" in many releases.

Modifications happen when you let the CD / DVD install software on your PC. The problem can come out as a bluescreen when you start up (with this as a reference: "Ares sys driver"), or when you disable the Sony software, it can disable your CD Rom drive. It's nasty and has been around for a year or more. More information can be found by goggling "Sony drm ratchet"

What is it? Ratchet technology exploits the OS and changes it to hide malicious software on your computer by hooking the kernel and altering your registry and actual files like a leech. Essentially it is a big corporate company using the same techniques as hackers!

Download Ratchet Revealer to see if you have any problems. Some false positives come up, so watch for these bad files identified something- $sys$ -something. They'll be in your sys32 folder. Run the ratchet Revealer to find out.

If you find something google some more to find out how to get rid of it. I was lucky I don't have a problem (other than my persistent cold, cough, cough... maybe I can blame it on Sony :-)

LESSON: be careful saying "yes" when installing software (3rd party software especially when upgrading for "Active X"). This Sony issue is horrific. It's infringement of rights, so be careful when you say yes thinking that it's official. Be on the watch for CD's & DVD's marked "content enhanced" or "content protected." Don't buy it!!!! The fact they are tryig to prevent illegal copying is laudable, but when they infect your system, essentially breaking it, is just illegal and wrong.

PWRDF Need

NOV. 3, 2005 -- The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has approved a joint project proposal issued by the Primate’s World Relief Development Fund (PWRDF) and other Canadian churches to aid Pakistan-India earthquake survivors.

Please, if you are able, give to the need abroad. Remember that God loves a cheerful giver."

Snow "Tempest", Snow!

It's got to be a slow blog day when you take pictures of snow that isn't sticking. Well it's the first time I have seen snow this season... and the first time for Tempest ever.

Late Blog

Let's pretend it's Monday again... shall we?

I had to go to a meeting in Fredericton, and went to Saint John, an extra 100 km there, and back. Why not go to the book store. I'll blog about that soon. Anyway I got back to the meeting in time to take some pictures of our Cathedral and the Diocesan Offices.




It was a lovely day, but I blame my cold on it ;-)

Epistle From Lambeth

Lambeth is a location in London and also the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. I encourage you to read this message from the Archbishop concerning the Body of Christ, and that it rests in Christ only; in this time of polemic and crisis within the Anglican Communion.

I am home today and cancelled Bible Study due to a bad cold. Not only did I not want to infect anyone else... I feel absolutely crummy -- as I write bundled in my bed (thank God for WiFi). Sherry has the same cold and had to go to the hospital last night to get medication as her lung condition makes things such as a cold more serious than in most people.