Saturday, 12 June 2010 by Paul Dubuc.

I read an essay with this title over at The Scriptorium Daily (one of my favorite blogs) several weeks ago and it stuck with me. I’ve reread it several times since and would like to pass it on to others. It not only articulates some of the reasons why I’m also finding it hard to write much lately, but also beautifully expresses the longing I have–in my better moments–to hear and see Jesus; to have more of what I say, write, do and, indeed, for my whole life to be an expression of that hearing and seeing instead of my best approximation. Like the author says, “Pirating Jesus is not good enough.” So, at times I get locked into hesitation about writing and I’m glad when I find others who’ve overcome that same hesitation to say for me what I feel so unable to put into adequate wording.

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Saturday, 19 December 2009 by Paul Dubuc.

I’ve had this one in the queue for too long. It’s time to just push it out there.

Can we be good without God? I’ve recently had a very long discussion along these lines with a friend and former colleague of mine over on his blog and in private e-mail. He’s someone who I had come to respect very much in the time when we used to work together. Job changes and a geographical move have separated us for several years, but it’s easy to keep in contact over the internet. We see eye-to-eye on many things. I highly value his technical knowledge and skill and consider him to be one of the most gracious and helpful people I know in his attitude toward others. But we’re worlds apart when it comes to our most basic beliefs. He’s an outspoken and confident atheist. I’m a taciturn, often struggling, disciple of Jesus Christ. Challenges to my beliefs from others have often provoked me to self-examination and searching, especially when they come from friends. Our discussion was lively and passionate but also very civil and respectful. For me keeping those qualities in balance is a highly valued goal, but one that takes lots of patience and practice. It doesn’t come naturally. The particular problem of whether or not our moral reasoning has any adequate grounding unless it is in God as the authority who transcends human opinion and who is the moral architect of the universe has come up for me in personal discussion and in online forums for many years. I’ve touched on the issue in this blog before here, here and here. Two years ago I had the chance to write a short research paper on the subject. I want to leave a link to that paper here for those who might be interested in reading it. I value your thoughtful comments. But there’s also some personal reflection on this that I want to express.

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Monday, 19 October 2009 by Paul Dubuc.

I ended September and began October with a three day retreat at The Convent, the venue for a retreat and spiritual direction ministry called “Sustainable Faith” run by David and Jody Nixon. The building is a renovated convent on the grounds of the Vineyard Central Church community in Norwood, Ohio (Cincinnati area). My visit there was a very peaceful and refreshing time for me. On most days my habits of prayer, reading and serious reflection seem on the periphery of each day’s events or fit into the gaps in between. It was good to spend a few days with those things at the center. I had no schedule, no specific agenda, no distractions (unless one counts the wonderful smell of fresh, brewing coffee coming from downstairs in the morning). Dave and Jody are very gracious and grace filled hosts. They have turned this old house into a warm and welcoming place for the weary and wandering soul in need of some solitude. I highly recommend The Convent if you’re looking for such a place.

Since my return, several people have asked me, “how did it go?” or “what did you learn?” I’ve been thinking about that myself, trying to put it in context.

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Saturday, 22 August 2009 by Paul Dubuc.

I’ll bet some of you thought this blog was dead. I thought so too, but maybe it won’t be much longer. This summer has seemed like a pivotal time for me. After four years of seminary and one year in the Wellstreams program, I felt saturated and tired. Tired from the effort of all that practice and study while trying to have a normal family life and work a full time job, and saturated with so much good information and experience picked up from five years study of, and practice in, spiritual formation. The crisis that helped bring me in to that phase of my life seems more in the background these days. Not that I’ve conquered it, but I think that I have begun to see ways of accepting it, making sense of it, and using its influence to push me in the direction of greater spiritual growth and a stronger, more well grounded faith.

This spring, Toward the end of Phase 1 of Wellstreams, I started a discernment process that led to my decision to discontinue the program. Phase 2 would have kept me in the saturation process for another two years. There were several reasons, circumstances and events that led to the decision not to continue. It wasn’t just the feeling that I couldn’t go on this way for two more years. But after soaking up so much for so long, it seemed like time to start an outflow, both for the benefit of others and to make room in me for fresh “living water” (John 4:10-14) and turn this sponge into a fountain. I still think training in spiritual direction is in my future, but perhaps in a less intensive venue. For now I need to find more of my own direction to provide a context from which to help others. After so long, I’ve felt spiritually disconnected in a way, rootless. It’s time to put into practice more deeply what I’ve learned in a way that is more driven by God’s intentions for my life than by the specific requirements of a class or training program (I’m reminded of Psalm 1:2-3 here). It’s time to be open to the the possibilities that are hard to notice or consider when one’s life is so full of other things. I enjoyed the Wellstreams classes and will miss my classmates who will go on without me. I think I made some good friends there and I hope our paths will cross again. But rarely has a decision like this seemed so clear to me as to seem like God is really up to something in it. Pray for me and for Mary Beth too, please.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed about having more time off this summer is getting to to more discretionary reading instead of assigned reading (and writing). I’ve been using Shelfari for a while to keep track of my reading, but I’ve recently copied it to Goodreads to try that out. So many good books … so little time to read them all. I hope to be doing more discretionary writing too. Some of it should find its way to this space.

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Thursday, 4 September 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

Sandy is a new member of our family, adopted by us about seven weeks ago. I wasn’t sure I was ready for another dog so soon after Sheila but Sandy needed a home and we had a big vacancy. She’s an Australian/Border Terrier mix, a little shy and unfriendly to strangers and other female dogs, but she’s very affectionate and playful when she gets to know you. She’s learned pretty well to get along with Jessica and Lucas’ boxer, Bella, on their visits. She also did well at a big party we had this weekend to celebrate a “milestone” birthday for Mary Beth and my completion of seminary. It was a great backyard party where we enjoyed seeing many family members and friends.

That’s right, four years of part-time study at Ashland Seminary is finished. I enjoyed very much my last course in the theology of C. S. Lewis. It’s good to have all the work over with, but I enjoyed the experience quite a bit, the sense of accomplishment it produced and being immersed in the challenging study of so many interesting subjects. I will miss it. I’ve come away with the feeling like I’ve just gotten a good taste of some very deep subjects and experiences that have whetted my appetite for a life of continued learning and application.

I’ve hardly had time to miss seminary before entering another study program called Wellstreams. I see this as a continuation of my seminary studies in spiritual formation along a more personal, less formal route.

Our son, Bryan, is off to study in Spain for a semester. He’s writing his own blog on the experience.

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Saturday, 17 May 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

Today is a very sad day in our household. We lost a special friend and family member. Our 15 year old Australian Terrier, Sheila (that is my son holding her in the picture), took her last trip to the vet today. She had been getting us ready for this for over a year now. She had diabetes for the last five years and her health has steadily deteriorated since then. Last year before Easter she became very sick and I was sure we’d lose her then but she recovered and gave us one more year. Though her eyesight and hearing were almost gone and she didn’t have much energy, she still liked to be held and have her back scratched. She no longer greeted us when we’d come home from work, but she seemed to know we were there. She couldn’t climb stairs but seemed content enough to eat and sleep and wander around the house or back yard bumping into things. She was always able to find her food and water and her bed when she needed them. There was nothing wrong with her nose.

In spite of all her ailments it’s been hard to let her go. We hoped she would go on her own, but when her insulin supply ran out the decision was put into our hands. The drug company stopped making the type of insulin that we were using for her over a year ago and we bought up all that we could find before it became unavailable. Switching her over to another type could have caused her a lot of problems. We didn’t want to put her through that on top of everything else she suffers with so today we took her to the vet and were with her as she passed on calmly and peacefully.

Good bye old friend. We got you as a pup when our kids were young and they grew up with you. You are a part of many happy memories that we have of those years. Now the kids are grown and gone from our home and we are very sad to have to say good bye to you. You added so much fun and unexpected entertainment to the mix of our lives. If I slept in too late you would barge into my room greeting me with happy barking and jump up on the bed to lick my face. You liked to play fetch with the tennis ball, but not outside. That was strictly an indoor game. Outside you would run around and play with the kids, the long fur around your face swept back by the breeze as you ran. You were cute and cuddly but no lap dog, always on the go, full of energy until your later years (but you never stopped being cute and cuddly).

During the most depressing years of my life, when I was going though great difficulties, you were my companion on many late night walks that were full of prayers and tears and I shall never forget those times. Thank you for helping me get through them. Our late walks got to be such a habit that you wouldn’t go to bed until I did no matter how late I stayed up. You were there with me in case I needed a walk. Most nights I did, though sometimes I just felt like I needed to reward your patience. I especially remember the one glorious night just before Christmas when we happened to wander off our usual course for some reason and found one of the streets in our neighborhood lined for a long way with brightly lit luminaries. It was so beautiful, such a blessed experience that so easily could have been missed. As you got older our walks got slower, less frequent, and shorter until a walk to the corner was about all we could manage. Still, my walks won’t be the same without you.

I don’t know if dogs go to heaven, but it sure seems like that is the place from which they are sent to us. They give us so much love and acceptance in return for so little in the way of basic care and feeding. It’s no wonder we become so attached to them that it hurts so much to let them go. There’s a short little prayer that says, “Lord, make me the kind of person that my dog thinks I am.” That says a lot. The things we learn from our dogs could make us much better people.

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Tuesday, 25 March 2008 by Paul Dubuc.

In all of my life I have never had to have an internal surgical procedure. That changed in late February. I guess I was overdue. I discovered that I needed to get a couple of hernias patched. These days this surgery is considered a low risk, outpatient procedure and I had a lot of confidence in the surgeon and the surgical method he would use so I wasn’t terribly worried or scared. Still, finding out for the first time that you are going to be laid out on a table, knocked out for a few hours and… was a little disconcerting. I’ll spare you the medical details. Anyone who has been through this knows them already. Those who haven’t probably don’t care to know them. I’m more interested in looking at the spiritual side of the experience: how to make the best of it. Read on if you’re interested.

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Friday, 12 October 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

I’m well into the Fall quarter at ATS again this year. This could be my last Fall quarter. I have only 5 classes to finish before finishing my degree. After that? God knows. I’ve been thinking about training to be a so called “spiritual director.” (I think “mentor” would be a better word than “director”). But I don’t want to think too far ahead. I’m enjoying my current studies very much. This quarter I have a class in Christian Ethics. I was happy to learn that the class focuses more on the foundations of virtue and character than it does on issues and making ethical decisions. This is important. Who we are is at the root of what we do and what we do speaks louder than what we say. This emphasis fits well with my major in spiritual formation. The course has added four good books to my current reading list: Kingdom Ethics (Stassen and Gushee), Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Church (Merrill), Rethinking Christ and Culture (Carter) and Political Visions and Illusions (Koyzis). All very interesting reading. I have a bunch of writing to do that will probably keep me away from this blog for a while (we’ll see). Read the rest of this entry »

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Thursday, 31 May 2007 by Paul Dubuc.

I turned 50 years old a couple of weeks ago. My friends at work bought me lunch. I took this past week off from work to celebrate and spend time with friends and family. My parents came out to visit for a week. My daughter Jessica and son-in-law Lucas drove in for the weekend. My son Bryan was home from college. My brother John, who lives in Arizona, surprised me by popping in one morning for breakfast and staying for a few days. We had great fun playing games, riding bikes, watching movies and playing tennis. Mary Beth’s parents came down for dinner on Sunday. Then lots of very nice people surprisingly showed up at what I thought would be a small cookout in my back yard. Good thing we had plenty of food ☺. My wife, Mary Beth, who planned all this, is a truly wonderful woman. Thanks, everyone! It’s such a great blessing to have family and friends like you!

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Saturday, 30 December 2006 by Paul Dubuc.

Some very nice people at Bethel Church are working on an Advent devotional calendar for 2007 and asked me to write something for one of the days. This reflection on what was probably the saddest, and best, Christmas that I have ever had is my contribution. I’m looking forward to seeing what the others have written.

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