As part of my regular week, I have a series of board meetings, one on one report meetings, off-site external meetings and planning and collaborating with a series of departments, people and stakeholders.  It’s just the nature of work these days. If you think you can work in isolation, well you’re headed for disaster and a great deal of wasted time for yourself and others who will need to mop up the mess.

But today, I  have the time for reflection, for review and for writing. It’s a rare day.

I’ve also got a copy fresh off the press of the new CSS CD… (why are we pressing CDs? in an age of downloads… I don’t understand).  At any rate, I’m listening to the production and it’s very good.  The sound is clear and accompaniment is complimentary without being overpowering. I really do love the sung Gospel and the pieces that are based on Scripture are my favourites. If you get a copy listen to “Bless the Lord, O My Soul”.

This week I received in the mail a copy of Great Mentoring, a new book by Doug Ward and Sharon Simmonds.  These are friends I am connected to from Arrow though my friendship with Doug goes back much further.  Doug, a Baptist pastor from Ottawa, Kanta to be exact, and I became acquainted through our work on the Billy Graham Mission back in the late 1990s.  We’ve stayed in touch and in recent years had quite a few connections including dinner in Banff where his daughter lives when our kids were in Canmore and we would both find ourselves in the valley around Christmas.

Today is the Calgary Stampede parade to mark the beginning of the Stampede week. Through the miracle of technology, we are able to watch – and it’s cool and wet in Calgary today.

Since it’s now July I have included a picture from 6 years ago of Rachel having ice cream on July 1st. We love being grandparents!