Pope vs Islam

Faith does not factor in to my equation. Whether you are muslim, jewish or a christian really is not that relevant to me. I do get frustrated when it pushes my envelope, the one I establish for what I believe.

But that is not what this blog is about. What I have recently found interesting is what happened when the Pope made references to comments about the Muslim faith. He was quoting from a text, and why he had chosen to do this I cannot say. It seemed out of place, unless he was making a point about something.
In any case, what I find alarming was the reaction from many people. All people have to accept criticism, we have to be able to hear it, note it and if relevant maybe consider it. Does not mean we have to do anything about it, but we should be able to hear it. What happened was curious though, he was quoting a text which discussed the fact that many within the faith would declare holy war to justify a violence. What happened in response to that was exactly what was stated.
I find it hilarious that in their condemnation of his statements, they acted in exactly that fashion and I believe a catholic nun was killed as the result.

Has this world gone out of control? How can we justify these actions and at the same time claim to be a positive influence on people and the world.

Naramata

Every year, during the summer I have been bringing the kids to Naramata Center. It was founded by the United and Anglican churches of Canada, but it is not a religious camp.

The setup is that you go for a week. During the week you attend a course in the mornings, 9am through noon. The afternoons are your own, but the centre itself is situated on Okanagan lake and has its own beach and dock. So, you can imagine what most of the afternoons are spent doing.
During a regular week, the courses are specific and involve a number of different areas. I have taken courses in photography, a course which explores the differences between men and women and a course in power.
Kids also have their own specific courses, tailored for their age.

A couple of times a year they also offer what is called Intergenerational Arts week. During this week, kids who are 8yrs and up attend the 'adult' courses. The past two years my son and I have gone and taken a course in biking. Around Naramata is the remnants of the Kettle Valley Railway. The tracks have been removed and the railbed is an awesome place to ride.
It has been really good for my son. He was 9 when we first did this and his riding (skills) have improved dramatically during the course, and afterwards. His confidence in his riding ability has also increased as he now knows what he can accomplish.

After doing this for two years running, we will change our tack for next year, hopefully returning to a regular week.

Disneyland, update

Well, we did go. Having my son with me made things a little simpler, but I still had to get my daughter.

I tried, and continued to try to get a letter signed for US Immigration. This continued to early February when I approached a lawyer and had him send a warning salvo. This did not seem to help either. I was about 15min away from releasing him to file a motion to appear when I received word that the letters were going to be signed. I received the letters 7 days before we went to Disneyland.

What a load of rubbish. All of this so that I could take my kids to somewhere special. The trip itself was pretty good. Unfortunately, between my daughter and then my son they were both under the weather at various times during the trip. We still managed to do everything we wanted to do, we just kept our days in check and did not go crazy.
Now, they are asking to go again.....well, that indicates that being sick did not dampen their enthusiasm.....it will take me a few years to get there again, financially...hopefully we can go then.

My Son

My son has come to live with me. This has to be one of the more dramatic changes in my life in probably the past 4 years. In February, the 3rd to be precise; I received an email which detailed the incredible difficulty with which my ex-wife was having with our son.
A little history may be in order. In August she had re-aquainted with her ex-fiance, long before our marriage. What happened in August was that he moved in. My two kids have never met the man, suddenly he was there.
This was very dramatic, and created tremendous stress within the household as the kids were expected to respect him as a 'father' figure, but had never met him...nor were they given the chance to get to know him.

In any case, this reached a critical point in January and in early February it was decided that he should come and live with me. I was not involved in the decision, not that I would ever say 'no', but it was a significant shock for me and I had to dramatically re-work my life. We got him registered in school and setup here...and things have worked out quite well. He is back with me again this year and I am quite pleased.

I have noted a significant improvement in him over the past year, his school work has improved, he has lost some weight and things are just better. I (try and) lead a fairly stress-free and non-chaotic life and I think that this environment has really helped him as well. We have him registered in extracirricular activities and we are pretty (darn) active...so that has helped as well.

More on that later.

Oh My

Oh My. It has been 10months since I posted. Well, I will have to write a few BLOG entries to try and detail some of the events of the past year. They have been dramatic, unexpected and in some cases positive.

But, first...I am back and will try and be a little more faithful to posting blog entries in future.