100 things about me
- ALthough not named after it there is a family connection to the Scottish clan Gordon
- I have mainly Scottish/Irish ancestors
- My paternal grandparents are supposedly descended from sheep thieves
- My middle name is derived from the French for King
- But I have it as a legacy (I am the third consecutive generation Waldie male to have it)
- Should we have a son he will get it too
- 4 years ago I was unmarried and childless
- in fact I hadn't even met Patty yet
- We met at a Presbytery meeting--see good things do come from Presbytery
- We were married 11 months later.
- I once performed on stage wearing pink long underwear
- I was playing Cupid at the time
- I have also been on stage wearing burlap
- I was playing Thorin Oakenshield in a musical version of the Hobbit
- I miss the Edmonton FRINGE theatre festival
- My theatre group kept me (somewhat) sane as a teenager
- We did a play at Christmas, in the spring, and in the summer
- The first time I was in a play was at school in Grade 5
- I played Scrooge
- Once upon a time I was going to be a drama teacher
- but then our minister asked my mother "has Gord ever thought about the ministry?"
- I have worked 6 full summers at Church camps
- 2 years as a Devotions Director and 3 years in the kitchen at the camp in Alberta I attended as a child
- and 1 year as the Director of a camp in Saskatchewan
- I blame/thank camp for getting me on the road to ministry
- I LOVE camp ministry and think it is a vital thing for the church to continue
- The older I get the more left-leaning I become
- and the more passionate about social justice and environmental issues
- I paid for University working part-time at a gas bar
- I learned that no-one buys gas at 3 in the morning
- I have also worked in many restaurants
- as a dishwasher and as a cook
- 3 of them I worked at when they first opened
- For 3 summers when in seminary I worked at a golf course clubhouse
- I learned that it is amazing how much some people drink when they golf
- I was a lousy student from grades 4-9
- mainly because I refused to do any work
- In University I failed one of my Student Teaching rounds
- when I repeated it the next year I sailed through it
- THe same cycle happened with my internship for my MDiv.
- although that time I took 4 years off in between
- The first year I saved money and went to Britain for 2 months
- Then I worked at a Crisis Nursery for almost 3 years
- I was the first man they had hired
- some of the kids would call me dad at times (to the great amusement of my co-workers)
- I loved that job but could easily have burned out there
- SOme days I really miss that job and those kids
- It was a great learning/growing experience
- Before being settled here I had never heard of Atikokan
- This is the farthest South I have ever lived
- and yet it is considered Northwest Ontario
- When I went to seminary I attended the church my mother had attended as a child
- My parents were married there
- and my sister and I were baptised there.
- I regularly had coffee with a good friend of my grandmother.
- I still have one living grandparent--my dad's father (86 years old)
- AS a child and young teen I was regularly tormented by my classmates
- and I in turn tormented those lower on the social scale than me
- I am sorry for that
- #57 had a lot to do with why I failed my first internship
- for several months after that I was suicidal on and off
- once I stood looking over a balcony thinking maybe....
- I was almost 30 before I really learned to like myself
- Or to believe that I was likable
- Or to trust in my competence
- I am still working on those things
- One day I decided (unconsciously) to stop letting my past rule my present
- I think I can even forgive my classmates now
- I am strongly addicted to chocolate
- and I am perfectly fine with that, especially since learning that it helps fight off the effects of Dementor attacks
- For many years I read Lord of the Rings once a year
- I used it for my major paper in Grade 12 English
- I also did a Christology paper on it in first year New Testament
- One of my favourite times of day is reading books to the girls at bedtime
- Or getting a good morning hug
- I find preaching comes very naturally
- I am most comfortable when I am not reading while I preach
- So I don't actually write my sermons unless I have to
- and then I usually write them out after I preach them once
- Patty thinks I am amazing
- I know that she is
- And that I am incredibly lucky
- #57 has left me with a passion about bullying
- But it also left me knowing that more supervision is not necessarily the answer, nor the best preventative
- I once split my head open on a chinning bar in Grade 9 when I didn't duck low enough
- THis incident embarassed my sister
- I grew up in the church, and was made to go to Sunday School
- AS a child I sometimes resented that
- but I also had a surrogate family there so I loved it too
- SOmetimes in Grade 9 the church and the theatre group were the only places I wanted to be, I was safe there
- I learned about GOd's presence while walking along the shore of a lake
- I first REALLY knew God was with me the morning of my confirmation service
- I was walking in a misty playground at the time
- I think my parents are proud of me now--I don't think they always were
- I was never athletic, and was ashamed of that as a child
- I accept it now, and am better at what I do because of it
- Over the years I have let a lot of other people define who I am and what I can/should do
- I am getting better at not doing that, and not feeling as guilty about not doing that
- Sometimes I wonder if the church has a clue
- Often I wonder if I have a clue
I think you have an abundance of clues Gord. The church? The jury's still out on that one...
ReplyDeleteI remember the Presbytery meeting where you and Patty met. I recall it as one of the best I've attended for many reasons. Must have been all that love in the air....
You do have a clue, Gord. Thank you.About your middle name, though--it doesn't appear to be anywhere, here, so i am left wondering what it is from the tantalizing clue (again with the clue) left in #4.
ReplyDeleteSUe: Maybe the first step to having a clue is admitting that you aren't sure (again I wonder about the church on that one). And I am sure that is NOT what made that Presbytery memorable for others
ReplyDeletePMP: WEll the name is almost exactly the same as the French word. Just Anglicized a bit by chaning the final vowel to a "y".
OK, I thought it might be Roy. {grin}
ReplyDeleteThis is a very cool list.
ReplyDelete