BComm

When I finished high school, my plan was to be a Chartered Accountant.  So, I went to University and graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce Degree. I began to article towards a CA with a major accounting firm.  During my first year as a rookie accountant, I could no longer ignore the call to ministry, so I left the the CA program and enrolled in theological college.  Twenty-five years later, here we are.

But there is still that part of me that loves the discipline and language of accounting.  Maybe that is why I signed up for the ABCD workshop this week hosted by Leduc Family and Community Support Services: Asset-Based Community Development.  The concept is to recognise what you already have and move forward from there.  It sounds like a build-from-your-strengths model.  Assets, from an accounting perspective, are the things of value which you have.  The metaphor translates beautifully to the community context.

One of the assets we all have is our time.  It is valuable and we all have the same amount (as long as we each are occupying the same spot in the universe).  Assets are seldom unlimited: certainly time has it's hard edges.  Each day only has so much time.  The blessing is that each day is a new start, a new gifts of 24 hours, but only 24 hours.

How ironic that I will have to miss part of the ABCD workshop because I don't have enough time to give it.  This is one of those too busy weeks for me as a minister: two funerals, church meetings and we are the host site for the winter meeting of Yellowhead Presbytery.  And that is only my minister hat, the husband, father and friend wants a slice of this week's time-pie.

I can't work with what I don't have.  Time is my asset, it is valuable, but it has limits.  There is no sense lamenting the lack of time.  I need to remember my 'asset' training and be calm.  Time will tell.

THE CLERGY DESK

Sadly, this is more organized than the real thing. :)

Link

CHANGES AT THE TOP

It's been all over the news: movements for a change at the top.  Leaders often hold precarious grips on power.  Especially if that leadership has been (for lack of a better word) dictatorial.  When any leader tries to force policy without at least some ground swell of support, discontent inevitably brews.  Sure, in a dictatorship, the demands for change can be quashed for a while.  It is common to hear the language of unity and solidarity to justify the directives.  In the end though, unless unhappy people are appeased in some way, changes will happen.

Ted Morton wanted his way with the budget.  Philosophically, he could no longer bow down to the progressives in the Alberta Progressive Conservatives.  There was no worry about opposition from without (the PC dictatorship is strong), but he couldn't penetrate the Premier's call to unity.  So, in good parliamentary tradition, having lost confidence as finance minister, he was set to resign.  Somehow, the word leaked out and Ed Stelmach found out the plan and hastily stole the spotlight, "I will not seek re-election."  It was a fast decision, no time for details of when he would formally resign.  Morton quickly quit his plan to resign ... for a day or two anyway: when everything could be re-spun into his need to be unencumbered in his desire to seek the leader's chair.  Just because the control everything, doesn't mean we have to believe them.

Oh and we are seeing the same dynamics at work in Tunisia and Egypt.

When will they learn that the 'my way or the highway' style usually puts one on the road?