From the ashes ...

The sun was shining all day, and the temperatures were warm ... and before the day ended, we had a gift from out of the ashes ...

The back hoe was working hard today, and by the end of the day only the foundation of the Churhc Sanctuary and the Centre remained, with a little bit of debris left to be cleared. The stones of the steps and the foundation are holding tough even against the back hoe.

But the highlight of the day came around 5 pm when I stopped by the site on the way to pick up Hannah (my daughter) from Gymnastics at the school, and was standing watching the back hoe load the dump truck - and then, suddenly, I noticed some music books fluttering in the debris ... I pointed and Clint (the owner operator of the excavation company) hopped down and took a look ...

We had found some of the choir's vast collection of music ... Clint directed the back hoe driver to pick through the debris so we could get a better look and recover some of the music ... It is simply amazing how deft the back hoe operator was - something so big and so powerful could literally pick through the debris, and as a reult four big boxes of music - frozen, tattered, blackened, but relatively intact music was recovered !!!!

I haven't taken time to look through it, but called Eleanor, our organist and some of our choir people to let them know, and to tell them where to pick up the music ... No telling whether anythign is salvagable - but we can likely salvage something, or even recopy some of the music ... Right now, it's a start.

The other treasures we salvaged today were a metal support from the choir chairs, a small charred chunk from the front of one of our beautiful oak pews, and a granite clock face given to the Church fro the Brandon Conservatory Choir ... one a lone copy of the old blue Hymnary ... Earlier in the day one of the dump truck drivers retrieved the flags for the Scouting groups unscathed and intact ...

It's been an interesting day. Tomorrow the foundation will be taken ot and the steps will be broken up and removed ... in time the site will be leveled and only the church sign will be left.

I spent some time in the afternoon begining to unpack my books and get them on shelves. I realized today that I have some books that I want to use in preparing my services ... so, with a working library back on the shelves, I'm ready ...

Like the last ten days, we mark this journey in small steps. But today, it was a musical step worthy of a jig or two. I hope some of the music we hauled out was salvagable. I hope it will be a step towards retoring the vast catalogue of music that our Senior Choir has amassed over the last few decades ... In the mean time, we keep moving forward ...

Our journey continues ...
L'chaim,