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We would like to include news and activities from your church too. But, you need to provide us with the material. Items received by Tues. morning will usually get posted by Friday. E-mail messages can often simply be cut and pasted - saving us tons of time and effort.
The Webmaster's Ramblings
Tuesday, March 11, 2008. Well, we are now all dug out from another weekend snow storm. Not only have we had some generous storms this winter but they have seemed to have had an inordinate impact on Sundays. Some congregations canceled their services on Sunday (some for perhaps the third time this winter).
Yesterday I suffered a personal storm of sorts, thanks to automation and the Internet. When I opened my e-mail inbox yesterday morning I discovered that I had over 1700 unread e-mail messages. I quickly discovered that most of them represented "bounce backs" - automatically generated messages saying that mail that I had purportedly sent could not be delivered for some reason. Sprinkled through the midst of this avalanche were a few legitimate messages. Sorting through this mess was a challenge and for a time e-mail messages were streaming in faster than I could download them from my e-mail server and delete them. For over three hours I struggled with the deluge while at the same time trying to analyze the nature of this e-mail, communicate with my Internet Service Provider for assistance and also warn some friends from whom I expected e-mail to use another account temporarily. Frankly, it was the hardest I had worked at my computer in ages and I had the desperate feeling that I was losing the battle. Everything that I attempted to do to stem or manage the flow was inadequate. I lost count after a time but I know that I was way past the five thousand mark before it all ended. It was quite an experience.
Sympatico, I must say, responded very promptly to my e-mail SOS. They confirmed my fear that I was the victim of an "e-mail spoofing" and helped me to get the necessary filters in place to reduce the volume. They also assured me that they did not believe that I was the architect of my own disaster. Some one somewhere had sent out a batch of spam and had inserted variations of the PresbyKirk domain name as the designated return path on the spam. While the e-mail addresses that they had created did not actually exist all the returning mail went to the PresbyKirk domain and as the administrator of the domain it all came streaming in to me. They no doubt chose the PresbyKirk domain simply because it has a clean record and was likely to fool most spam filters. But that's where automation kicks in. All the spam that went to non-existent addresses, dormant accounts, or to accounts with auto reply mechanisms in place, to say nothing of those servers whose spam protection recognized the message as spam, automatically sent back replies - and all those replies came back to me. Frankly, even if my filters had been set more tightly to weed out such stuff I am sure that a lot of it would have made it through to me. Indeed, some of the automated responses generated by spam protection software were quite accusatory. Because spam goes out in huge batches the automated replies also came back quickly - hence the avalanche in my inbox. The responses eventually began to thin out and by the end of the day the war was over. Of course, there is always the risk that it may happen again but at least this time my filters will catch more of it and I will understand more clearly what is happening and how to deal with it. Hopefully, I will simply come to remember it affectionately as my e-mail blizzard of 2008.
February 29, 2008. I was born in a Leap Year - although, I must quickly admit, not on February 29th. However, had I been born on that date, I would today be celebrating my 17th. birthday. (So, those of you with curiosity and basic skills in math can now calculate the year of my birth.) As one who is sometimes subject to bouts of procrastination (as the dating of the entries below testifies) a Leap Year Day seems the perfect occasion for resolutions to do better. However, it seems only fair that Leap Year Day resolutions should be tempered by a grace factor of four which even I should be able to live with. So here it is, I am resolving to revive this page of Webmaster's Ramblings and maintain it more faithfully.
And while I am on the topic of Leap Year Day, I have featured a little one day item at the top of PresbyKirk's front page today noting that the City of Hamilton is today's featured article on Wikipedia. The Hamilton entry in Wikipedia is truly well done and is, in fact, one of the less than two thousand Wikipedia entries that have been given the prestige of "Feature Article" status. (That is quite a distinction when it is noted that Wikipedia includes over 2.25 million entries.) The Hamilton entry is greatly indebted to the contributions of Rick Cordeiro, an unsung local communicator and Hamilton booster, who has invested huge amounts of volunteer time in research and editing to make the Hamilton entry so outstanding. If you are unfamiliar with the Hamilton entry on Wikipedia may I suggest that you check it out right now. Though it will only be featured on the main page of Wikipedia for 24 hours it is a permanent entry in the Encyclopedia. No matter how well you think that you know Hamilton you are bound to learn new and interesting things by exploring this material. It is on permanent display on Wikipedia at Hamilton, Ontario.
October 10, 2007. Well, my reference to Dany Heatley's lucrative contract (Oct.5) drew at least one comment from a ministerial colleague. He applied a slightly different spin to the story in his response. First, though he was well past the midway mark of his 40 year sojourn (my choice of words not his, and there was no reference to any wilderness) he greatly doubted that he had yet attained the one million dollar mark in earnings. And, as for my flippant comment about Presbyterian ministers scoring more goals, he suggested that maybe the real lesson to be learned is that we need better agents.
October 5, 2007. "Keeping it all in Perspective"
That ever handy "calculator" hot key on my keyboard, when coupled with news stories I read on the Internet, has a potential to be a source of discontent.
For example, I just looked at a news story that mentioned that Dany Heatley recently signed a six year deal with the Ottawa Senators for 45 million dollars (US - not that that matters much right at the moment). Then, I started thinking. The typical young Presbyterian Minister starting out today can, at present rates of stipend, etc., expect to collect something around 2 million in income over a 40 year career. In comparison, on average, Heatley earns almost 2 million dollars every three months.
Or, looking at it another way, at present rates the 45 million that is going to keep Heatley going for 6 years would fund a Presbyterian Minister for almost 900 years. Or, to make it less personal, what Heatley will make in the next 6 years would fund approximately 150 Presbyterian ministers for the same six year period.
However, before I begin to make this all sound ridiculous I should add some perspective. Heatley did score two goals in the Senator's season opener with the Toronto Maple Leafs and one of those was a crucial overtime tie breaker. So, I guess the lesson from all of this is that Presbyterian ministers just need to start scoring more goals. RJB
October 4, 2007. Well folks, I am about to launch myself into uncharted Internet waters - at least for me. I am about to get involved in two Internet phenomena that intrigue me - EBay and Facebook. Isn't that revolutionary!
EBay already has about 100 million users around the world so signing up is not exactly a cutting edge initiative. Besides which, I don't really need any more stuff in my life and I am not sure that the stuff that I should be unloading has much of a market value even on EBay.
When it comes to Facebook, which is much more exclusive with only 34 million or so users, it is such a youth culture thing that I almost feel that there is something mildly reprehensible about a male senior citizen even proposing to sign up for it. However, it is the wild popularity of this networking medium that fascinates me and draws me into its mystique.
Please remember, I am not promising to report on my experiences in either of these two ventures. I just want you to know that I am out there. So, if you see someone hawking some rather dated theological books on EBay - it just may be me. And certainly, if there are Facebook people amongst PresbyKirk's visitors I would be delighted to hear from you. RJB
October 3, 2007. No, I have not been absent from the Internet for the past two weeks. However, for a couple of reasons, I decided to fall silent for awhile. My first reason for the silence was that I had originally intended these items to be quite brief and I realized that I had become very verbose. Also, since it was a new thing, I was curious as to whether or not anyone was actually reading them. Well, I am delighted to report that I have at least a few readers and one of them has even weighed in with some valuable research concerning Demorestville Presbyterian Church. I am indebted to Al Clarkson of Toronto for some further information about Demorestville and I must now decide if and how to share it with the users of PresbyKirk. By the way, if you don't know Al Clarkson I can tell you where to meet him! Al is a faithful volunteer at the National Presbyterian Museum and if you visit there on one of the coming Fall Sunday Afternoons (see the top entry on PresbyKirk's Events and Activities page for details) Al Clarkson will probably be your host. So, the silence is over. Stop back in the next few days for some further ramblings. RJB
September 15, 2007. Some of my more curious Internet discoveries have come about quite by chance. For instance, today I happened upon an obituary notice which excited my curiosity. The death, which occurred in the USA in 2004, was that of a gentleman, aged 79, who in retirement was very active in his community. The notice of his death included the following statement, "He was a member of St. John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church of Frederick and St. John's Lutheran Church in Myersville." The simple explanation would be that the two memberships referred to belonged to different seasons in his life. However, there was nothing in the notice to confirm or even suggest that this was the explanation. In any case, the funeral was from the Lutheran Church with the Lutheran pastor officiating. Perhaps such a situation is not so uncommon, but I cannot recall ever reading such a double ecclesiastical reference, and certainly not one involving both a Roman Catholic and a Protestant Church, without there being some seasonal or chronological explanation. Though I suspect that the explanation for this one is out there in Cyberspace somewhere, I resisted the urge to spend hours looking for it. RJB
September 14, 2007.There are many manifestations of personal religion on the Internet but not all are appealing. However, one which I encountered today seemed very genuine and very refreshing. A couple who operate a Bed and Breakfast in southern Ontario, though not within the Presbytery of Hamilton, include this statement as a final line in the description of their place. "Hosts Love the Lord and are available for prayer and/or personal support if requested." How caring and personal in tone that seems to make their place as compared to the usual corporate facility. RJB
Sept. 13, 2007. In the course of some random research on the Internet (i.e. aimless surfing) earlier today, I happened to stumble upon a street in Ontario named Presbyterian Street. (No, I am not going to describe the convoluted search process that got me there.) This Presbyterian Street is situated in a small community in the Bay of Quinte area called Demorestville. It intrigued me because, though I am certainly no Presbyterian geographer, I didn't ever recall hearing of a Presbyterian Church in Demorestville. In fact, I didn't even recall ever having heard of Demorestville.
I checked it out in the good old G.A. Minute book for 2005 (the last edition that I will probably ever have in a paper format) and my suspicions were confirmed - there is no Presbyterian Church in Demorestville. But I guess that once upon a time there must have been.
Returning my attention to the map I noticed a couple of interesting details. Presbyterian Street is only one block long. It appears to be the northern boundary of Demorestville which lamentably seems to be only two blocks wide at its broadest. (The good thing about that, I thought, was that maintaining the Street Directory for the whole town would be a simpler task than trying to create an address directory for the Presbytery of Hamilton.) According to Google there is Demorestville Road, James Street, and North Street. Then, the street that in a orderly universe looks like it should be called South Street actually has the charming name of Friendship Lane. And, of course, Presbyterian Street.
I thought that I had just about exhausted the potential of this little patch of Google maps to eat up the remainder of my afternoon when I happened to notice that the next road to the north of Presbyterian Street was none other than Gommorah Road. I searched carefully but all traces of Sodom Road have been obliterated. I'd hate to think that all of the Presbyterians departed town via Gommorah Road and never returned. I regret that Google's satellite pictures of this area are not of very high resolution. However, its probable that I wouldn't recognize aerial photos of pillars of salt anyway.
So, now that I have poked fun at what is probably a significant part of Canadian Presbyterian history, could any of PresbyKirk's knowledgeable visitors fill in for me some of the details of the story of Demorestville's Presbyterians?
Now that's where this piece was intended to end!
However, this evening I went to an Executive meeting of a Heritage Group in the Hamilton area that was founded by none other than the Patron Saint of Canadian Presbyterian Church Historians - the late T. Melville Bailey. As I sat in the meeting it suddenly crossed my mind that Dr. Bailey would not have applauded my casual appeal for information (though he might perhaps have been amused by my poking some fun at Demorestville). I could hear him saying, "Bob, you don't ask others for help until you have at least done your homework!"
So, when I got home I went back to my computer. And with just a bit of work, here is what I have discovered. The Archives Canada site (archivescanada.ca) provided my first lead. Their information was actually based on an item from the archives of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. There I read the stark statement, "Demorestville Presbyterian Church was organized in 1832 as a mission station. It was revised in 1897. There is no further record of Demorestville Presbyterian Church past 1928."
However, elsewhere I read that in 1849 the Wesleyan Methodists built a church in Redner another community in Prince Edward County not too far from Demorestville. The building was a charming grey stone church that featured 11-foot-high stained glass windows, 27 pews and pine flooring. That building survives though it has been modified somewhat along the way. Upgrades to the 19th century structure include a bell, donated in 1938 and an addition, made by moving a church from neighbouring Demorestville, nearly doubling the building's size. The building that was moved in was none other than - you guessed it - the Demorestville Presbyterian Church. It was moved in sections and added on at the rear of the Methodist Church to serve as a church hall.
So, though I still don't know what happened to Demorestville's Presbyterians now I at least know what happened to their building.
But there is more. Early in 2005 this Methodist Church, now of course a United Church of Canada congregation, closed its doors and merged with the nearby Albury Church. So, in October of 2005 the Rednersville United Church (still incorporating the old Demorestville Presbyterian Church building) was put on the auction block by Gordon Auctioneers and Realty Inc. of Kingston.
At that point the trail goes cold though I still feel sure that there is more information out there on the Internet somewhere.
I am not exactly sure what any of this proves. It probably demonstrates that I spend far too much time wandering on the Internet. To balance that somewhat, it does confirm that the Internet can be a very useful source of information. And, even more importantly, it reminds me that friends and colleagues can still prompt me to diligence even after their earthly pilgrimage has been completed.
But still, I leave it with you. If anyone can add to the story of Demorestville's Presbyterians I would love to hear from them.
The strangest twist came right at the end. Just how probable is it that anyone within the Presbytery of Hamilton is likely to know anything about these things? By the strangest bit of serendipity I have just discovered information on the Internet that appears to indicate that a Minister who is now part of the Presbytery of Hamilton has actually conducted a funeral service in Rednersville United Church. I wonder if he will visit PresbyKirk and read this item. RJB
Comments and responses are always welcome. This page is not presently set up in a blog format to provide for the immediate reception of comments. However, responses via e-mail to hampresb@presbykirk.com are appreciated.