November 13, 2026
Dear Moses;
I don’t know you. I hardly know Grace, your daughter. Are there any brothers and sisters? There is a mom, Noela.
Sweden? How did you come to live there? But your faith, this continues to be one of the most intriguing things for me.
You are so French, that you immediately noted that the spelling of my first name is the French spelling! I was at Boni-Vital Swimming Pool, as a life guard, and one of the patrons told me. (1983)
*Boni-Vital is a name derived from the two communities served by that City of Winnipeg Pool. St. Boniface & St. Vital. St. Boniface being a French speaking area of Winnipeg. That’s the city I grew up in.
My father, Ken David Brand, confirmed to me about the origin of my name — Laurence Olivier. He loved the old movies. At one point in his early life he was an usher that would be one of the gentlemen who would lead you to your seat in a darkened theatre with a flashlight.
Funny, really, that everywhere I turn there is a kind of shame.
In the church tradition in which I grew up there were so many forbidden things.
Theatres & the movies, Alcohol, playing cards.
- I need to interject here… I have come to the place in my life where I understand these “external rules” yet I also know that I preach Christ Jesus! John 1:38 > come! And you will see!
- Like the Law, powerless to save, so are these rules
- Yet, if we are mindful about how we teach our young ones about these things
- They will imitate us
- 1 Corinthians 11:1
- 1 Peter 3:15-16
- They will imitate us
My mother & father, when I was born in 1962, were Baptists.
- When they finally arrived and landed in Canada, it was Winnipeg, Manitoba.
- They saw from the window of their downtown office a new church being planted, Calvary Temple
- And they followed through on the call of God, to be obedient to this second chance
Here’s that story
…my Great Grandfather who immigrated to Canada in 1912. He underlined in his Bible, a King James Version, Zechariah 3:2
“And the LORD said unto Satan, the LORD rebuke thee, O Satan; even the LORD that has chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?”
When I was 16? My Great Aunt Janet gave me his bible, without telling me about its significance. ⟨1962 + 16 = 1978⟩ it was not until we were at my Father’s funeral in 2012 that I learned something that helped me understand the significance. Our family was set to immigrate to Canada from Scotland, and had tickets to do that voyage on none other than the Fated Titanic. But because of Great Grandmother Elizabeth being pregnant with their daughter, Janet, and the sickness/nausea that sometimes is associated with it, prevented them from making that particular voyage. It wouldn’t be until April 1912, that he would be so moved as to underline that scripture in his Bible.
Now as I consider that… as an old man myself, I seek to understand my own history. The reasons why the things that have been have come to pass — our minds seek a story (so I have been told) but also I’ve witnessed that to be the case in my life. Why, O LORD, why did this or that have to be such that it was?
Deuteronomy 29:29 is more and more a foundational scripture for me.
Hebrews 12:7 “regard it as discipline”
Ephesians 1:11
My Great-Grandfather Alexander was a Bible believing, Bible reading man, who found his counsel, the counsel of God, in its pages & in the communion that is our spirit & the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
He saw his life — our family line — as spared by God, by GRACE…
Did he go looking through its pages for comfort, well, in my own experience, as I read his word there is this kind of WORD that comes to me. I have come to call it a Ramah word, but don’t know how to spell it.
Ray-mah.
In his book, HEARING GOD, Dallas Willard describes a difference between
When a person takes a hold of a scripture to dissect it and study it with all the honor & respect it deserves, hermeneutics & ______
& when the scripture takes a hold of a man, is illuminated. It is not at all UNLIKE when Moses was tending his father-in-law’s sheep and noticed a burning bush… and he turned aside to see.
Exodus 3:3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” ⁴ When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said “Here I am.” ⁵ Then he said, “Do not come near, take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”
Describing the experience is part of the mystery! For how do you “film” or “take a picture” of one’s heart experience?
But today as I am writing to you, I have realized this connection!
I have a book, “How To READ the Bible for all it’s worth” Gordon Fee & Douglas Stuart.
I find myself wanting to give credit to where credit is due! — You and I do not
yet know one another well enough to REST on the experience of the LOVE we have known in the past.
My experience with his word & the illumination I’m trying to describe… certain ideas that are beyond the origin of my own mind, but spoken to me by God’s Spirit are tested and clarified through the scripture I Thessalonians 5:12–21
So here we are, back to trying to understand Great Grandpa Alexander… and why his life & personality (so far removed from me in space & time & generations) is so weighty on my heart?!
I understand you a little better today, Great Grandpa!
And now, as I’ve chatted in your “hearing” about the things pouring from my heart… God has taught me. Another scripture is coming to me here.
I Peter 4:8 Above all love one another deeply for Love covers over a multitude of sins.
When Love is the filtre… bitterness & being offended cannot get through!
& Ephesians 5:21 “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
I’ve been in a kind of pain since last evening… because I was not “at home” there… a strange place I’d never been
to, & how many weddings like that one have I been?
I regret that you and I ended up NOT having dinner together… all because there were not enough places at the one I’d sat at to rest my knee while they got things ready & you also… there we were… and “they” those around us shuffled us around, and Sarah was the one to decide — I was told — where folks were sitting — but I couldn’t see her, then there you were sitting with Pierre & Callixte & now I feared offending these folks I’d just met by stealing you away from them… & so I let it be.
But when could I ever have a chance I’d missed like this one?
But just now I realize, that song you mentioned “FARTHER ALONG” this mishap has kept you on my heart! I pray for you each time I think of it.
I awoke @ 5:30 am… and left my sleeping family to go to a coffee shoppe to write you… and in my effort to find consolation… I’ve understood you a little better. I only brought these three pages with me.
So I’m going to have to continue later…
Laurence.
Notes on the Above
As I ponder how it must have been
– and is yet still is –
For you, Moses. It’s something Innocent said to me… about our culture “checking out the family” that your loved one is becoming a part of.
It reminds me of>
- Genesis 24:12-14 “Then he prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, make me successful today, and show kindness to my master Abraham. See, I am standing beside this spring, and the daughters of the townspeople are coming out to draw water. May it be that when I say to a young woman, ‘Please let down your jar that I may have a drink,’ and she says, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too’—let her be the one you have chosen for your servant Isaac. By this I will know that you have shown kindness to my master.”
You were sitting down with us, and made a remark about wishing there was wine. I didn’t know if you were joking or serious. I know what my attitude is to any alcohol consumption. But it is a very personal one. It’s a gentle conversation that I need to have with someone when I first meet them.
I hate it, I hate alcohol.
It has hurt so many people. My whole life, as bus driver in the nasty streets of Vancouver, I’ve seen its ravages. And in the utter ruin of the lives of two of my older brothers… and especially in the life of a good friend of mine, who lives nearby.
When someone is ready, I speak about it. It again is an example of
1 Corinthians 11:1
And pertaining to the “fruit of the Spirit is” -> gentleness… which means “controlled release”
Then I was glad to hear later that one thing your table shared was abstinence.
