(Ir)Reverend Ramblings

There have been many very good movies this year and some that were excellent. I enjoyed The Upside. I thought Glenn Close gave a brilliant portrayal in The Wife. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper were outstanding in A Star is Born. The always lovable Ryan Gosling did a great turn in First Man. Mary Poppins was fun as was Mama Mia – Here We Go Again and Crazy Rich Asians was, well crazy! I missed some good ones like Bohemian Rhapsody but far and away my favourite for 2018 was The Green Book. I urged anyone who would listen to go and see it. It played for three weeks here in Bracebridge – that’s a long run for our little town.

The Green Book is based on the true story of pianist Dr. Don Shirley who took his trio to do a two month tour in the southern States, The Deep South, as he called it. On the surface of it that is not surprising. What made it surprising is that he was black and it was 1962. He needed a driver and protection and he hired Tony Lip – a tough-talking bouncer from The Bronx. The two were an unlikely pairing and their relationship was prickly and difficult for the first part of their trip. Over time they grew to appreciate each other and they built an unlikely friendship. According to the end notes they remained friends over the decades until their deaths.

There is much about The Green Book to take in. First the title refers to an actual book produced for ‘Negroes’ who needed to find a place to stay as they traveled in the States, especially in areas where they were not welcome. Dr. Shirley ran up against the prejudice and racism of the day and Tony Lip was made aware of the deep divide that separated black and white. As the story unfolded each man developed compassion and appreciation of the other.

There were some great lines in the movie. “Genius is not enough you also have to have courage.” “You never win with violence. You only win when you maintain your dignity.” “You can do better.” “It takes courage to change people’s hearts.” But I think my favourite quote comes late in the movie. Dr. Shirley had mentioned that he has a brother but they are estranged. Tony encourages him to reach out to his brother and Dr. Shirley replies, “He knows where to find me.” Big, rough, gruff Tony replies, “The world is full of lonely people afraid to make the first move.” There is a lot to unpack in that statement.

In January of 2017 Great Britain launched a commission on ways to combat loneliness. Recognizing it as a significant social problem Britain established a Ministry for Loneliness. The research leading up to this showed that more than 9 million people in Britain, around 14% of the population, often or always feel lonely. That is a lot of loneliness. I suspect the statistics are similar in Canada.

There were many social and cultural problems exposed in the movie The Green Book. I was not expecting loneliness to be one of them. It became apparent, as the tale unfolded, that while Dr. Shirley faced many challenges one of the big ones was feeling lonely, feeling like he did not fit in.

I like movies for many reasons, entertainment, education, but also when they leaves me thinking. That is why I liked The Green Book so much. It left me thinking about many things. If you haven’t seen it yet… grab some popcorn and watch it.

It is a full moon. The giant orb hangs in the sky like a white marble on a blue-black velvet backdrop. It casts a shimmering glow on the expanse of snow. It is beautiful, making a night that moves an artistic soul to painting a picture, writing a song, penning a poem. On night’s like this I remember the line from the romantic ballad, I’ll Be Seeing You. The line says, “I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.”

This week the wonderful American poet Mary Oliver died. She has penned volumes of beautiful poetry. Much of her writing focused on the beauty and wonder of creation. Her poems focused on things as small as a grasshopper and as grand as the landscape. She wrote so beautifully of nature in words simple and profound. In her poem, Wild Geese, she includes these words,

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things”

My mother and my husband were each able to recite poetry by memory. They grew up in eras when memorization was part of the school curriculum and learning to appreciate and memorize poetry was required. I wish my era had held such a standard. I cannot recite poetry even though bits and strands of poetic words come to me now and again. Mostly, I am moved when someone else shares the words written by a poetic soul.

In her poem, The Summer Day, Mary Oliver ends with this haunting and eternal question:

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”

Thank you, Mary, for spending your life by bringing the beauty and power of word and idea to us.

I do love this time of year and I found myself standing at the window watching, not just the sun, but also the way it’s light played with the snow and the shadows of the late afternoon. The sun in January can be bright and warming but more often, I find it sheds a cool blue warmth that only a winter sun can give. It sends short shadows at this time of year and dazzles as it sparkles on the ice and snow. Many ‘snowbirds’ leave Canada for these months of short days and long night – some of you might be reading this right now! I like the winter months and the feeling of hibernation they bring.

This past Sunday we sang one of my favourite hymns. It is a seasonal hymn that we can only sing every now and then. It praises the snow and names the beauty of this season. It reminds us that God, the source of all and the creator of all is as present in the silvery frost of as in the beautiful rose.Here is verse two of “All Beautiful the March of Days”

O’er white expanses sparkling pure the radiant morns unfold
the solemn splendours of the night burn brighter through the cold,
life mounts in every throbbing vein, love deepens round the hearth,
and clearer sounds the angel hymn, good will to all on earth.

Happy winter to you!

Have you ever lost something? For months? I don’t mean something simple, I mean something really important? This week it was my Passport. Thankfully I was able to search it out after only a few days. Of course, I had put it somewhere safe, I just couldn’t remember where that safe place was. Pajama drawer – who would ever look for a Passport in their pajamas? But, then I remembered thinking at the time, “Well, I will see this every time I get out clean pajamas and so I will always remember where it is”. Ha!

Last year (and I mean 2018 – seems odd to call it last year). I lost a very precious ring. The story is too long and winding to write about here but I will happily tell you the story if you ask me in person. Suffice it to say, the ring was missing for months and I was heartbroken. It turned up as unexpectedly as I had lost it. This adds to another lost ring story of about eleven years ago. Another precious ring, another heartbreak, another miraculous find. The surprising joy of finding something lost.

Three of the favourite parables of Jesus are about things lost and found – a lost coin, a lost sheep, a lost son. Many people will name one of these as their favourite story. I think that is because so many of us can relate to the story of something being lost and the heartbreak that comes with it countered by the amazing delight when said thing is found.

Jesus told these stories to illustrate God’s great love for us. It staggers me to think that the sheer, tear-filled joy that came to me when I found my lost ring paralleling the joy that God has for me when I have wandered and feel lost but then find myself again in God’s grace and love. Such wonderful stories of God’s great and amazing love. As John Newton wrote in his well-loved hymn, Amazing Grace “I once was lost but now am found.”

I have spent some time the last couple of days getting my 2019 calendar in order. I have been writing in the regular activities like the monthly services at the Seniors residences. I have been noting the festival dates like Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Easter Monday. And, I have been thinking about when I might take some holidays!

Ha!I can hear your eyes rolling now! Yes, I do still write in a calendar. I carry around a book and when something new comes up I page through to the date and write it in with a pen. So old school! Several people have tried to get me on to entering things in the calendar on my phone and the one on my lap top but I resist. I like paper and pen.

There are two reasons I like to write things in my calendar despite the efficiency, speed and logic of the more modern technological way. I can see the lay out of life in a familiar way and that reassures me. But more importantly I like the way I can look back at the days past and see what happened. I can see dates scratched out and changed, notes to prepare for something coming up, and anticipated trips to outing or visits. I am not a journal writer or diary keeper. I have tried that and I fail miserably. But i write in my calendar and keep them from year to year. This morning I paged through my 2018 calendar and a flood of memories came rushing to me. There was the note abut the play I loved. There was the lunch date with my dear friends I see only twice a year. There was the arrival note for friends flying in to the airport. With each entry I relived the moment and smiled with the happy memory. It was a little trip down memory lane as I got my day underway.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not stuck in the ‘what happened’ phase of things. I am keenly looking forward to 2019 and all it will bring. But, at this January time I do like to linger in the phase of looking back and looking forward. It grounds me and delights me and inspires me.

Every year I remove a handwritten note from one calendar and place it inside the cover of the next year. The note has two scripture verses on it. One is from 2 Timothy 1:7 “God does not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control.” The second is from Isaiah 43: 18 & 19 “Do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?” These serve as good reminders to me. Calendars are important to hold a pattern, and even a direction for our life, they can point to memories of good times now past but they do not hold a life. Like any tool we might use each day they give us a grounding to live faithfully.

In 1992, my beloved and I took a trip. We were gone for 7 months travelling north to Yukon and Alaska then down the western coast to California. We flew to Hawaii, then Australia, then New Zealand, then Fiji and then returned to California where we picked up our vehicle and drove home following ‘Route 66’. We took a lot of pictures. He took photographs and I took slides. In the years after that we traveled to Britain, to Germany and Austria, to Israel. I had a lot of slides! I have not looked at those slides for at least 18 years. But every move I made I carried my huge box of slides with me. Slides and projectors are old technology now. I had three slide projectors in the basement and not one of them worked.

I have been inching towards a decision for two years now. This week I did it. I bagged up all those slides and threw them out. Even as I write that it cramps my heart a bit. So many wonderful memories held in those photos now consigned to the landfill. I do, of course still have albums with Carl’s photographs so not all is lost, but I did decide to toss the slides that I had taken, reserving a few as mementos of happy, lovely days gone by.

It is a funny feeling, this attachment to things. The slides did not hold my memories, my mind holds my memories, but they held a piece of me that I found hard to let go of… a touchstone, a link to the past, a reminder of happy days, and, even though I didn’t ever look at them, they were there, taking up space, collecting dust and both comforting and irritating me every time I walked by the box in the basement.

Given that I have no offspring I knew that I had no one to pass those pictures on to and, seriously, who ever wants to looks at pictures of someone else’s trip? As I made the decision and bagged them up and then put them in the bin at the landfill there was a peculiar sense of liberation. ‘Stuff’ can become a burden, a weight, a shackle. Having too much stuff can become oppressive.

I confess it has been a mingling of regret and liberation and I have not found the exercise to be clearly one or the other. I do have regrets about letting them go and I do have liberation when I go to the basement and see less clutter, less stuff.

I do not find it easy to let go of things. But I also know, as we embark on a new year that I want to feel less encumbered and so some things must go, even with regret, to provide some liberation. I live with the mixed feelings.

Happy New Year!

These last few days before Christmas set a tone. It means, among other things, that life in churchland is a hub-bub of potluck lunches and bulletin drafts! Christmas Eve falls on a Monday so that requires all the planning and printing of bulletins must happen this week for both Sunday morning and Christmas Eve. Paper is flying every which way! I do, of course, exaggerate but I suspect that the border-line chaos that is happening here is a parallel to what is happening in other settings as families prepare for Christmas celebrations. This may mean shopping, baking, wrapping gifts, making travel plans, packing suitcases, making phone calls, writing cards, preparing the guest room and on and on the lists go.

How do we stop and breath? How do we remember that preparation is part of the expectation that comes with awaiting the birth of the Christ child? And the bigger question, how do we find renewal when the stress of the moment or the day may cause us to unravel? I have been pondering these questions and have realized anew that Christmas is for children. Not, I hasten to add, because we want to spoil them and overwhelm them with gifts but because of what they give to us as adults.

I will give you examples. I have a very special gig every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I have to spend 20 to 30 minutes cuddling and admiring my little Canadian-born Syrian “grandson” while his mom walks his big sister to day care. Oh sure, she could bundle him up and take him too but they live steps away from the church so I run over and ‘babysit’ while mom and daughter have a few minutes together as they walk and talk their way to the school. I get to sit and gaze at a wee one who looks with wondering eyes and rewards my antics and tickling with smiles and gurgles and coos. He is adorable and watching him grow and change week by week has made my heart glad. That is one example. The other is the benefit gained from talking to dozens of children over the course of the day last Saturday. I took a shift as Mrs. Claus at Santa’s cabin on Knox’s Pumpkin Farm. It is an activity they offer families through the month of December. You book your time to ride the horse-drawn wagon through the pasture to Santa’s log cabin where you will find the jolly old man and his wife. ‘Elfie’ will serve you hot chocolate and a cookie while you wait your turn to talk to Santa about your Christmas hopes and dreams. It was magical to see the excitement and awe that the children had as they entered the cabin and talked to Santa about their secrets. Some admitted to being a bit naughty. Some giggled and squirmed. A few cried. For me, it was a time to celebrate the gift of imagination and mystery and to see families interact and enjoy one another.

Christmas is a holy time. Holy because it takes us to the basic belief that God is born into our lives in surprising ways. Holy because it calls on the mystery and wonder of angels and stars. Holy because it reminds us that to all people, humble struggling refugees, workers in the fields, wise and scholarly star-gazers, God appears in surprising ways. To all of them a baby restores, a child leads, a little one draws them to the source of love and hope and peace and joy. That is how we get restored.

Hello dear readers. Yes, I have stolen the title of today’s blog from the delightful children’s book by Judith Viorst, ‘Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day’. It is a favourite of mine and one I haul out every now and then to use at a Children’s Time. The children and the adults alike enjoy it because we can all relate to poor Alexander during his day when everything goes wrong. If you don’t know the story it is about a young boy, Alexander, who has catastrophe after catastrophe throughout his day. Well, they feel like catastrophes to him and when ever something happens he announces that he is going to move to Australia where, he is sure, nothing ever goes wrong.

I could relate to poor old Alexander last week. I had a litany of problems … nothing major but enough to be irritating. The oven would not work and I had to bake for the Marketplace, the garage door stuck on open, I laundered my living room curtains and they fell apart in the wash, my land line and internet quite working, and I was late getting my snow tires on given the early arrival of winter. With every thing that went wrong I moaned and groaned about my terrible bad luck. But on my 12th, or maybe 27th relating of my woeful situation it hit me. What was I thinking? Good grief! I had an oven and the wherewithal to call a repairman. I had a washing machine in which to do my laundry. I had a garage to store the car I own and I had winter tires ready to be put on that car. Not only that, I had enough money in my bank account to pay for all the repairs and replacements required. And I had friends to listen to me moan and complain. I was not having a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week. I was being reminded of how many blessings I have in my life that I just take for granted.

Sometimes life grabs us by the collar and says, “Look around! Look at all you have going for you. Stop your complaining – your life is full of goodness and riches beyond measuring.” Sometimes it is a good thing to have a bad day as it helps us take notice of how many blessings abound in every day.

It was a couple of months ago that I passed a display of garden bulbs. Hyacinths. Narcissus. Crocus. Tulips. I couldn’t resist. I bought a couple of packages of each. I have spent the weeks since moving them from the front door to the back door to the side door. Always meaning to get them planted and always finding an excuse why I couldn’t. Now that the days are short and the nights are getting frosty I knew it had to be done.

This morning I spent a couple of hours out in my garden digging holes and burying bulbs. Fingers crossed the squirrels don’t find them before the blanket of snow insulates them deep in frozen ground. It seems so counter-intuitive to plant in November when the earth is starting to seize up and go into hibernation. It seems unrealistic to think those hard, dry brown lumps will turn into colourful harbingers of spring and signs of life when the snow melts.

Bulbs are often used as a metaphor for resurrection. No surprise there. How can something that looks so dead bear life after entombed in frozen soil? But every spring the miracle happens. So in November, we plant in faith, trusting in the miracle of creation and earthly energy to turn those bulbs into glorious flower bringing delight to passers by.

Creation is amazing.

What are you going to be? Who are you going to dress up as? These are the questions filling the school yards and buses these days. For weeks now kids have been planning their Hallowe’en costumes. It is a night of frights and fun and, of course, candy!

There is something magical about dressing up and pretending to be someone else. It can be a welcome relief from reality for some.

This week many of us wish we could pretend. We wish we could pretend that the horrifying attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh had not happened. We wish we could pretend that the divisions between races and religions were decreasing not increasing. We wish we could pretend that political leaders gave messages of proactive support and not messages of hate, rancour and division. But we don’t live in a word of pretend but in a world of harsh reality where racism and hatred are very much factors of our society.

In one interview this morning, when asked to make political comments, the columnist said he would not respond. He said this is the week to honour the pain of families grieving and that next week will be time enough for political commentary. Wise words. We do need to take in the pain and grief of those who lost loved ones, killed simply for going to worship in their beloved synagogue. Despite the temptation to make political hay, let us instead honour those who died and those who grieve.

Halloween will come on Wednesday. There will be shrieks of fright at imagined threats and bursts of laughter. Children will run free from the fear and worry that stalks many adults. They will be blissfully unaware, we hope, of the real fright that adults are all too aware of. For just a few hours, let’s pretend, and be someone else.