(Ir)Reverend Ramblings

October 13th has dawned a beautiful autumn day here in Muskoka. The sunlight dances on the coloured leaves and nature is putting up a glorious show of orange and red and gold. I spent part of the morning setting up for our evening Harvest Dinner here at the church. Life rolls on, except my heart is heavy and my mind wanders to a year ago today when I gave my last kiss to the man who companioned me for 30 years.

Grief is heavy no matter the amount of time that has passed. I remember every detail of that day one year ago. Sometimes people say time eases the pain. No, the pain is still as sharp as it was that first moment that his breath stopped but life does grows bigger around the pain. Jan Richardson says, in her book, The Cure for Sorrow – A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief “Grief is the least linear thing I know. Hardly a tidy progression of stages, grief tends to be unruly … It spirals us back through layers of sorrow we thought we had dealt with.” So true. Some days I move with confidence and ease and other days I am triggered by the slightest thing and I long to feel his touch. I am writing and I hear his voice say my name. I wake and hear his gentle snore only to see again that he is not there. In my memory I taste the soft skin at this neck and I am awash with tears and longing.

In one of her blessings Jan Richardson urges, “Do not pass by the opportunity to lament what is forever gone from here. It is an honouring of what has been.” And so today, while life goes on I lament and know sorrow and feel grief and honour my beloved. But I know that I hold in my heart the memory of a man who was exceedingly practical and realistic. He was a scientist who dealt with life head on. I suspect he might be impatient with my mourning were he observing it. He said once, “I don’t live with ghosts. Life goes on.” And so I do.

On this anniversary day I offer you a poem. It says something of how I spend this day and live my life…

Turn Again To Life
If I should die and leave you here awhile,
Be not like others, sore undone, who keep
Long vigils by the silent dust, and weep.
For my sake – turn again to life and smile,
Nerving thy heart and trembling hand to do
Something to comfort other hearts than thine.
Complete those dear unfinished tasks of mine
And I, perchance, may therein comfort you.
by Mary Lee Hall

We live in a most beautiful part of the province where rugged natural vistas are at every turn of the road. Trees and lakes and rocks abound and scenery is the reason many people feel drawn to this area. At this time of year the views are spectacular as the trees put on their autumn show of glorious colour.

I confessed to someone recently that, as much as I love autumn and all that it offers, I always feel a little sad when a season ends. It is as much a time of ending as it is of beginning. Autumn, with all its glory and beauty, ushers in the dormant season of winter. Falling leaves remind us that the robust productivity of summer has ended and we shift into the season of deep slumber.

That said, I was encouraged, when I read in a little book called, 20 Spiritual Practices that Yard Word Can Teach You “Be thankful for falling leaves. Those leaves are making way for buds that are already there, hidden, waiting to appear in the spring. Each falling leaf is a promise of future blessing.” Ah, the prodigious nature of God’s creation. A fallen leaf means a bud for next year has pushed it’s way through. The sure cycle of nature woven from the Creator’s unfolding love. In death comes life.

Farmers plant fall wheat. Gardeners dig in bulbs. Seeds and bulbs hidden in what will be frozen soil until the sun warms it enough to prod growth and greening and life.

A drifting leaf, beautiful in its beholding is a reminder that life pushes through death and comes to us again in its season.

Richard Wagamese, in his last book, entitled Embers begins his chapter on Gratitude with, “I raise the pipe of my being to the rising sun in openness and humility. With my eyes closed, I give thanks to the Life Giver and ask for the strength to be humble through the course of this day. I smudge myself with sacred medicines and give thanks for the blessings that are already present in my life. I ask for nothing. I only offer thanks. Then, in gratitude and humility, I enter the journey of each day. This is wakefulness, this is becoming, this is ceremony – and I am made more.”

“I ask for nothing – I only offer thanks.” How beautiful to read such refreshing words in, what often seems like a grasping, unhappy greedy culture. There is an old Sunday School hymn that runs like an earworm through my mind, “Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings see what God has done.” It is not a bad concept – it is just that the tune is so darn irritating when it gets stuck in my mind. Nonetheless, this is the weekend when we are encouraged, told, reminded, to count our blessings, to give thanks, to appreciate the harvest, to thank the earth for its provision, to generally be grateful.

It is a curious thing to think we have to be reminded to be thankful. In recent years people have been encouraged to keep Gratitude Journals almost as a therapeutic practice. A book by Diana Butler Bass called Gratful – The Transformative Power of Giving Thanks explores why gratitude is missing as a modern spiritual practice and illuminates how the practice of gratitude can lead to a greater connection with God, our world, and our own souls. Living in a world where we often hear that people are “Self-made” it is good to have at least one weekend when we lift our heads and look around and recognize the interconnectedness of life and creation and how utterly dependent we are on one another, the earth and God.

Happy Thanksgiving. Count your blessings and then offer thanks.

I have always been intrigued that when Mary, the mother of Jesus, found out that she was pregnant she went through the hill country to stay with her cousin Elizabeth. And, also, when Jesus was ready to start his ministry he went to his cousin John to be baptized. Cousins seemed important in the early stories of Jesus.

This week I spent Monday, my day off, in the “bosom of my family”! My 89 year old Aunt died. She had experienced a brief illness and spent her last month in the hospital, the very hospital where she had been born and where she birthed her four babies. We gathered at the little rural church where she worshipped for decades and the crowd filled the pews and spilled into the basement. Her boys spoke lovingly of their mom and her grandchildren shed many tears. She was deeply loved and will be sincerely missed but consolation comes from the fact that she had a good, long life and by her own admission felt ready to discover what lay ahead for her in the next life. We buried her ashes in the church graveyard and then went to the local community hall for the obligatory funeral sandwiches.

It was a rich and wonderful ritual from beginning to end as we said farewell to the one we loved so. However, the moment that I will hold in my memory is when I stood in a small circle with 4 cousins and we had a group hug! These cousins I have not seen since the last funeral that we gathered for but it was like we had been together forever as we giggled in the same way we did when we were ten. We remembered together our aunt’s favourite sayings, times we spent holidaying at one another’s house, who was the oldest and the youngest and on and on.

I have been spoiled compared to many people I have met along the way. Each of my parents were the eldest in their family and each had 5 siblings. That means I had 20 aunts and uncles and, if I am remembering them all, 37 first cousins. I can’t begin to count second and third cousins. I remember forming a friendship with a classmate in university. She could not believe how many family I had. She had her parents and one brother, that was it. I was astounded she had so few relatives while she was astounded at my many.

Family, cousins, relatives, can be a great comfort at times such as Monday’s funeral when we just needed to be together to mourn and cry, to laugh and remember. It also gave me an insight into why, when in a patch of trouble, Mary would run to Elizabeth for support and, when ready to launch into something new, Jesus would seek out his cousin John to get a ‘high five’!

I love my cousins.

I have been helping our Syrian family adjust to a new phase of life. Almost three-year-old Pella has started Day Care two days a week. She HATES it! On the mornings that she has day care she cries all the time she is getting dressed, saying over and over, “No Day Care”. She cries on the walk to day care. She cries when she says good bye to her mom. The teacher tells us she is fine once she is there and is adjusting quite well. While it is tiresome to watch all the crying I admit, I feel a little jealous! There are mornings when I would like to throw a temper tantrum and cry and cry and cry. Some mornings my skin just feels too tight, or I have to do something I don’t want to do. There are days I would like to have a ‘melt down’ and cry, kick my feet and say, “No, not gonna!”. Sadly, perhaps, I have been conditioned to think that is not a good thing and so I stuff it back, swallow it down, choke it in.

Now, some of you reading this might be surprised and say, “C’mon, Nancy, you cry all the time!” Yes, I do get emotional, often when I am preaching. Yes, my voice does quiver and quake when I am moved by something that I read or try to express. Friends tease me and some people squirm a bit uncomfortably, feeling awkward around the raw human emotion of tears. Why is that? Why do we feel uncomfortable with tears and especially with sadness?

This week we had a funeral for a dearly loved man of our congregation. Paul had been minister here for 14 years and he and Fern continued to live here in their retirement. We were sad to have to say good bye to someone so loved. There were tears. I also heard several people say, over the course of the visitation and service, “When I die, have a party, make it fun, no tears.” To which I replied, “I always tell my family they had better cry at my funeral, I want them to be sad that I have died!!!” Grief, tears and sadness seem to be hard emotions for us to accept and embrace. Tears do not negate that the person had a wonderful life and gave us much to be thankful for. Tears just say how much that person meant to us and that the deep emotion of grief brings sadness and grief. There is nothing wrong with that.

For about 1000 years before Christ, women would collect the tears they shed during the mourning of a loved one. The tear bottles would be placed in the tomb with the deceased as a sign of devotion and respect. In our culture we often try to comfort one another by saying, “Don’t cry”. And yet weeping can provide the healing we need. It releases our emotions and the tears wash away our grief and pain. We know that Jesus wept when his dear friend Lazarus died. We know that he wept over Jerusalem as he approached his final days. Jesus, like each of us, knew the gamut of emotion from joy to sadness, from laughter to tears.

I don’t apologize for crying. It is who I am and tears are part of my expressions for the rich and wonderful life I have been given with it’s joy and with it’s sorrow. Now I think I am gonna go and have a good cry.

Have you ever thought about all the ways we refer to time? This summer, as I recounted to someone something that had happened I thought quite recently I then realized it was in fact several years ago. I asked, “Does time move faster as we get older?” It feels that way some days. Here it is mid-September and I can’t believe where the days have gone. They have been absorbed in planning, starting activities at the church, continuing my resolve to “let go of things” and keeping up with yard work and gardening that never seems to end given this glorious summer weather that continues into autumn.

So how have you been spending your time? Have you been saving time or wasting time? Have you been marking time or passing time? Have you been watching time pass or letting time slip through your fingers? I have already bought my calendar for 2019 and started writing in things I need to remember. This week my watch broke and I keep looking at my naked wrist to check the time. It is interesting when we think of time as a commodity. This morning, at church, the services went a little longer than usual. Not surprising it was mentioned to me that they were overtime! What is it about time that is so important to us that we watch it so? We think activities should start and end on time. But really what does it matter? Time is, well time, unless you happen to think, “Time is money”! In the end, I realize I have a love-hate relationship with time. There is never enough of it until time hangs heavy in my hands.

We have three people in the congregation whose health if failing. Time is short for them. In each case the family stands at the bedside and wishes to hold back time, to hold onto time, to treasure this precious time. For them there is just not enough time.

One of my favourite verses of scripture is from the Psalms, “Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” So that is the secret, to use our time wisely. Time is short. Hug the ones you love and hold on tight.

I have finished my summer holidays and now I am getting back into the swing of life in churchland! One of the many enjoyable things I did on my holidays was attend a concert by singer and song writer, Royal Woods. It was great! One of his songs was written as he leaned into living without his father who had been a huge role model and mentor for him. His father died with Alzheimer’s. Royal talked about the importance that photographs have to bring back happy memories and to help recall the person who was. That thought has stuck with me and I have done a lot of thinking about hanging on and letting go ever since. I have banks of family photos in my house. I like what they remind me of – happy times – holy times. But I also know that photographs are still and frozen in time. I think there is a difference between cherishing memories and moving forward.

How do you decide what to hang onto and what to let go of? This question covers a large swath of daily reality. Do you hang on to a grudge? Do you let go of a compliment? Do you hang on to a good memory and let go of a painful time – or is it the other way around? Do you hang onto clothes that won’t fit and items that you will never use again?

There is a lot in scripture about hanging on and letting go. Think of Nicodemous who came to Jesus in the dark of night because he couldn’t let go of his reputation even though he wanted to know more about Jesus. Think about Lot’s wife who was so grieved to leave her home and her neighbours and friends that she turned back and in doing turned to salt – was it the many tears she cried that made her so filled with salt? Thinks of Jesus’ enigmatic words, “Any one who puts his hand to the plow and turns back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” Wow – that is hard to hear. I like looking back, thinking things over, remembering and even nursing a hurt now and then! Jesus seems to think that this energy not needed. When he spoke of plowing he was talking to the farmers in the crowd who knew that if you wanted to plow a straight furrow you have to pick a spot on the other side of the field and walk towards it. You can’t make a straight line if you keep glancing back over your shoulder to see where you have been. While it is not impossible to find scripture that talks about valuing the past and our heritage more of it talks about looking to the future with eagerness and openness.

So my resolve, after my summer vacation, is to throw out a few things – after all one of the books I read was ‘The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up’! Hanging on to things can weigh us down and hold us back. Moving forward calls us to be light and unencumbered. I am trying to lighten up – how about you?

It is summertime and that means many roads are torn up or blocked off as diggers, bulldozers and trucks fill the roadways and ditches to improve the road. There is the old joke, “There are only two seasons in Canada, winter and construction.” Well, it isn’t only on the roads. This morning I was feeling a bit beleaguered. I am moving my office to a different space. Even though it is within the same building there are books to pack and numerous knick knacks and doodads to put into boxes to move across to the other side of the building. At home I am still mulling over what of Carl’s stuff to keep and what to let go of and how to do that. To add to all that I decided this was the year to make a new garden and so I dug up a section of lawn and have been planting and transplanting for a coupe of months now. All of this was roiling around my thinking this morning and as I texted to a friend, I said, “I feel like every aspect of my life is ‘Under Construction’!” She replied, “Yes, but the good thing about construction is that there is an end to it and we usually love the results.” Wise words but hard to appreciate in the middle of a muddle within the muddle of a mess.

I remember, way back in 1988, when the church was discussing the call of gays and lesbians to ministry, it was a difficult time in the church. Many of us leading in congregations were subjected to hurtful and sometimes hateful comments. People left the church and members of other denominations mocked us. I attended a day for clergy to just talk about what we were experiencing and to offer support to one another. One of the ministers at the meeting said, “I take solace from the fact that the amount of chaos is generally equal to the wonderful thing that God is creating.” I have always held on to those words. When my life is chaos and it feels like everywhere I look I am under construction I think, “What amazing thing is God creating now?”

As I sorted papers in my office and decided what to move and which ones to recycle I came upon this poem by the late Archbishop Oscar Romero. It seems an appropriate find in the archeological dig I am into on this afternoon of chaos.
Thank you Archbishop.

“We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying
that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection, no pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes that Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities
We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master-builder and the worker.
we are workers, not master-builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own!”

Slogans and logos are everywhere. I bet I could say a phrase and you could instantly identify the product it advertises … “Just do it”? Yep, that is Nike. “It’s the real thing”? Right again, that’s Coke. “Finger Lickin’ Good”? Of course, it is KFC. And if you saw the Golden Arches you would know you could pull into McDonalds, a green mermaid wearing a tiara is Starbucks and multicoloured letters spell out Google where you can find the answer to anything.

Here at BUC we have been talking for a couple of years now about logos, slogans, branding and how to describe ourselves. It is a real trend in churches nowadays to have a catchy phrase that sums up the faith community so that people know what to expect when they walk through the door. A popular slogan for many churches is “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors”. That’s a good one. When I was on a road-trip this summer I snapped a photo of a slogan on a church sign, “Connecting – Reflecting – Serving” That’s a good one too.

Part of branding is to help people know what to expect but it is more than that. A big piece of our talk and thought around the desire to brand ourselves is to do some myth-busting. We live in a town where, I suspect, we are the only faith community that would self-define as having a fairly progressive and ‘un-fundamentalist’ theology. While not everyone in the pew on Sunday morning fits that category many do and we have a spirit of acceptance for a broad range of belief – including those who don’t believe. We work diligently to use inclusive language and are sensitive to the nuance of new language around gender. We are the only church in town that is affirming and based on the grapevine talk around town we will continue for sometime to be the only church that will have a rainbow on our door. But how do we say all that in a phrase?

I have recently become aware of a writer and blogger named Cindy Wang Brandt. Having grown up with a conservative and fundamentalist faith she has had a conversion experience and is now committed to raising her children as ‘unfundamentalist’. She has some great suggestions about myth-busting for those of us on the liberal end of the spectrum who regularly come up against the firm and sure fundamentalist answers to things. And her self-naming is just that, she is an author with a progressive faith focused on parenting forward.

Like all good church folks we are putting together a committee (!!!) who will consider how to “brand” BUC in a way that the community will see us as relevant and appealing. At a recent workshop on branding we were told that 60% to 70% of new people who come through the church doors come because of the website. We recently updated and relaunched our website and now we are on to branding. Any suggestions as to how to describe this awesome faith community we have here at BUC?

My dear colleague and team-mate Kevin left the building yesterday. His farewell service and celebration were on Sunday but there were still a few meetings to attend and some visiting to do. Yesterday afternoon he came to my door to really say ‘Good-bye’. He has been here for 15 years and I have worked with him for the last 10. He was a great team-mate. People often observed how well we worked together. I would always say that we are similar enough in how we think and do things that we get along well and we are different enough in how we think and do things that we spark creativity in the other. Kevin has particular gifts that I, and the congregation, will miss very much.

Team ministry can be difficult and does not always run smoothly but over the ten years that we have been working together we have never had real conflict. Oh of course we occasionally disagreed on things but we could always talk and argue them through and come out the other side stronger for it. Kevin’s passions and interests ran in different directions than mine and that made life all the richer for the congregation as we brought different ideas and perspectives to things. We were also able to support and sometimes just prop one another up during the inevitable catastrophes of life that leave us weak and in pain.

I am not sure how things will feel as we move into this new phase of life here at BUC. I know for me it will mean a return to a full-time work schedule and a weekly preaching gig which I have not done for a while. I am looking forward to that (with, I think, the appropriate amount of trepidation). I do know that what will be absent is Kevin’s wisdom and calming influence, his insight into issues and his honest reflection on situations. He always brought a measured perspective but he was, at the same time, prepared to stir things up when necessary. He didn’t like conflict but he was also not a people-pleaser. I will miss all that and the fact that he always did the mid-morning coffee run to get us all a cup of coffee!

On Sunday he closed with a beautiful blessing and I asked him for a copy of it yesterday. I will be using it in the future and right now I offer it to you …
Life is short and we do not have much time to gladden the hearts of those who walk the way with us, so be quick to love and make haste to be kind and go with God’s blessing. You have gladdened many a heart here Kevin and now you go into this next phase of life with God’s blessing.