(Ir)Reverend Ramblings

Today I wrote the date. January 10th but it isn’t. It is the 11th already. We are slipping into the middle of the month and I still don’t know what day it is. Twice already today I have had to stop and ask myself, “Is today Friday? No, only Thursday.” January does this to me every year. It is the hangover from Christmas and that week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day when we, as someone cleverly described it, “constantly wear our pajamas, eat shortbread and wonder what day of the week it is.” This time of year, beginning with Christmas Eve is dizzying when everything takes on a air of celebration, or at the very least mystery, and nothing operates as ‘normal’.

I happen to like thresholds. I like new chapters, fresh calendars, blank books, turning the page. I relish a new start and fresh beginning and yes, I even like Resolutions. Oh, I seldom keep them but I like to think about them. But here it is on day 11 of a new year and I am still deciding what my resolution will be. I did pay for and download an app that would encourage me to do yoga daily. It has tried but I have failed at that (yep, already by Day 11). I did clean off my desk but I did that by putting most of the stuff from my desk onto my book shelves. Now I have to clean the stuff off my book shelves to where … my desk?!?!

One of the best spiritual gifts of this time of year is the celebration of Epiphany. It is the season of light, of stardust, of visions and insight. It is when we find something we have been looking for. I have been looking for … hmmm … I paused in my writing here. What have I been looking for? I have been looking for peace. Peace with who I am and peace with my future. I am looking for a shred of hope that there might be peace in the world, this troubled and violent world we live in. And in my post-Christmas haze of wondering what day it is, I have been longing for a sense of completeness. I don’t know how one makes a resolution to find that, to solve that, to meet that longing.

One of my favourite preachers is Nadia Bolz-Weber. I subscribe to her writing so every week or so a sermon or essay of hers drops into my Inbox. Her most recent was about the Baptism of Jesus. In it she talks about being loved by God. She quotes these words from the passage about Jesus’ baptism, “This is my son, the beloved, with who, I am well pleased.” And she imagines how it would be to own those words. Those words that God says to us, to you, to me, “You are my beloved. With you I am well please.” ‘You are my beloved.” God says that to you. To me.

The problem with most New Year’s Resolutions is that they cause us to begin the year focusing on what is wrong with us…. I want to lose weight. I want to read more books. I want to floss my teeth every day. I want to exercise more. What if our New Year’s Resolutions were more like, I want to feel God’s love; or, I want to sit and soak up God’s complete and overwhelming care and compassion for me? What if instead of aiming for self-improvement we aimed for openness to what and who we already are – beloved children of the Source of our Being, the very One who “knit us together in our mother’s womb”?

That longing for peace and completeness is there for me … if only I could stop worrying about what day it is and just greet the day and all it offers, suffused with God’s love.

Many of you know that during the month of December I spend every Saturday and Sunday afternoon as Mrs. Claus. I put on a gorgeous red velvet dress complete with white fuzzy trim and a white wig and I greet dozens of children assuring them that I am delighted to see them and repeatedly telling them I am so glad they came to Santa’s Cabin for a visit.

Santa and I sit in big comfy chairs and the children clamber onto our knee and tells us all kinds of secrets, hopes and wishes. They look at us with deep sincerity, a bit of awe and a dash of wonder. Well, except for the crying ones who will have nothing to do with us but cling to their parents while howling at the top of their lungs. Thankfully we have more of the first than we do of the second.

All of this takes place in a log cabin at the back of the pasture. They are brought close to the site on a wagon and they walk that last distance passing through a stand of spruce and pine trees. Santa waits for them on the verandah and invites them into the cabin where the elf offers them hot chocolate and a sugar cookie while they wait for their chat with Santa.

They might seem awe-struck with us, in our red costumes and white wigs, but I am equally awed by the honesty that comes in the conversations. They might admit to troubles at school, to disappointments with their friends, their own shortcomings, and sometimes even how they really feel about their siblings. Most come with a list as to what they want for Christmas while a rare few just want to be surprised by Santa on Christmas Eve. Some children hem and hah as to what they might want and then Santa is quick to suggest that is because they are children who like to give presents instead of get them. With that they usually think of something!

One of the regular questions the children ask is what kind of cookies Santa likes. They want to leave his favourite out for him on Christmas Eve. In the past Santa had asked that instead of cookies they leave celery and carrots as he needs to watch his waistline. This year, however, Santa is saying he does not want any snacks or treats. He wants the boys and girls to instead pick out something at the grocery store that they can give to the food bank. He talks to them about how many people need help and that if they just gave a little something that would be so much better than cookies for him. The parents are usually first surprised and then touched and grateful. Through this very simple direction Santa is encouraging the kids to think of others, to consider sharing, to be mindful of need and to build compassion.

There is a lot wrong with the world. Global conflict and the plight of so many leaves us gasping and overwhelmed. We can’t do it all. Much of what is going on we can’t even comprehend. But just imagine what would happen if we did one good thing. And just imagine if every person in the world did one good thing. Billions and billions of good things would happen. And, in fact, Santa has taught me that in the face of so much that weighs us down, there is much that lifts us up. The delight in the eyes of a child, the joy of a parent, the beaming pride of a grandparent, are gentle reminders that there remains goodness and love in the world.

When things were out of control, when things were breaking down, when chaos reigned, my mother’s expression was always, “Everything is at sixes and sevens.” I am not sure where that saying came from but when it fits, it fits. Everything is at sixes and sevens for me these days but more significantly the world seems to be at sixes and sevens.

If you have ever had to sell your house and move to a new location you know how stressful that process can be. I am caught in the middle of it. Trying to keep the house in pristine condition and attractive for anyone with deep pockets who might walk through the door. At the same time trying hard to not live too far into the future and resisting any urge to fall in love with a place that might be purchased before I am ready to take the leap. Not to mention living between two places as I work in one community and try to maintain some semblance of life in another all the while living in the generous and gracious welcome of my brother as I continue to occupy his guest room and sneak moving boxes into every available corner of his house.

But the chaos of my life is so picayune compared to the tragedy that is befalling so many people around the world. The news feed dances from one tragedy to another, one war to another. Ukraine, that is still being ground down by the Russian invasion, barely hits the headlines any more as the Israel – Hamas war staggers us in its destruction. Do we even think anymore about the people of Syria living under oppression and violence? The civil war in Sudan hardly made impact even though thousands upon thousands of people are attempting to flee to neighbouring countries for safety. To say that the world is at sixes and sevens is almost a mockery given the humanitarian crises that unfold in so many places.

One of my favourite writers in Nadia Bolz-Weber. Recently she wrote an article explaining that we are, anthropologically thinking, not created to deal with the all crises of the whole world. Human development gives us the ability to cope with crises in our village, not in every village of the world. That gives me some comfort as I decide once again that I cannot cope with the global news at bedtime. The state of the world is beleaguering. But even with Nadia’s offering to opt out of all the problems of the whole wide world I feel guilty for being so caught up in the small problems I face given I have a roof over my head (well, thanks to my brother, two rooves over my head), food in my fridge, clothes in my closet, a car in my garage, a garage (!), and on and on. The trick to defeating the sixes and sevens, the feeling of being overwhelmed is to find that balance of what we can do and then offering the rest to God or the universe or whatever you want to call that greater power. It can feel like a cop out but I think, when we acknowledge we can’t do it all but also acknowledge we know it is out there to be tended to, we are giving strength to solution rather than ignoring the chaos.

The season of Advent is soon upon us. I always appreciate that Advent invites us into a time of reflection and meditation focusing on the plight of the poor, the unprepared, the refugee, the ones without a room, the shunned. The very heart of our gospel, in this Advent season, invites us to a place of living with those who are at sixes and sevens and to sit in that very chaos waiting for the inbreaking of God.

I always thought it was a Shakespearean quote but Google tells me it is much more recent than that. It was American wit and New York Times writer, Dorothy Parker, who would say, whenever her doorbell rang, “What fresh hell can this be?” It has morphed over the years to “What fresh hell is this?” No matter who said it first, it has been on my mind often over this last week.

Some sneaky virus laid me low, or more accurately, shut me up. I was completely silenced by laryngitis. For four days I could not even whisper, so complete was my undoing. Add to that indignity I got a big cold sore on my lower lip. It popped up before the last cold sore was completely healed. On top of this I have finally admitted to myself that the beautiful new leather shoes I bought a few months ago are too tight. Of course, I have not worn them over the summer, being a confirmed sandal wearer, but now that it is socks and shoes weather I kicked them off, after a long day of scrunched toes and threw them in the corner of my room. Shoes are expensive and I paid full price and they DON’T FIT! And don’t get me started on the upset to my bio-rhythms caused by the time change. All this going on in NOVEMBER – the darkest, bleakest, grayest month of the year.

November seems like some fresh hell everyday. Moody skies, brisk winds, indeterminate precipitation – is it rain? is it snow? is it sleet? I just want to pull the blanket over my head and wait for this month to pass. What to do, what to do. I don’t drink enough to drown my angst. I don’t shop enough to relieve my melancholy. There are not enough Netflix movies to lighten my ennui. What to do, what to do. There are not enough leftover Halloween chocolates to satisfy the emptiness. Something has to spring me out of this fresh hell.

It is people. When my doorbell rings I might say, like Dorothy Parker did, “What fresh hell is this?” But more likely I say, “Oh good, someone is here.” A visitor, a story shared over a cup of coffee, a communal laugh, a joke told, an email delivered, that’s what I need. A connection. It is no wonder that so much of our faith life happens in community. We need one another, especially right now in these shortest days of the year when the sky is glowering. We need the brightness and colour that only people can give people. The longing for assurance is summed up in our United Church creed. It begins and ends with ‘We are not alone, we live in God’s world.”

So, dear readers, wherever you are, whoever you are, this is my missive to you … chin up, you are not alone. We are in this together.

It is a glorious day today. It seems that October has brought to this part of the country more than its fair share of rain and cold wet days so today’s blue sky and sunshine, with the autumn colours glinting in the sun’s rays is a welcome treat. I took a break mid-afternoon and went for a walk in the pasture to admire the array of colours from burnished bronze to brilliant yellow interrupted by reds and orange. As I drive these peaceful rural roads and ramble along a walking path it is hard to imagine the horror and violence that besets so many other places in the world. The news from the Middle East is staggering and it is hard to imagine the terror that some are living with especially when my little corner of the world is blissful and my biggest worry is what I will have for dinner.

Here in Canada, October begins with the spirit of Thanksgiving. Porches and storefronts are decorated with items that suggest garden plenty – pumpkins, squash, corn stalks, potted mums, and every item from coffee to air freshener smells like pumpkin spice. We move seamlessly from Thanksgiving to Halloween, the pumpkins become jack-o-lanterns and the feelings of gratitude and plenty shift to fright and ghoulish horror! But for us that fearful state is fanciful while for others it is their daily reality as violence erupts around them and the very basics of life are jeopardized.

Sometimes, at the end of the day, I am not even sure how to pray. The state of the world seems so overwhelmingly out of control. The lust for power and the violent war machine has reduced the value of human life to next to nothing. As Walter Cronkite once said, “We spend so much time on inventing devices to kill each other and so little time on working on how to achieve peace.” What it the end game of war and violence with country against country and people against people? Of course, the ones who suffer the most are the average civilians, the women and children, the ones who can’t escape, who have no defense. It is for them my heart breaks.

In the midst of global upheaval I am trying to keep in perspective my own little personal upheaval. This month I, surprising even to me, made a decision to sell my house and make a move closer to where I now work which is, in fact, the area where I grew up. It had always been my intention to move back to this area of the province I just didn’t think it would happen this year. But, sometimes the stars align and a choice is before me. It was a difficult and emotional choice, as big decisions like this always are, but seems to be the right choice for me now, I believe. That said, the house is not yet sold so who knows, in this current market, when it might be, patience is a virtue and so is putting stuff in the recycle bin. Oh my, do I have STUFF! The sorting and sifting and purging has begun. Looking at some things I wonder why I have hung on to them for so long and then I still put them in the ‘Keep’ pile. My mind, my emotions, my house, each sometimes feels as chaotic as the world. But equal to the chaos is my gratitude for a house to sell, resources to buy, belongings aplenty, and friends and family to help me cope. It is the yin and yang of life. When it seems overwhelming and I don’t know how to pray sometimes I just say thank you. Thank you for the small glimpses of hope, thank you for the few positive stories to balance the many negative ones, thank you for the overwhelming grace of life, thank you for the ones who are there when needed, thank you for the ones who surprise us with undeserved kindness. Thank you for the beauty of an autumn day as the leaves let go and the season turns.

A profusion of colour. I just love how those words feel in my mouth. The vowels roll around and it feels and sounds rich and full and beautiful – just like the wonder that greets our eyes as we drive up and down the side roads and walk the pasture and trails. In this part of the world the earth is blessed with autumn splendour right now. Such beauty to be seen in the flashes of red and orange and yellow and rust as the season turns the green of the forests to a profusion of colour. There it is again – I love that phrase!

So much happened in September I didn’t even have time to write a blog but now, if you ask me what happened, I am hard pressed to remember what took up my time. I just know that the month whizzed by and here it is October. From where I sit, in the little stone house at the top of the hill, the field to the south is a carpet of gold. Well, I guess more accurately, orange rather than gold but it is a wondrous sight and every time I look out it makes my heart skip a beat. Such a magnificent display of productivity. Seeds went into the ground in June, vines sprouted then curled and wove their way around one another hiding beneath them the fruit that grew so big and round that, only in the last few weeks, has turned a brilliant orange. I am not sure how a person cannot believe in miracles when you watch creation at work. The earth opens up and produces food. It is a gift that we so often just take for granted.

And, while speaking of gifts, this morning was World Communion. We had 77 souls receive the gifts of bread and cup in the church where I serve. We did so knowing that we were joining with Christians around the world in that beautiful sacrament that reminds us of the ministry and faithfulness of Jesus and the ever present reality of the Christ. Whenever we have World Communion I can’t help but think of people in chapels and churches and cathedrals from Newfoundland to Haida Gwaii, and in countries and across continents around the world.

There is much that divides us in the world. There is conflict and differences. But it is always heartening on the first Sunday of October to gather at the table, bread bread, raise a cup and remember that we do this with disciples everywhere.

Hello October, I am glad you are here.

It’s that time of year! The (once) glorious CNE is in its last week as Labour Day draws near. The season of fall fairs is upon us. Fall fairs mean candy apples and spun sugar. They mean rows of vegetables on display and vases of flowers lined up for judging. They mean every farm animal from chickens to horses being brushed and cleaned for exhibition. Fall fairs mean neighbours chatting while they stand around the ‘chip truck’ and teenagers bragging about their summer exploits.

I went to Blackstock Fair recently to watch my niece show her calf. It was a flashback to the days when I was a young teen and training, bathing and showing my 4-H calf was both a task and a highlight of this time of year. I watched the youngsters showing their calves in the show ring. There was one young boy who was not even as tall as the chin of his calf and his cowboy hat, bigger than a watermelon, rested below his ears but he ably led his show animal around the ring. It was so much fun to watch him proudly imitating the older more experienced exhibitors. His first fair and he was doing it up right.

Fall fairs are an old country tradition that serve a big purpose. I can imagine in years past, before instant communication and fast-travelled roads, going to the fair was a highlight of community life. For us country kids getting to the Ex in Toronto was a trip to the big city and a celebratory ending to a summer of stacking hay bales and weeding beans!

The Ontario Association of Agricultural Societies say that “Fall fairs are almost as old as recorded history…fairs were used as marketplaces and carnivals. In the 1700’s the British crossed the agricultural improvement society with the traditional trade fair/carnival and agricultural fairs were born.” The article goes on to say, “In Canada, the first agricultural society was formed in 1765 in Nova Scotia. Ontario followed suit in 1792.”

In days past fall fairs were a place to find those treats not readily available in the general day to day – candy floss, french fries in a paper cone sprinkled with vinegar, midway rides, and games where you had the slightest chance of winning a stuffed toy. Fall fairs also signal the turn of the season, the time for harvest, and the beginning of a new school year. Like many annual events they mark time – another season gone.

This time of year often seems a bit melancholy for me. I know many people love autumn with its vibrant colours and its comfortable – not too hot, not too cold – weather but for me it is a time of endings. But then, I guess for new things to begin sometimes old things have to end. So without getting too wrapped up in the doldrums of another summer gone I will smile at the young ones making eyes at each other their candy floss and the tykes modeling after their older sisters and brothers as they pull their calf into the show ring. Let’s go to the fair!

Do you remember that scene in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ when Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow start down the yellow brick road and to give themselves courage they chanted, “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my”? Of course they did meet a lion but he was ‘cowardly’ and he was more afraid of them than they were of him.

I think of that chant when I wander out to the family garden which is located by the house where I stay half the week. Except I chant, zucchini, tomatoes and beans, oh my. Yep, it is that time of year when the few seeds, planted with lots of hope and plenty of faith, have flourished in the sun and rain of June and July and now that August is here those seeds are huge plants that are pumping out the produce!

The first hand-picked beans of the season are an absolute treat. The first tender beets, steamed and slathered with butter, send me into ecstasy! The first tomato, still warm from the sun, sliced and laid on toast then dressed with mayonnaise and fresh cracked pepper can fill me with rapture. But this is now the third week of eating beans fresh from the garden and I am ready for a change of diet. A lightly seasoned zucchini, sauteed with tomatoes and onions, is the perfect accompaniment to just about anything, but it is impossible to keep up to the zucchini which can be 4 inches long one day and the next day the length of your arm. What to do with a foot long zucchini.

This week at church I am working with the theme, based on a suggestion from a congregant, ‘Food in the Bible’. In preparation I am reading Bread, Body, Spirit, Finding the Sacred in Food compiled by Alice Peck. In her opening chapter she writes, “Planting a seed is an act of faith. It’s about hope and trust. From the promise of placing a tiny kernel into black dirt, to the miraculous transformation from seedling into flower into fruit into food, to the anticipation of harvest when the miracle becomes the tangible, these same cycles of growth and change found in the garden are mirrored in many faiths. … The simple seed embodies limitless potential, and this is a theme resonant in many spiritual traditions.”

It is a miracle when you think of all that is around us that we just take for granted. In the Gospel of Mark it says, “The Kingdom of God is like one who casts seed upon the soil; and they go to bed and night and get up by day, and the seen sprouts and grows – how, the person themselves do not know.” It is the seemingly impossible transformation that begins with the planting of a seed.

We are all busy planting seeds. Maybe not in the garden or in the field but we plant seeds of ideas in conversation. We plant seeds of hope in someone who is struggling. We plant seeds of anticipation when we make plans for the future. We plant seeds of justice when we support organizations that make a positive difference in the world. We plant seeds of faith when we act with kindness towards another.

I am wondering what seeds you are planting today? And as those seeds grow and flourish what will they turn into? And I don’t mean a really large zucchini!

Yes, I did. I went to see the much talked about, tweeted about, and oft reviewed movie Oppenheimer. Three hours very well spent. It is long. It is dense. It is fabulous. It covers so much history and political ins and outs but in the end it exposes the challenge of the sometimes murky ethical world in which scientific discovery resides.

The biopic gives the audience the complex and conflicting emotions of a brilliant man who, with his team of physicists, worked on the top-secret Manhattan Project – the development of the atomic bomb. On July 16, 1945 they witness the world’s first nuclear explosion. The course of history was changed that day and with it J. Robert Oppenheimer gained the name, “Father of the atomic bomb”. Woven through the story is the very real impact of McCarthyism (you remember a communist around every corner) which was prevalent in the US in the late 1940s and into the 1950s.

The movie exposes the machinations of political power but the major theme in my mind is the ethical morass around the development of nuclear weapons. This complexity was most clearly expressed by Oppenheimer himself. As he watched the first nuclear weapon detonate, a groundbreaking development of scientific understanding, that July morning in Los Alamos he quoted Hindu scripture, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” The movie peels away the success of victory as it hints at the profound destruction that happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These two bombings killed between 129,000 and 226,000 people, most of whom were civilians.

In the movie, as Oppenheimer tried to bring on board a fellow scientist, the man demurred, when pressed, with Oppenheimer urging him to think of ending the Nazi reign of terror, his colleague replied “When the bomb falls it will fall on the just and the unjust.” And in the end that is what Oppenheimer was left to wrestle with. Success tinged with death. Victory tinged with destruction.

It is well worth seeing. It takes you to a place of deep thought. In protecting our own are we destroying the other? Sadly, it still goes on.

I wonder how many other people across North America played a few Tony Bennet tunes on Friday night. I did. Hearing of his death at the age of 96, I hit play on a CD I have of his. His luscious voice crooned out song after song and I took a mental trip down memory lane.

Tony Bennet’s was a life filled with ups and downs – to the extreme. He rode the wave of fame, lost popularity, and hit the skids of alcohol, drug abuse and financial ruin. Then, with help from his sons he put his life back together and once again rode waves of popularity and fame. His music was loved by people of different generations and in later years he made a cd of duets with singers more than half his age.

Just before I settled in to write this blog I was planning and revising the service for next Sunday. A couple of months ago I asked people in the congregation to suggest some topics they might like to hear as a sermon over these summer Sundays. One request was a service focusing on the hymns we sing with a bit of history about the writer of the hymn. This coming week we will be peppering our service with hymns and I am doing research on the history of each hymn that we will sing. I am looking forward to it.

Music in church moves us both spiritually and emotionally. It takes us to that place of deep vulnerability and some hymns can move us to tears as they resonate so deeply in sentiment or emotion.

Music is such an integral part of our daily experience. From jingles we might hear in commercials on the radio or television, to movie scores, to symphonies, to rock, folk, gospel, and on and on. The passing of someone like Tony Bennet reminds us how important music is in the expression of our changing moods and in the way music undergirds so much of our emotional well being.

This morning our organist played a version of ‘Jesu, Joy of Our Desiring’. I could feel myself sink into the music. Knowing the tune allowed me to anticipate each movement of the notes as he beautifully presented this piece written by J.S.Bach in 1723. Think of that. From 1723 to 2023 – over those centuries, people have been listening to and feeling the nuance of that piece of music.

Music takes us to places. Through memory it takes us to dances, to church services, to concerts, to choir practice, to funerals, to weddings, to precious moments with loved ones. Music transports us and touches us at an emotional level.

Right now, as I type, I am listening to Tony Bennet singing a duet with Barbra Streisand. They are singing, “Smile“. And it makes me do just that … smile!