(Ir)Reverend Ramblings

My mother was a gardener. She would rather be in the garden than anywhere else. She did not excel at cooking or baking. She hated housework. She was a good teacher and loved to collect and share knowledge but mostly she liked to garden.

She had two large vegetable gardens and many flower beds around the house and yard. As a kid I would get called into forced labour. Unless I wanted to be put up for adoption, weeding and hoeing were not an option. Once my father caught me reading a book on a sunny, summer afternoon and his only comment was, “Why aren’t you helping your mother in the garden? Put the book down and get out there.” My father was not against reading. He was just in favour of me helping my mother.

Once I married, my beloved became the master gardener. He was the one to plant and weed, to trim and hoe. But for these last four years it is a bug that has bitten me hard. Every spring I carve away more lawn and plant more perennials. As the nurseries and garden centres open I prowl around looking for new and interesting plants. I delight every morning looking out my window to see what has happened over night. Which plant is coming into bloom? Which one needs staking or trimming today? Which flowers will I choose to dress up my dining table this week?

A couple of years ago a friend turned me on to dahlias. They are magnificent, tall bloomers that brings colour and splash at this time of year. To my chagrin they also bring Japanese Beetles. The darn (I am being polite here – I often call them much worse) little creatures burrow into the blooms and devour them. They turn the buoyant blossoms to brown stubs if I don’t intervene. Who would ever imagine that something so small could make for such annoyance? I tried Morning Glories this year for the first time. The Japanese beetles have riddled the leaves with their infestation. I have hung beetle traps. I regularly go out and ‘dispatch’ the ugly little critters but they just keep coming. I am forced to ask – in the scheme of things -what good are Japanese Beetles? (Oh, and don’t get me started on the groundhog who is eating my flowering kale.)

So, I have spent some reflection time wondering if the garden is a parable for life. Jesus certainly used nature and agriculture a lot to draw illustrations for God’s love. Can I think of a parable about Japanese Beetles? Nope. I am too mad at them right now. But I do know that there are many things in our world right now that are causing devastation and sorrow and the weight and heaviness of those catastrophes (think Haiti, think Afghanistan) cannot begin to be measured against my battle in the garden.

In our Prayer group yesterday, and in my sermon that we just recorded for this Sunday’s virtual service, I spoke of the heaviness of the world news and how hard it is to our human psyche to carry so much negativity. Nadia Bolz Weber, in her blog this week, said that our human psyche was made to hold the sorrow and tragedy of our ‘village’ not of the whole world delivered in real time all the time. Some days it is just too much information. We have to compartmentalize the worry and sorrow in order to cope. I guess I do that in a way each morning. When the riddled leaves of my morning glories and the battered blossoms of my dahlias depress me I look to the cheery faces of the snapdragons and the resilient blooming of the day lilies. Maybe that is the parable. We will always have sorrow, but God’s bountiful creation also delivers sufficient beauty to remind us to keep on.

Hello dear reader. If you read this blog title you might have, running through your mind, the memory of Ella Fitzgerald singing, “Summertime, and the living’ is easy, fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high” This beauty of a song was written in 1934 by George Gershwin. It was one of his first compositions for his brand new jazz opera ‘ Porgy and Bess’. I think it has become a bit of an anthem for this time of year.

How has your summer been? Is your livin’ easy? I know many people are joyously, but tentatively, emerging from pandemic mode and enjoying some social times and seeing family. One person at prayer group spoke of the sheer delight in seeing her kids and … wait for it … actually hugging them! She said it was a long hug!

I too gathered with my siblings this month for an afternoon of catching up. We were called together in order to celebrate my sister’s birthday. The conversation was wide ranging and, as those gatherings go, we got to reminiscing. It started light and carefree remembering child-hood antics, thinking of mom and dad, sharing stories that twigged the sharing of more stories. From the laughter came more memories and the tone shifted to somber when one remembered the rape of the neighbour girl on her way home from school. Tears pricked our eyes as we sat in silence thinking of the tragedy of it. None of us remember what became of the girl who grew up and then moved away and none of us knew what happened to the man. Were there charges? Did he go to jail? We don’t remember. But amongst us, on that summer afternoon of remembering there was sorrow, and yes, some guilt, that this had happened in our community and somehow as a collective we could not prevent it. Eventually the conversation shifted back to happier tales of times in family and community.

The afternoon has stayed with me, in part because I love any opportunity to be with my sibs, but also because it reminded me of the depth of human experience. From joy to sorrow, from pleasure to grief, tears and laugher intermingled.

There is a song in our hymn book, “Give to Us Laughter” – one verse says, “even in sorrow and hours of grief, laughter with tears brings most healing relief”. Summertime seems to be the perfect time to let the season – and the feelings – roll over me. A season of anticipation and recollection. A season of memory and imagination. A season of sorrow and healing.

Usually on this day, along with many others, I don my red and white clothing and strut about as a proud Canadian. I celebrate our country with the delicious red and white dessert of the season – strawberry shortcake, and end the day oohing and aahing as explosives fill the sky, soil and water with all the chemicals that make fireworks. This year I can’t do it. I am wearing a red shirt but I know that many are choosing to wear orange instead. I feel conflicted.

There are many things that make Canada a great country. I don’t need to list them here, you can name them yourself and find lists elsewhere. There are many things about Canada that make me cringe, make me angry, make me ashamed, make me sad. These last week, as graves have been identified, has been sobering. I should have been, but was not, fully aware of the human loss caused by the Residential Schools. I knew somewhat of the long term impact of the cultural genocide and the very act of removing children from their family and community but I don’t remember hearing of the devastatingly high death toll. I should have known. Many did, but I did not open my ears and eyes to that terrible aspect. Such a shameful history.

Today, I am choosing to be grateful for the good things about our country. The vast and beautiful geography, good quality education, medical services, and on and on. But all this is tempered by the human decisions that have judged and sidelined and abused many within our society. Canada can improve. Canada must improve.

A week ago, at this very time, I was standing with a family at the graveside of their beloved. We were a small gathering, in compliance with the regulations of the day. Monday afternoon I did the same thing with a different family. We call these spring burials. These two men had died in the winter and we were only now able to lay them to rest in the cemetery.

Each of these men was dearly loved and each family was filled with sorrow. The delayed burial meant that the grief they knew a few months ago was stirred up in the poignancy of the moment. The physical act of burial is the most difficult one a family must do. It is so real. So profound. So final.

As a minister I rely on words. Words are my wheelhouse. Words to express meaning. Words to explain feelings. Words to share thoughts. I read words. I type words. I speak words. Often when I stand with bereaved I realize the inadequacy of words. There are no words that fully capture the depth of emotion.

As I stood with each of these families I was moved, as I always am, by the intensity of grief. In each of these recent burials the man had lived to a good age. They had seen their children and their grandchildren reach adulthood. That fact did not diminish the sorrow. Loss through death is deep loss regardless of age.

This week I cannot shake the profound loss felt with the unearthing of 215 bodies of children at the Kamloops Residential School. Shame on our country. Shame on our churches. Shame on our politicians and leaders who devised such a plan. Shame on those who taught in the schools and tortured the children. Shame on those who turned a blind eye to the horrors that were inflicted on the children. Shame on the RCMP who insisted the children go. Shame. Shame. Shame. I can think of no other words. Words fail me to express the horror and feeling of abandonment that must have been felt by those poor children before and at the time of their death. I have no words to describe the feeling of absolute loss the parents and grandparents of those children must have felt when they did not return home from school. I have no words to describe the sickening feeling that must have arose as the bodies were unearthed. I have no words to explain the unending pain that residential schools have left as a scar across the generations of the Indigenous people who were subjected to residential schools.

No words. I carry the shame and I say I am sorry. These words are so inadequate but I can say nothing more that I am ashamed and I am sorry.

No words other than we must do better.

Sunday morning has dawned and here we are, 62 Sunday later, and Sunday morning means – instead of hustling to get to church on time for the morning services – I am still in my pyjamas and contemplating a second cup of coffee.

62 Sundays where, apart from a short window of opportunity that came in the fall to hold in-person services (with very limited numbers in attendance), my Sunday morning rhythm, that has been my rhythm all my life, has been completely halted by Covid 19. Now I find Sunday morning the quietest time at the grocery store and so I hustle up and down the aisles and buy what I need to get me through the week. Then I spend the morning watching church services from across the country, worshipping – well, yes, in part, but also picking up ideas and seeing how they do things. It is nothing like being in the sanctuary with my people.

62 Sundays and our second Pentecost Sunday of being at home. The celebration of the gift of the Spirit is not the same when done in solitude. Sure, I am wearing red and thinking about the ethereal nature of God but it is not like standing before a congregation that is dressed in yellow and red and orange and hear them singing about the fire of God.

All this has led me to think about the marking of time. We have years. We have seasons. We have months. We have weeks. We have days. We have hours. We have minutes. We have seconds. We have the year that someone was born and the year that someone died. We have the year that someone got married and the year that someone moved here or moved away.

Many of us have spent a lot of time trying to predict what this time, this year, this pandemic, will mean in terms of how we do things. How will we remember and mark this time of separation, illness and fear? And, what will be the long term effects of this rupture in social interaction? Only time will tell and with every passing week the feeling of being apart grows deeper and the loneliness of worshipping in front on my computer screen grows heavier.

The counterbalance to lift my spirits on this 62nd Sunday will be a little garden therapy. I will scratch the dirt and pull some weeds. I will celebrate the tight buds of the peony bush and the cheerful blossoms of the primula. I will pause to admire the waving columbine that grows unexpectedly beside the garden wall and take in the scent of the lily of the valley. Even the pandemic cannot stop the seasons of nature and the burgeoning gift of nature. Thank God for that.

For a long time I had heard of Netflix and many recommended it to me, but it wasn’t until the pandemic hit that I decided it was something I would sign up for. Now, when I want to watch something, I just scroll through the program list and the options are endless. I have watched tv series that I didn’t see when they were current. I have picked up some new documentaries that are only available on Netflix. And I get to watch some movies, which if you know me, you know is a favourite pastime. Last night I did just that, watched a movie.

The movie was one I had seen when it was in the theatre a few years back and it was good to see it again. Two of my favourite actors, Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant spooled out the tale of Florence Foster Jenkins. Based on the true story of the American socialite who lived from 1868 to 1944. Florence Jenkins loved music and took promotion of music as her calling. Like all movie productions that are based on the truth, there are some questions as to accuracy but the story is engaging and there is enough truth to it to make it believable.

Jenkins was a terrible singer. She just didn’t know it. She loved to sing and would put on elaborate productions. Being wealthy she could afford to make a mark! She made a record, privately funded and produced from her own pocket. She even presented a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The film ends with the notation that the recording of that concert is one of the most popular in Carnegie Hall history! Let me repeat – she was a terrible singer. She just didn’t know it and her friends colluded to keep her singing and entertaining.

The film ends with her saying, “People might say I couldn’t sing but they will never say I didn’t sing.” I love that attitude.

We all know the old maxim, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Well, effort does not always produce talent. But effort does merit recognition. As Florence put it, they might say I can’t but they won’t say I didn’t. It has kept me thinking all day – what are the things I don’t do because in my mind I can’t do them? What are the things I could do, even if I don’t do them well? It is an interesting tension between can’t and don’t. How often have we stifled another by suggesting that they are not good at something? How often have I not engaged in something because I believed I wouldn’t do it well?

Florence Foster Jenkins sang with abandon, no, make that with gusto. Why? Because she loved music and she believed in music. The fact that she wasn’t good at it didn’t stop her. Her attitude has opened up a new page for me in considering what I might or might not do. “People might say I can’t, but they will never say I didn’t.” Hmmm, just what might I get up to this weekend?

Today is Earth Day – the naming of which started in 1970 when, on April 22, the UN formed the Environmental Protection Agency and passed the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. Earth Day is an international event celebrated around the world to pledge support for environmental protection. The theme, on this 51st anniversary, is ‘Restore Our Earth’.

So much of our spiritual awareness comes from creation, from Earth. The Bible begins and ends with images of creation – from the the world being formed out of nothing to the river of life – nature images speak of God. And we are nurtured by nature. As a faithful CBC radio listener I heard on ‘The Doc Project’ this week a program on the therapeutic value of gardening. The speaker said, just working in the soil or touching a tree could shift one’s mental state out of depression or anxiety. Vincent Van Gogh said, “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” And it does. Looking into a starry sky or spotting the moon as it rises can take one from the rooted place on earth to realms of wondering.

Today, in Muskoka, it is cold and windy, occasionally a snow flake will drift through the air. April is fickle. Monday was so hot I had to take off my sweater when working in the garden. Today, I don’t even want to venture outside. But I did take a stroll around my yard to check on the things that are growing. Plants are resilient. Despite freezing temperatures the pansies continue to bob their heads and the daffodils stand stalwartly against the breeze. Seeing that, along with the beauty of the region where I live, it is hard to believe the Earth is in the state of crisis that we are in but scrolling around a bit online gives ample evidence of the seriousness of the climate crisis.

I am reminded on the Earth Day of the poem On Travelling to Beautiful Places by Mary Oliver from her collection, A Thousand Morning (Penguin Books copyright 2012) Enjoy!

On Travelling to Beautiful Places

Every day I’m still looking for God

and I’m still finding him everywhere,

in the dust, in the flowerbeds.

Certainly in the oceans,

in the islands that lay in the distance

continents of ice, countries of sand

each with its own set of creatures

and God, by whatever name.

How perfect to be aboard a ship with

maybe a hundred years still in my posket.

But it’s late, for all of us,

and in truth the only ship there is

is the ship we are all on

burning the world as we go.

Some say, “The numbers never lie.” others say, “Statistics can prove anything.” No matter how you look at the numbers, the increasing rate of infection from the corona virus in Ontario is staggering. Today the report is of 4,812 new cases. Admission to hospitals has climbed to 1,955 and those being treated for covid-realted cases in Intensive care units is at 701 with over 440 on ventilators. These are all-time highs in our province since the pandemic began. The government is scrambling to figure out what to do and they seem to be lurching from one idea to another. People are frustrated and anxiety is through the roof. Small town’s like ours, which have been relatively unscathed, are seeing infections pop up.

This week France marked the heart-breaking record of 100,000 deaths due to Covid. There seems to be no end to the bad news and the increase in illness as variants stalk the globe. I am a small pebble in a small pond – no make that a puddle and I am stymied as to how to support people who are feeling the anxiety and terror that comes with the increasing numbers. As a minister I am trying to support and encourage people through this time. I fully recognize that the counterpoint to the fear is people’s acute loneliness and the longing for community and for familiar touchstones. We are social beings and being with others is what is normal for people. Yes, emails, and phone calls and zooms and even old fashioned letters are all most helpful but it is not the same as being together, sharing a cup of tea, having a hug, holding a hand. And yet, and yet – I find I don’t want anyone to touch me – I am afraid of what might happen if I come to close to someone who might have this mysterious, threatening and constantly changing virus. I stand back from people. I don’t want anyone too close to me. Even when I know there is no danger of infection there is just that underlying fear that has crept into life.

Turning to scripture and prayer and writing has always been a solace to me. But I am finding it hard to find the words of strength to face this pandemic. The closest I can think of is the time of exile. Psalm 137 tells that story in song, “By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept. We hung our harps on the willows as we remembered Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” How shall we sing, indeed? Perhaps what we need to do is recognize that right now we are in exile and agree that singing is replaced with weeping and all that is familiar is lost to us for now. But as God’s people we know that exile ends and as much as exile is part of our faith story so is homecoming. In this season after Easter we remember that crucifixion is also part of our story but resurrection is the final word.

I looked out my kitchen window and saw something yellow on the ground. There is bush behind my house and I couldn’t figure out what might be there. Had to investigate. A crocus. Whaaat?! How did a crocus get there? I did not plant a crocus bulb in the forest floor. But somebody, or something did! I suspect a squirrel thought that bulb looked tasty and was saving it for a winter snack and then forgot about it. Now it blooms valiantly against all odds. It may not belong there but it is doing its work just the same.

Every now and then there will be a news report of an animal being in a place where it doesn’t belong. Not too long ago the morning news show featured a little segment telling of a beaver who showed up at at TTC station. There was no accounting for this critter trying to take a subway and no explanation as to how he got there but … there he was just the same. Sometimes we hear of birds showing up a bird feeders completely out of their range of flight. Who knows what brought them – the wind? The food supply? Something happened and there they were, right where they didn’t belong, but cheerfully raising their song.

When I hear these stories I think of other ways that we overcome adversity when out of our locale or sense of ease. We are, here in Ontario, back into lock-down as the Covid numbers keep going up. Stories are filtering in from around the globe as countries try to figure out how to defeat this virus. As we come to terms with this illness – clearly something that does not belong in our bodies – amidst the stories of death and loneliness and anxiety – we hear stories of people facing the adversity with aplomb and creativity.

There has been a news story circulating the last week or so about La Verne Ford Wimberley. La Verne, an American woman, dresses to the nines every Sunday for church. She puts on a beautiful dress and dons a glorious ribboned and bowed hat ( a different one every Sunday for the past 52 sundays) and sits down in her living room to watch her church service. She is quite a counterpoint to those of us who sit in our pyjamas or sweats and don’t even bother to comb our hair! She has chosen to bloom in the midst of the forest of sorrow.

This week, post-Easter I am trying to think of ways to bring the resurrection to my everyday. How is the story of life overcoming the stories of death? How is the joy of Easter overcoming the sorrow of Good Friday? How is the crocus blooming where it doesn’t belong but blooming just the same?

I would love to hear your stories of where you saw a splash of colour or heard a note of joy that helped you shift your perspective from death to life. Write in the comments below or send me an email. We need some Sunday hat stories!!

There are several notable dates in mid – March. Yes, the Ides of March is one of them but I am also thinking of Pi Day, International Women’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and of course the day we switch to Daylight Savings Time (I am still tired). This year, for the first time, we had the National Observance of one year of the Covid pandemic. Last Thursday we held a brief ceremony on the front steps of the church to mark that day. And then there is the ten years marking the war in Syria.

On March 15, 2011 as part of the Arab Spring protests there was a protest raised in Syria against the regime of President Bashar Al-Assad. What began as a protest escalated into a civil war that has seen cities turned to ruins, the economy hobbled, thousands of men, women and children killed, and 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country is search of peace and safety.

Most of those who fled went first to Lebanon, Egypt, Iran or Turkey. Many have now made their way to places of security in Europe and approximately 75 thousand have come to call Canada home. Those who left Syria for a new life have had to build that life from scratch, often starting at menial jobs or scrambling to have credentials recognized and previous experience put to good use, not to mention learning a language, trying to understand a new culture, sometimes facing discrimination, and always, always homesick for family friends and all they left behind.

Those remaining in Syria continue to face the fears that come with conflict. The war is not over. The World Food Program has estimated that 60% of those in Syria now are at risk of going hungry. Education of the children there is severely threatened. Medical care is constantly hampered with shortages.

Here in Bracebridge it happened that yesterday, while marking the tenth anniversary of the war, we also marked the fourth anniversary of the arrival to our community of the Syrian family we sponsored, the Khaleds. I well remember the night they arrived. A handful of us took a small bus to the airport to greet them. It took a long time for all their paperwork to be reviewed until finally they burst through the doors and down the ramp into our waiting arms. We arrived back in Bracebridge in the middle of the night and it was about 20 below zero. They did not know such cold. That was only one of the many adjustments they had to make as they settled into life in Canada.

We have learned much together over these past four years, about life in Syria and their observations in Canada. It has been a journey of affection and insight for both them and us. While the situation in Syria is devastating, and has caused the break up of families, the destruction of dreams and forced so many to leave their beloved homeland, they have blessed many places in the world with their ambition, their pride, the commitment and their new citizenship. Heartbreak and gratitude go hand in hand.