It is an intriguing time of the journey. Navigating change. Navigating a reignition/recycle of severe health symptomology, and then feeling the drain away. High stress, the gig economy of academia, into release and relax. Exploring the holistic for far to much, especially in the West, we silo each aspect of our whole self (this is physical or psychological or emotional or spiritual) and miss that all pieces are integrated, and impact one another.
Yet as the rain comes down, in a dry and drought ridden prairie, one ponders, if the dirt being washed away, and the probability and possibility of new life it brings.
Takes me into the learning opportunities I have experienced over the last several weeks, from an educational Passover Meal, that engaged with the stories of the Hebrew Bible, and the concept of Amalekites. Those that had to be removed, for Israel in the story to flourish in the Promised Land (yes I am probably overly simplifying), a story that has been used as a weaponization of sacred literature in the current acts of Genocide by the Israeli government labelling the Palestinians as Amalekites. Though Hamas, inserting their own drive from the land call to action as well. Missing the colonial/settler dynamic of a world trying to cope with their own anti-semitic guilt out of the Holocaust that created and continued to perpetuate what is now a horror show, and needs not only a cease fire, but a true solution for truth, reconciliation and peace.
Then intersecting with a blessed graduation weekend this past weekend, where the exploration of the speakers on the parable from the Christian Testament, of the builder who builds on rocks, and bringing the story into context, context, context, of the Sermon on the Mount, and what it means to shape and re-shape our life and journey. To be open to moments of cyncism, to know there may be times we are going through the motions or show, but what happens when we authentically engage?
To the workshop on neurodiversity students before the graduation weekend at another school, that stirred emotions and remembrances of my own lore if you will. I have always exhibited traits, and before my micro-strokes, and ongoing ones, have a brain that works and processes differently. Some of this caused by anti-convulsant medication, some by just biological/neurology. I chose to excel at academics, and my creative pursuits– why? Simple, enter into my geeky fandoms, and be the brain, so when bullied it was for that, and not the wonderful world of 80’s and 90’s kids who decided to use the “r word”, but shifting gears, there was moments and probably not as bad, as I was also a well developed smart alyc 🙂
But still the remembrance opening.
And brings me back around to Passover, which produced the reflection of Caregiver Fallacy
A piece of what this part of the dinner reflections after the sharing of the story of the Amalekites, and then as was shared to me, from the teachings of Conservative Rabbi Moses Brandises of Minz, from the Hasidic notion of Amalekite as metaphor/allegory for things such as gluttony, laziness, discouragement and how this functions in our own lives…which leads to this idea of a simple poetic form:
What discourages?
When one’s mind fog rolls on
and simple to complex words and ideas easily shared
is it not easier to simply be quiet?
Can their be healing?
Not always the medical cure
but rather the communal justice
that shatters barriers
sees costs lower
and roll
equity, equality, diversity, acceptance
release
as physical environment shifts and change
as relationships grow
others end
cessation can cause healthy release
the physiological system still reflects the emtoinal and neurological health
weariness
constantly seen and felt
yet, begins to ease
though constantly dopey or simply tired
can their ever be enough rest?
Can relationships renew?
Grow anew…
As the spring rain, replaces the April Snow– sleet
I had intentions this Holy Week to do a daily post contemplating and exploring, but with the nature of a short academic week, but not a change in teaching/marking/prep schedules with not wanting to put in overtime as I do enjoy time with family…that did not happen.
On this Good Friday morning though, I do want to take a moment, to pause and remember Maundy Thursday (a new translation to read: https://www.bible.com/bible/3633/JHN.13.FNVNT). It is the moment in time when Jesus gathers in the upper room, that tradition teaches was owned by John Mark’s parents’. John Mark being the Mark of the Gospel of Mark, most likely the scribe of St. Peter’s remembrances. Within the stories of the last night, I tend to lean into the story from the Gospel of John (the gospel that gives us the spiritual formation device of the unnamed beloved disciple that the hearer/reader is to see as us. It changes the dynamic of the liturgical practice of church, the idea of interpretation of entering into the text and what it means for us today.
This is my struggle with Passion Sunday, we truncate the story to two events, that doesn’t need to happen with technology, video or audio messages can be shared daily for the community to journey the week through even if not gathering. Most within the Last Supper will highlight two key things:
Jesus’ acknowledgement of Judas’ betrayal- a wonderful sermon on Judas was an upside this past Sunday by Rev. Mannix, who Judas was and even within the scope of a villain what I was reminded of as a story teller, they see themselves as the hero. Here is Judas, someone who had lost so much to follow with Jesus, and the pressures mounted…
Communion/Eucharist instituted. I know Jesus uses the language of body and blood. Allergoric or metaphorical depending on one’s philosophical leaning and story telling style. Some will see these aspects as nothing more than elements or symbolism, some hear and experience literal mystical transfiguration in the moment. I prefer the Via Media approach, that is I do not know what happens in the mystery of the meal, just as Jesus’ friends did not know, but something happens beyond simple bread and juice (I hold to a more universal table and glutten free, and juice creates that) though my metaphoric language for the mystery sacred, is what I first heard when I returned to church as an adult from Rev. Linda Hunter, cup of promise and bread of life. Regardless of the communal prayer words, when I take the elements these words are in my heart.
But those two pieces are not front and centre in the Gospel of John. The Johannine community, was egalatarian and interdependent (sorry patriarchal misogynists, those that became bishops and elders in the letters were across the gender spectrum, remember the beloved disciple from the cross was asked to care for his Mumma, and that is all of us). In most protestant circles there are 2 sacraments (baptism and communion), Anglicans have a 2+5 model, and Roman Catholics hold to 7 sacraments for the Western Church. Some say this is like a bonus sacrament demonstrated and illustrated beautifully in this stand alone gospel story (found not in the other 3).
But I do not see it as a bonus, as I read, and contemplate and have since Dr. Fox’s Johannine lit course in seminary, it has been the sacrament that flows through and actualizes the others (whether 2, 2+5 or 7). Let the words flow, and see if you can notice what the sacrament is?
FOOT-WASHING CEREMONY
4Knowing all of this, during the meal Creator Sets Free (Jesus) got up from the table, took off his outer garments, and wrapped a cloth around himself like a sash. 5He poured water into a vessel and, one by one, he began to wash the feet of his followers and dry them with the cloth.
This was a task reserved for only the lowest servant of the household.
6He came to Stands on the Rock (Peter), who said to him, “Wisdomkeeper, are you going to wash my feet?”
7“You do not understand now what I am doing, but later you will,” he answered.
8“No!” Stands on the Rock (Peter) lifted his voice, “This can never be!”
Creator Sets Free (Jesus) looked deep into his eyes and said, “If you refuse this, then you have no part in who I am.”
9“Wisdomkeeper,” he answered back, “if this is so, then wash my hands and head also!”
10Creator Sets Free (Jesus) replied, “If you have already had a bath, only your feet need washing, and then you will be clean all over. Now, you are all clean. Except for one.”
11He said this because he knew who would betray him.
After he had finished washing all their feet, 12he put his outer garment back on and sat down again at the table.
“Do you see what I have done?” he said to them. 13“You are right to call me Wisdomkeeper and Chief—because I am. 14If I, your Wisdomkeeper and Chief, have washed your feet, then you should wash each other’s feet. 15So follow my footsteps and do for each other what I have done for you.
16“I speak from my heart. The one who serves is not greater than the one who is served. A message bearer is not greater than the one who sent him. 17If you walk in this way of blessing, you will do well, and it will return to you—full circle.
It flows through so seamlessly, and ties into the love commandments that summarized all the ancient teachings, laws and prophets when Creator Sets Free was challenged about what the greatest was, he spoke the love commandments that are not a hierarcy, but an infinite circle of Love of God, self and neighbour for we are all intertwined.
The sacrament that connects all, and builds the interdependnet healthy community, is simply, the gift of Maundy Thursday–
Whether it is my pre-19 year old return to the church life of justice & peace work or simply my political journey, or my post-19 return to church life that saw formation within the Franciscan charism, and a leaning to the calling of diaconal ministry, which is justice and education. One thing has always been being a provocateur for change for the better of the person and community. One tool we have for this is story, those who get it (like Jesus’ parables) get it and act, those that don’t (like Jesus said the purpose of the parables is) will still be lost and confused.
Doctor Who’s 60th annviersary regeneration of the Fourteenth Doctor, with the returning face of Ten, shows us two things (there are probably many, but we’ll keep it focused). The first is the end of an ableist trope in society, and the other, is showing the zero-sum that is the patriarchy system.
What is the ableist trope? In the Children in Need episode before the three episode 60th anniversary season, titled Skaro. The lead Dalek, who has always been shown as disabled, using a wheel chair, that equates to evil (think of villains with the hooked hand, badly scarred, of the fallacy that those with schizophrenia are violent even though they are more likely to be abused). The episode changed the story for Skaro to not be a wheel chair user, and the eruption of the implicit ableist bias of evil being challenged triggered those that fall within the hate category under the guise of why change or sci-fi was never “woke”; all stories challenge societal norms for growth, change and understanding. The X-Men have always done this, before succumbing to the ableist trope with Professor X becoming the villainous Onslaught in the 1990’s, he was a wheel chair user and a hero. In the 60th anniversary episodes of Dr. Who, a Unit lead was a wheel chair user, and bad ass heroic.
The second, being within the first episode, so was 10 not only back as 14, the other piece was the favourite companion, Donna, returning. She who had taken in the power of the Time Lords, and if she remembered would die. In the Star Beast, Donna and the Doctor re-connect to offset an invasion, it is a fun story reminiscient of the dynamic of 10 and Donna, reinvented with 14 and Donna as they try to accomplish the feat without Donna remembering. But she does, yet doesn’t die? What is discovered in the climatic piece, is that Donna, and her daughter had shared the power. The shattering of the zero sum, patriarchal way of society. Challenging the rugged individual, pull yourself up by your own boot straps, all success and power is your own– that which was viewed into Donna taking the power in, and would have destroyed. Yet here the story was flipped, power was shared, and then to save life– was freely given away to allow thriving…
Hmmm….
See the power of story. Yes I encourage you, lean into your stories, shows, movies. Dune Part 1 & 2, think it through what does it say about capitalism? About control and power? Value of person over product? How is value and a monetary system really determined? Yes, I am awaiting the return of Part 1 to a streaming service I subscribe to (looking at you Crave) so I do not have to pay an extra fee to rent. Though there is also something to be said about physical media.
Take time to understand the stories you enjoy. Take time to discuss with others. To go beyond the surface, if we could simply go beyond the surface our world may change for the better.
It is a weekend at Grace Presbyterian here in Calgary, annual (though I haven’t been able to attend since pre-covid) where a speaker comes in and offers a free public lecture on the Friday, there’s a paid workshop with lunch on Saturday, and then they preach at the service on Sunday.
This year’s was a guest speaker from Vancouver School of Theology (VST) where the argyle is cool (if you know you know lol). He brought a “master class” on his topic for clery Friday day time, and then the free public lecture last night (which next year I am hoping to find folks willing to car pool as I would love to take in whomever the speaker is).
Then for a simple $20 today, with lunch included, or on zoom, you could take in his lecture: Biblical Authority: Play & Possibility. The Rev. Dr. Richard Topping, led a just shy of 3 hour talk this morning. Some nuts and bolts differentiations of philosophy of teaching, I do like a simple coffee break at the half way point, allows for a stretch, bio needs, without having to worry about missing key things from the speaker. I also am one that likes the teaching, then allowing for small group discussions, with some ice breakers (though I detest ice breakers) to get to know folks around you or in the room. I get this isn’t everyone’s pedagogy (how we learn) and the straight up lecture with questions worked well, but I need the process time (hence the post).
It was great to see folks I hadn’t seen for awhile, though by the time I was ready to socialize post lunch they had faded away (yeah I’m one of those introverts).
But back to the topic Rev. Dr. Topping brought. It was well laid out, and took us into what it means to understand scripture, to be able to be appropriate in working within the proper genre. The concept of the heresy of the paraphrase, that takes something beautiful, creative and artistic and tries to boil down to evidentiary fact is a wonderful concept for my philosophical mind. Reminding me, that Mark 4, is this chapter of parable that exists within the propaganda writing (which is what the genre of gospel is) to instruct us how to discover through parable, the opposite of what we are taught when learning to preach to use story for clarity, rather these stories exist to create confusion, discourse and dialogue I would press forward with.
But to remember that to engage with the work of reading scripture is to lean into the invitation to imagination.
Let that settle in.
Engage into the invitation to imagination.
As we are to live in this almost and not yet, trusting in promises given and the path of the stories laid out with us. Rev. Dr. Topping shared the medieval idea of palimpsets, where valum was scraped clean, and this idea of the old being scraped away for the new to be written. Think of that imagery, for resources, he also shared of the Image Journal, and the beautiful poetry of Jill Baumgartener.
The mature faith, is one where creativity and faith are not simply connected, but interwoven as a tapestry of community. A true mosaic of spirit, heart, emotion and mind.
For other resources, also shared was Martin Luther King Jr., Serene Jones, Northrope Frye, and Paul Ricouer. Explore their works, ideas, how faith inspires imagination, and engages in a different way, and through the creative, we can discover the Holy anew.
So what makes a playful imaginative interpretation?
Seven things:
Humility, that is having a willingness to reflect.
Love, what the bible is truly about
Patience, are we willing to linger in the stories and the creative?
Imaginity that is born out, through, and within the Holy Spirit
Someone undstands what the Bible is about
Reads scripture, as the word centered, Jesus.
Scripture-not just an artifact, but a sanctified means that God uses in the economy of salvation.
As you prepare to imagine and engage.
Ask yourself, what is the bible?
How you answer this question speaks to how playful you’ll be for as you read the bible you’re communing with the writers and communities within those stories (the saints, remember those pesky creeds? How do you understand the creeds? What do you resonate with? Struggle with? throw away?)
For this all leads into the latin term, Pallotum cordis, the pallete of our heart. That is how we ingest the stories and live them. The magical/mystical understanding of Jesus’ life being one of solidarity with the marginalized.
If these ideas resonate or something more you would like to explore, I encourage you on Feb. 25, 2024 @ 10:30 a.m., to attend service at Grace Presbyterian, and discover anew or renew.
Yesterday morning was a blessing (the afternoon was too, but that was for other connections and friendships). I took the trek across town in the wee hours of a Saturday, with the promise of a free book (Every Job a Parable, which I am sure after I have re-read this copy will once again find its was into the hands of a student or colleague) and seminary coffee (never the best, never the worst, but hey as the wife says, it takes a lot for me not to drink a coffee), as Ambrose University (where I am Alumni, as there seminary was once upon a time, Canadian Theological Seminary), and a new ministry (or is it birthed ministry from Marda Loop Church??) All Things ( ), had my friend Rev. John Van Sloten presenting a workshop to explore how to read the sacred scripture of work.
The fam jam began attending Marda Loop Church as the restrictions lifted and we need a safe place for our super hero son to exist where the risk of contracting that which would kill him, was low, and this was a small church (even though a long trek) where that risk was lowered as much as possible. Long time readers and followers also know I had the blessing to share thoughts on the intersection of theology and disabilities, and theology and trauma with this community (the disabilities sermon was reshaped with my current monthly speaking engagements to be the first in what became an yet unknown to me series around imageo dei, and belonging/purpose). John and I cultivated a friendship on our own quirky connection to faith, and being Dad’s of amazing super hero son’s (my son’s term for what others call his disabiliites, he sees them as his super powers because the rest of us are just boring and the same).
Okay, enough for the side quests as my students note them in class, and into the All Things on Saturday morning. Hearing of different engagements of the way to read the two sacred texts, out of John’s tradition speaking of the scriptures (Hebrew Bible and Christian Testament) and that of creation, this creation text (with a shaped Land Acknowledgement), was on the text of work. He shared of how this was a thread through his 3 books: God Speaks Science, Every Job a Parable, and the Day Metallica Came to Church. The workshop was a mix of sharing thoughts/theology, and engaging in what real time beginning to wrestle with this looks like (I also ponder if John has ever spoken with spaces like Mount St. Francis or FCJ about weekend retreats?).
There was pre-homework where you were to take a look at your current vocation, I shift in my own heart from that which we do for pay for that which we call vocation/purpose. Many may not, but there are those times you do the work to pay the bills and yes you can still read it as a sacred text but I am about individuals and communities thriving on what they are meant to do not what our oppressive capitalistic system forces one to do. But again another side quest, back to the topic.
I did not share in class, something weird was going on with my neurology yesterday morning so I was struggling to share, but I was tracking, and the night before I wrote and reflected on my teaching, the moment when I knew I was in the flow.
Those moments in time, when students (as many get nervous) have to present, formally or informally in class, or are in the journey of learning and don’t trust themselves. You are able to get them to connect with you, and breathe, deeply and release, and see that there is a gremlin at play (I direct you to my last sermon for what gremlins are), but in the moment when they release the gremlin and step into knowing they can do this and speak deeply and richly with the knowledge they have earned. Or, in some conversations when what they are doing is affirmed, or in some conversations I have had, even though the one path makes the most fiscal sense, their heart passion has been opened up and they choose the path that is what they are meant to do. That is the moments in the flow, I see these whether it is at the vocational college, the polytechnique or the bible college and they are a blessing that keeps me going in the quagmire that is teaching in post secondary in Alberta without investment in full time roles with fair whole compensation.
Someone would share this homework, and we would be able to see it intersect with the other sacred text, and where connections are made for further reflection, learning and unpacking. What John called a co-illumination process either text illuminating the other one. It is only our willingness in being able to enter into the internal dialogue of discovery, and then taking that openness to the internal dialogue, in my way of knowing and learning, to the interdependent dialogue with others.
The most intriguing exploration though was the exploration of the work of studenting. One can hope that this may be a workshop that could be shaped for the theological schools in the city and province and country possibly, during orientation week to aid students in understanding this moment in their lives and the importance of presence.
Check out his articles and sermons, but also, as any writer can tell you, buy his books, very few writers in Canada make it to Atwood or Mowat or Berton levels of sales (and Rowling or King are just those aspirational stories that keep us on the treadmill of writing because as writers we have to write):
Oki, Âba wathtech, Danit’ada, Tansi, Hello and welcome to worship at Centennial. I would like to acknowledge we gather as first peoples and settlers on the traditional territories of the Treaty 7 peoples that include the Stoney Nakoda First Nations including Chiniki, Bearspaw and Good Stoney First Nations, the Blackfoot Confederacy that includes the Siksika, the Piikani and Kainai First Nations, and Tsuut’ina First Nations, and the Metis Nation Region 3. With the living love of Creator, we commit to the hard calling of truth and reconciliation together here on Turtle Island.
We are in the season of Epiphany, a time to embrace the mystery of faith, and listen deeply to the still quiet voice calling us. As well, as the voice of affirmation of unity, as the Christian Week for Prayer for Unity as well. Please join me in our call to worship.
Call to Worship
God our rock and our salvation.
We will not be shaken!
Trust in God at all times, O people.
We will pour out our hearts to God, our refuge.
Today, let us turn to God and accept the good news.
We will listen for Christ’s call and follow him.
Time of Praise:
1) SN 215 Have Thine Own Way Lord
2) BP 634 Will you Come and Follow Me
Prayers:
Lord Jesus Christ,
you have called us together as your people,
and invited us to follow you.
Your church has grown from scattered homes in ancient times –
to a worldwide community,
embracing men and women, young and old, from many nations and cultures.
We marvel at the miracle of your church,
and praise you for our place among your people.
Your love keeps drawing us to you and to each other,
and so we offer you our wonder and praise
with millions of those who also gather in your name this day,
our Saviour and our Lord.
God of mercy and mystery,
we confess your mercy can disturb us.
We sit in judgment on what we hear,
and cannot imagine offering forgiveness for dreadful actions.
We prefer to think that your judgment matches ours.
Forgive us for presuming we see as you see,
and understand all that you understand.
Have mercy upon us, O God,
when we give up on the power of mercy.
Lord’s Prayer
(Version 4 from the New Zealand Prayer Book)
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be, Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us. In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and test, strengthen us. From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power that is love, now and for ever. Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
God of new life, your Word can change lives with mercy and purpose.
Send your Holy Spirit to help us hear your Word
with its potential to change our lives
as we follow Jesus Christ, your Living Word. Amen.
Announcements – Elders
Church Family Celebrations- Elders
Children’s Time:
Today’s story in Mark is about two brothers who were asked to come follow Jesus, and they dropped their nets and went. This story is about you. What are things that you do that are kind to others? That show love? See those simple things, show Jesus.
The congregation will sing a prayer for you, as you grow in this community, and like each of us, will be asked at different times to show and live Jesus.
Here is what I am saying to you who are members of the sacred family: There is not much time left before these troubled times come. So those who are married should now prepare themselves to live as if they were not. It is not the time to wallow in tears and self-pity, or for glad hearts and festivals, and it is not the time to gather many possessions. Those who depend on the world as it is must be ready to let go of it, for the world as we know it will soon pass away.
Mark 1:14-20 (First Nation’s Version)
Then later, after Gift of Goodwill (John) was arrested, Creator Sets Free (Jesus) traveled to the territory of Circle of Nations (Galilee) to tell the good story.
“The time has now come!” he said to the people. “Creator’s good road is right in front of you. It is time to return to the right ways of thinking and doing! Put your trust in this good story I am bringing to you.”
As he walked along the shore of the Lake of Circle of Nations (Sea of Galilee), he saw two men, One Who Hears (Simon) and Stands with Courage (Andrew), throwing their nets into the lake, for they were fishermen.
“Come! Walk the road with me,” he called out to them, an I will teach you how to net two-leggeds instead of fish!”
Right then and there they dropped their nets and began to walk the road with him.
He walked a little farther down the shore and saw two more men, the brothers He Takes Over (James) and He Shows Goodwill (John), the two sons of the Gift of Creator (Zebedee). They were sitting in their canoe and mending their nets. Right away he called out for them to walk the road with him. They dropped their nets, left their father behind with the hired help, and also became followers of Create Sets Free (Jesus).
This is the word of the Lord,
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
What nets have to be let go?
What a beautiful image, that appears so simple in its rendering within this story. A call, and a response, much like a liturgical prayer ala our Call to Worship. But do we think James and John responded so quickly and simply? The Gospel of Mark is written for a Roman audience—those that liked action and fast pace, one with shorter attention spans, and is theorized to be the first gospel of Canon writing that Luke and Matthew drew upon with other sources, hence why their renditions are a tad longer.
But here we are on the sea of Galilee, from all historic reports a rather robust fishing hole, the type of place that if fishing was your business, is definitely where you would want to let your nets down. So, a rather successful trade, and what else do we hear in the story that they needed to consider? Their Dad. See those simple lines where there is more at play for finances, for family business, for family.
Are we to hear in this then that Jesus was anti-family?
I do not think so. I see a beautiful metaphor as a life coach and spiritual director in the letting down of the nets, the letting go. The stepping out of that which holds us back, and as we can see how the stories progress there are many times that our minds and heart’s role when something new, or even engaging in the usual. See, we have internal soundtracks within ourselves, that have been shaped by our life experiences, by those around us, by our own responses to events. Those are what create our own nets, or in the wording of life coaching, the inner saboteur, or as I prefer to work with them in many workshops and one-to-one work with staff and students, gremlins.
And yes you may think of the cuddly mogwai that if it gets wet or is fed after darks turns into a terror from the movie of the same name, or even the circa World War II posters featuring the goblin like creatures that create havoc in mechanical devices that cannot be figured out, again for Whovians, the Church of Ruby Road show this past Christmas had a great visual even if they called them goblins.
For I think James and John had some gremlins in their hearts and mind even though the story moved rapidly, how do I know they wrestled with them? Because we all do. Even if we have “done” the work to silence or remove them, in our moments of anxiousness or busyness or feeling overwhelmed or… presented with something new that excites us but raises the what ifs in our minds. See gremlins aren’t just destructive creatures in our lives, they do provide a function to protect us, and to be quite honest they have gotten us to this point in our lives whether we wanted them to or not.
These were the interior voices James and John were wrestling with.
For these are what we wrestle with, and I do think in that moment even if they did not know they walked through a process, one I would like to share with you, for your own New Year’s gremlin freeing, or as the story says, to let go of the nets. It is a workshop I was also blessed a few years back to share with the Calgary and Macleod’s Presbytery’s Cyclical, the ministry that aids in equipping and growing/renewing ministries. For leaders and initiators, it was a way to remove barriers within to live out that which they were being called into.
So, if you notice a gremlin in your own life, or someone else’s what can be done?
It’s not arduous, it is recognized by familiar catch phrases like uhm, ah, maybe later, or it can be seen in spending far too much time seeking out “all the information” which keeps us stuck, or too expensive or don’t have the time or even simply, not thinking it’s possible due to x, y or z highly plausible and logical reasons. Did you catch some of that with the Brothers Zebedee, also known as the brothers of Thunder? Successful fishing business set to inherit, their workers, their boats, their own families possibly, their Dad and Mum (the Mum we meet later in the journey). If they knew it was from God, do you think it could also be a why me? I can’t? There’s someone better…all things I personally have felt in my own journey a few years back, where things were aligning in another role in a Presbyterian church to begin the journey of ordered ministry, but the gremlin arose with the what ifs, there’s no time, you can’t afford it… And the effect was disengaging from the process. Which is the realization of the gremlin as I worked through this passage from where I stand today, in a pulpit, in ministry, my own gremlin looks like a blob with hands I call Bob, and I have exorcised them several times and the emotions and voices get less, but like I mentioned earlier in those less than ideal circumstances when there’s anxiousness either from fear, not knowing, or even joy of succeeding, the voice is there. The voice, in communities and organizations we know as the eternal “we’ve always done it that way”, that’s the voice of a gremlin, a net not yet released. When I was with the cyclical missionaries’/ministers, I took them from the individual to the collective to explore the community gremlins holding them back, it is a useful time, with this always have been gremlin voice I just challenge to go deeper to understand the why, so we don’t wind up like the old family parable of the ham that always had two inches cut off each end, and went through the generations cooking like that until Great Grandma admitted it was how much smaller her roaster was.
But I digress, and back to the brothers and what is happening internally and can be a dialogue with someone to work out the gremlin or as the story puts it to let the net go. But I like ritual, I mean, it’s one of the things that aids us in connecting with God, and one another.
If you know there’s a gremlin there, take time to understand them. Centre yourself in breathing in a place you feel safe, your sanctuary if you will. Have pencils and paper close, maybe crayons too. Scribble out all the emotions and phrases the gremlin uses on you, the questions, things that hold you back or on the track you’re on even though there may be a call to do something else. For aid with the emotions, you may want to do an internet search for the image of an emotions wheel.
Once part one is done, leave the centre of your page open, then give form to these words, remember doesn’t have to be artistic as I pointed out Bob is like a blob with stick person hands. Give it shape something you can see and is tangible. Then the final step is a name.
Now do I think this was done in the story today. No, but something was done, as Jesus called, they paused, they were holding their fishing nets, a symbol of who they are and what anchors them in the now. As was shown, many different emotions phrases and words running through.
Much like this symbolism shown in the ancient and now text, so is the gremlin work.
That gremlin is the net you are holding.
Now looking at it, you have a choice, like James and John did.
You may choose to hold onto the gremlin or let go.
Either choice is okay, and good for who you are today. See, we tend to beat ourselves up for our historic decisions looking back on who we are now. It’s an impossibility, you were not who you are now, then, even the then when you came through the sanctuary doors and joined neighbours in worship. We are constantly changing and growing, and as such, so is our understanding, our experience, and our wisdom, so know, the choices you make now are the best you can make with who you are now. Just like the choices you made an hour ago, a day ago, a week, a month, a year or five years ago. Self-forgiveness is that blessed release of understanding and stepping into the now to continue the journey on the new path.
That is the dialogue with the net the brothers were having. That is the dialogue with the gremlin you have now named, you will have. It is your time to thank the gremlin for being there, up to this point in your journey. Then you have a choice. Continue to move forward in a new way with the gremlin until you are ready to release, or to say goodbye to the gremlin, knowing they may return but now they are known they are not as powerful over you, and you can send them out once more. I like destruction rituals for the sending away, so burning or shredding the paper.
And regardless of the decision you make if you choose to enter into the internal dialogue, know that you are making the best decision for you in the now.
Just as James and John were standing there, looking at who they were in the now. With an unknown labourer, the teacher calling out to them to come and join him on, well even now when we hear that still small voice calling, do we truly know what is out there.
Don’t let the gremlin hold you back, like I have in different times.
As you stand there in the story, hear the words of Jesus, with the net in your hands.
“Come! Walk the road with me,” Creator Sets Free (Jesus) calls out to you.
And now, are you going to hold the net or release it into 2024?
Offering
Dedication of the Offering
BP 663 God of Love, Hear our Prayer
(Tune: Edelweiss)
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession
God of fishers and farmers and factory workers,
God of those who work in health care, hospitality and at home,
God of our offices and businesses, our stores and our streets,
our schools and rec centres, of emergency services and entertainers,
we thank you for the many ways we can serve your purposes.
And we thank you for all the ways others offer us goodness
to sustain our lives and support our community.
Remind us to offer our thanks to them, not only to you.
God of purpose and promise,
Jesus called his first followers to change their livelihoods
and so they did.
Today we pray for those whose work has changed without their choice:
those who have lost their jobs,
those whose businesses are in jeopardy,
and those who face increased demands at work with less support.
Give them courage and perseverance as the future unfolds.
God, in your hope,
God of all churches who bear your Son’s name,
whatever tradition or perspective that shapes us,
we thank you for the fellowship we share
and the gifts of the Spirit we receive.
We pray that the differences between us will not blunt our witness
to Jesus and the love he proclaims.
Teach us to value diversity in discipleship
and honour what unites us more than what divides us,
so that the world may see Jesus reflected in all our lives.
God, in your hope,
God of our cities and towns, our villages and reserves,
God of all cultures and clans that shape our identities,
you created us for community.
We thank you for the enjoyment and support
that we find by coming together.
We pray for all those who suffer
because others judge something key to their identities,
language or religion, orientation or status.
Help us learn from each other through our differences,
and recognize the face of Christ in those who challenge our assumptions.
God, in your hope,
God of all times and situations,
We bear on our hearts concerns for many around us
whose challenges seem overwhelming.
Hear us in this time of silence as we name them before you:
Silence for a count of 30.
Send your Spirit of healing and hope to embrace those who need you.
We dare to ask all this because we trust in the name of Jesus, your Son,
“I’m okay because you took the time to fix us. We’re Timelords, we’re doing rehab out of order”
-The Doctor (15) to The Doctor (14) in the Giggle post bigeneration
How do we become complete? How do we find contentment, not simply complaceny. Do we often conflate a job (to pay the bills) or a career (that which gives us notice) with our calling/vocation (that which is our purpose we are created to do?). Theologian, and former Bishop of Newark, John Shelby Spong would take these ideas so eloquently written of by the Dalai Lama XIV (in The Art of Happiness at Work) to three phases of life looking to the first third or so being preparation for true vocation, then living the vocation, and then moving into the senior years, the reinvention of purpose (to paraphrase). It is the third movement we sometimes forget, and the second subsumed within survival (that during this era of greedflation can be easily seen).
Contemplating doing things out of order, and how we view purpose can definately come out of order. As we rewrite our story, to enter into complacent, yet not thrive for what we are designed for.
It is reflective at this time, for anyone who has ever gone through a disability season, short term you can return to your work you were doing.
But do we allow for a time to grieve the time lost?
What happens in the long-term disability claim which is up to 2 years after the 3 months of short term. It can have two endings, back to where you were, or something new.
Going back though the employer does not have to guarantee you your former role, so you enter into a new one in the same organization.
But do we allow time to grieve loss of the old role, and entry into the new?
Then there may be no ability to return to work, and where you were existing already between 55-60% of your monthly income, moving onto government disability entitlements which change your life, yet…
Do we allow space for grief of the loss?
Do we allow an honouring of purpose not tied to income?
The other journey, is in the midst of the ending of long-term disability, and not being able to return to that which you had known. A purpose that had shaped your identity even if you did not fully realize how much vocation does in our world. But the economic realities of life take precedent over the grieving process. As the LTD monies conclude, and not EI exists, how do you cover the costs of living? Finding new work? Leaping into the fray once more.
In some stories, leaping into the new vocation, then scant weeks of starting, a new shock–a global pandemic and pivot back to work from home.
Yet in the process of living into the new normal, back on the hamster wheel. Back into ensuring one can live no one realizes that it does happen backwards as 15 opened us up with, maybe not rehab but grieving for the moments in time out of order, for slipping in, no matter how the new role vocationally fits.
It does leave the journey in, how easily rewritten, was it true? Possibly and definately.
But…
What a world where there could be a few extra months,
Good morning and welcome to worship at Centennial Presbyterian Church, I am Dr. Ty Ragan, a local instructor at various post secondaries, but also having a long tie to this congregation as a VBS kid. Today we are exploring the idea of disabilities and the Image of God, as we engage with our neighbour—those with both invisible disabilities such as myself, or visible disabilities, or a fluidity within the spectrum.
Welcome to our regular church family members, and those who we are meeting for the first time on this blessed birthday cake Sunday, please join me in the call to worship.
Call to Worship
(Adapted from Disability Awareness Sunday, UMC)
Leader: God created all living things. God created humans in God’s image, and God said that God’s creation was good!
All: So we, too, believe that people of all ages, shapes, and abilities are created in the image of God.
Leader: God called leaders like Jacob who limped from a hip injury and Moses who had a speech Disability to lead God’s people!
All: So we, too, welcome pastors and leaders with disabilities alongside pastors and leaders without disabilities.
Leader: The Psalms celebrate that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made, and that God has loved us since before our birth!
All: So we, too, celebrate each child, with and without disabilities, as a unique and
wonderfully made gift from God.
Leader: Jesus welcomed children and said that His followers were to come to God like children!
All: So we, too, are to be open and childlike in our praise of God and love of neighbor.
Leader: Jesus reached out to people with mental and physical disabilities and helped them be welcomed members of their communities!
All: So we, too, welcome all people into our congregations, worship, and fellowship.
Leader:Paul taught that the Church needs people of all gifts and abilities in order to be the whole
Body of Christ!
All: So we, too, look for the gifts that each of us brings to the church and our
communities, and we help each person find ways to serve God.
We are all human, called, not to be perfect, but only to do our best as loving
followers of Jesus who help build God’s reign on earth and bring hope and justice for all.
AMEN
Time of Praise:
SB 2 Majesty
2) SB 35 Alpha and Omega
Prayers:
We are a beautiful mosaic. Shaped and crafted in loved, called blessedly good, yet have spent so much time missing the beauty in the diversity and how beautiful that image of you is, loving God. We as your children have come through an atrocious time of challenge in pandemic, where we defined who was okay to die, by whether or not they were participatory in our economy, whether or not they had pre-existing conditions, or disabilities, we circled back on a long history of just let them be isolated so we can live life or what we learned from ranching– eugenics. Not all of us, some pushed back, many remained silent.
That we live in a province, where medical assistance in dying is not chosen first due to chronic unhealing conditions or inability to live with the condition but rather due to loneliness and poverty, for we see our neighbours that do not fit “normal” as a burden, something to be hidden or stigmatized whether through being overtly ableist, or just by being raised in a system that is we do not realize our language and behaviours implicitly shaped us such.
Yet your children suffered.
As a community, we welcome the beautiful mosaic, we seek our hearts, and pray for the radical courage to push into belonging for we know love, and we want to share love, we want to celebrate.
The beauty that is you, the beauty of those who wheel, those who see with their hearts, heart with their eyes, input information atypically, experience our creation with mental illness, or hyper focus, or need aid to walk or do not speak typically but use the blessing you have given us in creating PODDs, PICS, Text to Speech, Speech to Text, sign language, closed captioning, allowing us to stream so when bodies ache to much, or weather keeps us house bound we are able to still connect and be part of.
For is the word’s Jesus taught us a magic formula, or simply letting us know, that we need to see with a heart that understands being called blessed and trusted with creation and one another means. Let us remind ourselves with those words together…
Lord’s Prayer
Assurance of Pardon
For we know that we are loved, we know that we can see the amazing, the mystery, the joy and celebrate together. We live together, we thrive together, and we figure out together.
We are human. Some days definitely more than others, but in that we know we can grow, and transform, as Brother Jesus’ life and teachings showed us. Just as he showed the path to radical belonging we strive for, even when we may be the obstacle unbeknownst to ourselves.
Alleluia.
Announcements – Elders
Church Family Celebrations- Elders
Children’s Time: How do we talk?
-Share on Helen Keller (Ordinary People Change the World by Brad Meltzer)
-Ask kids how they talk to each other
-Share some other ways (PODD, PIC, ASL, etc)
Prayer with kids together (please repeat each line):
Dear God
Thank you for being able to talk to all our friends.
All the wonders of art, tech, and us
Amen.
Hymn
SB 215 Have Thine Own Way Lord
BP 399 Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness
Scripture
Genesis 1:26-28; Matthew 22:34-40′ 1 Corinthians 12:12-26
Sermon
A few years ago, while doing some writing for Presbyterian Connections I ended up in conversation with a writer at the national office on a resource on welcome. It was a winding conversation as we discovered an intersection in our life of ministries of living and serving in the disability’s communities. The joy, and the challenge of the hard conversations around buildings and accessibility, but also the bigger challenge of bathrooms and change benches…and well I digress, but if anyone is planning a building reno, let’s have coffee and I can chat with you about the blessings of gender-neutral bathrooms for ourselves and neighbours with disabilities, and the awesomeness of built in change benches for adults. For its not just the aging baby boom, and us gen x’ers is why we need to ponder this as church.
We are in a time and space in Alberta, where 1 in 6 children will be born with or acquire an exceptionality, or what is known as a disability within their childhood. It is a journey that can be jarring, as we exist in a world, that expects families to be in perpetual grieving for someone that does not “fit” what we describe as normal, yet it is an adventure in missing the point.
This is where we are going today, as we explore this concept of a faith story of belonging that which can interrupt grieving, we are going to explore what we were told in an ancient Hebrew Poem of Creation:
26 Then God said, “Let us make humans[c] in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the wild animals of the earth[d] and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
27 So God created humans[e] in his image, in the image of God he created them;[f] male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them
– Genesis 1:26-28 (NRSVUE)
This concept of being created in the Image of God, is foundational, yet we tend to neglect it to often we can look at someone and other them or wonder if they are complete. Within the world of disabilities and complex medical diagnosis we can tend to make the identity of the person all about their diagnosis, labels and conditions. Conversations can become overtly medically complex, and always focused on the therapeutic even within practices that use person first language. As a result, families, and individuals can constantly feel bombarded that they are deficient, not enough.
As parents, feeling this, as we seek supports, and the reports we read do not sound like the child we love, and know, but it has to be worded that way in a deficit world so that they are seen as deserving of the support. Not so much their personality and love shining through, but constant reminders of what the world deems as “person”, and yes for some it can create a perpetual stage of grieving for there are constantly in the cycle that a beloved person is…
Incomplete, or like an old school Christian Trope, the person with disabilities is here so we can learn to be humble and serve, even being able to point to a variety of proof text healing miracles within the gospels where Jesus heals away the medical complexity…
Yet in those moments we miss the subtle message that Jesus is challenging our world with. See, historically, back then, the only way the world could be accessible- that is one would be able to gain access to buildings to be included, that is access the space open for them would be by a healing, a removing of what was falsely seen as an impediment. Jesus in these moments would give a nod to the lunacy of religious folly by performing these miracles in contradiction to things like Sabbath Law, or when friends decided that their friend needed to be included, literally watching as a roof came off a house to lower him down.
Yet, we still didn’t get it. Religion leaned into these stories to perpetuate eugenics and ableism, missing the point of the Genesis poem, created in God’s image. Let us ponder for a minute.
-I encourage you at this time to turn your phones on, reverse the camera so you can see you, if you have a neighbour nearby without a phone, or just want to share, please do, as we honour and see the beautiful mosaic of the image of God in our community, take that selfie to remind you and others of the beauty of God in the here.
As I read this poem by Richard Rohr, OFM, a Franciscan mystic from his book The Universal Christ, ponder the image of God before and around you:
Love after Love
The time will come ,
When, with elation
You will greet yourself arriving,
At your own door, in your own mirror
And each will smile at the other’s welcome.
And say, sit here, eat
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
To itself, to the stranger who has loved you.
All your life, whom you ignored
For another, who knows you by heart
Take down the love letters from your bookshelf,
The photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
Love… for it is within the love that the next phase happens. For we connect with the image of God in the Great Commandments from Jesus:
Matthew 22:34-40 (NRSVUE)
34 When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, 35 and one of them, an expert in the law, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
…of loving God with our everything and our neighbour as yourself, a triangle connecting the beautiful mosaic that is the image of the Holy in Creation.
A triangle when inverted, brings us through to what practical theologian, John Swinton, wrote in his 2016 book, Becoming Friends of Time:
The question of who they were…the uncertainty, tension, and grief. For people of faith, such uncertainty could be excruciatingly painful (Swinton, 2016, p.11)
But it is a false uncertainty, for we are able to know the image before us, is complete. Not having to follow the idea of lack or incomplete to simply be able to access or include, Swinton continues around inclusion:
The problem with the inclusion agenda, is there is no innate moral mechanism within the contemporary political discourse that might obligate or even encourage people to love those who society considers different (p.93).
This was the beginning of bringing together my thoughts on belonging from Swinton and other’s works to design my belonging pyramid. For Swinton is sharing about the risk of belonging, we can easily travel through accessibility (for what is that but building code, though we could have a long discourse on appropriate washrooms that function for all in their toileting needs); inclusion simply means once one is inside, there is a chair or space for them and their mobility device.
Yet neither speaks to this love those who are different, or dare I risk, love those who are part of the mosaic of the image of God, as we look at the selfies taken just moments ago.
For it is that love, that Jesus commanded, and lived into, out of and thru that this all balances on. For true belonging is risk of grieving. For it is knowing the other as neighbour, as friend, and also knowing that one day, they may not be there, the risk of loss. Whether your friend, or those you may lose by standing with your friend in their fullness. Yet in true belonging, interrupts the grieving society, and yeah, some religious, place upon us if we do not fit a cookie cutter mold of image of God.
But Paul, shines a light into the lived teachings of Jesus here, as he writes to the network of folks in ancient Corinth, choosing the analogy of the created image to understand:
1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (NRSVUE):
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 16 And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many members yet one body. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” 22 On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect, 24 whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, 25 that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
That from this charistmatic theologian, Amos Yong, in his 2011 book, The Bible, Disability and the Church: A New Vision of the people of God would very eloquently point out:
Each person with a disability, no matter how serious, severe, or even profound contributes something essential to and for the body, through the presence and activity of the Spirit; people with disabilities are therefore ministers empowered by the Spirit of God, each in their own specific way, rather than merely recipients of the ministries of non-disabled people (Yong, 2011, p. 95).
You heard that right?
Within the body of Christ? Within the mosaic of the created image of God, each is empowered to be ministers.
In other words,
Complete and whole.
Belong.
And that risk,
The risk of the person’s empty space,
The risk of seeing beyond the status quo
The risk of interrupting grieving into the blessed unknown
To seeing what will grow
Where love is planted.
Interrupts grieving.
And shatters an age old trope that harms the image of God
So that all can truly live into their created purpose.
Offering
Dedication of the Offering
BP 663 God, Whose Giving Knows No Ending (Tune: Glirous Things of Thee are Spoken)
Prayers of Thanksgiving and Intercession (adapted from Presbyterians for Disability Concerns Litany)
We pray, for our leaders, our King, Charles, Mary, our Governor General, Justin our Prime Minister, Danielle, our Premier, Jyoti our mayor, and all those called to serve in public leadership of government. Called into ministry in our medical, disability serving communities, and our own community churches for your divine love and wisdom to guide in shaping policies, laws, entitlements, medical supports that removes burden of survival, that no one will choose death due to poverty, loneliness, or inability to belong, that we will open up a life of thriving, purpose and belonging, for we know God.
The earth is yours, the world and all who dwell on the planet. You have given us the privilege of caring for the earth and each other from the smallest to the greatest of all creatures. You command us to love neighbor and self, teaching us in story and parable how to do so. By example you sent your only son, Jesus, as a little child when we wanted a conqueror, one who would rout the enemy, glorify the chosen, defeating forever, all but the worthy. Jesus grew in stature and wisdom, teaching, healing, encountering people where they were, no matter their race, gender or ability.
Have we not heard? Have we not known? We are the ones to help the wounded stranger left for dead beside the road, to stretch out the hands of the leper and invite the beggar without sight to our homes.
We are compelled to love the neighbor who cannot love in return and to show by our actions that love means getting our hands dirty, working, worshiping and going to Sunday school with neighbors unable to read, unable to comprehend, unable to express themselves except by sounds we call disruptive.
We are the reticent, the fearful, and the patronizing, believing that if we use only our dollars to build ramps and widen doors, we may be missing the need to intentionally cultivate relationships with people in wheelchairs, scooters, or partnered with service animals.
We want to do the right thing: to go shopping with the person who is autistic, to incorporate the person with dementia or Alzheimer’s into our lives, our communities, our churches, and to embrace veterans needing to talk of war, of lost loved ones in combat, of the PTSD that plagues them, and the flashbacks that come when least expected. Leader: People with disabilities are our mothers, our fathers, our children, our teachers, our pastors.
We advocate for family members, cry out for justice and inclusion when our loved ones are shunned, bullied, set aside, impeded by the behaviors and attitudes of neighbors with good intentions.
God calls us to do the same for ALL people, to be the one who lowers the paralyzed man through the roof or describes scenes in a movie to the person without eyesight.
I, as one person, with or without a disability, can make a difference. I can learn to embrace disability in myself, to turn my attitudes into acts of inclusion praising God for technologies that enhance or bestow new ability. I can spread the good news about hearing devices, phones that talk, eReaders that speak curriculum, church bulletins, bibles, newspapers and restaurant menus.
I will adapt to a new norm of inclusiveness of all God’s people. I will welcome the stranger as neighbor and not cast out those who manage life differently.
For even though you may not know, I, too, have been marginalized, laughed at, judged for difference of opinion, the constant shaking of my hands or the numerous times I have to ask someone to repeat themselves.
Let us reach out to neighbors across the street and around the globe, as the family of God’s own making, the whole body of Christ, including one another because of, rather than in spite of, our diverse adaptations to life’s challenges. Let us sing a new song of belonging where every voice is valued, every note a gift and every gift a hymn and every hymn an exclamation of praise to the triune God, creator, redeemer and sustainer who declares, “I am with you even to the close of the age.”
I have started to reflect and mull about another concept of ideas. Those who have been part of my teaching in spiritual centres, retreats or outreaches know I do like to explore things differently, and to innovate. I attempt to show the physiological-psychological-emotioanl-spiritual connections within our lives. As the Western World slowly decolonizes (and face the hatred filled backlash of violence through online and in person reality). What could this look like?
This is preliminary mullings is to touch upon some life coaching practices as spiritual, what is seen in the work from Knox below, gremlins (the individual); presenting during that season to a new ministry plant we worked through indidivual gremlins to communal-organizaitonal-institutional gremlins. As well, touching on the holisitc work of a self-care coaching wheel to aid folks in seeing how different aspects of our lives are inter-connected.
But beyond these two types, which aid in personal growth and connection. For with each practice comes connection to another to explore the challenges opened up.
But what of topics?
Some that come to mind in the earlier pieces of mulling is substance misuse disorder/problem behaviours (what we still note in a stigmatizing way as addictions, and the moral lens that brings with it). Possibiliites around lifespan development (a new experience of fall, or stepping into challenging what is known to make our own). Trauma– how do you understand Bathsheba? There is thankfully a change happening in seeing what this story is, you say it still is adultery?
What if I told you about a young girl, who had a pastor groom them into a sexual relationship to keep their eternal salvation? Then to ensure that they were not revealed, they placed a call to child protective services flexing alleged abuse in the household so the parents of the youth, lost their child to a system (isolation); and that the parents lost their jobs due to the allegations and soon their own housing entering into the houseless institution. Would you say this girl was an adulteror? Or a victim experiencing traumas? Then why do we use the patriarchal reading of Bathsheba to victim shame Bathsheba and make euphenemistic apologetics for David?
Why does trauma matter? What does it look like? Manifest like? How can it be disrupted? Healed? It feeds into other presentations I have made with colleagues (What’s Shakin’ exploring my journey with PNES comes to mind, but also the importance of belonging and connection). The role grief can play, and what it looks like to grieve? What brings on grieving? And yes, I still love the powerful analogy Lars and the Real Girl brings to us for a discussion on this.
Perhaps touching on the Poly-Vagal Theory, that shows what creating safety can do for healing. Touching on the beautiful mosaic of the created image of God (Imageo Dei) not in what wondeful opportunities in an ableistic understanding for service, but going even steps beyond what Nouwen shared, that disabilites, neuor-divergence are all part of the beautiful imageo dei, and if we learn from our Jewish neighbours, what it means for full belonging and participation in all areas of life.
What does it matter for beloning?
For it is about knowing the full person, and as Francis of Assisi implored, seeking to understand our neighbour, so we can love them as ourselves.
Oh, and a desperate need to move beyond sympathy and charity, to belonging and empathy…
For those unfamiliar with the term, you are not a Trekkie either (which can I show you some stuff?) or you are not a fan of the fifth movie adventure of the original series crew, The Final Frontier. It is the journey for the Source, God if you will. Some balk because of the idea, humanity advanced beyond the concepts of religion (or is simply we had advanced beyond the bigotry and divisions that religion used as an opiate for the masses, as a means of power and control?). For those who do not think spirituality (those intrinsic pieces of us that get renewed through certain practices that speaks to the beginning of the answer to the why question of life), look no further, than the show enjoying a renaissance thank to streaming, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, which interweaves rebirth, renewal, de-colonization, reconciliation, science, and religion together. Illustrating the types of questions each is designed for.
Why does this matter? What percolated these thoughts once more, about how stories, like Star Trek, and science, and faith can co-exist together? It began to take shape on the Spock Days adventure, as my friend, Bruce, began to speak to joining the Roman Catholic Church in Costa Rica, and began pondering the wandering journey that brings us to these moments of pilgrimage.
Bruce is a musician, a storyteller, a community builder, and an educator. For those regular followers, you may remember the various Friday night space & science conferences out of Costa Rica I would share that he was a part of, or you have read or seen one of his books, or been a part of one of his community building through music projects in Calgary through the Drop In Centre, or the name is memorable from the interview here, and in the Calgary Herald, of his work in Poland with Ukrainian refugees.
I pondered his openness in sharing the journey of faith, with who he was, and will let him share…
What was your background of Christianity?
I grew up in the United Church of Canada. Parkdale United Church is where I received my Christian formation. That church had a strong social justice culture and my mum was very involved in that stuff. Later, as a high school student I began to learn about Liberation Theology in the fight against oppression which was part of what compelled me to want to learn more about Central America. Nicaragua had managed to overthrow a dictatorship and it was heady idealistic stuff to be connected to, at least for a while. Several Jesuit priests and university staff were massacred in El Salvador at the time when I was studying political science at the U of Calgary, I had applied for an internship to work with them a few months before that happened. Oscar Romero of El Salvador and Jerzy Popiełuszko of Poland are heroes of mine. Both gave their lives in the struggle against oppression.
When did the questioning or connecting begin?
My reconnection with faith-based matters got going during my time in Poland earlier this year. Christianity was always in the background for me, but this visit helped it come to surface in a more articulated way. The Catholic Church was a subversive organization during the Cold War that helped lead to the overthrow of the Soviet Union. I got a better appreciation of how important the church is in Poland by talking to people there. That faith and strength rubbed off on me and I think I needed it as supporting refugees directly in a time of war can be a very draining and consuming experience. To do the work I was doing effectively I could not wear a mask. A smile can’t be shared very well with a mask on. Visiting refugee centers with 4,000 mostly unmasked people packed in there, well you know that you might catch something. It was a calculated risk and that’s where faith helped me a lot to be cheerful and always give my best to the Ukrainians. I had already had COVID and had had my shots too. My faith has given me the strength to carry on helping Ukraine in other ways this year. I met someone very important in Warsaw, it was a chance encounter at the busy Central Railway Station where he was assisting new arrivals from Ukraine.I observed him and other volunteers with awe and much respect. That 2 minute conversation led to a chain reaction of activity and a very special friendship. His name is Roman Lakhnyyuk. Roman is a 23 year old Ukrainian but moved to Edmonton when he was 12. I guess you could say meeting him was the reason I went to Poland. It is amazing how two strangers can connect like that in the midst of all the turmoil and distractions. We have helped 40 Ukrainians get to Canada this year and now are delivering other projects in Ukraine.
What have you learned on the journey?
I like the saying “Your life is not about you.” There are so many generational aspects going on regarding the impacts you can make. It is a bit like time travel going forwards and backwards and sending messages to the future. Do what you can to help others but try not to sacrifice yourself in the process. But do push the limits of what you can do. Spending time outside your comfort zone is necessary if you want to grow. And denounce what needs to be denounced and that includes about churches, like the petition we organized about the abuses committed by churches against indigenous school children in Canada. Pope Francis came to Canada to apologize in person this year which was especially important for healing to take place and trust to be restored.
How do you see God in science, space, stories, music, the world?
Verbal explanations of God are too hard for me, I’ll leave that to others. For me God is a quiet voice that tells me to keep going when I think there is nothing left to give. Humility is very important. I think religion and science can be effective partners, at least they should be.
“ This upcoming conference is a good example of how the worlds of science and religion can come together.”
Anything else you would like to share in regard to the journey through spiritual formation in the church?
I don’t pretend to be a guide of any sort. I am happy I completed my Catholic studies this year and to be welcomed formally into the church. It feels like a direct connection to history somehow and there is a lot of cool mystery. Pope Francis suggested yesterday that people have a more austere Christmas this year and give what we have left over to help the people of Ukraine. His commitment to Ukraine is impressive.
Roman and I just arranged the purchase of a diesel generator for the state orphanage in Lviv Ukraine which houses 168 kids, using funds we generated at our recent benefit concert at St. David’s United Church. I feel good we can help Ukrainians in a tangible way to get through this hard winter and I look forward to continuing these kinds of projects working with all kinds of partners.
Paul Vargis
Ty
A Monk's Musings 