A Day that Lives in Our Memories; A Reflection on 9-11

Where were you on that date?  There are certain dates that most, if not all, people who were alive and more than a few years old, remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news.  In my lifetime, the first such date was the assassination of JFK (initials are all that are necessary).  I was coming home after school, living in Fort Qu’Appelle Saskatchewan.  Then there was the landing of the first men. on the moon.  There are some other dates that stand out during my life – like the election of Donald J Trump as President of the United States.  However, the one that is most prominent in my mind that happened 22 years ago today.  It is a date that doesn’t require a year.  It is just September 11^th.  That now has the shorthand of 9-11 which is telling. 

For me it is particularly poignant because it was my first day at Huron University College in London Ontario, as I embarked on a journey which would lead to my ordination as an Anglican priest.  After my class was finished, I went over to the student centre at the University of Western Ontario – as it was then known (now just Western U.)  In the common area I noticed that everyone – and there were many people gathered – were completely mesmerized looking at the TV monitors suspended from the ceiling.  As I looked up, I saw that it was what turned out to be a live picture of the Twin Towers in New York.  As I looked a plane flew into one of the towers.  It turned out to be the second plane.   That was a momentous and tragic beginning to my formal theological education which has continued in one way or another – formally and informally - to this day. 

I imagine that most, if not all of you, remember the circumstances when you heard the news.  In my view this is probably the most significant event in our lifetime and probably beyond.  One reason for that is the almost complete reordering of the world since that day: the Iraq war, the reality of Global Warming Crisis, the pervasiveness of social media, the lack of trust in our institutions, COVID, the crisis of refugees at the borders of Western Countries, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and even the return of inflation.   September 11 seems to mark the beginning of the remaking the world so that it is in many ways a completely different one from that pre-9-11 world.

The question that I believe we all face is, how do we respond to this not so brave new world that we find ourselves living in?  Many of us are in survival mode.  We are hunkering down and hoping the next big change doesn’t overwhelm us.  I recently ventured into the AI world of ChatGPT after resisting that next new thing.  I was amazed at how it responded and the speed in which it responded to my request; a 500-word essay on The Jungian Collective Shadow.  I used some of the response in formulating one of the editions of these missives.  The potential for this development - probably for better and worse - staggers my imagination.  I want to cry out – the robots are taking over!  Perhaps we all should listen to the warning of Robbie the Robot, “Danger Will Robinson.” 

When it comes to change, I think of the joke, how many Anglicans does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer, we don’t change, we’re Anglicans.  That now applies to all of us.  Change will happen to us whether we want to or not.  How are we going to respond to the change?  Even we Anglicans are being dragged kicking and screaming into realizing we must change.  I don’t have any real answers - probably no one has the one easy answer that we would all like.  However, one possibility is to embrace hope.  I think of the wonderful response by the people of Gander Newfoundland to 9-11 and the commercial planes that were diverted to that airport in response to 9-11.  It was memorialized in that wonderful musical, Come From Away.  They could have turned their backs and said it’s just too much and anyway its not my problem.   But they didn’t and their response resonates to this day.  That gives me hope for the future – the ability of the human spirit to respond with love. 

Hope is todays word of the day from the Society of St. John the Evangelist:

To be patient means to tolerate or endure discomfort and suffering without denying them. Feel the pain, express it, groan, and then look beyond. Trust that God is both real and active. Hope acknowledges the present suffering while also believing in what lies beyond it.  Br. Luke Ditewig, SSJE

May you have hope on your journey in this brave new world.

 

It’s Not Christmas Yet

Are you tired of Christmas yet? The Santa Claus Parades are over.  I haven’t been in a mall for some time but I’m sure that Christmas music has been playing for quite some time now.  Outside Christmas decorations have sprouted up around her and I’m sure in your neighbourhood.  Christmas adds have been playing on TV and social media - I think the earliest one I saw this year weas right after Thanksgiving (which for the non-Canadian readers is the second Monday in October – not November).

 

I know it is pretty much a lost cause but it calls out for an establishment of a secular Advent just as there is now a firmly entrenched secular Christmas season.  Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas which, believe it or not, does not end on midnight on December 25^th.  The Christmas season in the church year goes from December 25^th to Epiphany when the Wise Men (they were not kings) arrive at the stable in Bethlehem to worship the new born King of the Jews.

 

It is a time of preparation for Christmas.  Here is a reflection on preparation form the Society of St. John the Evangelist:

 

Preparation

Gazing not at Christ’s first coming in our midst, but straining toward the horizon for his second coming, we enter into this season of preparation. But Advent preparation is not just about planning a party towards the end of December. The expectant waiting and preparation of Advent is time to do the soul’s work of conditioning for ultimate things, because eternity is on the horizon. Br. Todd Blackham, SSJE

 

To help you prepare one good way is to listen to an Advent Carol rather than a Christmas carol.  Here is one of my favourites with a link: O Come O Come Emmanuel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xtpJ4Q_Q-4.

 

May you have a blessed Advent on your journey to Christmas.

I acknowledge that we are on Turtle Island, the original homelands of the many Indigenous Nations who have lived since time immemorial in Canada or as many First and other Indigenous Nations
All of the lands in Canada are the subject of up to one hundred Treaties signed by the Crown in the right of Canada with these Nations.  I will only mention a few of the Nations: the Cree, Ojibway, Blackfoot, Blood, Dakota, Mig M'ag, Huron, Inuit and these lands are also home to the Metis people.

Don’t Let a Good Catastrophe Go to Waste

Being at our cottage in Prince Edward Island, I now have a larger appreciation for how COVID is being handled in different parts of the country.  In some ways it is almost like it no longer exists – or at least it is no longer a serious problem.  It is just one of those chronic health challengers we have to live – and hopefully not die from, like the flu.

 Both back at home in Ontario and here in cottage country, there is what can only be described as a relaxed view of COVID.  Most restrictions have been lifted or at least loosened.  We have no restrictions for travelling through provinces and no quarantine requirements or testing upon arrival in P.E.I.  which has assuredly made life much easier.  There are recommendations that we wear masks in stores and public places which is observed more in the breach than in the observance.  It is very easy to go with the flow and forget about wearing one.

The application of restrictions can lead to a somewhat illogical result.  The Anglican Church here allows us to meet without masks and to sing all the verses of hymns.  However, wine is not to be received by the congregation as it would normally, and only the priest partakes of the wine.  Go figure.

 I believe that we should not let the experience of the COVID pandemic fade into the mists of our memories and not try to use that experience as we move forward both in our religious life as well as our daily life.  This was addressed recently in one of the Daily offerings from the Society of St. John the Evangelist:  

Renewal

We are in the midst of a re-creation moment. As our world continues to reverberate from this once-in-a-generation pandemic, we are confronted with the opportunity to live differently, to not let a good catastrophe go to waste, but to heed the things that the Spirit has prompted in us: outward forms of love and stewardship, and inward forms of healing and renewal.  -Br. Todd Blackham

Many in Anglican Church and other mainline religions today in the West, despair that the church is dying and there won’t be much of the church left in twenty years, if present trends continue.  The Anglican Church in my home town of Parkhill, St, James, closed at the end of June as the latest of many church closings in our Diocese.  It certainly won’t be the last.  I won’t say it begs the question, but it certainly raises the question, what will replace it?  Canadian and all of the Western world is becoming persistently more secular with the church apparently having a much less significant part in the lives of people - particularly the younger generations. 

I really don’t know the answer to that question.  However, what I do know is that something or somethings will arise to replace organized religion.  In my understanding, this will happen because it will be the work of the Holy Spirit.  That part of the Trinity in Christianity faith and dogma often does not receive as much attention as the other two parts God the Father, and God the Son.  This is, at least in part, because it is unpredictable and not under the direct control of church authorities.  This was address in one of the Daily Meditations of Richard Rohr: 

The work of the Holy Spirit, seismic and subtle, never seems to land us in a place of perfect stasis and equilibrium for long.  Rather, it teaches us to be flexible, malleable to the ongoing creation of God such that when we are confronted with an invitation to adapt, we can respond with freedom rather than resistance.

Is there some new freedom that the Holy Spirit is inviting you into these days?

‘God dwells wherever man lets him in.’  Buber, The Way of Man, 33

So, in light of this, how do we not let a good catastrophe that COVID has given us go to waste?  It is not going to be easy for many of us who have set ideas of how we should be and what we should do.  We need to have open hearts and minds and spirits to what the future holds and where the Holy Spirit (or just ‘spirt’ for the secular folks) is leading us.  We need to use our discernment in determining if something is the work of the Holy Spirit or is the work of other forces.  However, we need to be open to what lies ahead.

 May you be blessed to engage the Holy Spirit on your journey.

 

Homecoming

One of my Lenten observances is following the Signs of Life from the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) https://www.ssje.org/.  They are, “a community of men giving our whole selves over to living the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”  The have a special ministry which shares that life through social media. One aspect of the Signs of Life during Lent is a weekly video which focus on different parts of those signs, Light, Water, Food, Shelter and Community.  On Sunday I engaged with the video on Shelter which explored the concept of home and being at home.

In the course of the video a number of things resonated with me.  There was the idea of coming home when you arrive at a place you haven’t been before and discover you have come home.  I had this experience when I first worshiped at St. John the Evangelist Anglican Church in London, Ontario.  I was not an Anglican and had limited experience or exposure to Anglican worship up to that point.  There was, for me, and experience of coming home and being in the place where I belonged.  I don’t believe I had ever had that experience previously.  I have had it at different times since then but that first experience of homecoming has stayed with me and I know that I have found my religious home in the Anglican Church. 

Another aspect of the video which resonated with me was the idea of seeking and finding your home on the journey in life.  Home, in this sense, is not a place but a state of being.  It seems somewhat contradictory to say that you can be at home wherever you are on your journey in life.  However, if you have found your home in and with God or your higher power, it does not matter where you are on that journey you are home.  There are numerous concepts for this such as sheltering under the wings of God or being in the palm of God’s hand or being carried by Jesus in times of trouble.  The relationship that you establish and seek to maintain and deepen with your higher power is what can sustain you in times of challenge and trouble.

Finally, during my participation in the video I was blessed to hear in my inner ear that wonderful spiritual Going Home in which combined wonderful lyrics by William Arms Fisher with beautiful music by Anton Dvorak.  It is one of those times when music and lyrics are a natural fit and were perhaps inspired by a higher power.  There are many wonderful versions of this spiritual performed by great singers.  However, my favourite is the performance by Paul Robson which moves me to tears whenever I hear it  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9smSP1dq-A.

I believe that we naturally have a longing to find our home.  This can take many forms and happen at different times in our lives.   One of the best expressions of that journey is by T. S. Eliot:

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Blessings on your journey

Growing Your Garden

Last week I wrote about developing a Rule of Life and the study series offered by the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) which is offered in video format and can be found at https://www.ssje.org/growrule/.  This series is using the garden and growing you garden as a metaphor for growing/developing a rule of life. 

The garden is a very good metaphor for this process as explained in the series.  You have to prepare the ground―which can represent the ground of your being to be open to God’s presence in your life.  You have to plant what ever you want to grow in your garden―which can represent the ways in which you are open to receive the grace which God offers you.  You have to care for the garden and what you have planted―doing those practices such as different forms of prayer and activities which connect you with God.  There are other analogies to the garden which are explored in the series such as pruning and watering.  I trust you can see how it is a very good metaphor.

That being said, I must confess that it is not one that resonates with me on an emotional or I could even say a spiritual level.  As my wife Lorna, who is an avid gardener can attest, I am not a gardener.  I do not have much if any interest in gardening.  I will, somewhat reluctantly take time away from the things that I enjoy and which resonate with me, to help Lorna with the heavy (but not too heavy) lifting.  Therefore, the metaphor of the garden does not resonate with me when considering my rule of life and spiritual practice(s).  I can understand it on an intellectual level and appreciate how it is a valid and even a very good metaphor for developing a rule of life.  However, to me meaningful to me a different metaphor would be better.

This is, I believe, a good metaphor for how our relationship to God works and doesn’t work.  God is always present in our lives in more ways than we can ever appreciate just as nature in all its aspects is there for a garden.  There is the soil, the rain, the sun, the daytime for growth and the night for rest.  There are also the storms and the times of drought and floods that will threaten those things that are growing in the garden.  Given our nature and our personalities and the fact that we are all different, we will be more open and in tune to some ways in which God is present in our lives.  Developing a Rule of Life will provide a template for us to become more aware and to deepen those ways.  It is also possible that in developing a Rule of Life we may become aware of different ways in which God is present in our lives and explore those.  Who knows, perhaps God is calling me to try gardening.  However, I don’t want Lorna to get her hopes up too much.

Blessings of your journey. 

Growing The Rule of Life

One of the practices I am engaged in at the moment is following a study series by the Society of St. John the Evangelist on Growing the Rule of Life.  It is a six-week study which is offered in video format and can be found at https://www.ssje.org/growrule/.  I have signed up for the program which is sent to me by email daily.  Today is my third day into the study and I am finding it quite engaging and helpful so far partly because the videos have been quite short and to the point.

The first three have dealt with what a Rule of Life actually is.  To summarize it is, to use the term offered in the video, a template for how to structure your life.  It can allow you to put your life in balance and to be conscious of how your life is unfolding on a day-to-day basis.  Another metaphor that is used in the video is a nozzle on a hose which allows the water (which I understand to represent your life energy) to be focused and to be directed on the thing that you want to direct it on. 

Energy can take many forms.  The most prevalent and obvious form in our society is money.  How you spent your money will tell you where your priorities are.  But energy can be manifested in other ways; how you spend your time and what thoughts you have and what you support and determine what kind of activities you undertake as well as who you support politically. 

As the presented Br. Curtis Almquist notes, we only have one life to live and are actually only sure that we have today, how are we going to live that life.  The rule of life enables you to do it consciously and not just exist.  I am reminded of a commercial from many years ago that had the tag line, If I only have one life, let me live it as a blond.  I checked it on Google and it was a commercial for Lady Clairol.  That really sums up the challenge that the Rule of Life is addressing.  Am I going to live my life as a blonde, in effect chasing after the values that that represents or am I going to seek something which may be more valuable?  I do only have one life, so how am I going to live it?  That is the journey we are all on.

Blessings on you journey.

Whose Prosperity Do We To Serve

Victoria Osteen, who is the wife and co-pastor of mega-church pastor and televangelist celebrity Joel Osteen, has raised a lot of eyebrows in Christian circles by her recent statement.  Victoria Osteen has been reported to have said:

When we obey God, we're not doing it for God...we're doing it for ourself. Because God takes pleasure when we're happy. Do good 'cause God wants you to be happy. When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God, really. You're doing it for yourself because that's what makes God happy.

This is obviously wrong on many levels and particularly when you consider what Jesus Christ taught and what Christians generally profess.  How do you reconcile this with statements such as, turn the other cheek, go the second mile ,  and of course the beatitudes such as blessed are the pure in spirit and the meek shall inherit the earth, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are the poor.  I probably don’t need to go on.  The statement by Victoria Osteen smacks of the prosperity Gospel which holds that, “financial blessing is the will of Godfor Christians, and that faith, positive speech, and donations to Christian ministries will always increase one's material wealth”.   The Osteen’s are apparently big in the Prosperity Gospel movement (if I can call it that).

The basic problem that I see with this theology is that it gives free reign to the ego and all that the ego desires.  Humans can easily fall into the hubris of creating God in our own image rather than what we are told in Genesis — that we were created in God’s image, male and female He created us.  The ego is our great gift from God and an integral part of being created in God’s image.  The Ego is an integral part of what makes is conscious beings and knowing that we are Children of God and not the centre of the universe.  However, the ego also wants to keep things in our lives just as they are.  The ego hates and resists change.  It wants security and comfort.  As Richard Rohr noted, “if there is one thing that the ego hates more than anything else, is to change. I know that if I keep meditating, it is going to change my worldview, my priorities, and my preferences”. 

That is what we called to do.  We are called to put God ahead of ourselves and to try as best we can to do God’s will and not our ego’s will with my priorities and my preferences.  The Prosperity Gospel emphasizes the importance of personal empowerment, holding that it is God's will for his people to be happy.  I believe God does want us to be happy.  However true happiness for people comes when the ego is in service to God and not in maintaining our self-interest.  I will close with quote from Br. Robert L'Esperance, Society of Saint John the Evangelist, “In the Christian worldview we’re not at the center of everything. God is the center of things: God and God’s creation, of which we’re a small, wonderful, privileged part. John 10:10 reminds us that Jesus, not overconsumption, is the way to “abundant life”.”  Blessings.