Whom Are You Going to Serve?

 

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

Those lyrics by Bob Dylan capture what is on my mind this morning.  I have been listening to a program on CBC Ideas about the Divine Comedy of Dante.  This is a magnificent poem – probably the greatest ever written, is in three parts; Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.   I have also read the Comedy some time ago and have started the Paradiso again recently.  The theme which I have focussed on in this encounter with the poem is, as the lyrics sum up, deciding who or what you will serve. 

The Comedy is an account of Dante, the author and the protagonist of the poem, journeying through the three aspects of existence – hell, purgatory and heaven.  He does this, fortunately for his and for the multitude who have read the Comedy since, while he is alive.  It is a journey of discovery for Dante the protagonist, and possibly Dante the author, of whom he will serve. 

In the beginning Dante, in my reading, is serving himself.  He begins by using the work as a great revenge play in which he places those who are responsible for the great tragedy of his life – his exile from his beloved city of Florence.  For Dante this was a form of death – he was exiled from the ground of his being, from all forms of support, from friends and family, from finances, and perhaps even from God.  Consequently, he places those he holds responsible in hell most notably Pope Boniface VIII.  Although Pope Boniface was not dead when Dante wrote the poem, he places Boniface in the eighth circle of hell devoted to the simoniacs – those who use the church for personal financial gain. He doesn’t stop there but uses the work as an opportunity to wreak literary vengeance on a wide assortment of villains and even including a good friend in his zeal. 

This starting point on his spiritual journey was from a position where he was wanting to be in charge.  Dante’s ego believed it should be in charge and his creative genius should serve his ego.   In effect, he believes that God should serve him.  At the end of his journey of spiritual discovery, he learns that the proper place for the ego is in service to God.  This is the journey that we are all called to make. This was addressed in one of the recent offerings from the Society of Saint John the Evangelist  (SSJE). 

Conversion is about having more and more space in our mind and heart for the “other” people of this world, people whom God so loves. Jesus changed. If we are following him, we are going to need to change – it’s a life-long conversion – to not only serve Jesus but to see Jesus in the “other,” whoever is “other” to us, different from us, not “normal” to us. This is very challenging news. The good news is it’s possible, amazingly possible.  Br. Curtis Almquist.

Blessings on your journey.  

Where Were You On That Day?

There are events in our lives that leave an indelible mark on us personally and the world.  For those of us who are of a certain age we know where we were when these events happen; the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the moon landing, the end of the United States War in Viet Nam.  In older generations, it would have been events around World War 2; Dunkirk, the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  Going further back in time there was November 11^th when the war to end all wars ended. 

Saturday was the twentieth anniversary of such an event when the Twin Towers were destroyed by two small aircraft and changed the modern world in ways that are still making an impact today.  I am sure most people remember where they were when they hear or even viewed the events.  The day is universally known by the numbers 9-11.  In my case I was attending my first day of theology classes at Huron University College in London, Ontario.  It was not my first class at Huron, but my first day as a full-fledged M.Div. student in the ordination stream having made the commitment to seek ordination as an Anglican priest.

It was a memorable start to that journey.  I had attended my first class and went to the Student Activity Centre of the University of Western Ontario, as it was then known, to purchase some text books.  As I entered the common area, all eyes were glued to the TV monitors that hung from the ceiling in various locations.  I looked up to see news people commenting of the first plane having hit one of the Towers of the World Trade Center and -peculating about the possible accident.  I don’t recall there being speculation about a deliberate act of flying the plane into the building, but there may have been.  As I was watching the monitor, everyone could see the second plan crashing into the second Tower which brought front and center that this was undoubtedly a deliberate act which would have far reaching consequences.  They would be more far reaching than almost anyone watching that day could have envisioned – certainly far more than I could imagine that day.  There were more planes – four in total -that were hijacked by terrorists but their impact was far greater than even the direct havoc they wrought.

Later that day, a memorial service for the victims was organized for the College for which those involved in planning and leading the service are to be commended.  It would be the first of countless memorials which have been held in many places and many times in the twenty years since.  The world has been changed in unnumbered ways since that day and those changes to our daily lives continue in ways which we may not even be aware.  Taking a plane to travel has been changed, perhaps of necessity, for the worse.  The United States War in Afghanistan which resulted from that day, has now officially ended in defeat for the U.S. as it did in Viet Nam.  However, this has not ended the American military presence in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East.  The world still studies war and carries out war despite all the songs of peace and the many peace movements.  There is no sign of leaders making a real effort to use peace rather than war as their primary basis for foreign relations with their enemies.  And yet people of faith must continue to work for peace and to above all hope that we will study war no more, turn our swords into plough sheers and peace will flow like a mighty river in all lands.  We can only try above all to love our neighbours as ourselves whomever and wherever that neighbour is.

Blessings and may the love of God guide you on your journey.

Fear Not

Fear is one of the basic emotions that all people possess.   It seems to me that often our actions and inactions are controlled by what we fear and often we are not even aware that these fears are controlling our behaviours.  The Enneagram personality type system identifies nine basic personality types.  Each type has a different basic fear:

Type 1s: Fear being wrong or lazy. ...

Type 2s: Fear being unloved and unwanted. ...

Type 3s: Fear being worthless and disrespected. ...

Type 4s: Fear meaninglessness. ...

Type 5s: Fear not knowing. ...

Type 6s: Fear chaos. ...

Type 7s: Fear deprivation. ...

Type 8s: Fear being controlled.

Types 9s: Fear of conflict

I am a type 9 in the Enneagram and I can affirm that I try to avoid conflict where possible – or perhaps I should say, “if at all possible.”  Being a peacemaker as a way to avoid conflict can have its positive aspects but it can also have negative ones as well. 

Have you ever noticed how often fear comes up in the bible?  I did a check with an on-line Thesaurus and discovered that ‘fear’ occurs in 995 verses.  The appearance of angels is often accompanied by the directive to “fear not.”  One of the best known if the passage that is usually read in a Christmas pageant when an angel appears to the shepherds, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”  The implication is that the shepherds and probably all people are naturally afraid when they are visited by an angel or any form of divine visitation.  On the other hand, we are also told in Proverbs, “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

It is wise to fear things that are potentially dangerous such as driving recklessly or running with knives or falling from great heights.  Or to use a current example, not getting a COVID vaccine unless there are medical reasons that prevent it.  Fear does serve a useful purpose and is no doubt one of the reasons the human race has survived for so many millennia.  However, as we can see by the many phobias which people can suffer from, it can be a force which imprisons us as well as one that can protect us. 

Fears can occur in dreams or nightmares in the form of being chased by a monster or some dark, dangerous unidentified thing.  One way to deal with a recurring dream of this nature this before you go to sleep, have the intention that in the dream you will turn around and face the monster and ask what it wants of you.  There is a great example in the literature of someone who had a recurring nightmare of being chased by a fire-breathing dragon.  The dreamer faced his fear and turned around and faced the dragon and asked why it was chasing him.  The dragon informed him that his smoking was going to kill him and he should give up that bad habit. 

The most positive thing you can do is to be conscious i.e., recognize when fear is operating in your life and decide if this a realistic fear.  Then you can strategize ways in which you can work with that fear and live life more fully.  IN no way do I want to imply that this is easy - I know from experience it isn’t.  But it is a possible way to move our lives forward in a positive way.

May you know your fears and find the message for you on your journey.

Grace in the World

A couple of weeks ago, I boarded the Way Back Machine.  Now you may not remember the reference which, itself was from way back in the 1960’s.  The Way Back Machine was a time machine in the episodes of ‘Peabody’s Improbable History’ which was a recurring segment on the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.  In any case, I journeyed in the Way Back Machine to use the and approach to preaching I learned studying theology at Huron University College.  It is the four pages of the sermon.  In this method we look at the passage of scripture from the perspective of the four pages:

1.      1. trouble in the bible,

2.      2 .trouble in the world,

3.      3. grace in the bible, and

4.      4. grace in the world. 

This can be quite a good way to examine any bible passage and I plan to return to it again.  In my sermon last week, I didn’t use that method but ended by suggesting that in the next week, the congregation consider where there was grace in their lives.  I believe that that is something we all can benefit from.  To do that. I realize it would be helpful to delve into the concept of grace.  To do that let’s look first at the dictionary definition of grace.  The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as:

Definition of grace

1a: unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification

b: a virtue coming from God

c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance

There is a lot we could unpack from this definition including regeneration and sanctification.  However, I want to focus on the concept that grace is unmerited.  God’s grace is given to us regardless of our merit or what we have or haven’t done to earn it.  The idea of receiving something which we haven’t earned, or even despite what we haven’t done to earn I , seems to go against our natural sense of justice - devine or otherwise.  It can also lead to believing that divine assistance can include such things as material success and wealth as proof that I cam leading a Godly life.   The misplace theology of the Prosperity Gospel is a distortion of the idea of grace. 

So, how then can we identify God’s grace in our lives if it is not in the form that the world thinks of as success or good fortune such material prosperity?  It is very easy to think of God’s grace when good things happen to you such as winning the lottery in whatever form that might take.  However, what happens when bad things happen to you?  Can we find God’s grace in those circumstances? 

I believe that one way is to first take a broader view of God’s grace and see where it is in the world as the fourth page of the sermon suggests.  I found a quote form a 4ht Century theologian Pelagius (c. 354–418) which can be of assistance here:

Look k at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. . . . Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wild flowers and the grass in the fields; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on the earth is ugly. 

This can give us an idea of how God’s grace works in the world and is present in the world.  Once we have done that for a while, we can look at our own lives and bring grace closer to home in our own lives.  Today’s Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr give us an example of how this can manifest:

Suddenly, I knew that God’s love did not depend on me following all these laws and mandates or being worthy. I knew I wasn’t worthy, and yet here I was experiencing absolute grace and absolute acceptance. The whole system I’d grown up with had implied that God will love us if we change. That day I realized God’s love enables and energizes us to change. Richard Rohr Daily Meditation August 30, 2021.

To know and understand that God loves us unconditionally is the true understanding that we do live in God’s grace every day.  We are all flawed and imperfect but God’s grace is still there for us.

May you know God’s grace on your journey.

Caring for My Instincts

 Last week I had a dream which I want to share with you.  Here is what I recorded in my dream journal:

I discover a scheme to give animal drugs to people.  I am at an unknown house or building and I explore an area which I have not been in before.  There are seven unknown men sitting on a couch, I realize they are being given prescriptions for drugs intended to be used on animals that they will use on themselves.  The person issuing the prescriptions is an unknown man who is a veterinarian.  He is doing this illegally,

 I find this dream to be interesting initially as I have not dreamed a similar dream that I was aware of.  I found it to be particularly interesting when I heard a few days ago that animal drugs are being touted by some people as a cure for COVID-19.  A drug, ivermectin, intended for use to treat parasites in animals, was being recommended on social media including a cable network I won’t name (it has the name of an animal coincidentally) are being modern snake oil salesmen and saleswomen and are promoting it as a cure for COVID.  The overworked and overtaxed medical systems in some States are now having to deal with cases of poisoning in patients who have taken the drug.

I could treat this dream, at least on one level, as premonitory i.e., it foretold this future event of people being persuaded to take drugs intended for animals in this time of COVID. This could be on the level of the collective conscious. The dream does seem to be dealing with this particular scenario.  This, of course, could happen, and probably has at other times.  However, it is interesting that it happened in proximity to the reported event.  So, I won’t dismiss the possibility that the source of the dreams was sending me this message.  However, dreams do operate on more than one level, so I want to explore another message it might be carrying to me, the dreamer.

First, let’s look at the association we can have with animals in dreams.  There is general agreement among people working with dreams from the perspective of Carl Jung, that animals in dreams have an association with instincts.  So, on that basis, my dream can possibly be saying that the men in the dream – who are aspects of me - are being given drugs or aids that will help my instincts.  It is notable that all the people in the dream are masculine, therefore it can be understood that the masculine aspect of my psyche needs assistance or help to assist me in putting my relationship to my instincts on a healthier basis.  The number seven is also notable i.e., the seven men waiting in the office to be given the prescriptions.  Numbers in dreams can have meaning or significance as can all dream contents.  Consulting the Penguin Dictionary of Symbols, which is a good reference source, the number seven can relate to completeness or wholeness.  It can also relate to beginning a new cycle after one has been completed.  I can take from this that the dream might have the message that I will need to work consciously on relating to my instincts to have a more complete relationship within my psyche. 

I hope that this rather brief exploration of one of my dreams will give you a taste of how dreams can inform the dreamer of aspects of their inner life that are not conscious to them.  One of the principles of dreams is that they come in aid of the health and wholeness of the dreamer.

May you be blessed with many dreams on your journey.  

There Are No Accidents or Are There?

 The Charlottetown paper, The Guardian, had an interesting opinion piece on Saturday which dealt with bicycle safety.  The writer, Ian Brisbin, who is a biking enthusiast, was proposing that unfortunate encounters between bicyclist and car drivers should be referred to as ‘collisions’ and not ‘accidents’.  His reasoning for this is that ‘accident’ implies that the encounter was, “unfortunate yet inevitable result of using the road.”  Brisbin maintains that they are, “inevitably the result of human error.”

I found this to the to be something that I agree with and I also found it interesting as it is as issue that was first advanced when I was working in the Ontario Ministry of Transportation a few lifetimes ago – actually it was perhaps thirty-five years ago.  At that time the issue was how to report vehicle ‘accidents’ in the official statistics e.g., in 1980 there were 100,000 vehicle accidents on highways causing injury or death.   The decision was eventually reached that they would be reported as collisions for just the reasons proposed by the writer of the article.  Accident implies that the event was out of the result of using the road, whereas ‘collisions’ conveys that they are the result of human error and therefore preventable.  This reasoning is basically sound as vehicle collisions are generally a result of human error such as excessive speed, driver doziness, carelessness, inattention, distraction or even in rare situations deliberate acts (road rage) - and then there is drinking under the influence of drugs or alcohol which is a whole other can of worms. 

I’m not sure if this change in terminology ever directly prevented a vehicle collision but over the years there has been a general awareness that most vehicle collisions are preventable.  I am always interested to hear the reports of vehicle drivers doing incredibly stupid and thoughtless things while driving such as putting on makeup or texting or spilling a hot drink on themselves.  To confess, I can at times be distracted when I drive, as I’m sure Lorna will agree, but I don’t believe that it has ever resulted in an accident.  Although there was the time I said goodbye to the passenger side mirror on my car when I tried to park in a too small spot in a Tim Horton’s.  So perhaps I should amend that to serious accidents – oops collisions.  Nothing and no-one was injured except the mirror and perhaps my pride.

Moving the issue beyond the realm of vehicle collisions to human activity in general, there is a theme that runs through psychology and perhaps even theology that there are no accidents.   Things happen for a reason.  Human behaviour can explain most of what happens to people if you explore events and people deeply enough and have enough information.  Similarly, or perhaps not that similarly, in theology we can delve into areas such a divine and human will, fate, and predestination.   In all this people seem to have a need on the one hand to believe they are in control and do not easily assent to the concept that their lives and actions are not in their hands.  Conversely, on the other hand, people can look for excuses when things do not go as they hope or desire, “the devil made me do it” or “it was in the stars.”  St. Paul agonized about this, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” 

In all this, the question that remains seems to be, how can I be the best person I can be or as I prefer, how can I be the best version of the person God intends me to be?  I do not believe I am on this earth by ‘accident’ but it is no easy task to discover what God intends and how I can go about living that to a greater extent that I am doing so now. 

It does make for an interesting journey.  Blessings on yours.

The Gift To Be Simple

On Sunday in my sermon, I referenced the Shaker hymn, Simple Gifts.  The text on which the sermon was based was 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 which speaks of the different gifts of the Spirit.  For those of you who are not familiar with the hymn, it is appropriately simple but profound non-the-less:

‘ Tis the gift to be simple, ‘ tis the gift to be free, ‘

Tis a gift to come down, where you ought to be.

And when we find ourselves in the place just right, ‘

Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shant be ashamed.

To turn, turn will be our delight ‘til by turning, turning we come round right.

In these days of COVID, I think many of us have been living in simple ways.  We have been restricted from engaging in our usual activities and found new and possibly simpler ways to live our lives.  I’m not sure that utilizing Zoom has been all that simple - it certainly wasn’t initially having to constantly remember to unmute and deal with other technical challenges.  But it was simple when you didn’t have to travel for meetings or workshops or conferences. 

I’m not sure that anyone would have found themselves in the ‘place just right’ while engaging in a Zoom call but there were other occasions in the last year and a half where I did find the Covid restrictions to be a simple gift.  This was, I’m sure in part, because of my introversion, and in part because I am retired and I didn’t have the challenges related to working in the pandemic milieu or having school aged children who had to be home schooled.  I certainly admire the people who dealt with all those challenges, especially the essential front-line workers in health care and other essential services.

With that, I wonder about the experience of living as the hymn proclaims and being in the place just right where we ought to be.  I have been accessing my memory bank to see if I could remember a time or times in which I was in the place just right.  One that comes to mind is my decision to seek ordination as a priest.  I had a number of signs that gave me the assurance that this was the right decision – these included dreams and an experience of synchronicity.  Those signs have been born out in subsequent years.  It doesn’t mean that my experiences as a priest have been ones in which it felt like I was in the place just right.  Indeed, there were times when I wondered if God knew what He, She, or It was doing or perhaps that I had misread those signals.  However, for the most part it has been an experience of being in the place that was right and true for me.  And for that I thank God.

May you be blessed to find yourself in the place that is just right on your journey.