When I first read today's devotions I was struck by a sense of continuity from yesterday's reading in which a deaf and mute man was cured of his affliction and heled.   And the question concerned communication.  He was limited in his ability to communicate by not being able to hear others or to speak clearly.  But we all have communication problems - and one is an inability to really listen and to hear.

When we don't listen to others, when we don't hear what they have to say - when we don't see the value in their words, their ideas, their culture or religion or identity, we tend to conform to our own.  Our way and no other. 

I see it in the government when the Prime Minister doesn't listen to all the other duly elected members as though they have no voice, as though they don't have valid ideas to share, as though they don't also represent the people of Canada.  

I see it in our 'justice' system where more emphasis is put on law and order, on punishment, on building more and bigger jails rather than on listen to the root causes of crime (poverty and hopelessness) and addressing them.

I see it in our schools where more emphasis is put on conformity than on creativity, and where children are not encouraged to think for themselves and colour outside the lines. 

I see it in many of our churches where many congregations are made up of people from the same ethnic and social/economic backgrounds, where things are always done the same.  And in other churches where the minister (or pastor) tells the people what to think and do - often backed up by a literal understanding of scripture. 

And I look for diversity.  For opportunities to get to know others, to hear their voices, tto be enriched by exposure to other religions, other ways of looking at things, other experiences.  The church I attend is open to the GLBT community and I am grateful for the gifts that they have brought to our congregation.  We also welcome those of all social/economic backgrounds, and it is good to get to know the people who live in the downtown core and to see them as real people, with gifts and ideas and a voice. 

We need less conformity, and more diversity unleashing our God-given creative energy.

 When have I felt stifled by an enforced conformity?

Have I ever had my perspective broadened by exposure to greater diversity?

Conformity has never been one of my strong points. My early childhood was mostly wonderful. My mother was a school teacher and a bit of a nature mystic who taught me to discern the “Fairies” all around me. She filled me with curiosity.My father was an engineering salesman who became well known as a creative engineer and “the father of pneumatics” in New Zealand. He was also a war hero with a Military Cross who'd been a pacifist before seeing the rise of Hitler, and a reconfirmed pacifist after the war.

His father was a Church of Scotland minister who died before I was born. My father was groomed to follow him into the ministry and began along that path. But, when the Great Depression hit, my father felt all wrong about the security the church gave him while it did so little for the newly destitute. He quit the church and took on a commission-only job selling snack foods to corner stores. He lived according to principles.

My mother’s father was another war hero: he was commissioned in the field at the Somme, mentioned in Despatches (M.I.D.) and killed at Paschendaele. His wife, my grandmother, had a breakdown and died young, of grief. I never met either. My orphaned mother was then brought up by her mother’s side of the family. They had a background of rebellion in Ireland; my mother recalled the news arriving in New Zealand, not long after the First World War, that a relative had been brutally murdered by Black and Tans in Ireland. She was bitter about war and the British for the rest of her life. She had strong affinities with the Maori people.

Then I spent five years at a boarding school run along Tom Brown’s Schooldays lines. My parents believed it was the best education available. I hated it. It was institutionalised bullying and I soon was topping the term by term tables for the most often caned, In one three-month period, I remember, I took 80 strokes of the cane. I was proud of it; it meant "they" hadn't won. It did’t help that this was an Anglican Church school and I’d become an atheist after a group of us were taken to a Billy Graham rally. 

I put myself (slowly) through university (anthropology and psychology; cross-cultural communication) , mostly by working for four years at a night club — a jazz club — where I rose from dishwasher to manager and my close friends included one of New Zealand’s first trans-sexuals ( a very weird thing to be back then). She was eating birth control pills to grow boobs. At university, I spent a lot of time involved in protests: anti-apartheid, pro-Maori land issues, anti-nuclear, anti-Vietnam… my social life became almost wholly Maori and I got into caving and climbing as well as my lifetime pursuits of sailing, diving, surfing… I got engaged: to a Japanese girl; we took anthropology together. It didn't last.

And I got called up for military service, spending four years in the Royal N.Z. Naval Volunteer Reserve. I loved the navy time: it was a source of duty free tobacco and booze and taught me to cook, to dive, to strip down a Bofors gun, self-defence, demolitions, damage control at sea… and it took me to all sorts of interesting places, including the Antarctic. It's been years since I touched a Bofors or a length of instantaneous fuse, but I still love to cook.

For six years or so my life was a blur of extraordinary experiences: a kind of explosive immersion in anything and everything that healed and stimulated and took me beyond the years of loathing at boarding school. It was a seach for redemption in freedom.

Then I became a journalist: in those days, it was still an attractive option for social misfits and the otherwise unemployable. As a journalist I met amazing people, saw amazing things and went to amazing places, including the high Arctic.

My wife’s call brought us both into the church: I was pretty staunchly opposed to the church and all it stood for until, in trying to deal with my wife’s call — it was undoubtedly a pure “call” — I sat down and tried to write down everything I “believed” about life. I was on a career path and loving it, so I put some effort into this. I sweated and thought and searched my soul and came up with a short list of the most appalling banalities. I’d filled my time with amazing experiences and I’d taken nothing cohesive from it. I'd been riding a wave. 

So I told my wife: “right… okay... your bullshit is clearly superior to my bullshit…  you lead the way for now, I’ll follow.”

We sold up, gave away the proceeds and the “stuff” that wouldn’t sell and went to theological college. One of the first things the college gave her was a parking permit! A car? Who follows Jesus around in a car? Almost everyone, we soon learned.

Since then, we’ve lived in Scotland and Canada as well as New Zealand, we’ve moved close to 30 times and I have had opportunities to experience a host of European cultures and do a PhD at Glasgow University, which was my paternal grandfather’s alma mater… and there I had some good, interesting Moslem friends. How the world turns! So I have never really quite fitted in the church either.

But I love the UCC and I love its potential. My wife has certainly ministered to me -- magnificently -- and, while I have no career, I now have a faith that somehow extracts meaning from the chaos of my experience; the meaning confirms for me the necessity of a path, of devotion to an unknowable mystery that I’ve come to consider (for economy of words), a god-presence: I am persuaded that there IS a principle that can ONLY be approached multi-dimensionally that drives  my life and that’s evidenced in the fabric of the tiny part of the universe that’s open to our minds, experience and  spirit.

So, “No” — conformity hasn’t really been much of a problem. And pretty much everything I’ve learned has come from “other”, often "unauthorised" sources.

So: how can conformity be dismantled?  Curiosity and compassion. These are the two burning needs of today in the society we've so clumsily shaped.

I have to say, i see no virtue in "diversity" for its own sake: it's what gives us dirty, noisy, ugly cities and the enervating trash of the entertainment industry. Without discernment,"diversity" is just another trap. Nor is tolerance enough: to become open and dance with the beauty diversity certainly can bring us, we must fully interact and actively facilitate. We need to seek and recognise and fall in love with beauty... curiosity and compassion lead us to the beauty; and no-one has a monopoly on beauty... nor any thing. But we do need to discern it and that's an active, not a passive, challenge. (It's a challenge because, without discernment, we're down the gurgler.)

Mike,

When Jesus said, paraphrasing, "I've come, so that you might have an abundant life", he wouldn't have been disappointed in you.

May your curiosity and passion continue for many more years. 

 Grim: I am very, very grateful for every moment of my life! 

In my young life I was very insecure - and this led to a desperate need to be liked.

As a result my "enforced conformity" came from within. I became so adept at conforming to the opinions and values of those I was with - that by my mid-twenties - I no longer knew what I thought or felt about anything.

I ended up in a psych ward, suffering from clinical depression. With hindsight, I can see that a lot of my therapy revolved around trying to find my real self.

I  remember thinking that my life was a mess, what had I got to lose from being myself?

At first I was tentative about expressing my opinion - but soon discovered that I "didn't frighten the horses" and it was okay.

At first I justified it by saying, "most of these folks are crazy, it'll be different out there in the "real" world."

But it wasn't.

A whole new world opened up for me. As I came to value my authenticity - it brought folks closer - not more distant - as I'd feared.

And now I am, what I was meant to be - a free spirit.

Oh, I'm aware that there are conforming forces around me at times - those that would prefer me to be a little more reserved, a little less open............... But these days I see that as their problem, not mine.

Nothing broadens one's perspective more than travel.

IMO it's the main reason to travel.

To experience another culture, first hand, is to give you the opportunity to realise the truth - that so many of things that we  say are "right" or wrong" are culturally driven. It's a wonderful lesson in the concept of tolerance for another point of view.

So much conflict and war stems from an "us" and "them" point of view. 

People the world over have the same dreams and hopes.

We are all "us" - and I've come to believe that was Jesus's message about the Kingdom of God.

I had enough self-confidence as first grand-child on both sides to not feel dependent on the approval of my peers at any time.  Following Paul's model, I adopt the appearance of conformity if it helps me work toward my goals as a teacher or minister, but don't pretend to be what I am not.  I find others seem to prefer relating to people who are real than to people who work at filling a role.

Rather than stressing diversity, I believe people need to be encouraged to be authentic.  This depends on self-confidence blended with humility, respect, and curiousity.

 When have I felt stifled by an enforced conformity?  Well ... through the entire decade of the fifties, I guess.  I was just a kid living mostly in my imagination so it wasn't me that wwas conforming but evn at the age of 9 (I was born in '48) I felt sorry for the other kids who all got a brush cut every summer because their dads most of whom had been young men in the military during WWII were all trying to raise disciplined "little soldiers" and saying things like "that's the way we used to do it in the army".  My dad thought the air force had been a good experience for him but he didn't want to relive it and he didn't idealize it.  He wanted something different for me.  

Luckily I lived in a Jewish neighbourhood so things weren't quite as "whitebread" as they were, say, in Etobicoke.  Our neighbourhood was more interesting.  More "rye bread" than "white bread".  My neighbourhood was a little more like living in a Mordecai Richler novel.  Dads who smoked big smelly cigars while they kibitzed in the stands at their kids' baseball games.  There was a neighbour, Ruby,  across the street who was a tailor, a jobber and a bookie all at the same time.  His brother was a well known gambler and bookmaker in Toronto.  

Ruby was a small and gentle man who was very soft spoken and invariably kind and gracious. He was completely different than most of the men in our neighbourhood who were, for the most part, very (I would say now) self consciously "manly".  By comparison Ruby's manner seemed somewhat soft, even feminine, certainly there was nothing forceful about him.  Once I went with Ruby downtown to the old garment district on Spadina (Queen and Spadina) in Toronto because he needed some help unpacking and packing some goods that he purchased in job lots from Eatons that he was going to re-label and sell at a profit into some smaller clothing stores around town.  At lunch time we went over to Shapiro's deli (not Shopsy's which was where all the "goys" ate).  When we walked in everybody there knew Ruby and called out to him as he passed through the restaurant.  Almost everyone was drinking their tea out of a glass (I'll have a "glasztea" they would say).  This was Ruby's neighbourhood when he was a kid.  He had come from a poor family and had started working when he was just a boy.  I was surprised that everybody knew Ruby but later found out that it was partly because Ruby had been a Golden Gloves boxing champion when he was young (he was probably only in his late thirties or early forties at the time I was going to that restaurant with him, so "when he was young" wasn't really that far in the past although it looked that way to me at the time).  It probably didn't hurt that Ruby had probably taken bets on the horses from half the guys in the restaurant either.

Another time as was playing catch with the kid who lived next door to Ruby.  Ruby was watching.  We both wanted to pitch softball so we were practising our pitching.  Ruby asked if he might give it a try.  I figured that Ruby would probably not be very good; that he would probably "throw like a girl" (as guys used to unselfconsciously say in the days before political correctness).  The first pitch he threw was right over the plate.  It didn't come in that fast but it seemed to vibrate and ... it curved!  He threw the pitch over and over again.  It didn't look like he was doing anything out of the ordinary but his pitches were so deceptive that we couldn't even catch them (much less have hit them).  My dad told me later that Ruby had also been a baseball player in his youth and had been an ace pitcher for the "Jewish baseball team" that had taken a city championship.   My dad told me that the Jewish kids always liked baseball (and basketball) and had some pretty very good baseball teams.  After seeing Ruby pitch I was a believer.

Anyway with people like Ruby living around me it was pretty clear that there was more than one way to be.  I was never big on following orders and military style disciple.  I wasn't a "yes sir ...  no sir, three bags full"  kind of kid even at age 9 or 10 and I didn't necessarily want to do things the way other people did.  I used to "talk back"  and often got called a "non-conformist" which I took as a compliment.  Of course, in the fifties it didn't take any significant difference to get people calling you a non-conformist.  

I always hated the fifties because there was a palpable pressure to conform to some pretty rigid templates of fashion, and behaviour, and "manliness" and thought, and opinion and so on.

I feel like I am a better person for having grown up in a neighbourhood where, as a WASP, I was a member of a minority group.    

I was born enough later that I escaped growing up in the 50's and had much older sisters so the 60's weren't overly conformist either.

I hung with my dad as much as I could so the smell of oil/gas mixture (boat motors), sawdust and cut grass all evoke wonderful memories. He was a sea captain (although land-locked when I was growing up) but was really good about not swearing around his girls. I have no idea where I learned to swear like a sailor!

I was a shy and a tomboy so spent most of my growing up not conforming to any group. My escape was books and my willow tree where I could climb up high enough to get away from everyone and read. My parents were older and my dad retired when I was 15 so I was encouraged not to work while a teen so I could crew for them on their boat instead. I had everything I needed and most of what I wanted but was taught to not want much (we were the last family on the block to get cablevision and only because my sister paid for it.)

I've had a completely blessed life. A few hardships but each of those have blessings too. I miss my  oldest sister terribly, she was my best friend and I'm now a lot older than she ever was which is totally weird. At least I'm old enough now that I no longer see her when I look in the mirror. I see my mom instead and miss her but she was 'gone' due to Alzheimers for a long time before she died. She taught my kids that imperfect can still be perfect and they never minded having a grandmother that wasn't like their friend's grandmothers.

My daughter bought me a plaque that we hang in the family room that says, "Remember, as far as everyone else knows, we are a nice, normal, family." That about sums things up. I've raised one confirmed non-conformist and another who is slowly finding (or is it losing?) his way.

Diversity is hard to come by in this whitebread community but we travel and that exposes us to a lot. Just 10 days ago, my husband commented that we had been walking for ages and hadn't seen another caucasian. I hadn't noticed. I was felt safe and was far more interested in the brand-new treadle sewing machines and hijabs and all the things I don't see at home that were for sale. And giving thanks for the people at the 'farmesi' who could speak perfect English and supply me with Calamine lotion. I had no idea how I was going to mime that but didn't need to!

   Below is a summary of today's Rising with the Morning Star reading and suggested discussion questions. Thank you!

Edited to say that this entry is for Sunday's questions (since I see that Monday's have been added since I started typing this).

I don't think I have ever felt stifled by an enforced conformity. Occasionally I feel frustrated when people think that I cannot do something simply because I am a woman (for example lifting something heavy). I usually just try to prove them wrong. Because of this I do not think that I can honestly answer the second question.

I have definitely had my perspective broadened by exposure to greater diversity. When I was a child, I thought that people who had darker skin than mine were simply dirty and in need of a good bath. As I got a little older I made friends with people whose families came from Africa, Asia and the Middle East - and I came to understand that their skin tone was a part of who they were and could not simply be washed off. As a child, I did not know anyone who was gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgendered and was led to believe, by my parents, that there was something wrong with "those people."  As a youth I started attending Young Adult worship services put on by the Vancouver Burrard and South Presbyteries. I came to learn that one of the worship leaders was a gay man - and he seemed like a pretty decent fellow. Now I feel priviledged to have, in my circle of friends: gay men, lesbian women, bi-sexual and transgendered people. I met most of them at church. If I had stuck to what my parents had taught me, my world would be a much narrower place!

When did I experience a form of slavery? I think about the people and circumstances that helped as the slavery was named and moved away from.

First I had to learn what freedom was before I could see where slavery lay. It is primarily within. Slavery is bedded deep.

Conscious experience has two components: an event, then reflection.

Without the reflection, the event vanishes almost immediately from our short-term memory.

It’s within the moment or two of reflection that an experience is given “meaning”; we give it a flavour so it’s easily picked from our memories to become a part of the learning we apply to new situations.

It’s that flash of reflection that binds us or sets us free. And the all-important issue is its character.

It’s at this level that we risk entangling ourselves in webs of slavery. Events bind us to a particular responses because of the values that are embedded in way we see them. And the English language — because its statements mostly take the form of “it did this to that” — makes it terribly easy for us to shape questions like “who or what did this to me?”:  it’s easy for us to see cause and effect, to level blame or give credit.

Jesus was quite the psychologist. Our capacity for forgiveness is the only thing, really, that can free us — not only from the moment, but also from the complications that take hold if we fail to forgive.

Forgiveness is most effective when it’s immediate: when the alternative is removed by our faith from the palette of reflection… even the instant reflection that plants an experience in our memories. Our faith, when it makes forgiveness reflexive, sets us free.

Another obstacle to freedom has to do with the distance at which we draw our personal boundaries.

Imagine that you are standing in a square brick enclosure small enough for you to touch all four walls: if you are like me, the thought makes your flesh crawl.

Imagine now that you set those walls back so they enclose a patch of ground you can walk about in. It feels a lot better, there are daisies to pick, birds sing and you realise your wall serves a purpose: it can keep some unpleasant things out of your life.

Now imagine that the wall that surrounds you lies out of sight, just beyond the horizon. You know it’s there and you hope it’s well patrolled.

Now imagine that there is another person inside the wall. What do you hope that person is like? How does that person’s existence cramp your “freedom”? Is that person going to pick the fruit ripening on your tree? How do you know it’s “your” tree anymore? And you realise you aren’t free: you are locked behind a wall. Neither of you is free. The impulse is to trap each other in each other's expectations. In this situation, Jesus exhorted us to love.

Freedom does not happen behind a wall, no matter how far off the wall is. Nor does freedom lie beyond the wall. The wall encloses on one side and excludes on the other.

 But, unless we have faith, the thought of being without walls terrifies us.

It doesn’t help that we are unfamiliar with freedom.

Social and political “freedom” — once so natural to most aboriginal North Americans and Australians — is a new idea in European contexts. We haven’t seemed to want it very much.

Slavery gradually gave way slowly to serfdom, and serfdom to indenture and oppressive employment practices… and, even today in the most libertarian countries, we see conflicts between two definitions-defying principles: “progress” and “justice”.

Of course, as long as we remain self-interested social creatures, public freedoms are always negotiated, always antagonistic, always a controversial compromise. Historically, it has too often ended badly, in wholesale bloodshed.

“Freedom”, although it’s long proved an effective battle cry, becomes a mercurial concept when it gets down to the detail. There are “freedoms to…” and “freedoms from…”. There is political freedom, intellectual freedom, academic freedom, economic freedom, religious freedom, press freedom, freedom of travel, freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of association. There is the freedom of the wild, the freedom of consumer choice and the freedom of ownership. It’s nice to be free from violence, bigotry, coercion and fear, “cruel and unusual” punishments, crime, invasion, enslavement, exploitation and unnecessary pain or hardship. And — in even the most ideal of states — the varieties of freedom we want to enjoy tend to impinge on and limit each other. It doesn’t help that individuals and different cultures value some social freedoms more highly than others. It becomes an endless, essential but never entirely satisfactory negotiation.

For the people at the base of the modern Western financial food chain, the social and political freedom that’s granted comes at the cost of insecurity: spurts of consumption and indebtedness in times of surplus; layoffs and foreclosures in times of shortage. And, if there’s a choice, the curtailment of freedom has long been preferred to starvation.

That said, it’s interesting that 4,600 years ago there was a wise ruler of Sumerian Lagash who, among other reforms, outlawed forced sales and seizures, put constraints on exploitative enterprise and granted tax relief to widows, orphans and debtors.

It is also interesting that, historically, Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all found the charging of interest theologically odious; that in a number of early medieval European states charging interest on loans was outlawed; and that Islamic financiers have developed a different form of banking, based on partnership formation, that obviates it.

But the greatest compromiser of freedom remains oneself.

It is some nagging, unworthy thing inside me that resents humility, that gets afraid, that wants what it does not need, that frets about tomorrow and stirs envy towards another’s strengths or successes.

It is prickly voices within me that ask “but what if?” when I feel drawn to something unfamiliar. It is the same voices that throw tantrums when I start tossing out old ideas, old perceptions and old attitudes. They are responsible for my fears and failures, for my possessiveness and insensitivities.

It is the voices within me that make me lock doors, hang back when someone else is hurt, insulted, confused or attacked. They make excuses for me to keep a distance from strangers and encourage me to surround myself with cocoons of entertainment and consumption.

Breaking free of them is to step into a different, wonderful, graced universe of experience. It frees us from failure because it very quickly becomes clear that each of us is part of a flow of forces that ebb and flow in ways and directions that are not responsive is specific ways to an individual’s intentions.

Claiming freedom from myself is the most headily exciting form of liberation: it brings revelation after revelation of ways in which I am not alone and that there is far more beauty in the world than I could previously have imagined. It floods my experience with more vivid colours, more exciting flavours, more alluring forms… it feeds a growing desire to counter in whatever ways I can the ugliness I meet with: the ugliness of cruelty and damaging ways of fear, anger, neglect and ruthless acquisition; the ugliness of power and suspicion and violence against people but also against other creatures and landscapes.

The truly dangerous way to live is as a prisoner to all those inner voices of fear, anger, envy, self-righteousness, false need and unnecessary doubt, listening to all of those ego-manipulating murmurs of “what if?”… .

The classical Greek stereotype of slaves was negative: slaves were held to be fearful, acquisitive, unmoved by ideas or beauty, unprincipled, dishonest, ungenerous and self-centred. The “free” person, on the other hand, was recognised as self-sacrificing, generous, learned, principled and acting with integrity and justice for the benefit of all.

Freedom that is simply self-interested is no freedom as all. And, where one person is denied justice, there can be no assurance of justice for anyone. If we think like slaves to our inner anxieties, we enslave ourselves. And, enslaved, we set about enslaving others.

It really is our faith that sets us free — even as it freed Paul in a Roman prison, or Boethius, or Cervantes in a dungeon of the Inquistion, Mandela on Robben Island, Bonhoeffer in a Nazi death camp, Ghandi in British India, Gramsci in a Fascist cell in Italy…

Where might I be called to act as an agent of freedom and liberation?

 That was the call that led me into writing as a vocation. It certainly motivated me to get my 'Breaking Free' blog going this past winter.

Reflection Questions: Recall an occasion when you, or someone very close to you, experienced a form of slavery. Think about the people and circumstances that helped as the slavery was named and moved away from. Where might you be called to act as an agent of freedom and liberation?

I think suffering intrudes on our freedom. When we decide that suffering is legitimate we move away from reality, God and freedom.

It is only when I have dealt with my own slavery to suffering am I able to lead someone else out of it towards freedom. I think this is true for individuals, families, and nations.

I see slavery in the form of addictions (smoking, internet, alcohol, chasing money, etc.).  One way out is to develop trust in God/Spirit to walk with us through tough times and confidence in our capacity to work through challenges as we do what we believe is right for us.  It helps to have supportive people sharing our liberating journeys with us.

I think that any sort of abuse to be a form of slavery, but today in my journal I chose to focus on child abuse.

As someone who works with children, I find it heart-breaking to learn of a child who has been abused. As a person in a position of trust, I sometimes get to hear these stories first-hand. Many times it is obvious from the story being told that the child is already receiving a lot of help and the best thing I can do is provide an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on (for example, the story ends with "and now Daddy's in jail and I talk to my friend Sally every Thursday after school"), but that is not always the case. There is one little boy who I will never forget. At five years old he told me of things that no five year old should ever have to know about - a harrowing tale of abuse. His father had been in jail, but had been released. This child and his mother, along with his older brother and younger sister had just come home from an outing. He went downstairs and found his father hiding behind the couch. He was thrown against a wall, threatened and hit - and so were his siblings. They were then forced to watch while, "Daddy made Mommy bleed." Then, "the police came and took Daddy away." He talked about how he wanted to protect is Mommy and what he wanted to do if he ever saw his father again. These were things that no five year old should ever have to consider. I immediately talked to my boss about the situation, who then spoke with the child's mother and asked how we could help them. We were able to hook the family up with a safe place to live in a new neighbourhood and some good counselling. I often think about that little boy and his family and wonder how they are doing.

I think that this is where I am called to act as an agent of freedom and liberation. I can be that adult that will help when a child asks for it. I can be that safe place for someone who needs it. I simply cannot stand by and let an innocent person get hurt - it is not right or fair and I will do my best to do something about it.

Presently, we have to conform to a party system as our political venue. 

When we shall overcome we will have coalition governments based on ANY form of proportional representation and the parties will be of small relevance.

At this point, Canada's civil war will finally come to an end and we will see above 70% support at the polls on election day.

As the wise man said, "I HAVE A DREAM"

 Good morning. Below is the synopsis and suggested discussion questions for today's reflection. Thank you all of your participation. 

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Tuesday | Day 18 | I Need Three Volunteers: You, You, and You

"All those who were enrolled...qualified to do the work of service...." Numbers 4:46-47

The book of Numbers in the Bible reminds us that the journey from slavery to a new beginning for the Hebrew people was a journey fraught with hardship and difficulty. God's patience was tested during the years of wandering and hiding out in the wilderness, but God had no intention of abandoning the people. Probably many who read Numbers 1-4 wonder how this account is relevant to their faith journey. Two things stand out and transcend the limitations of history and culture. First, for community to survive and come to a place of health, all who are able must carry responsibility for the community. Second, the presence and protection of the ark of the covenant was the glue that held the Israelite community together on their journey. Community is defined by purpose and maintained by each member consciously choosing that which brings life to the community and sets it upon new paths of service.

Reflection Questions: What is the glue that holds our faith community together today? What role do you play in the process? What new areas of service is God calling you to explore in the future?

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010).

The church I serve is held together by history, established relationships, commitment to the community and those who live there, worship, sharing of food and drink after the service every Sunday, and a commitment to social justice.  I just help worship happen, and visit individuals, collecting their stories and affirming their connections.

I don't know where God is going to lead me next.

The glue that holds my particular faith community together today is the commitment and love of the people - both to God, and to one another.  While our numbers are dwindling slightly from loss (death and relocation) those who are still there feel very much a family and a bond.  There are a few new people coming - I hope they are being made to feel part of our family and welcomed and accepted.

The role I play in the process of our faith community and family is to love, listen, accept, support, encourage, and help out where I can.

New area of service . . . hmmm - I think I will need to pray about that.  I have recently finished my term on our Leadership Board, and prior to that term had been involved in areas of leadership for many years.  When I finished my term in February I was tired and burned out.  I welcomed a much needed rest and reprieve.  Over these past weeks I have felt rested and upon reflection have come to a better understanding of my strenghts and weaknesses, gifts and talents (those I have and those I don't).  I know that next year I will probably be involved in some way within the Leadership Board as we have so few willing to serve in that way, but I think by then I will have clearer understanding of where and what I should be doing.  I am hoping over the next weeks and months that I will find where I might be needed in a new service.  For now I help where I can and enjoy just being with the people and not feeling the immense responsibility of leadership.

 What is the glue that holds our faith community together?

The UCC’s “glue” is our focus is in faith development rather than orthodoxy. It gives us permission to see faith as an activity and as a journey, not as a state of conformity, and to respect expressions of faith that are wider than, or different from, our own.

It brings with it some collective challenges and problems.

Without orthodoxy, there’s a tendency to feel that faith is a private journey — so many people are reticent to talk about their faith or express themselves publicly. Some hold onto an orthodoxy they have previously known. Others bring in ways of thinking they are used to in their secular lives, and critiques based on personal likes or dislikes, rather than on faith and reason. It’s been my experience that even loyal attenders can be hesitant to say out loud why they go to church with the UCC… asked the question, they reluctantly mumble about community and “fellowship”, “the music”, witnessing peripheral benefits that would be unsustainable were they in fact core reasons for worship and adherence to a faith.

This means the “glue” needs constant reconditioning. Our difficulties highlight needs for more theological effort and more prayerful ways to bolster our confidence. We need initiatives that let us deepen out spirituality. We need to be reminded constantly that we are on journeys towards love, joy in the fullness of life and the grandeur of peace. We need to be nudged to express our gratitude more freely, more fully and more widely, and share our faith and insights more readily.

And these are good and healthy urgings that can help us more freely and openly express a vision far greater than “the economy” can ever hope to offer..

What role do I play?

As a minister’s spouse, I do my inadequate best to support my wife’s ministry in as many ways as seem appropriate. That can mean picking up some extra income, trying to be a supportive homemaker, or being a sounding board. I try to provide opportunities for respite. On occasion, it’s meant withdrawal. I have, for example, been approached inappropriately as the male manifestation of my wife’s ministry, and have had to point out that it’s my wife who has the training, the call and the pastoral skills… and is the one who’s obligated to confidentiality. In practice, of course, I do respect confidentiality — and that can put limits on full participation as a congregation member (so I have sometimes dropped in at other churches).

What new areas of service is god calling me to explore in the future?

In the future? How could I know?

Right now, I am thinking about an appropriate way to try to involve "progressive" men in active faith development. Men often hang back a bit; others have a reputation of drowning out women’s conversations. We have a move coming up so it will depend what the new call is like… but I’d be interested in facilitating and participating in some conversational forum for men that explores the richness and diversity of faith-seeking in the modern and postmodern world..

I also am trying to find interest and support for a publications initiative (my "skill" area) that would be intended to encourage wider and higher respect for aboriginal peoples and cultures in Canada. So far, it doesn’t seem to be moving. The move that’s in store might take me closer to places of potential support. This is a reflection of my love of cultural difference, vitality and creativity.

And I 'm finding the whole issue of restorative justice increasingly compelling. I first saw restorative justice in action in New Zealand and I know it can work. I have been reading more, and thinking more deeply about the need for it in Canadian contexts… then our Prime Minister announced plans to build more prisons. Restorative justice could save Canada billions of dollars, cut crime dramatically and move beyond the shameful incarceration rates imposed on aboriginal people in this country.

So I don’t know about the future… but I’m sure that, if I live my faith as best I can, something will open and honour me with a useful role. 

I chose to define "faith community" as my congregation for this.

I think that the glue that holds my faith community together is a belief in God and a shared set of values. While we may not always agree with one another, our differing opinions are shared with respect and appreciation.

My current role in my faith community is changing. I am a Sunday School teacher - one who enjoys sharing and experiencing the stories of our faith with children. This is a role that I really enjoy - I get to share our stories in a fun and engaging way. I am not giving this role up - but am adding to it. Our presbytery has started something called cluster groups - with each congregation being placed into a small group with other, similar congregations. I was asked to be one of our congregation's representatives at these meetings where we will be discussing the future of the United Church on the southern tip of Vancouver Island. I was also asked recently if I would consider being a presbytery rep for my congregation. After some careful, prayerful thought (and many conversations and emails) I've realized that this may be the answer to a prayer. A few months ago I realized that I wanted to serve my church outside of my own congregation, but had no idea what that might look like. I searched the General Council, BC Conference and Victoria Presbytery websites, but saw no opportunities that called out to me, so I kept praying and wondering. I'm not officially a presbytery rep yet, but it seems like being one would feel right for me.

 Good morning. Below is today's reflection synopsis and suggested discussion questions. Blessings.

 In what ways do I see reflected the kind of leadership Jesus exercised by those in power today?

I don’t. The face-to-face interaction, the itinerancy, the intimacy, the driving force of love, the reciprocal hospitality and the slow, foot-to-the-earth travel that dignified Jesus’ leadership are rendered all but invisible today: by high-speed transportation, competitive mainstream news media, telcommunications and the internet.

There are people out there, working as Jesus did  but, we pretty much ensure they do not come to power. We prefer the suited old men and the shining limos, military pomp and lots and lots of money. I’d nominate Silvio Berlusconi as a caricature of our far too prevalent leadership ideal: clownish in his inflated ego, laughable in his morbid, geriatric sexual persona, disgusting in his greed.

Someone who comes somehwhere close Jesus’ leadership style and has gained a little power would have to be Wangari Maathai of Kenya who was recognised as the 2004 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. By courageous example, through her grassroots “Green Belt Movement” she’s inspired women to plant more than 20 million trees on their land, on school grounds and in church compounds. She has had quite of lot of recognition but I’m sure there as many other leaders of similar calibre who have not.

In Canada, there are good people like Beverly Jacobs,  Stephen Lewis, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Roméo Dallaire and Justice Harry Laforme who've kind of hovered at the edge of mainstream awareness. 

Which world leaders of today do I believe will have the greatest impact on the shape of our global society?

Working within the theatres of modern power, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari has been a powerhouse for peace but his intentions have, as I see it, been circumscribed by the realities of the context in which politicians have to work these days. Another person for whom I have tremendous admiration is Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga — formerly a professor emeritus of psychology at the Universite of Montreal, Quebec — who gave up her Canadian citizenship to accept appointment as president of Latvia, a daunting task. She served two terms and did a fabulous job under incredibly difficult conditions, but she has gone largely overlooked and uncelebrated in Canada.

Contenders for “greatest impact”? I really do not think futurology's a helpful exercise but , for example, there’s Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank and mictrocredit guy; there’s Liu Xiabo (in a Chinese prison)... who knows?

What does leadership mean to me?

Leadership always articulates and expresses an impulse that's already alive within the community. Even in Jesus’ case, we know that many people were searching and spiritually restless. There was a yearning for the Messiah and, it could be argued, Jesus made himself vulnerable by disappointing that hope for the leader of an army that would expel the Romans. The Jews went on with that agenda and, under more “realistic” leaders saw their heroes die at Masada, the Temple levelled and themselves slaughtered, enslaved and banished.

Hitler rose on the frustrations of a humiliated German nation and gave his people the climactic violence for which many of them had inwardly yearned. Had Hitler died in the First World War and never written Mein Kampf, another "little man" would have been elevated in his place.

We bring our leaders down upon ourselves. No tyrant survives without a mandate or at least a fiercely loyal cabal.

Leadership, then, is an individual responsibility. We fail in that responsibility when we are silent about our values, hopes and visions and, in extreme situations, when fear silences us. Our governments do not struggle to bring peace and justice to the world when we do not insist that they do; our leaders do not fail us… we fail them by failing to speak out loudly, by not thinking, by embracing short-term, self-centred goals and values.

Our leaders are mirrors to our collective will and desires. We "distrust" our leaders only because they too clearly reflect our moral, spiritual and ethical slovenliness. It embarrasses us.

What’s my agenda and vision?

What’s your’s?

I don't see much of the style of leadership offered by current political leaders.  Naheed Nenshi, the mayor of Calgary, comes closer than most.

I don't see any leaders in the global arena with the power to overcome the harmful use of power by the people we don't easily see.

Today's reading seemed to be more appropos for today than the author ever could have intended it to be due to our upcoming federal election. The author wrote about how we often have a hard time trusting our leaders and politically this really resonated with me. I have a hard time trusting any politician - especially at the provincial and federal level.

In what ways do you see reflected the kind of leadership Jesus exercised by those in power today?

I see Jesus' leadership reflected when I see leaders - be they politicians or regular citizens - working to help the underdogs of our society. I see in Tommy Douglas, who brought us universal health care, and in Rev. Al Tysick, a United Church minister who is well known throughout Victoria for his work with street people here. I saw it recently in Premier Christy Clark when she pledged to raise the provincial minimum wage.

Which world leaders of today do you believe will have the greatest impact on the shape of our global society?

The world leader who always seems to have the greatest impact on our global society is the President of the United States - currently Barack Obama. I don't see this changing any time soon.

What does leadership mean to you?

What does leadership mean to me? I think a good leader is someone who is always looking out for the common good and puts the welfare of others ahead of themselves. A good leader watches out for those who cannot watch out for themselves. A leader is someone who truly cares about the people and places that they are in a leadership position over. They do not think of themselves as being better or more important than anyone else. A good leader would never intentionally hurt anyone and would truly listen to everyone involved before making a decision. Good leaders are hard to find!

 Economics is about the allocation of scarce resources through the use of money.  Politics is about the allocation of scarce resources through the exercise of power.  Unless funding rules applicable to political donors and campaign funding limit it (as they so far have mostly done in Canada and have utterly failed to do in the U.S.) a symbiotic relationship develops between money and power and democracy and thus leadership is subverted.  

Thus we see in the U.S. successive Presidents and Congress doing the bidding of the corporate and financial sector.  In Canada, Mr. Harper made a stab at altering election financing rules that would have put further pressure on politicians here to pander to the wishes of political donors.  This was done under the guise of reducing the taxpayer's burden in paying for elections.  Public financing of elections, however, obviates the need for private financing which is a good thing since private financing leads to undue influence being weilded by political donors especially large donors who are mostly corporations.  The role of the individual citizen is thus undermined.  Worse, leadership is undermined because it becomes followership and the real leaders ... those who are truly setting the agenda ... remain unidentified and out of sight.  This is a process that has destroyed the U.S. democracy and could very well destroy ours.

As a result of this process the natural leaders are not found in government.  This is why in our age, at least, successful politicians are a malleable and mediocre bunch.  Our leaders have retired from the political field and have devoted their time to other endeavours like business or academia or even art .  John Ralston Saul springs to mind.  He tries to lead through his insight and scholarship.    

Saul's philosophical essays began with the trilogy made up of the bestseller Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, the polemic philosophical dictionary The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense, and the book that grew out of his 1995 Massey Lectures, The Unconscious Civilization. The last won the 1996 Governor General's Award for Non-Fiction Literature.

These books deal with themes such as the dictatorship of reason unbalanced by other human qualities, how it can be used for any ends especially in a directionless state that rewards the pursuit of power for power's sake. He argues that this leads to deformations of thought such as ideology promoted as truth; the rational but anti-democratic structures of corporatism, by which he means the worship of small groups; and the use of language and expertise to mask a practical understanding of the harm this causes, and what else our society might do. He argues that the rise of individualism with no regard for the role of society has not created greater individual autonomy and self-determination, as was once hoped, but isolation and alienation. He calls for a pursuit of a more humanist ideal in which reason is balanced with other human mental capacities such as common sense, ethics, intuition, creativity, and memory, for the sake of the common good, and he discusses the importance of unfettered language and practical democracy. (because it is late I just lifted this paragraph from Wikipedia)

Saul also wrote The Death of Globalism which judging by the editorials I regularly read in The Globe hasn't yet registered with conservatives and business types in this country.  It is a great book full of insight and ideas for new more human approaches to our future.  

 We in Canada need to consider some of these (Saul's) themes and ideas (and then become consumers of them) . Unfortunately it seems that our politicians do not read.  

Now I have just done something here that many (should I say almost all?) Canadians do and that is to make cynical remarks about the quality of our politicians in an attempt to make myself seem knowing.  This is a mistake and it is dishonest and misleading. I have heard a lot of dismissive remarks about Michael Ignatieff but would someone please give me an actual reason why he would not be a good leader.  This is a person of great intellectual accomplishment.  He has accomplished more and learned more in his life than almost any person who could be found sneering at him while slurping coffee down at the Tims.  I have met and had dealings with Elizabeth May of the Green party.  Elizabeth is person of great energy and principal.  She worked for many years as the President of the Sierra Club of Canada (I was the Chairman of the Sierra Club of Eastern Canada at the time).  She has sacrificed for her beliefs.  She has integrity.  Her environmental activism does not ingratiate her to corporate donors , however.  Mr. Harper doesn't want her in the upcoming candidates debate because she is a powerful and convincing speaker and debater who made Mr. Harper look quite pedestrian in the last debates.

 I have had dealings with Jack Layton too.  Jack is another person who is committed and principled and has devoted his life to public service.  When I met him in the early nineties he was a dynamo.who was out at meeting supporting the activities of activist groups (including Sierra Club) every night of the week.  

Why then do we have this culture of cynicism about politicians.  I think it is pure intellectual laziness.  I think, too, that mainstream media are (because of their dependence on advertising) controlled by corporate interests and do not do the spadework necessary to actually report news.  Instead, it is cheaper to hire talking heads who comment on the coverage offered by other new outlets.  We get phony news.  How telegenic is Elizabeth May?  Elections reported as if they were horse races.  Coverage of budgets and other government policies not from their actual practical impacts but rather from the standpoint of whether they are effective from an electioneering standpoint ... from the standpoint of their effectiveness at manipulation rather thean their effectiveness at serving  the public interest.  

... and we stand for it and duly mouth the platitudes that we have heard on television.  Al Gore is "boring" (whatever that means); Michael Ignatieff if "boring" too apparently ... and according to those ads "he didn't come back for you" (although in doing so he did leave a job as a respected Harvard professor that Mr. Harper and most of the rest of us could only dream of having).  Elizabeth May is "frumpy" ... and there is nothing worse than a frumpy woman is there?  Jack Layton's mustache look like the one Joe Stalin wore ...yada yada yada.  It has all the heft and relevance of Dancing With the Stars.

Who is to blame for the lack of leadership in Canada?  We are!  We have the leader and government we deserve because we are not guided by a vision but rather react to all those things that we apparently don't want.  It is no accident that we have a minority government that operates under the leadership of reactionaries.  

So steady as she goes Canada ...and even though we're now involved in dropping bombs in Libya ... and many of our neighbours are out of work ... this is no time to be making choices ... you, the Canadian public don't want an election (and by inference you have nothing to say ) ... anyway its the economy stupid ... and when Parliament found the government in contempt of parliament  it was really just political maneuvering and, in any case, Parliament only represents you ... and it is nothing a little negative advertising can't undo ... 

P.S.: Sorry I missed the last couple of reflections.  I saw them and thought about them but really drew a blank on the "slavery" subject and felt a flip and hurtful answer beginning to form in my head for the following day's topic so the kinder gentler qwerty just gave it a pass. 

 Greetings. Below is the synopsis and suggested discussion questions for today's reflection from Rising with the Morning Star. Thank you all of your continued participation in this Lenten discussion. 

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Thursday | Day 20 | Humans Are Harsher

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010).

 We as a nation have allowed ourselves to be talked into the proposition that economic matters trump all else and to allow moral, ethical, cultural, spiritual and social values (precisely the values that make life worth living)  to to be stripped out of our calculations.  Is it any wonder then that the government operates without reference to the representatives that we have elected and that it does so in contempt of the Parliament that is supposed to represent us?

 When have you seen a healing of community take place? What are some examples of grace overcoming the desire for revenge, and enemies becoming friends?

I'm sorry.  Perhaps I am just in the wrong business; perhaps my outlook has been poisoned by my disgust with current events and the drift of of our society into what seems to me sometimes a some sort of new Dark Age, but I am afraid that, right now, I can not recall that I have ever seen these things.

Please!  Somebody write something to show me otherwise.

When have you seen a healing of community take place? What are some examples of grace overcoming the desire for revenge, and enemies becoming friends?

I'm thinking of a Corrie Ten Booms quote: " it is only those that were able to forgive who were best able to rebuild their lives"  She was a Dutch Christian holocaust survivor who many would have felt would have been totally justified in harbouring a hatred for the German people. Instead she endorsed the gospels teachings of forgiveness and continued with this "healing" until she died.

My mind then takes a detour over to Japan where in 1945, two Atomic bombs were dropped on a nation, as a controversial method to end the war. Many casualties and senseless deaths. What better reason to never align with the United States ever again for anything? Yet we have watched this nation throughout the decades become an admirable power that defies its size and resources. In an instant their world changed and it is they that have taught us where true power lies. Not in destroying a people but by believing it is people working together that creates the change that is needed.

I recall during 911, the momentary calm after the towers fell as the president of the United States and the people searched for someone to blame. This could have been their greatest moment, but they failed to realize it. Instead Iraq has suffered.

There is much to learn from those who have overcome with forgiveness and a character that defies reason. The lesson sometimes doesn't become apparent until years later and often the lesson is lost as events become mere history. But if we take the time to think back and reflect on how our lives have changed by moving through our grief and reclaiming our lives through an act that is not instinctual but deliberate, we can see the wisdom in what Jesus wanted us to know.

(I’m laden with flu’!… but, in response to today’s question, let me share a true story I hold dear.)

I was in the pretty, orange-tiled hilltop village of Scapoli — in central Italy — for an international bagpiping festival. It overlooks valleys of olive groves, vineyards and cornfields, across to forests where European bears and wolves still roam free in a very big National Park. In turn, Scapoli is overlooked by the peaks of the Mainarde and Matese massifs, spectacular in the summer sun.

It is a setting that gives a serenity to Scapoli, even at the height of the festival.

This is a poor part of Italy. Its traditions have been shaped by its rugged environment. It’s produced close functional relationships between hard physical work, community pride, food, celebration and hospitality. There’s something compelling about a commitment and sense of beauty that binds a community so proudly around the presentation of things its people produce with their hands. Yes, this is an “Italian thing” to be sure, but little Scapoli does it well.

The village’s own bagpipers — and there are a few of them — were out in their dark, knee-length cloaks, red ribbons and black felt hats, processing through the crowds. With them went singers, accordion players and percussionists… thudding drums, ringing cymbals, jangling tambourines, rattling castanets, moaning friction drums – as many as 20 different languages were being spoken, and all around were bagpipes: all sorts of bagpipes, with their own strange-sounding names: baghets, musas and pivas from northern Italy, zampognas from Sicily and the south, bots from the Pyrenees, Highland and Irish pipes, gaitas and gaidas, dudas, sacs de gemecs from northern Spain and other instruments from around Europe. There were tarantella dancers from southern Italy, singers, guitarists and other performers. Most of these people had arrived by hitchhiking across Europe with little money, lightly packed backpacks and their instruments. They had come to play, to learn, to celebrate, to journey.

A few stalls displayed piping supplies, crafts and souvenirs; others filled the air with the smells of spit-roasting pork, fresh-baked bread, locally made smoked meats cheeses…. trestle tables and chairs attracted visitors and performers.

It was at such a table, with wine and food passed around, that I saw an elderly local instrument maker, a young piper from Scandinavia, a burly Serb, a costumed Spaniard, another Balkan piper who was introduced to me as a Croat, and several north Italian piva players locked in animated discussions in several languages about their music and their various bagpipes. Instruments were being taken apart, reeds were being passed around, snatches of tune were being sung, techniques were being compared and the table was rocking with laughter.

During the Second World War, the Germans' "Gustav Line" ran through this area and people here had had arough time of it. This was now the summer of 2002. Less than a year had passed since the terrorist attacks that felled New York’s “twin towers”; United Nations weapons inspectors were looking for evidence of “weapons of mass destruction” in an Iraq that was still ruled by Saddam Hussein. The former president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, was being tried in The Hague for war crimes: Serbs and Croats, like that pair at the table, had very recently been deadly enemies. And, from time to time, NATO military jets made loud, snarling passes overhead. 

On the ground, in striking contrast, little Scapoli had brought the whole of Europe, laughing, to a single table.

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You can see photos of this annual event at:

www.molise.org/territorio/Isernia/Scapoli/Eventi/Feste_e_Tradizioni/Festival_Internazionale_della_Zampogna

...and here are a couple of vid-clip that give a tiny sampling of what goes on... in the first clip, these guys with the big zampogna bagpipe (at right) are almost certainly Sicilian:

Qwerty - I hope that my responses will remind you of how healing can happen and how grace can overcome hatred.

I have seen a healing of community take place in my own United Church congregation. Some serious mistakes were made when our board decided to let go of the person who was responsible for our children and families ministry so that they could review her position. They failed to communicate with anyone, least of all the person involved. A lot of people in the congregation, myself included, were very hurt by this decision. When the board realized how angry people were, they immediately made some changes and extended her contract initially by six months, but still the pain and the rift existed. A few months later one of our ordained ministers decided to leave and we entered into a JNAC process. At the end of that it was determined that we really needed to enter into an intentional interim ministry so that some further healing could take place. This was a good thing and over the next two years we did heal and learn from all of our mistakes.

As an answer to the second question, I am thinking of a story I heard a few years ago about a woman who forgave her husband's murderer (I wish I could remember their names). She started going to visit this young man in prison - wanting to understand why he had done what he did. As they got to know one another, she came to understand how truly remorseful he truly was. Not only was she able to forgive him, but she also befriended him. When he was released from jail (he was a young offender) she invited him to work with her - going into schools and talking to kids about the reality of drugs (he was high when he had killed her husband). She let go of any anger and hatred that she had towards this young man and replaced it with grace and humility. May we all be as courageous as her!

 We met this guy in PEI this part summer... and we have become good friends.

Walt and his wife, Nancy, are wonderful, amazing people:

nds.

Here's a link to a SHORTER ACCOUNT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6JsfdJ2lwc&feature=related

When have you see a healing of community take place?

I'm not as cynical as qwerty - but I understand his point of view.

I have seen temporary examples of community healing - but, sadly, the lessons learnt, don't seem to last.

After WW2, Britain understood the part that the working class played in victory, and introduced the Welfare state.

For many reasons - including greed and self-interest - it didn't last............

I still retain a shy hope for community healing of a permanent nature - mankind may need it for survival.

A community is a collection of individuals - therein lies it's solutions and downfall.

Jesus saw the need clearly - for what is The Kingdom of God, but a just and loving community?

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010). 

This one hits home.  About thirty years ago my brother was living in a rooming house in a run down part of town.  He had no job.  He collected welfare, paid his tab at the corner store, got drunk.  Sometimes he disappeared for a few days - sometimes one of his sisters would have picked him up and taken him to her home, or sometimes he might be spending time with a friend or acquaintance.  No one kept day to day track of him.

But then people from his neighbourhood noticed that he hadn't been around for a few days.  A visit to his rooming house revealed the door locked but no sign of him.  Someone knew one of his sister's names and phone number.  No she hadn't seen him since . . .  Please let her know if he showed up. 

She contacted the other sisters.  A missing persons report was filed with the police.  They took the information but said that they didn't actively search for a middle-aged man who might have gone on a holiday or met up with a woman. 

A week more passed.  Then the friend phoned the sister again.  She happened to notice a small item on the inside pages of the local newspaper.   Several bodies had been found in the rivers around the city in the past month.  They were being held at the morgue but in a few days, if unidentified and unclaimed, they would be buried in unmarked graves.  There were a couple of lines about each.  One was found near the bridge, near the park in the neighbourhood.  Age, about 50.  Brown pants, black shoes, thinning hair, false teeth.   "Does that sound like your brother?"

Phone calls. A trip to the city.  A visit to the morgue.  More phone calls, confirming the worst.   We made arrangements for cremation, arranged a memorial service, and I brought my brother home for burial beside our parents in the country churchyard near where he grew up. 

But for the luck of someone we barely knew spotting that small notice he could have been one of the missing, the disappeared.  Every Christmas, every family celebration, every summer holiday, we would have wondered "Where is he?  What happened?  Will he ever call?"

The harbour patrol never compared their records with the local police missing persons list.   He was just a body washed up by the low river water in the heat of August.  

Piecing together the scanty information - when last seen, usual habits, etc. - it seems that he had gone for a walk in the park beside the river.  Tripped, or stumbled, or was pushed, and fell in.  He couldn't swim - from a child he had been afraid of water.  It was dark. 

A missing person who I had played with as a child, fished with as a teen, who my sister named her son after, who was included in family get-togethers as much as possible, who was loved. 

What could we have done differently?  How could we have prevented this from happening?   I don't know.   But I do know that he was a beloved child of God, precious in God's sight.   At the funeral, one sister requested a hymn she remembered him singing in Sunday School 40 years earlier.  "God Sees a Little Sparrow Fall".  

Seeler, your story has touched my heart deeply this morning. Thankyou.

Wow Seeler - thank you for sharing that. How heartless of the harbour patrol authority to consider burying those bodies without first doing everything they could to find out who those people were - including, but not limited to checking the missing persons list. I'd like to think that wouldn't happen today, but I suspect I'd be wrong.

When thinking about how to answer these questions came to mind: refugees, people with mental illnesses and the missing women from Vancouver and the Highway of Tears. The people in all three of these groups have one thing in common - they are marginalized members of society, not a part of the every day realities of many of us.

Refugees are people who, for one reason or another, have had to leave their own countries and seek asylum in another country. Many have suffered extreme persecution for their beliefs or actions. I think it is important and valuable for us to get to know their stories. I've had the chance to get to a know a few refugees and to get to hear a little of their stories. Talking to them helps to remind me that not everyone is as lucky as I am to live in a country where I can express my beliefs openly.

The second group is the one I most identify with - people with mental illnesses. As I have said in here before, I have a mental illness. People with mental illnesses often suffer from invisible persecution. Talking about it can be difficult - tell the wrong person and you could be in trouble (I know of people who have lost their jobs because they spoke about their mental illness - although their bosses would never admit that). There is a huge stigma around mental illness - if you are mentally ill then you must also incompetent. What a mentally ill person really needs is access to good health care, but that can be really hard to get - especially if you do not live in a major centre. Thankfully more and more people are speaking out and the walls are being broken down.

The third group that came to mind is comprised mainly of prostitutes - many of whom are First Nations. They are actually two groups - one from Vancouver and one from northern British Columbia - but they have much in common. Sixty women in Vancouver were murdered. It took years before what happened to them was discovered. Many of their bodies will never be found and many of their cases will never go to court. How will healing happen for their families? At least eighteen women have gone missing or been found, murdered, along the stretch of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert known as the "Highway of Tears" - and nobody knows who did it or why. How will healing happen for their families?

What do we do keep God's promise that, "none shall be missing?" I think the answer lies in communication. Listen to their stories, not just in the media, but in real life too. Talk to the people who have been affected. I know that when I am deciding who to vote for in the upcoming election, I will think about which politician is most likely to stand with the marginalized members of society and to help them. I think that is a good starting point.

 The missing people…

Just this spring an elderly woman was found dead in her province-operated seniors’ flat in Carlottetown. She is believed to have died about five months previously. Her “privacy” was being respected… all winter, apparently. The police were withholding details “out of respect for the family”.

On Gold Ridge, Guadalcanal (the main island of the Solomons group), the people who’d lived there for generations were offered half ownership in a mining company and 20 per cent of the royalties from the gold if they moved from their homes. They went ahead with the idea and somehow ended up with two per cent of the royalties, a new housing settlement, four cash payments and no share in the company. Australians now own Gold Ridge. The displaced people, banned now from their ancestral land and most of them unemployed, now live in the cheaply built houses of “the New Settlement”. The resettlement package provided school and pharmacy buildings... but, guess what,  there’s no money to staff them. Meanwhile, modern overseas fishing fleets have depleted the traditional inshore fisheries and people in the Solomons eat out of cans now, instead of the ocean.

We now have an election that’s helping to put the victims of natural disasters — from floods in Pakistan and Australia to earthquakes in Haiti, New Zealand and Japan — on a news-driven conveyor belt to forgetfulness.

Then there are people like Ashley Smith, jailed when she was 15 for throwing crab apples at a postman. and, After being bundled about from institution to institution, injected with drugs while she was strapped to a gurney and kept in isolation, at last committed suicide at the age of 19 while guards looked on

And there are the thousands of hungry people, most of them children, who die day by day in the world’s most deprived vastnesses. And then there are indigenous people in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific whose resources are being looted and whose cultures are being driven to extinction by the “march of progress” and “economic necessity”.

At home, here in Canada, we have the forthcoming election’s non-issues: poverty, aboriginal justice, domestic violence, parenting, the sad relationship between mental health and the prison system… the information is “out there” even if the compassion is a bit patchy.

It seems to me that the real “vanished person” in the midst of all of this devastation though is the being within. We dare to say, 'where's god?' in an accusing tone of voice. Forget god for a moment... where the hell are we?

Without being alive to our SELVES, how can we possibly be present to any one of the people who suffer? What do we have to offer? Pity? Charity? Discards, pits and peelings... scraps from our feast?

We are colonised by and dehumanised by baseless fears and groundless “needs”.

We do not, or do not want to, see our selves, our being’s core, for what it is… and, unseeing, are unable to trust our own potential to love, to change the World, to withdraw from exploitation and selective neglect.

When we come alive to life, to the god-presence that permeates us and all the places we move through in the course of our lives, we find it a lot easier to let go the habits and expectations that cripple our neighbours and damage the planet -- we are liberated to  risk joy; and joy compels us to risk the sort of compassion that places others before us and celebrates life in all of its forms and fullness.

We CAN change the world... 

 I screwed up this post and don't know how to fix it so it is deleted ...

 Who are the missing?

-the mentally ill

-the disabled (within the meaning of the Ontario Disability Supports Program)

-the dispossessed

-new immigrants especially women and the elderly who live in isolation and do not speak the language

-refugees / boat people 

-the uneducated or illiterate

-those in the thrall of lenders (the credit challenged)

-those whose (bargaining) rights have been taken away or eroded 

-sex trade workers / sex slaves in the clutches of exploiters

-illegal immigrants in the thrall of ruthless employers and snakeheads

-the drug addicted

-the homeless

- the marginalized (economically, racially, sexually, socially, culturally ...)

-the mentally challenged

-the emotionally damaged

-the sexually abused and damaged

-the brain damaged (poor nutrition, alcohal, drugs, fetal alcohol, fetal cocaine etc)

 What will it take?

-individual awareness

-private empathy/compassion

-public empathy/compassion

-social action

-cultural education

-justice initiatives

-private initiative

-public initiatives/programs

-spiritual awakening (to see that which links us all and the humanity of each of us)

-charity too can play a part but we cannot expect charity and charitable giving to do all the heavy lifting as this imposes an undue burden of cost (and work) on a few while society as a whole benefits from the initiatives.  Public programs must be in place so that all of society can share in the benefits and burdens.

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qwerty's list illustrates that there are many "missing" people.

Seeler tells us of a sad reality in her own life.

From my own life's experience I'm very aware of this issue.  Before my mental illness was treated and managed I lived as an inpatient and outpatient with others similarly afflicted.

For a time it seemed I was thrown into another world. In my eyes, everyone was odd but me. But I came to see we weren't odd - just folks who found living a difficult struggle.

When my health improved I returned to the "real" world of working and making a living. I would walk down a city street with a colleague and see a former patient I knew searching the bins. It was a stark reminder of what it's like to be one of the "missing" people.

What will it take? qwerty's list says it well.

And an understanding that we all have the potential to become a "missing" person.

  Good morning. Below is the synopsis and suggested discussion questions for today's reflection. Thank you. 
--------------------------

Saturday | Day 22 | Didn't Our Hearts Burn within Us?

"[H]e is like a refiner's fire...."  Malachi 3:2

Malachi announces a scorching judgment. We have all heard preachers and others who clearly delight in the proclaiming that God's anger will consume with fire all the wicked people of the world. Yet, the purpose of the prophet's call is not to delight in a message of punishment or threat -- it is to call the people to a new community filled with redemptive energy. This theme is repeated many times in the teaching of Jesus. Jesus comes not to condemn the world and its people but to offer them life abundant -- life alive with healing energies that draw the estranged back into community and break down the barriers separating people from people.

Reflection Questions: Has there been an occasion in your life when the love of another person has brought you some kind of healing? What long-term effects has that had on your life? What ripples may have moved outward that occasion to touch others?

Rising with the Morning Star (UCPH, 2010). 

Has there been an occasion in my life when the love of another person has brought me some kind of healing? What long-term effects has that had on my life? What ripples may have moved outward that occasion to touch others?

Love is such a strange emotion that it often seems not an emotion at all, but something other. To be loved is to be freed, to be raised up, to be healed, to be stirred and inspired, to be transformed… at the same time it is to be humbled, to be made vulnerable, to be disoriented, to be attached to something beyond the edge of comprehension. To love is to become more than you deserve to be, to brim with meaning, to desire wholeness, to strip self bare, to become aware, to come alive, to buzz with wonder. It releases us into the purest essences of beauty, it is a longing to submit to truth and let go of anything that holds you back. To love is to be reckless. To be loved sustains loving; to love is to live. Life and love have no meaning without each other.

I have been blessed by love; my wife and I have found a love that’s bigger than both of us. It still grows, day by day. We are soul-mates; we do not always agree yet our search for harmony moves us both forward.

But there’s another love story I can tell you... a love that took me very slowly by surprise... and I’d like to share it here.

There was a biology teacher at the New Zealand boarding school I attended (a school I hated) who opened a world to me I might well have not otherwise discovered.

He was a great believer in “field trips”. He could inspire even the most oafish of adolescent boys’ minds with the raw materials of his subject and the way they interacted. He had us out in the New Zealand bush, collecting leaves and insects, centipedes, snails, springtails, and smaller creatures we discovered only by putting our samples under microscope lenses. He had us putting together food chains and thinking about how different species differed and how they lived. He had us fossick about in the soil, sand, stones and leaf mould and sort substrates by the species that favoured them. He had us set up “light traps” overnight for nocturnal insects, and think about the different worlds nocturnal and diurnal creatures inhabited.

The New Zealand bush can be almost impenetrable. It often has a densely layered undergrowth… and, compared with Canadian woods, it can be quite noisy.

This biology teacher taught us to lie on our backs with our eyes closed and listen. He made us listen until we could locate and describe the interactions that were going on around us, out of sight because of the undergrowth: calls of nectar-feeding birds told us which blooms were open, high in the sunlight overhead; the busy chirps of insect eaters, like fantails that catch insects on the wing, told us what birds and insects (and how many) were moving around in the shadow-dappled subcanopy. Ground-feeding birds made fallen leaves rustle in the dark, shadowy places. Sometimes, with my head pressed into bouncy leaf litter and moss, I’d hear the near-silent scratching of a larger beetle or a centipede: predators whose presence also gave hints about their prey.

He would have us draw what we heard. Then we’d compare that with what we could see. Different weather, different seasons gave the bush different tales to tell. Sometimes, we’d “lie out” in the bush at night.

My imagination and curiosity has never got over the enchantment of those field trips.

Lying, eyes closed, listening with all of my attention made me feel freed, raised up, healed, stirred and inspired, transformed… and, at the same time, humbled, vulnerable, disoriented — and intimately attached to something beyond the edge of comprehension.

In short, I felt loved: uniquely, personally… because we each experienced it in our own unique way. Sure, it might have been a single ecosystem on a single day, opening to us all at the same time, but it was so packed with meaning that it gave each of us a unique conversation, a unique experience.

The wonder of learning to do this is was that I learned to never feel alone. When we pay attention, a single pebble can speak with us.

At the time, in those awful boarding school days, I was an atheist. When, years later, I came to the place of acknowledging a god-presence and learning the elements of “faith” I found words to attach to the experience. It IS the experience of being loved.

It is heady, it is vast and vivid with meaning... and it dwarfs my “ideas” and “explanations” with plain, everyday, all-pervasive, electrifying old love.

MikePatterson - you write so well that I think I should get my comments in first, so that I am not following you.  Your discription of feeling loved as you listened to the sounds of nature around you is beautiful.  It reads as though you felt that you were a part of all that surrounded you, part of the universe of love.

And there are times that I have discribed in an earlier part of this study, when I have been out in the woods or by a lake or in a snow covered clearing, I have felt a perfect peace and belonging in the Kingdom of God right here and now - a feeling that 'it doesn't get any better than this' and that is enough.  

What ripples have spread outward?   It is hard to say.  We never really know what effect we may have on others.  I do think that by loving my children I have helped them to become the kind, loving, helpful people they are today.

Human love is a wonder.  The love I feel for my children and grandchildren is beyond telling - and I in turn receive love from them.  But to be aware of the love of the universe - it is more.

The question asks of occasions in my life when the love of another person has brought me some sort of healing. I came up with a couple of answers.

The first incident that come to mind is not a specific moment, rather, it is a period of time in my mid-twenties when I was recognizing my depression for what it was. I would not have made it through without the help of my friends. They were there for me, loving me, ready to help the moment I asked for it. They helped pulled me through.

I also remember a couple of years ago when my friend passed away suddenly - the first out of my circle of friends to do so. Even outsiders commented on how well we seemed to be handling it as a group. It seemed we took turns crying and comforting one another - especially during the first week. We spent time together, remembering her - telling funny and poignant stories. She was an active member of our church and our congregation really rallied around all of her friends and family. They not only allowed us to grieve, but grieved with us.

What ripple effects have these acts of love produced in me? I have always been someone who is a good listener, but now I am able to be more empathetic towards others. I have more life experience, which has enabled me to offer better advice when called upon. I am more confident and better at sharing my story with others.

I'm struck by the truth of this statement.

As I'm sure many other widows/widowers will testify, that when they lose their partner they struggle for meaning as their loss deprives them of their richest source of giving and receiving love.

In order to regain meaning, life has to once again  become a place to experience love - our life force seeks it - it's a thirst that needs constant quenching.

It can be a perplexing time. You find yourself behaving in novel ways. Yesterday I was out for a walk and I noticed some grevilleas in bloom. I HAD to get my camera and photograph them - they were just so beautiful.

This is so "not me" - not the me that I was at least, but it is the new me.

Sharing conversation about "real" concerns with friends - initiating conversations with strangers - hugging my mother and realising how much I love her.

Feeling fit to burst when my grandson is awarded a Uni scholarship - remembering patting him to sleep as a baby.

All in themselves an expression of love.

It's as if I'm being reminded that  a loved one can die - but all around me love lives on.

There have been many people whose love has brought healing.

In fact, it's a very long list.................