The value of a rant

Just opened and read part of the newest Macleans Magazine. Best bit: an article on "Rants" by Rick Mercer. Who does a better rant than Rick? Only me, in my car, in my head. If only I could remember them later, or have the courage to phone someone and deliver it. He skewers Question Period. He reminds us that if anyone delivered such a shouting match in any other workplace in the country, they'd be fired. Right now! Amen to that.

The solution, says Mercer, is to put cameras in the House of Commons. If the general public could actually see what their fat-cat elected MPs are doing as part of their workday, they'd be enraged, and it would stop forthwith.

Of course, the MPs get all huffy and say that cameras in the House is…not done…"it would make us look like children or criminals…" Well, that's how they behave, many times. Mercer reminds us that we are all on camera in stores, and in the Toronto Subway, so why not in the House? The question hangs in the air, begging for an answer. It'll never come, not from my Conservative MP who has a job-for-life here in Alberta, and who is a dork on person. Great article Rick. I think I'll write a supportive letter to the editor about it. Perhaps you should as well. Maybe we can wipe the self-satisfied smile off Herr Harper's face for once.

I'm currently spending time with a group of people who are deeply divided into two opposing groups. The division is hot, and at times, quite verbal. Observing it, and trying to find ways to participate in deliberations without inflaming the division, is difficult. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes not. Keeps me awake, however, and thinking. All the time, thinking….

Back in the pool yesterday, after three weeks off, due to maintenance closure. My rib didn't hurt, so I'm off to the races. First day was tough. It's amazing how a three week layoff sets you back in terms of fitness. Perhaps it's only like that for old folks, but it's certainly sobering for me. So the walking is on daily, and the pool is on whenever I can get there.

Paid to have my car "cleaned" yesterday. Wow! It looks like a new car inside. Seats shampooed, cup holders mucked out, all the crap taken from under the seats! I feel like I should sell it while it looks so good! How long it will last, i don't know. I have a great capacity to collect junk, one piece at a time. Soon, it adds up to a mess. Looking around my cubby hole office right now, i see the mess I live with. Thirty minutes of "putting away" would change everything. But I lack the enterprise. Sloth reigns supreme in this area.

The Commander-in-Chief is calling for me to make a salad, so i must leave for now. Back soon…I hope.

Great events and big preparations

I don't know whether my life is actually busier, or whether it just feels that way because I spend a couple of days each week at work in a nearby town. In any case, I feel like it has been awhile since I shared some thoughts here.

A unique event occurred yesterday at the church where I work. After some years of deliberation and study, the congregation officially became "An Affirming Congregation." In the parlance of my denomination, that mean a gay and transgendered friendly congregation. There are only 17 of these critters in existence in this very conservative province of Canada, and all of the other are in two major urban areas, Calgary and Edmonton. The emergence of St. Andrews, Lacombe, as an Affirming congregation is a signal occurrence - almost a miracle in central Alberta.

It was quite moving to be a small part of that event, and to watch the people who had worked so hard to change attitudes and bring people on board see the fruits of their labours blossom in a formal way. It's impossible to tell just how this move will affect the future of the congregation. But as a step in justice-making and openness, it was very satisfying to see.

I'm also involved in another aspect of the congregation's life. I am a representative from the Court of Presbytery to their Joint Search Committee looking for a minister to replace Rev. Mervin Gallant, who left in June. The Committee's work is done within the confines of a confidentiality covenant, and with great deliberation. We've had only two meetings so far, and are just barely getting under way. At the moment, we lack a youth member, and I hope that will be remedied in the near future.

The Aquaplex opened this morning after a three closure for maintenance! Back in the pool at 8:30 AM. I felt the layoff in my legs and abs, but it feels good to be back on the road to some level of fitness. A layoff such I've just experienced reminds one of how quickly fitness deteriorates, especially in an aging…or aged…body. Of course, the latest round of "information sharing" among the male members of the group was good to experience gain as well.

I was very pleased to find that my broken rib has healed enough that i felt no pain during the time in the pool. At least I heal relatively quickly. Of course, I have been earned by others who have been down this road that full healing of a cracked or broken rib takes four or five weeks. The big test will come tomorrow evening, when I venture into a more strenuous workout in the deep-water pool.

I'm doing a big PowerPoint presentation as part of worship this coming Sunday. It's the third Sunday in the season of Creation, and the focus is on"The Sky." It seemed to me mandatory that I allow the sky to "speak" with its own voice, which is visual rather than auditory. Everything I say will be accompanied by slides, and I will encourage people to see the images as the "voice" of sky, with whatever I say as backdrop and commentary.

Preparing for this has involved learning to use PowerPoint proficiently enough to create a simple presentation. This seemed to me to be a monumental task, since I had never even OPENED the PowerPoint program previously! Initially, I was simply overwhelmed, until I asked for help. I got it from two young people, aged 13 and 17, both very proficient at using the program. They were also good teachers. They showed me things, encouraged me, offered on-call help, and then left me to apply what I had learned. The encouragement gave me confidence, and I am almost finished, thanks mainly to them. I plan to thank them in a public way on Sunday.

I think I'd best get back to the completion of my presentation. If I don't keep at it, the anxiety drives me crazy!

The people I meet

This week, part of my task at work has been to find, and to visit, elderly members of St. Andrews Church who are and have been for awhile, in Nursing Homes or Lodges. For te most part, I have enjoyed this exercise, and I also feel that it is a good deal more important for congregations than most people realize. Once a strong and contributing member is old enough to be no longer able to "do their part" or more than their part, they are soon replaced, and, after a time, forgotten. They become, as one older lady told me many years ago, "excommunicated from their Church."

In the last three weeks, I have found a few people like that. One gentleman, soon to move to another city, who was a major contributor to the social life of his community as well as his church, whose name is already strange to those under sixty years of age in the church. Another person, a woman, whose children now hold responsible positions in the Church administration provincially, and who herself was key person in the education enterprise of her congregation for many years, reflects not unkiondly on her inability to contribute more, or even to attend worship, without assistance. She is 95 years old!

Of course, not all of these folks harbour negative feelings toward their church for "forgetting" them.  Some of them are releived that the active and arduous part of their lives is over, and that they can relax and reflect fondly on the times when they were extremely busy. Very pleasant memories were shard with me, and enjoyed in the telling. But they did need someone from their faith community to come and hear their stories. That may be the crucial part of church ministry to the institutionalized elderly that is missing.

As I think about it, I wonder if this concern of mine, which I have heard few other clergy voice, may be related to my own diminished sense of self, and my own nee to be "seen" and acknowledged as a person of worth in the church. That would certainly go a long way toward explaining why it is so important for me to continue taking pastoral appointments, and demonstrating that I am, in fact, still  competent pastor and preacher. Could it be that any effectiveness that I demonstrate is part of a mildly pathological pattern? How badly do I need help?

Another aspect of my work this week involved meeting with, and getting to know, a group of senior high youth in the congregation, around the subject of a potential Church School class for them. They were about a dozen in number, engaging and attractive as a group, and obviously keen to seek out appropriate leadership for their class. In some ways I found them quite intimidating. They live comfortably in a world where I feel alien, uncertain and unskilled. I found them admirable in terms of the issues they navigate daily with apparent ease. Of course, they are an unusual group in some ways. The bulk of them are high achievers, and they come from families that are almost universally church families in one way or another. I may have the opportunity (the requirement?) to work with them a bit. That could prove to be both exhilarating and terrifying. A couple of these youngsters are helping me put together a slide show for a worship service i a week or two. They may be able to teach me how to do some of this myself! Imagine, another example of the student being the teacher. I can hardly wait!

Enter the young teachers

This past summer (note: it already feels like autumn, with frost predicted for tonight!), we had a 16 year old granddaughter living with us. First time living away from home, first job. It was wonderful. This young woman is intelligent, articulate, knowledgeable and energetic. She appeared to enjoy working, and also appeared to enjoy spending time with her elderly grandfather and Oma. She is also cheeky, a trait she inherited from her mother, and…I have to admit… from me. We had some memorable exchanges. If I complained about being unsure about trying something on my new smart phone, her response would invariably be, "That;s because you're so OLD, Grampa." It was back and forth like this all the time. Interacting with her took years off my internal self image. Here she is, in all her glory, as we prepared to go out on the one occasion when she wore a DRESS!

Of course, when she left, the house felt quite empty. We had been a bit prepared for this when her younger brother left, a few days before. He had been with us for just a couple of weeks. Quieter and less extroverted than his sister, he had the same twinkle in his eye, and a similar wicked wit and cheeky repartee. I came to appreciate him a whole lot during the time we got to spend together while his sister and Oma went to work. He helped me cook, shop, and play games on the computer. His favorite way to bug me was to start describing his favorite game, involving monkeys and balloons. He would launch, and I would yell at him until he stopped, laughing and snorting. It probably seemed outrageous to see. It was wonderful to experience.

This summer with the kids was great preparation for the part time ministerial job that I started in August. I am working in a congregation in a nearby community. Their youth minister left, and I am filling in until they can call a replacement. Most of the task I have been given involves Sunday morning worship and contacting neglected seniors. However, I have the opportunity to interact informally - and perhaps formally as things develop - with the youth of the congregation. I am finding that my summer experience has not only prepared me for this, but has also whetted my appetite for it. I have been aware for many years how grandparents often can come closer to young people than can their parents, because there are fewer developmental issues to deal with. Thus far, I have found  interacting with the youth of the congregation to be enjoyable and satisfying for me, and, I am discovering, is stimulating for at least some of them.

I feel like I have been back to school, and have learned some fresh things about the world of at least some young people, as well as about myself. This experience has buoyed up my sense of hope for my own gifts in ministry at this advanced age. I am realizing that, as I age, I tend to close off areas of experience as being improbable for someone my age - like relating creatively with young people - and that now, I am having to revise my self image and reclaim old competencies. It's all quite stimulating.

Tomorrow, I'm off to work again, this time, to Bible Study and visits with ailing elders and shut-ins. Youth will have to wait until the weekend!

At loose ends…

Ten days since I've written a line; a busy week and more both here and in Lacombe, where I'm spending more than two full days each week. When I look back over the time, I see meetings, computer time, and time spent hunting for and finding senior citizens who haven't been contacted by anyone from their church for quite awhile. That experience - quite rewarding, actually - drew my mind back half a century to a conversation I had in a Nursing Home in Winnipeg with an elderly lady who had been active in Augustine Church until she was forced into long term care by her health.

"When you get old and sick, you get kind of 'excommunicated' from the Church. Every body's busy, and your old friends are as hampered as you, and pretty soon everybody forgets you're alive!" That shocked me back in 1966, and I've reflected on it many times since then. Although it's an over statement, it carries an element of truth in it. My personal observation is that some congregations have worked hard at picking up the slack in this area. Pastoral Care Committees labour away at making sure old folks get visited, and kept in touch with things. Some clergy are more faithful than others at maintaining contact. And long term care facilities whip up many activities that fill the elders days,even if they aren't as challenging as folks are used to.

Thinking about this, I wonder if this is part of the reason that I keep revolving back into paid employment? It's a way of keeping myself alive in peoples' eyes, public and active and useful. It's worked reasonably well so far, although I'm wondering this time if I won't do this another time, when these few months are over. I feel even less interested in attending meetings than previously - too many years of managerial meetings in institutions, doing things that made someone feel important, but lie as not accomplished very little in the long run.

The current Search Committee at St. Andrew's in Lacombe holds the promise of being an 'accomplishment' committee, but then, it's just been organized, and the politics have barely started. Time will tell if I feel any differently.

One evening, I had a long and stimulating conversation with a young woman (she'll snort to read that description) about my long career in Pastoral Ministry in institutions. The talking stimulated my memory, and I began to recall things that I haven't thought of in years, from parts of my internal "hard drive" that is covered with dust! There is at least one other conversation to come, and I can hardly wait to see what that one stirs up!

Klaglahachie (local drama and musical group) is doing "Jake and the Kid"by W.O. Mitchell, adapted for the stage by a local woman, Connie Massing. They did a credible job! It was fascinating knowing all the people behind the characters. The production suffered from the pains that many local drama groups face: the sound wasn't good at the back of the church, and some people complained of not being able to see. The young man who played "Jake" is a boy I've known for over four years, and it's terrific watching him develop into a confident young man with potential in many directions. He's currently deciding about his future education.

All the fresh work trying to contact and relate to seniors I've never met is stirring up lots of personal reflections in me. I've mentioned one, but there are more. I've been thinking about people from my past, and wondering where they are, what they're doing. I've lost touch with most people from my childhood and youth years, eve from old College mates. I seem to live mostly in the very 'here and now,' with little reach into the past. At a time when "old friends" could be a great blessing, I have few, if any. With Vincent's death I lost a friend whose presence in my life reached back well over 40 years. I stepped away from Roy when his abusive mouth got to be too much for me, and I'd been in a kind of relationship with him for over 50 years. I was really Betty's friend from those College days, and once she died, the relationship with Roy changed and soured, as far as I was concerned.

This must seem like a weird blog to you: it certainly seems weird to me. It's more the internal ramblings of an old man than an article about anything substantial in world terms. Having greased the wheel, perhaps I'll have more on the ball next time.

When you pray…

This afternoon at Tim Horton's, a friend talked to me about the sense of "stuckness" in his prayer life. I was surprised that he was so open about such a sensitive matter. Initially, I felt a bit intimidated, since I don't consider myself to be much of a model in this area. However, less than two weeks ago, I had a conversation with a woman just s few days before her death, during which she asked me how to pray. Without thinking, a sentence popped into my head that I shared with her. "Place yourself intentionally in the presence of God."

As I thought about it later, I realized that this is really my own understanding of prayer. I believe we live always in the presence of God, a fact which sustains our lives. But most of the time, we are unaware of this, and consequently, we trundle on, oblivious to what keeps us alive. When I think of 'placing myself in the presence of God, intentionally,' I am making myself aware of the reality of the spiritual reality of my life. And in that awareness, whatever I think or say, constitutes prayer. Prayer, for me, is a conversation with God, or whatever you image God to be. A conversation requires no special forms, no deliberate pattern, no special words. A conversation just is.

In that conversation, I think or say what is on my mind. I assume that will be received. No response may come, but I feel "listened to." Now and then, I feel a response. Not always to my liking, not always what I'd like to hear. But I hear it. Or I hear/feel something later that is kind of an answer to my side of the conversation. Then I have to decide what I will do with this 'answer.' Will I take it up, ignore it, or say "pardon; can you say that again."

For so many people, prayer is such a formal thing, such a disciplined matter. I feel embarrassed that for me, it isn't. I am not a 'prayer-warrior,' I guess. I just try to place myself in the presence of God and 'share.' Often, I feel like I haven't prayed. Some of things I think/say are negative, comments about others or situations that piss me off. These days, it's often about our PM, the model Christian, who sounds like a demagogue to me. I am aware that I have received no confirming responses from The Beyond to these thoughts of mine. I'll keep asking, to see if I can provoke a response. I want divine support for my annoyance. I suspect I may not get it. God probably listens to Stephen Harper as well as me. That galls me. Small man that I am.

I wish I was disciplines…I wish I was a warrior…but I'm just ordinary me, warts and creaky joints and all. Sigh…