Waiting…

It's been more difficult to start this blog today than at any time before, and I've  been pondering the reason. The other day I talked about being asked to help a young couple plan a memorial for the wife, who is terminally ill. The date was set for yesterday in the afternoon. About 90 minutes before we were to leave for their home, the husband phoned. "Setback," he said. His spouse had fallen ill, her platelet count was dangerously low. That meant a trip to the hospital, and an undetermined time to be spent there while the staff laboured to correct the dangerous situation. Setback indeed. More like another brush with death. He would call us to re-schedule when "things settled down."

It's now more than 24 hours later, and he has not called. Of course, that could simply mean that between children and work, he's too busy. Or, it could mean something very much worse…who knows. In the meantime, I hold them up to the Divine and ask for care for them. And I wait, but not patiently or peacefully. My problem, not theirs.

I have been reflecting off and on all day how fragile life is when you draw close to its edge. In the twinkling of an eye, she could be gone. Or I could be gone! As I think this, I recall that the woman with the illness-unto-death lives her life fully in each moment, wisely. That's really all she's got. And she has become my teacher, for really, that's all I've got too. I might live another ten years, or fifteen. Or I could drop tomorrow, tonight. So I enjoyed the sun on my face as I walked, even though the wind had a bite. Not enough to take away the sun. And I was blessed. I finished  book this afternoon, in the midst of the gentle hubbub of Tim Horton's. Another blessing. And another book awaits me.

Walking, I thought about the people I love, who love me (I think), and I smiled again. I am profoundly gifted, even while I struggle to figure out what my life is for, now that I rarely work. I read, and I learn, and I try to remember what these wise teachers tell me every day. I prepare meals, knowing that work is a gift to my beloved, who would scramble to eat if I was not here. I support her with food, and with more as well.

Enough for now. Other thoughts cloud my mind, to be written in other places for other people. Another day…

Being en-faithed

Today turned out to be a good day. At worship, I read the scriptures, and made 2 Kings live! I spent the afternoon alone, so I looked up the Hubble telescope website (http://hubblesite.org/) and looked at pictures taken of deep space, and I mean deep space! Planets being born, planets dying, creation continuing to happen. Profound spiritual nurture, watching evolution at work.

My own faith was fed this weekend by reading two books: Evolutionary Faith by Diarmid O'Murchu, and Bruce Sanguin's Darwin, Divinity and the Dance of the Cosmos. These books are wonderful for the believer who can't accept the notion of a "literal and inerrant and infallible" Bible, and who need a different way to understand the Word of God about creation and the evolutionary process.

So today my faith has been bolstered, lifted, given wings and a song. Great stuff. For tomorrow I will need it. Tomorrow Beatrix and I meet with a young couple - not past their thirties - who face a death together. She is the dying one, slowly or quickly, but inexorably. Leukemia is a quiet enemy, an implacable for that just keeps marching in. The husband is the son of a childhood friend of mine. For that, and other reason I can think of, he reached out to us to help them plan together for a time of memorial for the mother of their two primary age girls.

Tomorrow will be listening time, time for 'knowing' who this woman is, who this man is, and what they need from us. We have had the chance she will not have, to live a whole life. How can she not be enraged, broken-hearted, to be defeated in her youthful prime by a wasting that will not cease?

I have come to this page tonight from watching Rita Dove, the American poet laureate, discussing poems from the twentieth century with Bill Moyers. The mother who is dying is a poet too, and I felt her presence in the intensity of the discussion that came from my TV. Somehow, Rita Dove's beauty and wisdom and liveliness gave me courage and energy for tomorrow's labour. May it be so.

Fussing

It's one of those Saturdays…you know, with a blank slate ahead of me. I know, some of you would LOVE one of those. I let myself sleep in this morning - till almost 7:00! Ate, then walked. Listened to Vic Toews on The House trying to justify his 'internet surveillance' bill.

I've been reading about the evolutionary process and its relationship to faith in God, the Divine, whatever. I live in a place where a minister said, quite publicly, "You can't believe in evolution and be a Christian." What crap. So I've been reading Diarmid O'Murchu (Evolutionary Faith), and Bruce Sanguin (Darwin, Divinity and the Dance of the Cosmos), and taking heart from these two. I got so internally exercised in the pool the other day when a friend said to me that 'evolution has been decisively proven impossible.' So I sat right down and wrote a column for the local rag trying to lay out the essence of O'Murchu's thesis, and offering to loan the book to anyone who wants to read it. That should yank the shorts of one or two of the local fundamentalist preachers. Hope I get hate mail!

I wonder if it's the same for other elder and aging folk that political and theological issues exercise me more than they used to. I have fewer other concerns to occupy my mind, and I feel increasingly helpless to do anything about the issues, other than speak (rant!) I know at least one really old gentleman, nearing 92, who has become quite calm in the face of it all. "I'm not going to do anything about it. It's someone else's problem now." There are days when I wish I could feel and day that. But I'm certainly not there yet.

New restaurant opened in town the other day. We're going to try it tonight. Sounds high end, so I fear it won't make it. Most folks like BP - piles of fries and everything barbecued. Fingers crossed. Makes me wonder about the future of towns like this one. Under 7000 population, too many Dollar stores and Bargain Shops, where everything is Uber-cheap and cheaply made. Not enough  business other than oil patch, out-of-town stuff. Apart from groceries, people go everywhere else to shop. There are two small cities, 10-12000 just north and south of us. Death squeeze, it feels like. I wonder what (if anything) is the secret of encouraging these little places. I think, more viable and diverse business. How do you encourage them to come? The provincial health people closed 1/2 our hospital ( a beautiful building) for some administrative reason, and we are short a few doctors… See why I'd like to just calm down and walk away?

Well, that's today. Another walk and some coffee might help. And a talk with one of my kids. Bye.

Failure and Pain

Friday again, and an open day ahead of me. I have planned a meal, I have two good books to read, I've been for a 3 1/2 km walk, and Beatrix has shaved my head. Is it nap time yet?

I've pondering a chunk of my life that I thought I'd tell you about. For almost 30 years, I was a hospital chaplain, a teaching supervisor of pastoral care students and a family therapist - did some teaching there, too. I worked a lot in psychiatry and critical care, and for three memorable years, I was attached to the ALS clinic (Lou Gehrig's Disease). I was a very busy guy…pathologically busy, some would say.

As I walked yesterday, I was remembering the students I supervised over that long period. I have no idea how many there were. They would come for three months in the summer, or for  six months, art time over the winter. For a number of years I had stipended residents, who came for almost a full year. Many of them were very bright, deeply compassionate, and keen to learn the arts of listening an entering deeply into people's pain.

I all that time, I remember only two students who were major problems in my life, and with whom I feel like a failure. One was with me for the summer of 1979, the other I worked with in a post-retirement pastoral appointment four years ago.

The 1979 student was a recently retired Canadian Army Captain, entering into ministry as a second career. He was hard bitten and suspicious to the point of paranoia, and into power in a big way. Looking back, it was clear that he had never recovered from military life. Face to face, he would never disagree with me, or even challenge me in a group. His rational, when questioned? "A Captain never challenges a Colonel." The military model of authority was in his bones, and he never lost it. In informal student groups, he complained about me all the time, and spoke of me in very derogatory ways. But never once to my face. At the end of the unit, at evaluation time, when nothing was at stake, he was open.

"I care not a whit for your evaluation of me. I only want to know what the real staff had to say about me." That's how we parted. I have the sense that by now, he is a bishop somewhere, playing God and making some one's life miserable. As one of my old supervisors from the 70"s used to say, "I never laid a glove on him." Amen to that!

The second "difficult" student came into my life just a few years ago. He was assigned to the pastoral charge to which I was appointed for a one year stint. He was, and is, without doubt, one of the most gifted men I have met. Musically he is without parallel. He plays piano, and organ, composes and directs musical superbly. He is also incredibly charming. People tend to love him easily, and on occasion, he has taken advantage of that two push the relationship farther along. Twice married, twice divorced, with a number of affairs along the way. BUT… "he could talk the monkeys out of the trees," as one of my colleagues put it.

The dark part is that he is also very manipulative, and can become a bully when his charm doesn't work - which is seldom. Needless to say, the people on the pastoral charge loved him, and saw in him their long-term saviour. I was appointed year by year, and was ready to leave at the end of the appointment year (June), and they hoped he would be ordained and settled with them. During the year, as he was musical director for a local production, he fell in love with the director - a married woman with three almost grown children. Shortly they moved in together, blowing her family sky-high.

In my evaluation of him, I logged every single of his gifts and successes, but also commented on the change in his personal life.His rage was frightening. I set about to stop his ordination, having learned  a good deal more about his past. The sum total of the picture is that I felt this man was  a "soft" sociopath, a person who will go to great lengths to get his way, with little or no concern about who gets hurt along the way. Of course, being a marvellous performer, and swam through to ordination and settlement without a major hitch. He is still in the same community, and they still love him. But I feel confident that one day, the bubble will burst, and trouble will ensue.

How this affects me is simple. The man remains enraged with me and with the fact that he could not sweet talk me into overlooking his shortcomings. His revenge has been to paint me in terrible ways to the congregation, to undermine my character and my work. He has been so successful at this, that when I encounter locals from that community, they "can't see me," and refuse to speak to me. I gather this is typical behaviour from a sociopathic personality.

In many ways this has been one of the prime learning experiences of my life, unfortunately coming too late for me to make much use of it as a teacher. And it has been painful. I sometimes wonder if there was any way that I could have dealt with the situation better. But of course I am thinking of "how to avoid the pain." Which isn't the real point. The real point is, how does one protect an institution or a community from a person with such great skill at setting people up for pain?

I'm sure that any teacher who reads this will be able to think of at least one student who caused them grief, even endless grief. My heart goes out to you.

"Stuff"

I live on what might be called a "typical suburban street" in a small town in Alberta, Canada. Each house (approx. 2600 sq.ft. on the main floor) faces the street with a two car garage. There are many vehicles parked on the street. Could be any town in Canada except that there are too many trucks. This is the oil patch, after all. What is remarkable to me is that each short driveway sports at least one, often two vehicles, parked outside in the weather. Imagine: temperatures as high as 33° C in summer, as low as -35° C in winter, and your $60000 truck sits outside in front of a spacious two-vehicle garage! Sounds crazy, doesn't it. What could account for such a practice?

The short answer: "stuff."The random collection of toys, appliances, adult toys (ATVs and snowmobiles, canoes and snowblowers) and everything else that won't fit in the house. The expensive vehicles sit out and endure the weather! "Stuff" has been unpacked and described thoroughly by the comedian/social critic George Carlin, he of the scatalogical vocabulary. He tells us that North Americans not only collect fat around the waistline, but also around the house. We soon become so burdened by our "stuff"that we have to move to larger quarters just to accomodate all our possessions. There is a house in my general neighborhood with a large yard and a double garage, with five derelict cars taking up all the driveway space as well as part of the yard! Does Jed Clampett live there? (Remember 'The Beverley Hillbillys'?)

I can self-righteously claim that we can get both our vehicles inside our garage (see my halo?). However, books do have a tendency to breed and multiply in my home. The prospect of moving fills me with dread. Will I pay someone to move all this "stuff," or try and sort through and weed out some of it? When I was a young man, I thought of moving as an exciting adventure, new frontiers to cross, new experiences to be had! Today, it's packing and unpacking and paying the tarriff that dominates in my mind.

There's more to it than that, I'm afraid. At some point, as possessions proliferate, the things I own begin to own me. Decisions, even major life decisions, have to factor in 'what will I do with all this "stuff"?' It becomes a spiritual problem in many cases. I may want to take or volunteer in  faraway place for a time. But then there's all this "stuff" to be considered.Will I store it? Taking it is not an option; giving it away is rarely considered. "Stuff" comes to rule my life.

I am never more conscious of this than when I watch the migration of the desperately poor through the desert to a refugee camp, without possessions and even without food. How would my spirit survive if I had to walk away from all I "own"? Would I have any brains at all without my books?

What about you? Do you ever have thoughts like this? Does your "stuff" take up too much room in your life? Are you "owned" by what you possess? Think about it.

Who am I, today?

I'm actually a very shy person, and getting shy-er as I grow older. People who've known me a long time would doubt this, because I have a very good exterior extroverted persona. I can laugh and joke, play the clown, and interact with just about anyone. It's tiring, however, and afterward, I want to spend some time alone, with a book or a computer or the TV. I spend a lot of time alone now that I'm not working full time, or even much part time. I don't mind that, most of the time. I read or write or surf. I talk to myself internally and externally a lot of the time.

One of the features I appreciate about blogging is that I can put my ideas and feelings out on paper without being concerned about how that impacts other people. I can't imagine that many people would find my ideas interesting and stimulating. So I do this for myself. I am a "pretend" writer. The odd column for the local paper, a sermon now and then. That's it.

Recently, I have been connecting with a young mother who is progressing (?) slowly toward the end of her life with leukemia. She has known about this, and been dealing with it for just over a year. She is a professional woman, very articulate, intelligent and extremely knowledgeable about her disease. Her online Journal is detailed, informative, emotionally powerful…and exhausting to read. This isn't a negative for me. I feel closer to her feelings when I can feel the weight of her experience on my shoulders. Great for the mind, heavy for the heart. Her friends respond to her with support and care. It's a beautiful arrangement. Not perfect, but good in its own way.

To switch gears for a moment…. I am trying to write a column for our local paper about the need to "update" the Christian faith so it speaks to the contemporary mind and heart, in language that is current rather than ancient. I'm finding it hard work, mostly because I'm not as 'contemporary' as I'd like to think. I'm "here," but I'm ancient. I have to work within the boundaries of my own limitations. I'm trying to do the novelist thing: feel my way into the character and speak as he/she would speak. Or in this case, hear. I suspect I'm in for a few drafts. I might even get the courage to log the thing in here, to see if anyone responds. Or perhaps not. I'm writing for myself, not for others to tell me what they think about what I say.

Anyway…enough for this morning. To anyone who's reading: happy Valentine's Day. I hope you have someone to love you. I do, and I feel very fortunate. (Wow! No spelling mistakes! A first!)

Creation thoughtsv on a Sunday afternoon

Started reading a book of eco-theology, an approach that reminds us that we are a part of the creation around us, that we don't stand apart from it. We are also reminded that "God," or whatever you are used to calling that Force, is to be found in and through all of created nature. Look into the face of a newborn…God is to be seen. Stand under a leafy tree and listen to the rustle…God is to be heard. Of course, all these "things" are not God. But God is the force that holds them together that gives them uniqueness, that breathes life into them.

Eco-theology reinforces the idea that humans are not the centre of creation, not the masters of creation, not the "owners" of it, so to speak. We are but a part of it, and without the created world around us, we would be unable to live.All of which makes matters of the environment more than just "concerns" for humans. When we are talking about 'environment,' we are talking about our home, the place where we live, the house and property we depend on to support our life. All of which makes matters of the environment much more personal and urgent. If the environment - the oceans, the air quality, the lives of species - is beginning to go down the toilet, then we'd best be worried. That's our place they're talking about.

The Church of which I am a part recently issued an updated Statement of Faith. In part, it reads, 

"…So God created the universe

           and with it the possibility of being and relating. 

God tends the universe, 

           mending the broken and reconciling the estranged. 

God enlivens the universe, 

           guiding all things toward harmony with their Source."

What I read here reminds me that "environmental concerns" have to do with our own personal extended body. If we allow the world, our home, to be degraded beyond usefulness, then we are sacrificing our own "body," the organism in which and through which we live; the only way that we can live!

Conflicts about pipelines and dwindling fish stocks, and winters without snow and melting ice caps are conflicts involving our -selves, the spaces and pieces through which we have our life.

Beginning to think this way is so personal, like wondering if my infected foot will heal, or my liver cancer will kill me, or my fading eyesight will leave me blind. Wow! A whole new angle from which to ponder "environment!"