Spring Dawn

Faith Today - Moncton Times and Transcript - April 21 2012

Whatever your views on climate change, this spring sure seems different.

I can’t remember ever being out mid-April in the 25 degree sunshine in the Maritimes. I can’t remember the picnic parks opening up long before the Victoria Day weekend. I have even considered swimming… but when I put my feet in the water that idea quickly changes.

It may seem like it was ancient history, but it was not so long ago that people with a religious bent prayed, sacrificed, danced, and otherwise implored the gods to change the weather. Most of us have probably even tried this ourselves, praying to god for sunshine when we want to go to the beach, or rain when we want to get out of something. How about a snowstorm on exam day? I was guilty of that once or twice.

I am not if anyone remembers the movie Bruce almighty, where there is this one man who is given the power of God to teach him a lesson. He tries to change the weather, or make the moon brighter, and in the meantime nearly wipes out the other side of the planet because he has thrown off all the tides and oceans.

There is a balance that is impossibly complex to figure out. In fact, some scientists claim that if a butterfly flaps their wings on the other side of the world it changes the air currents way over here.

Which I guess is what has always troubled me about the whole prayer scenario. If I pray for sunshine and the farmer really needs rain, do I win if I am more faithful? I’m a minister, do my prayers count double? They don’t seem to on those beach days when it rains.

This may seem trivial, but what about when we start praying for a child to survive a night of sickness? What if we pray to survive a natural disaster?

It seems to me just a little arrogant to think that my needs trump the needs of the rest of the planet; even if it is life and death.

Also, realizing the complexity of all things, how can I personally decide when my needs are more valuable than the needs of other people?

So perhaps I am more inclined to be like the people who say, “It is in God’s hands” and trust in that. This is what Jesus supposedly did in the garden of Gethsemane when he said, “If there is any way to get out of this crucifixion thing, God, I would be good with that; but whatever needs to happen…”

Well, actually, I am little further along the line of thinking that what really matters is what happens after the fact.

It seems pretty clear that life is random. Weather patterns come and go; people who are good have accidents and bad people stumble across riches. I do not think that any of these things are changed because of prayer.

What does change is me. Prayer is an after the fact thing in which I connect to the divine spirit and get the strength to face the reality of my life.  So, it rains, and I have to learn to accept it and move on. I get sick and I have to learn to accept it and live whatever time remains well.

I think of God as the creative and positive spirit of the universe that flows through each one of us, to connect to it is to be able to see the world differently.

So in essence it does not matter if it is 25 degrees in April or not, what matters is how I feel about it. Do I accept it for the gift that it is and have a picnic, or do I complain about how unnatural it is and live bitterly?

The choice, ultimately, is up to me. Way back in the story of the people of Israel finding the promised land God is rumoured to have said to them, “I put before you life and death, blessing and curse; choose…”

How are you going to choose to live your life.

You Can't Make Me Go...

Religion Today Column for Saturday March 17th 2012, Times and Transcript

Why don’t you go to church?

Well, to be fair, if you are reading this you probably are, but why aren’t your kids?

I have spent a lot of time talking to kids, to teens, to young adults, and even middle age people about this; about why they don’t go, or why they don’t get involved, or where they give their money and the number one answer is because it is an obligation.

The next generations do not want to be obligated to do things; they want to do only the things they care about.

It sounds simple, but it seems to be true… pick a day, and say, "at 10 in the morning on your day off you need to go here"; and no one will.

And when you probe deeper you will find two things to be true, they don’t get anything out of Christianity and they don’t know where they fit into it all. There is no personal investment because it simply does not mean anything to them.

We pretend we don’t have answers to questions like this, but we do. And we also like to play nice and to be open and honest so we don’t point out some obvious truths.

Economic and educational class matter a whole lot. If you are poorer and less educated you tend more towards church participation. The conservative churches have messages geared to this demographic and have higher participation. 

The mainline churches are middle class and hyper educated and no one comes.

Again, it is a rubber meets the road why does this matter to me sort of attitude. The idea that heaven will bring you peace, happiness and riches sure does sound nice when you are struggling to put food on the table. There are no athiests in foxholes as they used to say.

But if you are self-sufficient, buy all the things to make you happy, spend your time thinking about social issues on your own, what difference does the message of faith make, really?

And even the conservatives have troubles now because the message goes against the general way we are socialized no matter whether you are rich or poor, young or old. Nowadays everyone is told we can make it on our own. That we should do what makes us happy. We are told that we just need the right car, or the right jeans to be popular. In fact, society is not only all about me, it is about me and my stuff.

Christianity says stuff does not matter. It drags you down. Christianity says you are just one person, that God loves everyone and so should you.

And what we have all failed to do, whether you are Catholic or Wesleyan or anywhere in between, is really, definitively, come up with an answer to this. We are not fighting back.

Why should you not be self-centred? Why should you not be concerned with material things? Because God says so? So what?

Until we can look the younger generations who are struggling with identity and purpose  in the eye and tell them truthfully, "You are not going to be happy till you start looking outside yourself", with the greatest of conviction, we are not going to convince them.

And they won’t listen anyway; people spend billions ensuring this. If cars do not make you happy, then the auto industry, the economy, and life as we know it is in jeopardy. So trust me, the auto industry alone is throwing more energy, money, and intelligence into creating a value system then the church ever could.

What we need to do, is be there to pick up the pieces. We need to accept that we can be a dissenting voice in society, but like the parent of any teen, it is going to take years of experience before they realize we had something to say in the first place that made sense.

Young people are not the future.

They will be the future of church and religion later, when their kids have died in car accidents, when their friends succumb to Alzheimers, when their marriage falls apart because of indifference and self-absorption.

As sad is it might seem, we have an answer to the meaning of life that no one hears till they are brought to their knees by the failure of their current life.

And having that answer is one of the most important things we are about. We preserve the truth of life, of the Divine nature of the universe, we are hope incarnate. And we will be here when you need us…