All Beautiful the March of Days

When I was driving to work this morning I had this realization, I had not once looked at the speedometer as I drove. But when I checked it in that moment I was driving 50 km/h. I played with this fact, because I also drive through an 80 zone, so I did not check, waited, checked, yup, I was driving 80. It has become so natural for me to drive this route that I do it automatically.

There is so much in my life that I seem to do automatically. Some days I am in the shower and I wonder, did I wash my hair – and yes, I did. There are a ton of things I do the same way over and over without thinking about it.

And then there are those moments when you wake up in the morning and reality slaps you rudely across both cheeks in the form of frost.

The seasons always seem to surprise me. You would think after nearly half a century of summers ending in nights too cold to sit outside that it would no longer shock, but it does.

So why is that. Perhaps most of you out there reading this are fine with the change of seasons. Perhaps you are okay that soon the invisible mystery of breath will be solidified before your very eyes. Maybe you don’t even mind that it rains for months in the spring… But for me, even the hint of a change from summer is unwelcome. I never get used to cold.

The title of this column comes from an old hymn. Perhaps you have sung it in a church before? The opening verse, written by Frances Whitmarsh While in 1912 reads like this:

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go;

The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow;

Hath sent the hoary frost of Heav'n, the flowing waters sealed,

And laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field.

I wish I was there. I really do. I know the changing leaves are going to be phenomenal. I know the cool nights make sleep easier. I know Pumpkin Spice Lattes are back at Starbucks. And yet, I am pining for 30 degrees and sunshine.

My attitude, although probably familiar, is wrong.

I know this for certain because I have tried in all other aspects of life to adopt a more relaxed and spiritual attitude to letting things be what they are. When we accept life and live in the moment it is easy to find oneself surrounded by beauty.

Embracing life in its fullness, the good and the bad, the cold and the hot, is a spiritual practice. It is an important way to be. I just find it hard.

The Bible starts… our religious manual as Christians starts… with this long convoluted creation story. So over the last 4000 or so years of collecting religious stories the agreed upon starting place is creation. Everyone should read that first. And to be fair, not a lot of the first bit matters. I don't care if stars came before sea or vice versa. But the message of the Biblical account does matter. The point matters.

So do you know what is said over and over and over in that story? The one repeated truth? “And it was good!” God created trees and they were good, God created swamps and they were good, God created… wait for it… snow… and it was good.”

So, back to work, back to school, back to coats and shoes with laces. Soon the shoveling, but first the turkey… life has seasons. And we need to embrace them and live in them and love them. Even when it is hard. There is beauty in everything. 

TERRORISTS

Karl Marx once famously quipped that religion is the opium of the people,

By that he was saying that religion is used to keep people happy, to keep them complacent, and to keep them in line.

Basically, if you be good and follow the rules and do not stir up any trouble, you are being faithful to God, who is in charge anyway, and you will be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams in the afterlife.

To be fair, Marx was right that too often this is what religion becomes. I saw it growing up where some of the more strict baptists I knew believed the world to be a vale of tears from which they would one day be rescued. And when you see this life as a place you need to be rescued from, what difference does anything really make? Why recycle for example, if there is no value to this world. Why worry about the environment? Why try to change things?

As long as you are good, follow the rules, confess your faith… you will be rescued from the hell that is life on earth.

If you are a Christian I am thinking this might not sound all that crazy. There is at least a part of that way of thinking built into every denominations way of understanding the faith. I just don’t think that most of us are so black and white anymore. But when someone dies we console each other with the thought that they are in heaven, and we make half hearted jokes about getting rewarded for our good behaviour.

I feel that sometimes we conveniently forget our own foibles when we look out into the world and condemn others.

So I want to suggest to you that when a fundamentalist does something terrible, when there are suicide bombers, when there are death threats, whenever religious extremism resorts to violence, their thinking is not very far off from our own.

Religious extremists come in many forms, don’t forget. There was that guy in Norway who shot all the teenagers, there was Timothy McVeigh in the states, I could do you a whole long list. But here is an interesting fact as reported by the Globe and Mail, 90% of the worlds terrorist attacks are performed by non Muslims, while the number one, overwhelmingly, targeted group of terrorism, is Muslims.

Terrorism, Murder, even rudeness have their genesis in this idea I have been talking about, that this world, these people, life itself, is only temporary. That there is something better waiting on the other side.

But for some reason we convince ourselves that Islamic extremists who are willing to strap a bomb on themselves, or open fire on strangers are completely crazy for thinking their reward is in heaven.

It is also a very Christian way to think. Think of the crusades, for example.

Think of Waco, the Jonestown Murders, even Charles Manson. These people all felt that death was preferable because it would usher in salvation. And they are all Christian.

Which brings me to the latest bit of London terror, the attack on the Finsbury Park Mosque. The media plays it up as if this guy was mentally ill and that is why he did it, which certainly is true. But he was also anti Muslim, and Christian.

I know I am circling around a topic without naming it. So here it is, the only true religious value is love. That is it, pure and simple. And the worst, the absolute worst people in the world for disregarding this truth are Christians - the people who claim to follow a person whose one message was that all of religious truth can be boiled down to “love God, love others, love yourself.”

That is not opiate stuff - that is not get into heaven stuff - that is hard truth, and hard work. And the first step to getting back in track is to admit that we are the ones who got off track in the first place, just saying.

THE NEWSPAPER INJUNCTION

Karl Barth, a famous and influential theologian of the modern world, once said that a preacher needs to preach with the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other. In other words, one has to pay attention to the world and the word at the same time – and try to make sense of how they fit together.

So I would like to offer an opinion. It is solely my own. But I make it while keeping those two documents fresh in my mind.

 For the last three months I have driven some 22,000 kilometres across Canada to the Yukon and then across the United States from Alaska through to Maine. I have seen many things, but what I saw the most of is people. People with outrageous accents, people with many different skin tones, people who were rich, people who were poor, people who wore tank tops and people who wore cowboy hats. You get the idea…

What I also saw is that they all go to Tim Horton’s for a coffee, they all get a doughnut at Dunkin’s, they all seem worried about self image, and most cannot drive. In other words – there are very few things that make us different compared to the things that make us the same. I am not sure whether that is a newspaper or bible type realization; perhaps a bit of both.

But then I read comments on social networking about how Trudeau is ruining the world by bringing Syrians into Canada. Or I see news articles about how Britain is leaving the European Union. I listen to campaign speeches by Donald Trump. I see so much in the news about differences – about making sure we remember it is us versus them. Whether them is a different religion, skin tone, sexuality, or nationality… there always has to be a them.

I lived with a Syrian for a week in Ontario during June. He made me think that I need to re-think what nice, calm, and hospitable means. It was Ramadan and he was fasting, He was a corporate lawyer in Syria, and here he was working in the 35-degree sun putting up canvas tents for weddings while not eating or drinking, and still being pleasant and hospitable. I get angry when I skip breakfast.

 It was the same story over and over. I almost never met someone who was not just like me, and who was not happy and nice. And the people I met who seemed ornery, I am pretty sure it was because their dog just died, or someone else had treated them badly, or a whole slew of problems all of which I have too.

Wasn’t it Jesus who tried to help Jews, Samaritans, Roman’s and Greeks alike? Did he say to the Pharisees; no I will not heal you? Did he ever turn someone away? How about Paul who said that there are neither slave no free, Jew nor Greek, but all are one? Or the simple judge not lest ye be judged of my grandmother’s admonition.

I know that many, many people have weighed in around Brexit, Trump, Syrians and the like. I know that you have all heard the love your neighbour shtick. Even the there but for the grace of God go I statement makes most of us pause and think. But these columns have a specific audience. If you are reading them, you already are interested in religion and the faith. Perhaps you go to church or temple or synagogue. So I just want to remind you that we need to take the newspaper with a grain of salt. We need to take the Bible as a tool. We need to balance the reality of the world with the values of our faith. And we need to actually look at the people around us.

 We are all in this together

Life and Death in Lent

Religion Today - Moncton Times & Transcript - February 20th 2016

The reason for Lent is, in fact, preparing for the reality of death. Good Friday is when Jesus dies horribly. The thing is, as a lot of people will tell you, we have a tendency to skip over Good Friday and move right on to Easter- the festival of light and life which declares that even death is not the end and Jesus magically returns from the grave.

Perhaps it is only natural – but we are much fonder of life than we are of death.

There is even a term, and it came up recently, “The sanctity of life” when the news started once more talking about assisted suicide. Life is holy, goes the saying, and so it should be protected at all costs. Life – apparently – is more important than all of the miraculously wonderful things that go into living.

Here is the thing. I spent a morning talking to a man who recently lost his wife. Well – she recently died after a horrific eight-month journey into hell with the rare Jakob Creutzfeldt Disease, or as we think of it, the human version of Mad Cow Disease.

Now, she had a DNR, do not resuscitate order, and they had all talked about how she did not want so-called “heroic” measures taken. But the problem came when she slipped into a coma from which she would never recover – and did not die.

The decision was taken to stop everything that was helping to keeping her alive. Which meant to take out the feeding tube. What followed was four days of starving to death…

I know, this is not a very happy topic… the thing is, I had never really thought about the fact that what actually happens is that you stop feeding them and then let them starve. It seems a horrible way to die, even if you are incurably sick already.

It was one of his final statements that stuck with me and provoked this article. “We talk about preserving the sanctity of life, but we do not talk about the sanctity of death.”

After his wife’s unnecessary suffering he became even more keenly aware of the fact that the more humane solution would have been to help her die quicker, sooner, closer to when her actual life ended.

Currently, he is a fervent advocate of the Death with Dignity movement, and a strong supporter of what the news, unfortunately, calls physician-assisted suicide but which George calls physician-assisted passing over to the great next adventure.

His argument is an interesting one – why do we think being born is a gift from god, but dying is not? Why do we think that life is to be protected at all costs, even when it is no longer worth living? Why would ending the life of a person who is brain dead, in a coma, with no chance of recovery because holes have been eaten out of their brain be called murder and come with a 17-year jail sentence?

Is it not more likely that the moral and religious answer to what would Jesus do would be to administer enough morphine to stop her heart in a second?

That too would be a tough choice to make, a tough moment of courage and letting go. But it would be the humane thing to do – and is, in fact, the human thing to do when a horse breaks their leg or a dog gets cancer. Is it more important to help a pet not suffer than a beloved family member?

Lent is a time when we think about the deeper questions of faith and what it is that keeps us from being the best possible people we can be. The truth is that Jesus saw death as the best possible way to make his point about love and life. Maybe we can stop being so afraid of death. Perhaps it is time to celebrate everything that goes into making us who we are – including our death. 

TRANSFIGURATION

There is this story in the Bible – part of the Jesus Saga, which has become known as the Transfiguration.

Here it is in a nutshell: Jesus grabs a couple of his friends and they head up a mountain to pray. While they are there Jesus starts to glow and suddenly there are two other people there – Moses and Elijah and the three of them talk. Then Moses and Elijah fade away leaving Jesus alone with the three disciples. They want to stay. They want to erect some sort of monument. But Jesus tells them it is time to head to Jerusalem and perhaps death.

There is so much going on with this brief story – even if we completely ignore the radioactively glowing Jesus in the centre of the room.

As Jesus life unfolds this is a major turning point in the stories told about him because it separates the before and after in such a concrete way.

You can look at this a number of ways, before this moment Jesus was perhaps a little closed in terms of revealing his identity… he always put off questions and said, I’m not great, God is great. But here he is revealed as somehow special.

Secondly, before this moment Jesus was always focused on the here and now, healing and teaching, going walkabout through Israel. All of a sudden he turns his eyes towards Jerusalem, to be poetic like the Gospel writer Luke. Now he starts talking about his death, and what will come of that.

Thirdly, Jesus came to reform religion. He has some new ideas… and appearing with Moses and Elijah makes him the third in a series of reformers: Moses changed the faith when he led the people to the Promised Land and established them as a nation instead of a wandering people. Elijah represents the prophets and the way Judaism changed when it became more of an established religion with religious leaders. Now there is Jesus, who has come to change it again…

See, this episode, as it is written, has a very important task of changing the focus of Jesus life. It is, one in a series of four episodes: the birth story, the baptism story, the transfiguration, the death… Each of these is meant to illustrate how Jesus was exceptional.

Moments of change – moments of transformation – and moments that happen to all of us.

This is the fourth, and most important reason the story is told: it is about us.

Transfiguration is what happens at those crucial moments in life when everything changes. We might not be up on a mountain, but think about the birth of a child, or graduating from college, getting fired and having to reinvent ourselves… there are these moments when change is forced upon us and we all of a sudden face the future with certainty and clarity of understanding.

This is what I am discovering more and more as I read stories from the Bible and think about why someone wrote them down. What is it about this story that is meant to be passed on and is important for us? Because there is always a reason, always a connecting point that illustrates some great wisdom which would make our lives better.

This is something I wish I knew before now – we are not going to stay the same… life changes us. Life moulds us into something different at crucial moments and we are no longer the same person.

Too often we are like the disciples, wanting to hold on to the past even in the face of obvious evidence that things need to be different. Too often we have change swirling around us and try desperately to hold on to the past with the delusional belief that everything should stay the same.

The story of Jesus is the story of a man who accepted that God leads in different directions and in each moment accepted that and moved on faithfully into the future. From Carpenter, to Preacher, To Martyr.

Hopefully life has a nicer ending for us, but we still need to accept that transfiguration is possible, and when the moment is right, embrace what God is calling you to be.

ASKING FOR HELP

There are those that believe a preacher simply preaches the message she needs to hear. Perhaps there is some truth to this, and perhaps a writer only writes what they need to read… but are any of you stressed this season?

I wish I was not – I truly do, I wish that Christmas was all magic and that winter was all wonderland. I wish that school breaks brought nothing but the joy I remember from childhood and that gifts magically appeared under the tree. I wish I was always on the same page with everyone and I wish that I could just be helpful and caring and loving to everyone.

I am, however, having trouble with all of these things.

There are days when I think I must be the only one who allows negativity to get the better of me, or the only one who over reacts and causes fights with people. It helps a little to know I am not the only one, though. So I imagine there are a few others like me out there – maybe because I need to.

I blame the Bible! Okay, this may seem like a stretch but hear me out… I try to live my life following in the footsteps and teaching of Jesus and all those wise prophets and holy folks from the Bible. 

Somewhere along the line Sunday school or sermons left the impression on me that to be holy, to be good, one had to be without sin. If I want to be Jesus I have to love and accept everyone, right? I never feel anger or worry or fear, I never fight with anyone and I respect my parents, widows and orphans while healing the sick and finding the lost, and then I am a good person.

Like many religious people I have suffered from a black and white way of looking at the world. As an aside, google this, it is fascinating, the more religious you are the less you are the more you suffer from this… And so if I could not be perfect, I have failed, right?

The problem is, being depressed, asking for help, getting angry are all very real parts of the religious journey, even for our Biblical heroes. The prophet Elijah threw in the towel and went to hide in a cave and be alone because of the pressure he was under. Jonah was afraid to go and preach in Ninevah. Jesus himself left the crowds and tried to hide by walking along the seashore, got angry at temple salesmen and Samaritan women, and felt completely out of his depth when begging God to let him live in the Garden of Gethsemane. Islam has its own version of all of this when you consider that the Prophet Mohammed needed to get away from everyone regularly and headed to the cave at Mira. In fact, it was there that Gabriel gave him the Qur’an.

But this is not the way we usually look at our biblical figures. We usually see them as strong and sure role models who call us to be just like them and leave our worries behind. And when we buy into that it is only going to make it worse.

I know this is not very Christmassy, but I think the whole Christmas season builds stress in some of us and so I am hoping that maybe this helps a few people think about it a different way. Jesus was not born into a world to be perfect, he was born into an imperfect world as an imperfect person who happened to have a plan to help us do this life thing better.

If we let go of the myth that we, and everything else, can be perfect, perhaps we will be able to find it easier to deal with the negative emotions of the season.