Of Estrogen and Anima

I still remember the first time I suggested to a client that he may find it helpful to do some anima work. A thirty-something, well-educated professional, who’d already achieved what most of us might aspire to in a lifetime, this man had always measured his successes with a traditional ‘male’ yardstick (Note 1: as a culture, we were still on the cusp of metrification; note 2: any double entendres are completely intentional). He was ‘appropriately’ aggressive – in work, interpersonally, in leisure – allowing him to advance quickly and deliberately on all fronts. He could fly jets, he had leading-man good looks, he was a good provider, and he was respected and deferred to by colleagues. In short, his animus, his male ego was fully intact. So why the niggling dissatisfactions, the cracks appearing in his relationship(s), the relentless searching for the final piece, attaining which would no doubt make him feel complete (or so he thought).

Bear in mind that these were times, in the very early 1990’s, of rampant gender-role identity confusion (bit of a mouthful, that). There were women trying to be men – at least psychologically; there were men masquerading as women – athletically, entertainingly; there were men trying to be men – but ever so carefully so as not to ‘piss off Mother Nature’; there were strong women with traditional values; and there were men wondering just when it became politically incorrect to be male. And so on. . . and on. The ‘roar’ of the strident feminists, the equivocation of the fence sitting ‘soft male’ apologists (as Robert Bly was derisively fond of labeling as he advocated for men to reclaim their ‘wild man’), the entrenchment of any number of seemingly incompatible, ‘gender postures’ made one, at once, long for the simpler days of Father Knows Best and celebrate the energy of such diversity. So when the consummate, well-socialized macho man is advised to explore his feminine side, one can only imagine the confusion contained in the “my what?” response – not to mention, the resistance.

In the past fifteen to twenty years, we’ve made some progress; although I strongly suspect, were I chatting with this same man today, I’d be greeted with the same quizzical, initially amused look – conveying every bit of the unvoiced “you’re kidding, right?” Dinosaurs like Steinam at one pole and the religious, fundamental right at the other, beating its paternalistic drum relentlessly, still survive – but the uncritical acceptance of these anachronistic extremes has thankfully diminished. A sort of regression to the gender-posture mean, as happens with all statistical and social phenomena, has once again asserted its truth.

Jung’s concepts of animus and anima, descriptive of the male and female energy contained in each of us, have once again found a more sustainable, more balanced, less suspected expression in the culture. My now yellowed with age comments to my former client were little other than a suggestion that he explore a healthier balance in his life. The (literally) high-flying, aggressive, competitive ‘yang’ energy that had appeared to serve him so well in his first few adult decades, was sufficiently lopsided that it had begun to flag as a formula for living. A little more ‘yin’ was needed. At the time, no easy prescription – when polarities abounded; balance, equanimity eschewed.

Which brings me to the impetus for this piece. In our parish, this is ‘ACW Sunday’ -- for the uninitiated, the Anglican Church Women’s day to report in and hopefully recruit a few younger folk to their ranks. Some discussion had grown around the choice of readings for our BCP service – together with the ‘preferred’ language to be used. The ‘Virtuous Woman’ (of Proverbs 31) was to be described as the ‘strong and capable’ woman. And the homilist was to be the assistant priest, with no small reputation / track record for championing the role of women in the church. My wife and I had joked a bit around how she might ‘explain’ my absence from service today – with my rather flip summary comment: “Too much estrogen!” I’d anticipated (and I really must resist the temptation to pre-judge these things) a, how can I put this, asymmetrical morning (read lopsided, polarized rant – once again at the cost of equanimity); and chose to take a pass, rather than boost my blood pressure.

I suppose this is, in some ways, an extension of last week’s rant (of my own) – a rebuke of exclusivity. My client and our priest are, in the words of a friend, the ‘sandpaper’ that rubs away our surface rust and allows us to consider things from a slightly more ‘exposed’ (and hopefully, available) perspective. My sense is that, as long as we travel back and forth along the same ‘highway’, with feminism at one end and chauvinism at the other, making our points, expressing our position at the expense of the ‘other camp’, we will never see any other landscape. A detour, just a little ‘north’ of this all too well-travelled path allows us to both distance from this adversarial, partisan and pointless debate, bent on cultivating the already converted (whichever camp that may be) and alienating the other; and to regain a little balance in our perspective. Welcome to Equanimity, population TBA.

BTW, what was the homily about? Community building – but that’s another story.

David Howard

Long-haired, Freaky People Need Not Apply

Carl Jung calls it synchronicity. Sometimes defined as a ‘meaningful coincidence’; a confluence of events that draws one’s attention to an underlying truth or significance. I’d bristled briefly at the rather generous description of my home parish as an ‘impartial community’, eschewing discrimination, exclusion, judgment – of ‘those not like us’ – as the centre piece of our rector’s homily this past Sunday. Hopefully enough in tune with my own antennae twitches to identify the source of the ‘Oh really?’ reaction, I’d attributed it to a ‘well that may be a stretch’ conclusion. But that was before this week’s new and improved ad for this particular church in our small-town rag.

As web mistress for the parish, my wife had invested considerable energy this past week in dressing up a ‘60’s GM product (I’d see it as a heavily chromed, gas-guzzling, Buick or Cadillac) of a website, as a vehicle a little more contemporary, a little less ponderous, and something that ‘gets you where you want to go’ without all the attendant glitter and arriving today (versus, whenever the site would load up). A toss-in was the sub-header: ‘in the heart of Stratford’. I can assume in recognition for her efforts, this week’s announcement of Sunday services in the local newspaper borrowed (more or less) from the site’s new clothes with an invitation to join us at the Parish of St. James’ – the heart of Stratford.

A bit of history at this point. This particular church, populated by this particular congregation has often been, somewhat disdainfully viewed as the ‘church on the hill’ and ‘out of reach’ of the broader population of Stratford. Rather like a snobby club with particular standards of membership and a vetting process that sometimes suggests that ‘long-haired, freaky people need not apply’ (to paraphrase). Rightly or wrongly in its take on the parish, the effort has been expended from within over the years to soften this reputation, to have it seen as more accessible and more (boy, I struggle with this word) welcoming, and less ‘exclusive’.

Like most things Freudian, the slip’s the thing. Drop a preposition and (I hope not, but) the underlying reality starts to surface.

But I’m getting ahead. The other bit of scary data arrived in my email early this Sunday morning. As a newly minted lay reader (and Anglican, for that matter), I was on tap for the BCP at 9:00. Lifers might recognize 1st Corinthians 1 as one of Paul’s little castigations against arrogance, self-satisfaction, celebration of human ‘excellence’ – in favour of humility and such like. Cautioned to be fully familiarized with the ‘unpronouncables’ (those tongue twisters of names and places) and caught substantially off guard a few months back with what passes for biblical porn (an account of David’s vile behaviour and lust; not to mention Bathsheba’s having recently endured ‘that time of the month’) – all because I hadn’t previewed the reading, I scanned this one pretty carefully for hidden potholes. I stopped mid-bagel.

The self-same theme leapt off the page: “Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles . . .” and so forth. Let me see, how does that inclusiveness dance go again. Sounds unsettlingly like us and them to me, if that’s not too many pronouns in one sentence – but we are trying to be inclusive!

My wife argued eloquently that the passage required a metaphoric reading; and that Greeks and their ilk were merely symbols of folks of the time that hadn’t yet got it. That this was not a barefaced identification of an in-crowd, and that if you’re not with us, you’re agin’ us. Unfortunately not sufficiently eloquently to allow me to stand at a lectern and voice the substantive opposite of an issue that I feel is at the root of the jaundiced eye that’s turned toward organized religion and perhaps Christianity in particular by the hoards that are departing for less fundamental shores.

Dress it up anyway you want. Statements given the weight of a ‘reading of the word’ can and will be heard by a huge majority of folk in the pews as a literal truth. Endorsement of an attitude that continues to segregate, differentiate, discriminate; to validate a belief that ‘we’ve got the inside track’ to wherever. It’s just too appealing to be soothed with the balm of ‘you’ve got it right’ – and everybody else doesn’t – to question the inherent contradiction that presents when one moves forty feet across the chancel from lectern to pulpit and (literally) speaks out of the other side of one’s mouth. Over there, we’re judgmental, exclusive, partial; over here we’re welcoming, inclusive, impartial. Sorry, doesn’t work for me.

When we start to understand that there are any number of ways of skinning the spiritual cat; that those that don’t drink at the same trough are not just Greeks and Jews in waiting for the only true path to someplace; and that living Buddha might just be hyping the same stitch as living Christ – maybe we can get on. Until then, the old label of hypocrisy is as well-fitting a shoe as inclusiveness. When we can describe ourselves as being in the heart of Stratford – and not the heart of Stratford, typo, oversight, or no – maybe we can get on.

David Howard

Driving In The UK

So what do John Wayne, weed-eaters, attorneys general, and driving on the ‘wrong side’ of the road have to do with one another? Well while you’re pondering that one, allow me to share an, at the time, very small epiphany – and, in the bargain, slide in a ‘what I did on my summer vacation’. It’s Glasgow Airport, 6:45 a.m. (local time, after a largely sleepless, trans-Atlantic night). The expected ‘I’m sorry sir, that model is not available’ opening line from the car rental desk followed by the decidedly unexpected ‘Would you take a Mercedes in lieu?’ had already brightened the morning significantly. (In passing, I’d recalled from a distant time that the Brits have a variety of labels for ‘washroom’ – WC, bog, ‘loo’ – that, to the North American ear, may or may not compute at this silly hour. ‘A Mercedes in the toilet?’ What an odd question; and why is that particular car being parked in such an queer spot?) Having located my vehicle (in a parking lot), doing the usual, again North American, entry from the passenger side, and holding my breath, I insert Emily’s (my constant travel companion, aka GPS) UK brain and (victory number 2) am greeted with ‘loading maps’ – and, as bonus, a clear route out of the airport labyrinth, over the Pennines and on to York.

I suck in a second breath and fling myself (and my lovely little B-Class) into the surge of morning, Scottish traffic. Straight onto the M8, chock-a-block with commuters, lorries, coaches, and tourists, I merge – vehicle as well as brain – with the flow, chanting quietly ‘mirrors, signal, move’ – inverted, reversed, counter-intuitive. Slowly the shilling drops, as it would continue to do so over the next few weeks of crisscrossing this lovely land, on all manner of multi-laned, single-tracked, and everything in between roads: here, where one drove on the wrong side (compared to most of the rest of the globe) thrived a near-universal respect for rules of the road and the drivers with whom one shared these thoroughfares. Two immediate observations: the ‘passing lane’ is reserved for, wait for it, passing! Audi’s, BMW’s, and the occasional Deux Chevaux (go figure!) slide past, then, signaling, return to the middle of the M8’s three lanes. Not a truck or a bus to be seen on track three. No oblivious, sub-speed idlers; no hyper-aggressive jackrabbits; just those overtaking – and only while overtaking. The corollary, of course is that traffic moves along swimmingly, in an orderly, ‘at the limit’ fashion, with very little lane-hopping and, accordingly, much less visible impatience and acted-out road rage. (Incidentally, in the two-week, 2000 kilometer journey, I didn’t see a single traffic accident.)

And secondly, as one ‘downshifts’ to ‘A’ series roads, villages are encountered (with their countrified, ‘curbed’ thoroughfares and speed zones, generally of the 30 MPH variety). Nobody violates these limits! As far as I could discern, not because of speed traps, flocks of crossing sheep (or children), houses perched precariously a generous 10 inches from the travelled portion, or one-lane bridges (that’s another story). It, marvelous to relate, appears to be a widely shared and observed respect for the privilege of sharing the roadway. What a novel awareness!

Figured out the weed-eater connection yet? Not long after my return, commuting into Toronto, with 1080 (the ‘inside track’ on traffic facts, as it were) on the wireless, I was ‘privileged’ to be party to a call in, debating a (some would say, Draconian) bylaw proposed for parts of Quebec. The (inflammatory) issue: should we be allowed to operate power tools, in the open air on Sunday? The usual lines formed up, represented by the polarities of: ‘It’s the Sabbath and one should treat this as a (universal) day of rest’ at one extreme; ‘I work hard six days a week – it’s my right to cut my grass, build my deck, whack my weeds. . . if I want’, at the other. Not too hard to fill either argument with a good load of buckshot (fired on any day of the week I please from my – it’s my right to bear arms – 12 bore!) This is a most decidedly ‘ecumenical’ culture and certainly not one that should be governed by the conventions of one religion – however prevalent. As for the proffered work week – no other time. Oh, really!

No, the real issue is one that is increasingly prevalent in our social weave – entitlement! Have a listen to any rationale (adolescent or otherwise), justifying one’s ‘right’ to ________ (you fill in the blank). God (or any other deity for that matter) bless John Wayne and all his progeny. The rugged individualist, the swaggering, ‘nobody’s gonna tell me what to do and when to do it’ mentality that pervades this culture of ours certainly, and for a very long time, has dominated our approach to the roads.

And finally, to the sometime attorney general of Ontario, Michael Bryant. To refresh, this politically and professionally accomplished individual, with his deeply steeped personal and educational history in the laws of the land, killed a cyclist with his car on the streets of Toronto recently. Not to adopt a too-biased perspective, said cyclist has been variously describe as arrogant, swaggering, criminal, substance- and relationship-abusing, interpersonally confrontational, etc., etc.; in short (together with some other, uncatalogued characteristics), something of a sociopath. The tragedy which unfolded, followed a late-evening confrontation between driver and cyclist, as the latter exacted his ‘fair share’ of a downtown lane (after all, he was a cycle courier of nearly two decades experience and needing to ‘stake his claim’ to the roadway or be marginalized); and the former, encased in his thousand pounds of armour, his damsel at his side, inched his steed forward, issuing the implied and all too familiar challenge of ‘move it or lose it – you’re on my road’, tapping the latter’s rear wheel with bumper. Tempers flared, battle engaged. Casualty list: one literally dead, the other metaphorically so.

The ‘debate’ of who was in the wrong, how could this heartbreak have been avoided (‘should the police have escorted Mr. Sheppard home?’), a reiteration of cyclist etiquette, driver arrogance, and on and on . . . continues; the mutual victims being championed to prop up one’s personal soap box; pilloried as examples of ‘what’s wrong with cyclists' (or drivers, depending on one’s point of view). The real villain – John Wayne. Entitlement. The battle cry of ‘it’s my right’, bannered on the pennant flying at staff’s end, from the saddle scabbard. The real victims. Not Mr. Bryant or Mr. Sheppard; but civility, mutual respect, and ultimately, society. And, BTW, Michael, this is Canada -- driving on the wrong side of the road is not allowed.

David Howard

Civitas Sancti Tui

Lent 1 Evensong and Evilution 010309

Henry Scott Tukes paintings are full of vibrant colour as they depict the play of light on landscape and the human body. They are mostly painted in and around Falmouth and last year Falmouth Art gallery in concert with other galleries put on exhibitions.

In one of the main rooms in the gallery during this exhibition featuring Tukes work was a darker piece. At first I didn’t want to look at it with its dark brooding colours and from a distance it looked impenetrable. It was my wife who made me look again rather than return to the vibrant attractive Tuke paintings all painted before the First World War.

But as I looked more closely at the dark panels details emerged, these details were fragments of ordinary life, the smashed computer, the broken crockery, the teddy bear amongst scattered spoons, the broken 78 record semi covered by broken brick and corrugated iron.

It was the detail that drew me in, resonated with memory- memories relayed by relatives from two world wars- they spoke not of battles or great movements and meaning but vapour trails over south east England, or a broken leg as one emerged from the observer’s seat in a WW1 aircraft which had crashed into a railway embankment.
It’s in the details of life that joy and sorrow are experienced, the fractured frame or the fragrance of the rose, the sounds of a song.

These details were in this work by Roy Ray and the bigger picture emerged as each panel revealed through the details its ghastly meaning. Looking at the broken computers unleashed images of clerks and secretaries making the familiar sounds of tapping keys before bright screens as passenger aircraft ripped open walls and their lives.

We Christians are at the beginning of Lent, our major fasting season and season of preparation for Easter. Now we concentrate on details, fragments of life, what we eat and drink, service to the poor, the use of time. We are encouraged to understand that it is in the fragments and details of our lives that we truly see ourselves, we truly hear the judgements we make of neighbour, and we truly feel the need for our will to succeed. Jesus often talks of these details in simple terms- to whom did you give a cup of water? Who do you judge? Do you visit prisoners? Love your neighbour- the very person next to you; love even someone across a national or religious boundary like a Samaritan. It’s in the details that we know the reality of Jesus life in ours. As the tree is shaken what kind of fruit drops down? Roy's painting here in the Cathedral reminds us to keep on looking at the details of life, and from there to a bigger picture.

These panels show us the details of city life smashed. The city- places where most people live. The city, the place of abundance, art, life, security and future. Cities have resources and cities typify our human aspirations where no longer determined by soil and season alone we can explore other ways of being human. Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Parisians, Londoners, New Yorkers will all know this. For Jews and Christians this is all summed up in the city Jerusalem, as a metaphor, a hope an aspiration. In Roy’s painting the City, the place of hope and aspiration is pulled down fragmented by human violence and envy, by distorted religion feeding off of violence and poverty.

The destruction of the City doesn’t suddenly come from nowhere- it comes from the build up of detailed actions and thoughts. WW2 emerged from so many small factors including the 33% of the German people who marked with a pencil a cross on a piece of paper at an election. London’s bombing in 2005 was made up of detailed decisions and actions going back years.

But it is in the city where the details gather and finally pull down and break not just details but big pictures and patterns. The patterns of aspiration and hope, vision. The London bombings of 2005 shook our dreams of multiculturism and liberty, New York broke for a time the American ideals with Guantanamo Bay, the Blitz even led us to fire bomb Dresden with the loss of 30000 plus lives.

(Tuke painted before the cataclysm of WW1 Roy Ray born in 1936 inherits the memories and knows the broken dreams of the 20th Century. It was a stroke of genius to have his work alongside Tukes in Falmouth Art Gallery. It created an unexpected balance. )

On Good Friday a big picture is painted. The fragments and details come together in destroying through betrayal, politics, mis- aimed religion. The big picture and pattern which is destroyed is something thrown out of the city- without the City Wall. It is the life of the God bearing human Jesus of Nazareth. The hopes and aspirations of many hang broken and destroyed. All the details bubble and push until their final end is the death of beauty, mystery goodness and hope.

The Choir has sung about this- Salvator Mundi- O saviour of the World… Roy’s painting also points not directly to Christ on the Cross but upwards to how all the details make a bigger picture, how the details reveal both the effects of violence and the cause.

At the end of this service as we process out the choir are going to sing near Roy’s panels William Byrd’s Anthem: “Civitas sancti tui” by William Byrd.

Scholars suggest that Byrd was thinking metaphorically of the demise of the Catholic Church in England when he chose this text about the desolation of Jerusalem. His hopes and aspirations fallen, his life’s inspiration snuffed out.
The words are:

Civitas sancti tui facta est deserta.Sion deserta facta est,Jerusalem desolata est.
Your holy city has become a wilderness.Zion has become a wilderness,
Jerusalem has been made desolate.

As you hear these words, these fragments of sound you might like to pray for all who have lost their Jerusalems, their hope, their vision. You might like to consider as you look at Roy’s work the details of your life this Lent. You might like to trace how those details of belief and behaviour can lead to the destruction of beauty, love, hope in the body of Jesus Christ hung outside the City Wall.

Prayers. Artists, scientists, politicians, musicians. Cities, Ausw. Rick Rescorla RIP- Cornish who saved so many lives.

2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals, He will dwell with them, and they will be His peoples, and God Himself will be with them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; death will be no more;; mourning, or crying, or pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” 5 And He who sits on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

The Rev'd. Canon Philip Lambert

Truro Cathedral, U.K.

The Changeling

The Changeling, the recent Clint Eastwood movie about social justice, has a line that Angelina Jolie (the Mum) tells her young son Walter: "Don't start a fight, but make sure you finish your fights." The real-life mum of the movie, Christine Collins, showed us the importance of not only feeling deeply, speaking up but and most importantly, taking action. She publicly criticized the LA Police Department about their policies. With good reason. Walter was missing; and for whom her search never stopped. Christine, herself, had been physically and psychologically abused by the system. If you disagreed with the police force, you stood a good chance of going missing or being locked up in a mental institution, or dead. She pursued her feelings and her criticism with action.

Part of my faith journey has included studying the history of the church, especially the Lutheran branch. I wanted to understand what it meant to be Lutheran. That's when I discovered the shadows of the Lutheran Church. Two large dark ones.

Martin Luther was an anti-semite. There is no question about this, one need simply read his words. He preached anti-semitism. Some historians trace Germany's anti-semitic roots to Luther.

The Lutheran Church, the official church of the Germany, yielded to Nazism. There is no question about this one either, one need only to read the biographies of Dietrich Boenhoffer.

Criticism in Germany was dangerous in the Thirties and Forties. It could cost you your life. The church took the easy road on this one. Certainly there was compassion for the plight of those who were persecuted by the political regimes. But compassion without action is pointless.

As we are learning from our indigenous people, apologies are the first step to healing centuries-old hurt. In my mind, Luther and his followers (and that includes me!) owe the Jewish population a long overdue apology. These shadows of the church (and not just the Lutheran branch) continue. Today’s discriminated social sector are those with non-conforming sexual identities. Today, we are oozing with compassion for the portion of the Anglican Worldwide Communion whose religious convictions preclude them from unconditional acceptance of the LGBT sector. Hence the continuing moratoria on making a decision about how we will include the ‘sexual niggers’ of our society.

In this time and place of our lives, we have the great ability to exercise our freedom of speech and voice our concerns. We have the freedom to question authority without risk. With this freedom comes responsibility. Criticism is a form of freedom of speech. With it comes a heightened responsibility. It requires self-questioning, removal of reactivity and compassion. If criticism does not walk hand-in-hand with this trio, we have meaningless, hurtful diatribe. However, without out action, thinking and feeling are the incense of Christian life; only a reminder of what we are called to do: love radically.

Think (critically), Feel (compassionately) and Act (love radically). Think of these as alchemical elements which need to be balanced to equal Life.

Criticism is not just bad. Compassion is not just good. Criticism without responsibility or purpose is as destructive as compassion without action. Christine Collins provides us with a simple piece of wisdom: “Don’t start a fight but make sure you finish your fights.” I might add: thoughtfully and compassionately.

Nicola Adair

Covenant

Forgive the adolescent opening – with a definition, as the cliché goes, from my Funk and Wagnall’s. A covenant, in its varied interpretations, is essentially an agreement, a contract, a compact between two or more parties. Lynn’s excellent homily of this past week examined, among other things the covenant between God and his people to never again destroy the earth by flood, in response to, in retribution for the actions of its occupants – however reprehensible. The ‘signature’ on this document, if you will, is the ‘bow’ in the sky, reassuringly appearing, as the clouds clear and the sun peaks through again to settle that bit of anxiety that percolates up in the psyche of the literalists among us. Lynn goes on to point out that this particular contract is as much a pledge given by God with no attached condition – as it is an agreement between. . . Sounds a bit like Grace to me.

As I attended to the rhythm of her text – as always accompanies a good homily in my experience – the linkages began to click and whir (again as usually accompanies) with the somewhat unexpected shunt to An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s diatribe on the earth’s (inevitable?) march toward global warming and all the attendant fallout. In particular, the graphic projections came to mind of what parts of the planet might look like 50 or 100 years hence. Namely that what is now heavily inhabited ‘land’ would have morphed into sea bottom. ‘Free-associative thinking’ being what it is, next stop was a recent Globe & Mail piece on computer modeled predictions of the disappearance of the Antarctic ice shelf with its kilometers-thick mass relentlessly dissolving and pumping up sea levels. And I started to wonder a bit about said covenant.

Pledge or contract, these ‘arrangements’, at least in the human world, have both a need to be revisited and renewed from time to time – boasting a distinct shelf-life as it were. Granted, such mortal agreements generally have a term attached – but even those so-called open-ended deals (pension plans, pledges of undying love, you name it) seem to have a way of yellowing around the edges after a while and slipping into the nether world of ‘that was then; this is now’. And I began to speculate if global warming was not, in some way, Gods serving notice that the terms of his covenant were in need of ‘renegotiation’. Just that little tickler that “I know what I said, but things have changed – and it’s not pretty”.

Now I’m all in favour of Grace. A pretty good deal: behave as you will, deny as you might, diminish for that four score and ten – and, with God’s grace, all is forgiven. (In passing, for those of you who haven’t seen the new Brideshead Revisited, there’s a great scene wherein the dissenting dad, on his death bed, does a little gestural recant of his ill-spent ways and, presto, the family is reassured of his future, post-mortal coil existence, as it were. Good ol’ Grace!) But being in favour of something and adopting it as the moral instruction manual for structuring one’s life decisions are two pretty different issues. In my world, contracts are a two-way deal. It may feel like it’s management piping the tune and we poor workers have no choice but to comply or else. But contracts are a binding agreement that obligates both parties to fulfill certain conditions. I work for 40 hours; you pay me an agreed upon rate. I die prematurely; and you agree to continue to provide pension coverage for my surviving partner. And so on. And further, we typically have input into the terms and conditions that comprise the contract. Put more succinctly, there is a mutual responsibility that attaches. No free (Grace-driven) lunches!

So what of God’s pledge? As Lynn indicated, the world is a much-changed place. Our capacity to wreak havoc and ruin is much-amplified from those days some 600 years BCE. And what’s that (schmaltzy) line from Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility”. So maybe it’s time to start mutualizing things a bit – and to lean a little less heavily on the ‘management’ obligation to keep a finger in the dike or to turn off the celestial faucet before we hit the 40 day mark. Maybe it’s time for the worker contingent to flesh out its side of the contract a bit more fully.

A year of so ago Nicola had researched a unique spin on stewardship as part of her then involvement in that ministry, creatively coined Green Stewardship – and somewhat confusingly and distressingly, had the ideas marginalized as ‘flavour of the month’. Undaunted she continued to assemble reference material, much of it originating from Earth Ministry and distilled into a succinct manual of parishioner responsibility entitled: “Greening Congregations Handbook”. (The website for those interested in looking a bit further is www.earthministry.org. ) In keeping with the stimulus for today’s blog, reprinted in this handbook is a speech given by Bruce Babbitt, former Arizona governor and environmental activist, “Between the Flood and the Rainbow”, which too is worth perusing – when speculating about our side of the deal (online at http://www.fs.fed.us/eco/eco-watch/ew951218.htm. ) So next time the clouds break and the bow appears, enjoy the show. But I’d wager that little tickle in the gut is as much one of felt responsibility as it is relief that the pledge is still good.

David Howard

The Christian Church and The Titanic

This is going to take awhile: I suggest, if you are up to the task of reading this tome, that you pour yourself a triple dram of your favourite Friday night single malt first. I’ll take mine neat, thank you.

Given the recent round of discussion, for me, this must be how Sister Wendy would feel if she were handed the keys to the Louvre: what thoughtful and thought-provoking discussion! Thank you, fellow catacombites for an abundance of food for thought. My head is spinning with the stimulation:

Leader vs. intermediary;
altar of worship vs. common table;
God in our midst vs. God in the East ;
Jenny Geddes alleged cry;
and deck chairs on the Titanic with poetry by Yeats:
this is a feast of serious thinking!
There are enough separate discussion threads to keep us going for a year.

The ‘deck chairs on the Titanic’ metaphor is the one that keeps popping up the most in my head. Obviously, the Church as ship is an ancient symbol; the word nave points this out. The last twenty-five years in the Church has felt like we’ve missed the signal about the approaching iceberg. Moving around altars and renaming them does seem quite akin to the aforementioned metaphor. But when I think about it more, it is not just the last twenty-five that have triggered the impending doom: I vote for the last two thousand years.

For me, it is quite confusing and has had me questioning how we worship God (modern or traditional approach, you choose). The Christian liturgy is the public worship of God by the people that has emerged through two millennia of political, social and theological evolution. If I wait until Sunday to have the presence of God symbolically represented to me by an altar position or priest position, I fear that I have lost much in my daily struggle to have a relationship with God. My private worship and relationship with God is an everyday responsibility.

The sacrament of the Eucharist is not God-worship, but Jesus-remembrance for me. Jesus went into the garden to work on his relationship with God; he went into the synagogue to study, teach and worship God. Not for one minute or a great bottle of single malt could you convince me that the position of the altar or the like would matter to Jesus or God.

So, before I look for a life boat or ask for the last dance on the Titanic or the altar to be moved or renamed, this question keeps nagging away in my head: can we save the ship?

Put that question on hold for just a minute though; let me tell you about chapel this Wednesday.

At the heart of St. James’ is the Lady Chapel. It is for me a little and barely-noticed jewel through which life at St. James’ flows. Every Sunday, the community passes through it; rarely pausing to breathe in the special quality that pervades the room. During the week, it is used as the short-cut to sanctuary. People tramp through it; every so often, someone will make a quick nod at the altar as they scurry along. It is on Wednesday morning that this room glows. 10 a.m., to be exact.

The paint is peeling off the walls in certain areas; the carpet is worn. Usually, the chapel chairs are helter-skelter. Many times, tired floral arrangements from the previous Sunday service quietly count their days in the corners. The altar is planted against the north wall.

A small, fairly consistent group of us gather each Wednesday. We wait quietly for the officiant to arrive; rarely is there chatter of any sort. We always start at page 67 in the BCP. There is always the epistle and the gospel; there is never a homily. We always kneel at the same points in the service. Very rarely does the presiding priest stray from the course that is hundreds of years old. Each week, we are reminded of the essential elements of the Christian life.

Because the service is always the same, I don’t really use the book. For extended passages of recitation, it is open for reference. I can focus on the why’s instead of the how’s of worship. Stopping my mid-week life to do so is not very easy for me. It would be far simpler to recite a prayer at home at 10 o’clock on Wednesday morning and get on with the have-to’s. But having observed mid-week chapel now for two years, I find it disturbing to miss it. Rather, my soul finds it disturbing to miss it.

In its quiet, contemplative way, Wednesday chapel dusts of my worries, sets me up straight and sends me back out into the world with a gentle nudge, ready to start all over again.

This Wednesday, Malcolm Wilson presided. We weren’t sure who to expect as it was not printed in the bulletin. Malcolm opens the sacristry doors and enters the chapel. He stops and lovingly looks at each one of us and greets us with a warm “Good Morning, everyone”.

Malcolm does not really preside. He speaks for us, not at us. He kneels when we kneel, he faces the altar as we do. He offers the words of absolution to us as though they were being offered to him. He invites us to read passages along with him that normally we are excluded from. He is amongst us, not above us. He does so not from a physical position; he does it in spirit. Malcolm’s authenticity, reverence and humility elevates the service to the most meaningful level. When the service is finished, we all sit in silence. There is no urgency to speak, to move, to get on with life. It is as though we have had a small slice of the peace that passes understanding; we don’t really want it to end.

Not many Wednesday chapel services feel this powerful, but when it does happen it is the most amazing tonic for the spirit and soul. Back to my question: can we save the ship?

The Titanic metaphor comes back to mind. The Christian church is very comparable to this famous ship: a huge vessel that seems unsinkable, carrying confident but oblivious passengers. A vehicle so large that it cannot react quickly enough to change its course to avoid destruction. The comparisons seems to go on. Let us not forget E.J. Pratt’s poem Titanic and its epic portrayal of hubris. There was nothing structurally wrong with the Titanic. The hubris of the people sank it. In the Christian church’s case, it has been sinking for nearly 2000 years.

Got that bottle of exquisite single malt handy: I would wager that Jesus never intended that there be a Vatican or a Canterbury, a pope, an archbishop, a diocesan appropriation that is sinking small parishs, an altar of worship or a common table/altar. He pointed out the slavery of the 613 Mosaic laws; he came that we might have life more abundantly. And, we, his disciples, took the 613 Jewish laws (this spreadsheet http://www.bendavidmjc.org/The%20613%20Mosaic%20Laws.pdf is available online and is a helpful outline ) and created an equivalent number for Christian liturgy and denominational dogma. Jesus pointed the way to God; not to himself. He taught that life is about paradox: The Beatitudes; he taught that love had to be radical ; he lived with authenticity, reverence and humility.

It has taken 2000 years but I wonder if the ultimate Christian metaphor may be unfolding. The Church will have to die before it can live again. No amount of shuffling of furniture, or glitzy signage, or dumbing down of the language, or sparkles of vibrant liturgy is going to get this ship out of the way of the iceberg of reality.

I can’t save the ship alone. My generation could maybe save her; I'm not sure what it would take to light a fire under the adherents. It is mind-boggling to imagine what it would take to usurp the political armour that her leadership have built around them and their systems. Perhaps miraculous radical love and action? Reminds a bit of this ancient story of a young rabbi...

I'm ready for a refill; are you?

Nicola Adair