Simple Moodlings \'sim-pѳl 'mϋd-ѳl-ings\ n: 1. modest meanderings of the mind about living simply and with less ecological impact; 2. "long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering" (Brenda Ueland) of the written kind; 3. spiritual odds and ends inspired by life, scripture, and the thoughts of others
Today's moodling is just a quick invitation to Advent Prayer. Join me online, live at 7 pm MST this evening, or anytime afterward at the link below... I will post the video at the link, and it can be viewed for the next few weeks.
We will be praying with beautiful songs of hope and longing from the Taize community, with scripture, and silence. If you're online, you can also post your personal prayers so we can keep each other's intentions in mind.
If you've been following these moodlings for a while, you'll know that I have lots of struggles with the Catholic church -- its patriarchal system that can't see its own misogyny, its archaic black and white thinking on so many contemporary issues, its unwillingness to change, its lack of understanding when it comes to the LGBTQ2S+ community... I could go on.
But there are many things about it that I love, too, and the Communion of Saints is one of them. I think of all the small s saints on my list of family and friends who have died (up to these past All Saints'/All Souls' feast days my list has 225 names on it), and I definitely have favourites among the capital S saints who have been officially recognized as such. The idea of all these folks surrounding me and amplifying my prayers is a definite comfort.
Lately, I've gone a step further in my appreciation of one particular saint. St. Jude Thaddeus was one of Christ's disciples, and in some literature, is thought to be Jesus' step-brother, born before Joseph took Mary as his partner. I've heard it said that because St. Jude and Judas Iscariot, Christ's betrayer, had the same name, St. Jude's determination to not be confused with the other guy means that he goes out of his way to assist people in dire straights.
I turned to St. Jude in desperation last week because one of my kids has recently been struggling with a lot of pain from complications after an important surgery. I've never been one to manage praying a novena, because so many of them are written in overly wordy archaic language that drives me up a wall, and I generally don't have the stick-to-it-iveness to get through nine days of prayer.
But in my desperation for Jay's well being, I decided to simplify and personalize a novena to St. Jude and pray it before bed every night for nine days. My partner prayed with me. And though Jay isn't out of the woods yet as far as complete healing goes, there's been a definite improvement that gives us hope.
Because old-fashioned St. Jude novenas generally carry a clause about spreading devotion to him through publishing his prayer for others to use, I am sharing my novena here. It's short and to the point, and it seems to have worked even though it doesn't have a Nihil Obstat (official approval) from any bishop.
In my understanding, novenas are formulaic prayers designed to assist us in seeking God's help through a saint's intervention... but I expect that God and St. Jude are just as happy when we use our own words. There's nothing to say we can't say/write our own novenas using words that work for us. What counts is just that we pray.
So I leave this idea here, in case you have someone in mind who might benefit from nine days of prayer... and I add a prayer for those of us who find ourselves feeling desperate enough to try anything!
St. Jude, faithful servant
and friend of Jesus, patron saint of difficult cases, please intercede with
God. With confidence in you, we ask for God to help with ...
St Jude, Apostle of Hope,
Pray for us, that we may
grow in faith, hope, and love.
There's a lot that could be said about today's Feast of Christ the King on this last Sunday of the liturgical year. But I've never been very comfortable with the concept of kingship being tied to our humble carpenter God who came to show us how to live in love with each other and creation even when life is full of challenges and hardships. And in this year when our country is waking up to colonial injustices that were set in motion by greedy monarchs, I much prefer to focus on Jesus' teachings about love -- God's love for each one of us, and the necessity of our love for each other and all of creation.
Farley Magee is our musician at Sunday worship with the Community of Emmaus, and the first time he sang this song he wrote about love, tears ran down my cheeks. This morning, before the whole community was gathered, Farley allowed me to record him singing "Love Waits", and he's also allowing me to share it with the world on Youtube. Please share it far and wide -- our world can always use more love. Lyrics below. Enjoy!
Maybe you've seen it, and maybe you haven't. An email has been going around, written by a fellow with a good heart, no question, but what he says misses the mark. It's dropped into my inbox three times already, from friends who also have good hearts. Folks who wish that all the anguish about Residential Schools would just go away.
The email in question is the fellow's lengthy letter written to a newspaper columnist, extolling the virtues of the good people who worked in Residential Schools, telling how the missionaries in his more northern community provided education and healthcare when both were lacking in the area, even mentioning how a certain brother built a merry-go-round for the children who attended the school.
But white settlers like him spreading happy stories about all the good things missionaries did is tantamount to telling residential school survivors and their children who suffer from intergenerational trauma that their experiences are not valid, and that they should just "get over it."
The fact of the matter is that the Indigenous People of our country were doing just fine before Europeans arrived on the shores of this continent. They had a very rich cultural heritage. Their world view and spirituality saw all of creation as sacred. They lived in harmony with the land and its creatures and developed a kinship with them that helped their environment to thrive even as people harvested enough to live on. They operated with a sense of abundance rather than scarcity, and gave generously rather than hoarding or commodifying things. Yes, there were disagreements and even a few battles among tribes, but overall, they sued for peace in the covenants known as treaties, for the sake of good relationships. They had rich trading, gifting, and sharing practices, a deep understanding of the medicinal values of plants, and a deep gratitude to Creator for all the gifts Creator provided for them. They saw everything as gift.
To put it bluntly, THERE WAS NO NEED FOR RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS.
But then Europeans came with their sense of superiority over the Original peoples, and a desire to own this land, and the past almost 400 years of historical injustices wiped out entire Indigenous communities that had been self-sufficient for over a thousand years before settlers arrived.
Blaming government for setting up the system and creating legislation that took away Indigenous land and rights, and defending the missionaries who got mixed up in the mess (or took advantage of it as employment for its many religious folks) is definitely not what's needed right now.
Settler peoples have talked at First Nations people long enough. It's time to listen. With shame and humility. To hear their pain without defending anything. To let their hurts seep into our souls. To let them know that even though we are deeply ashamed about what happened to them and our own past apathy regarding their struggles, we are with them, and that we want to walk with them, to right past wrongs, so we can all move toward healing and hope as a community, as a planet.
We need to learn from Indigenous people by hearing their stories and their wisdom if they are willing to share. But we should not expect them to educate us -- they owe us nothing, and they have been through enough already without having to revisit their trauma for the sake of helping us to understand it. Rather, it's up to us to seek out the many educational resources available -- books, webinars, videos, documentaries, websites. There are so many options, and there is so much to learn.
And once we have learned, we need to shift our thinking, our world view, toward seeing that all is gift, including the people who are hurting -- and who are forgiving us. And we still need to listen. Listening and walking alongside them, and feeling that we are all relations is the only way to heal this centuries old rift -- and save our planet from the kind of destruction that has been caused by forgetting that we need to live in harmony with it and each other.
They are our teachers in learning to see everything as Creator's gift. Listen!
If you are looking for useful links and resources, here are some (that I keep flogging because I have found helpful):
Treaty Talk: Sharing the River of Life -- a beautiful 50 minute video about the re-beginnings of relationship between some settlers and Indigenous people in the last few years
Indigenous Canada -- an excellent free course through the University of Alberta that teaches Canadian History from an Indigenous Perspective
Edmonton Public Library's Prairie Indigenous Collection, which includes books by Indigenous writers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (maybe your library has something similar, or has these titles in its collection)
Aboriginal Peoples Television (APTN) and many CBC radio programs
If you have other favourite resources along these lines, I'd love to hear about them!
Psalm 16 is one of my favourites, especially the version below. How I loved to sing the alto part with my sister singing the soprano. Deep gratitude to Marty Haugen for all his beautiful music, but especially this one.
On the weekend, Lee and I drove through a snowstorm to southern Alberta, and the greyness of the trip reminded me of winter's lack of colour. So today I'm appreciating the last few bits of colour as autumn drains away into winter -- it won't be long and these few holdouts will be on the ground too.
I guess for the next few months, I'll settle for the colour of the sky on clear days, Shadow-dog's cozy sweater colours... and the dream of spring tulips. After a busy garden season full of colours, I honestly don't mind too much.
