If God can move mountains, God can handle rocks

Lately you'll find me downtown on Tuesday mornings, hanging out with pastor Quinn from Inner City Pastoral Ministry, handing out toiletries, snacks, water and other necessities to the homeless folks who live in tents and under tarps near the Bissell Centre. 

This morning I was swamped with folks looking for all of the above even before Quinn managed to set our "storefront table" on the sidewalk. It's another heat-warning day, and people were already thirsty, and hungry for granola bars, fruit snacks, and conversation. Stuff disappears in a hurry, and in no time we're left with nothing but bottled water and the few people who stick around to chat.

There's always someone with a story or two to share. Today I finally had time to introduce myself to the guy who jokingly asks if I can lace his tea with vodka every Sunday morning. I've known for months that R. likes his tea with one cream and very little sugar, but only learned his name this morning because he doesn't attend Sunday service, where there's usually more time to chat. R. can be a bit gruff, but his heart seems to be in the right place. Today he was complaining that the Alberta government's recent "rebates for all Albertans" don't reach inner city folks at all. I had to agree.

Two women settled on the edge of the sidewalk, one sitting on her walker, telling stories about her past misdeeds, and the other sitting on the curb, applying her makeup, returning like for like. I was only half-listening to their chatter, talking with R., when the one with the walker told the other, "It's been pretty hard lately, like I'm carrying a load of rocks. But if God can move mountains, he can handle rocks."

Wisdom! I told her that those were some beautiful words, and that I would write them down when I got home. And now I have.

When life feels really rocky, it's hard to remember that the rocks aren't my sole property. That's when I need to be reminded that the Source of All Life is holding me and everything else in existence at this moment. Even at the times when life is hard and I want to question whether God even exists, it's impossible for me to imagine that this incredible world -- never mind this astounding universe -- came about by chance. There is a Holy and Creative Spirit that is the spark of life in the ladybug, lights up the stars, spills water into the rivers and seas, upholds the mountains, is in the first breath of the newborn and the last breath of the dying, gives substance to rocks, and keeps everything from flying apart. 

God's Spirit can move mountains, and all the rocks that weigh us down. It may take some time, and it won't be the way we expect, but it happens. And it all belongs to God.

Deep gratitude to the woman with the walker for today's reminder.

P.S. If you're interested in helping us to move a few rocks with our inner city folks, please consider visiting this link: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/id/5750. 

Thanks.

Poor old pear tree

You might remember that about a year ago, I was singing the pear tree blues. Well, one year later, I'm still singing them.

Last year we had the tree treated for fire blight, and this summer, we're not sure how it's doing. But there were a lot of dead twigs and branches, and Lee learned that July is a good time to prune a pear tree, so we did our best to remove the dead parts of the tree.

Usually, from what I've read, it's not good to cut more than one-third of a tree in any one pruning, so we've always erred on the side of caution -- perhaps to the tree's detriment. In taking out the dead stuff this summer (three weekends worth of work) I'm sure we took more than one-third. Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.

To be fair, the tree was quite overgrown, even before we came to it. The previous owners were elderly and had let the yard go, and we didn't know the first thing about fruit trees. But arborists say that you should be able to throw a hat through a well pruned fruit tree so that it doesn't get caught in the branches. Our tree had so many criss-crossing limbs that it would have been hard to throw a ball through it. So we pruned it hard this year, to get rid of the fire blight remnants and give it some breathing space. There wasn't much fruit on it this year.

I did some research and learned that most pear trees don't live more than 50 years... and we're guessing that, since our home was built around 65 years ago, the tree is close to its end. It breaks my heart to think that we may have to take it down. 

Not only is the fruit delicious, it provides a lovely shaded place just outside our kitchen window, a place where many friends have joined me for under-the-pear-tree visits on warm spring, summer, or autumn afternoons. Stunning spring blossoms have filled our yard with fragrance, and I've loved listening to the bees appreciate the tree too.

So I have been babying the tree as best I can, giving it lots of water in these last hot-weather weeks, and I've wrapped my arms around it more than once and thanked it for its beauty and shade. I hope it will survive, but if it has reached the end of its life cycle, it has certainly blessed us with undeserved bounty. 

And for that, I am forever grateful.

Auntie Rooshki goes home

Her name was Mary, and as a child of Russian-German parents, her pet name was Marushka, or so I'm guessing, Rooshki for short. And from the time I was small, she shared that pet name with me, calling me Rooshki too. It was one of the special things about our relationship -- I would pick up the phone and hear, "Hello, Rooshki? It's Auntie Rooshki." Usually for my birthday, or sometimes unexpectedly, just because she was thinking of me.

She was like that -- one of those people who was always thinking about others, doing kind things for them, sharing a joke or a smile or a song. She was a nurse by training, loved people, period, and was always interested in their stories. When she "retired" from work, she found a hundred other ways to give of herself, volunteering in many different capacities, singing for the "old people," taking communion to shut-ins, and bringing smiles wherever she went.

Auntie Rooshki told me that she thought of herself as my honourary godmother, though truth be told, it was her husband, Uncle Lefty (Edwin was his real name, though I was probably 15 before I figured that out), who was my godfather. But it was clearly Auntie Mary who bought Christmas gifts for all their godchildren. She put the 'auntie' in 'panties.' I remember little Christmas packages of white cotton underwear with pink, yellow or blue rose buds that came to me year after year. I'm sure Uncle Lefty didn't pick those out!

As a child, I was fortunate to spend some time with Auntie Mary's family, my double cousins, a few summer holidays in a row. They lived in the small Saskatchewan town where Auntie Mary was born, and where a lot of my mom's family still live. Those magical summers of childhood saw us spending our time walking to the lake just outside town, exploring the cemetery there, trying not to step on cacti as we cut across the golf course to get home, wandering the hospital grounds, playing scrub, baking cookies, singing to records while doing dishes. Auntie Mary was working at the hospital, but trusted her kids to keep themselves and me entertained. I loved hanging out with my cousins, singing, reading comic books late into the night (sometimes with flashlights under the blankets) and dancing to the music of the movie Grease.

As an adult, I realize now that I owe Auntie Mary a debt of gratitude because those summers were really important in cementing my relationships not only with her kids, but with many of my Saskatchewan cousins. Staying in town with her family, I was able to take little side trips to play with Auntie Helen's little ones and help her shell peas, swim with Auntie Gwen's family in their cool backyard pool until our fingers were prunes, play HALT! and try out Auntie Isabel's gang's quonset slide, butcher chickens and go fishing with Auntie Cathy's crew, build bale forts and milk cows with Auntie Barbara's clan, and go to morning mass with and pick raspberries for Grandma, that she later served with real cream. I had no idea then how lucky I was! But my friendships with those cousins remain, sometimes like we can just pick up where we left off the last time we saw each other.

But back to the lady of the day: one of the things I liked most about Auntie Rooshki was how she loved to laugh, often at her own expense. She was willing to be a little silly to win a smile, and her silliness was often contagious. At an Oktoberfest party one year, she somehow had a good-sized group of her relatives spreading out our paper napkins, twisting the corners until they resembled soup bowls, and wearing them on our heads. "Zeega Zagga, Zeega Zagga!," she would shout, and we'd all answer, "Hoi, Hoi, Hoi!" Exactly why, I'm not sure. I don't know a lot about my Russian-German background, but assumed that was part of its tradition, somehow. Auntie Rooshki could dance the Russian-German Polka that has an extra little hop. She tried to teach me that evening (and many times after) to no avail. The best I could do was "Hoi, Hoi, Hoi!" whenever she'd "Zeega Zagga!" Seems to me our group won a bottle of wine or a case of beer for being the life of the party that night, but it was mostly Auntie Mary's doing. My sisters tell me that she did the napkin-hat trick at my wedding, too, but somehow I missed that fun.

After the arrival of my first child, a little package from Auntie Mary arrived in the mail, labelled "For Christina." In it were two cassette tapes of nursery rhymes, songs, and Purple Puzzle Tree stories that she had dubbed. We played those tapes over and over during our travels as a family, and I suspect my kids can still remember some of the songs from the Agapeland records that Auntie Mary recorded for them when she worked at the Calgary Universal Church Supplies that she and Uncle Lefty owned for many years. I suspect Auntie Mary made cassette tapes for lots of friends and family. My parents have a box of Auntie Mary's tapes of Russian-German songs. There are probably some wonderful old treasures in there.

Auntie Mary lived for what seemed like a long time with leukemia, having her ups and downs health-wise, but was always cheerful whenever I saw her. Her biggest complaint seemed to be that the medication was wearing out her memory, though her family as a whole jokes a lot about not remembering things, my mom included. The last time we had a phone conversation, Auntie Rooshki called just to make sure she had remembered to return my call (she had).

Memory issues aside, she never failed to send me a Christmas card, often recycled from another year, a store-bought front image of the Holy Family glued onto a piece of paper that she filled with her lovely handwriting, asking about my kids, telling me about my cousins and their children. How I loved those "recycled" Christmas letters... and now they won't be coming any more. This is where I suppress a sob and the tears start flowing down my face as I realize how much I'm going to miss her. But she's going home in more ways than one. Her faith in God kept her going for a long time, through many challenges, and I have no doubt she's with God now.

Auntie Mary was the fourth child in our near- Guiness Book of Records family, and tomorrow we will lay her ashes to rest beside Uncle Lefty in the cemetery near her original small town home, not far from her parents and other family members buried there. It's hard to see her generation grow older and know that, inevitably, we will lose them all, but oh, what wonderful memories they leave in our hearts, and what faith they have offered to us.

There are many other wonderful Auntie Mary stories that the other 80+ nieces and nephews and I could tell, but the bottom line is that Auntie Mary was more than an Auntie. She was also an excellent friend, a funny, sweet, generous-with-her-time person to have in our corner.

Dear Auntie Rooshki, thank you for sharing your name and so many other things with me, especially your kids as we were growing up. I will miss you, but I have no doubt that your strong faith has taken you straight to The Place where you continue to pray for us until we can all dance that Polka together without any lessons!

Ich liebe dich.

Hummingbird meditation

I've run out of words for prayer.

These days, my meditation is simply sitting and waiting for a hummingbird, my eyes filled with the beauty of this particular spot in God's creation, the melody of a Taize chant flowing through me.

Toi, tu nous aimes, source de vie.

You who love us, source of life.

Lee's bear

My partner of 31 years has always had a thing for bear statues. I could probably post a picture of him posing with a bear for every year that we've been married and then some.

So when our daughter, Suzanna, and my sister, Jeanine, came across a very shabby little bear statue among a neighbour's garbage, waiting to be picked up and hauled to the dump, they rescued him.

Suzanna did a wee repair job, applied new paint, and voila. The perfect Father's Day present.

Lee finally has his own bear, who, like Shadow-pup, awaits him every day at our back door -- a good reminder, when our garden is wet, to wipe my paws.

No offense to those who prefer garden gnomes... I enjoy them too!

Sunday Reflection: Unexpected gifts

This morning at Inner City Pastoral Ministry, my friend, Dorothy, one of our community elders, called me over, saying, "I have something for you." 

She dug around in her purse for a moment and pulled out a pair of earrings beaded by one of her cousin's daughters, and presented them to me. "I got them at my family reunion! They're like the... what's the name of the place where they hold the Women's Retreat? Star of the North! And I know you like earrings. So now you can wear the North Star on your ears!"

To say I was delighted is to put it mildly. I gave her a masked kiss on the cheek and put them on immediately, and what was funny was that they perfectly matched what I was wearing (though if I hadn't decided to change into something cooler just before heading downtown this morning, that wouldn't have been the case).

It was an unexpected gift, and has me thinking about the many unexpected gifts I've received from ICPM and the Community of Emmanuel. I came to the community at a time when I couldn't find solace for my broken heart in my usual place of worship, and was received with immediate trust and acceptance, tears and all. That was the first unexpected gift. 

It took a while, but the week after I finally asked for prayers for the painful situation that broke my heart, Dorothy approached and told me she was praying especially for healing for me... It was another unexpected gift when she shared her own situation and we agreed to pray for each other.

Every service begins with a smudge of sage, an offering of prayer and smoke for cleansing, and that has been yet another unexpected gift of healing and hope for me. Somehow, it feels like a different sort of communion as we line up to receive sacred smoke in a ritual much older than Christianity. It's also been an unexpected gift to be invited to offer tobacco and pick the sage we use with other  community members at sacred ground outside of the city.

As someone who believes that we all need to gather together around God's word and table no matter who we are or the differences in our beliefs, the ecumenical spirit of the community's worship is yet another unexpected gift that moves me deeply. We are welcome to the table no matter what, and seeing the community receive God's gifts without judgment of any kind is a gift, too. Every week, God's love for each one of us is emphasized in beautiful ways.

But the most unexpected gift of all is how the community has become home for me thanks to the friendships offered and the joy we have in coming together on Sunday mornings even as there's always hardship around and among us.

Before my broken heart, I couldn't have believed in all these unexpected gifts that came through unexpected people. But now I see that my broken heart was also a gift that brought me to the Community of Emmanuel at ICPM. 

How I love my Sunday mornings there.

Thank you, 

God,

for the journey that has brought me

to this special place in my life.

All of my life,

all of the life you have given me,

has led me here.

I wasn't always as grateful 

as I should have been,

but

Thank you,

God.

+Amen.

Another song worth hearing (and seeing)

It's easy to get discouraged these days, especially if you follow the news. Sometimes, life's struggles make it hard to sleep at night. So it's always good to find something uplifting and upbeat to counter the things that make us feel hopeless.

I like this one. I hope you do, too.

A ten-minute walking garden meditation

If it's not raining, most summer mornings you'll find me outside with my cup of tea, wandering my garden paths and moodling/meditating on the beauty of growing things and the Creator who silently and secretly somehow makes them grow.

So instead of my monthly garden report, before the harvest begins in earnest, I thought I'd leave you with this morning's ten-minute walking garden meditation, done in silence (well, as silent as my neighbourhood is on a workday morning) so you can see the beauties of creation found in my backyard. I especially love the beautiful things birds and wind planted here and there.

Enjoy!