Sunday Reflection: Goodwill and kindness

Today's reflection is brought to you by

Ephesians 4:31-32.

Let Creator pull the bitter roots from your heart, for they feed the rage and anger that takes you down a path of fighting, hurting and speaking evil of your fellow human beings. Instead, show goodwill and kindness to others, by releasing them from the things they have done wrong. For this is what the Great Spirit, through the Chosen One, has done for you.

First Nations Version: 

An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament 

(Downer's Grove IL: InterVarsity Press 2021, ISBN 978-0-8308-1350-6).

O Spirit,

some days I feel surrounded by hate.

Social media can be full of trolls.

The news media seems to love sensational stories.

Some talk radio loves to belittle,

berate and be miserable 

even to those trying to make the world

a better place.

Through Paul, 

writer to the community of Ephesus,

you remind us

to step away from those places

where it becomes too easy to let

empty angry talk

that harms

take us over.

Often the impulse is to give back

worse than we get,

but you invite us to let the anger go,

and respond kindly,

with words that bring forgiveness, 

strength and healing

to those who need it most.

You have marked us as your own.

Help us to remember

that we belong to you

and are your presence

by the goodness we can give

to a world 

that often seems addicted

to outrage.

+Amen

**Today's reading is timely. This week I discovered that that there has been a group of Not-In-My-Back-Yard neighbours badmouthing a local supportive housing development online, and their comments are verging on hysteria. Fortunately, other neighbours have let the Spirit flow through them, responding kindly by pointing out the beauty, goodness and truth they have seen coming through positive happenings from/with folks living at that housing development. I am very grateful to good neighbours who are letting the Spirit of love shine through their firm but gentle responses that encourage understanding rather than judgment of those who are recently housed and improving their lives.

2023 Word of the Year

Those who follow these moodlings know that I like to choose a word at the beginning of every year as something of a theme on which to focus as the months hurry past. 

In rereading last year's moodling about my Word of the Year, I had to chuckle. I lost that thread of inspiration at about the time the dark days moved back into the light, and my friend Garth returned not long after. I did enjoy most of my Partylite candles, however!

Having reached the end of 2022 and having to go back through my moodlings to remember the word I chose last January, I had to ask myself: is there really any point to choosing a Word of the Year? 

Answer: of course there is -- I just need to be more intentional about actually remembering it (though I sometimes find it challenging to remember what happened the day before yesterday, already!) And 2023's Word of the Year is one I'm determined to remember.

Ready?

APPRECIATION. That's what I want to focus on this year.

Why?

Well, because in the past year, as I've gotten more and more involved in the ministry of presence for folks in the inner city, I've seen a lot of dark stuff. It's become too easy to feel sad and angry about the fact that there are humanitarian crises across the river or down our local ravine, never mind hidden in some of the poorly-maintained rental units within walking distance of my own comfy home. 

I bumped into a neighbour this morning and we got to talking about the 49,000 people struggling with core housing need in Edmonton, and when I mentioned how we need all levels of government to step up and work together to build a lot more affordable housing, she laughed and said, "yeah, right."

Housing is only one issue. I'm sure you can think of a dozen others. The problem is that it's just too easy to get cynical when faced with so many challenges and the seeming lack of political will to solve problems. I feel that cynicism in myself, too. So that's why I decided to focus on Appreciation (many thanks to my friend Jim for his New Year's reflection). 

And just in the nick of time, too. This morning when we arrived downtown to hand out socks, gloves and other winterwear, this is what greeted us.

They had come to dismantle the tarp/tent homes of people in the neighbourhood. Quinn (standing on the corner, shaking his head) captured it well when he said, "This is too crazy. They take it down now, and tonight it will be back because these people have nowhere else to go." People were dragging their belongings out of their shelters and piling them up wherever they could, just waiting for the cops and workers to "clean up" and leave. 

There's nothing like destabilizing the only stability people have had for the last couple of weeks in this chilly winter weather.

But we've seen this many times, and because we couldn't do anything about the inhumanity of the situation (other than being active members of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness and standing witness as the team from Inner City Pastoral Ministry), we focused on the people who came to our little table for the winterwear donations given to us by kind and generous people -- and we also witnessed the kindness and generosity of community members to each other even as their homes were being taken apart.

One fellow sat amid his pile of belongings on an ancient blanket-covered chair, cracking jokes (to lift peoples' spirits?) He pulled a rubber band out of a garbage bag and announced that he'd found ten thousand dollars in it, then asked a passer-by, "Would you like this rubber band that held all that money?" He was non-stop with his wisecracks.

One young woman came to our necessities table and asked for ladies' briefs, quietly telling me that she was having her "lady time." I dug around under the mens' socks and found the last two for her. She was tucking them into her pocket as another girl arrived, saying, "I'd really like a fresh pair of underwear if you have it." I told her she'd just missed the last two, but of course, the young woman who had just received them dug into her pocket and gave one to the girl who'd asked. Just like that.

People look out for each other all the time, and I appreciate that. Sometimes I even remember to say so.

But not as often as I should.

So my 2023 Word of the Year is chosen to remind me to voice my appreciation in situations where I find myself marveling at the beauty, goodness and truth of this world, and the kindness and goodness of human beings. Especially those who receive more complaints than pats on the back, those who are often overlooked. 

And I need not only to voice appreciation, but to properly appreciate. To really look at, listen to, smell, taste, touch and reflect upon life rather than just letting it pass me by. And to do things to show my appreciation, to make others aware of things, creation, and people worth appreciating whenever possible.

What's your word or focus for 2023?

A prayer for 2023

Happy New Year, friends!

This morning at the Community of Emmanuel, Pastor Jim shared a beautiful prayer that he wrote, and I asked him if I could share it here. Gracious fellow that he is, he agreed.

God of all times and places and beings,

as a new year begins,

keep us aware of the road we are called to walk,

a road where we

   welcome outcasts and refugees,

   heal a broken planet,

   feed the hungry,

   build bridges of trust, not walls of fear,

   share our gifts,

   seek justice and peace for all people,

   and bring Christ's light to the world. 

+Amen.

                                    -- Jim Gurnett

His sermon this morning, about the road we walk starting in this new year, used the word WALK as an acronym for how we can move through the year in God's presence. I loved this idea, and am sure he won't mind me sharing it as well:

W -- we walk in Wonder

A -- we walk in Appreciation

L -- we walk knowing that we are Linked to all other beings, and 

K -- we walk giving Kindness wherever we can along the way.

My prayer is that we all walk through the year 2023 in this good way!

Patience for something beauty-full

My six-year-old blooming
Lionheart amaryllis

Some years ago, I asked a florist to send an amaryllis to my dear friend in Belgium as a Christmas gift. Gaby was delighted and wrote to me, saying, "she is very beauty-full!" So the next fall, I ordered a bulb for myself, and planted it so it would bloom for Christmas. And yes, she was very beauty-full!

She also managed to produce a roundish pod where one of the flowers had been -- because I transferred pollen between the blossoms with my fingers. I allowed the pod to ripen into a hard brown shell, and eventually it cracked and opened to reveal many black, flat and crinkly seeds about the size of a loonie (dollar coin here in Canada).

I turned to the internet for information about how to grow an amaryllis from seed, but all I could find was that they produce the plants in Florida, and it takes about four or five years from germination to flower stage. Wow, that long, I thought.

I was game to try for germination at least, curious what those flat black seeds would do. So I spread them out in a large-ish shallow pot, covered them with a fine layer of soil, and kept them well watered. Before long, the pot appeared to be growing fine grass.

That fall, I transplanted a dozen of the grassy plants into small pots and left them to grow in a sunny window through the winter. By the next spring, they looked like baby leeks, and I put a half dozen into four slightly larger pots and set them outside, bringing them indoors before first frost. The next summer, I kept only the three healthiest specimens. For three years, they spent their days in the sunny back yard or the south-facing kitchen window, depending on the season.

But last fall, as they were ending their fourth year, I cut the leaves from bulbs about the size of medium onions, shook the dirt from their roots, and put them in my basement cold room for a winter's nap with my original bulb, which has bloomed every year after its winter break. 

I promptly forgot about them all -- until after Easter!

The one that didn't bloom

In the middle of an episode of insomnia, I remembered! The next morning, I planted them in some good potting soil and set them out in our little greenhouse, where they put out some healthy looking leaves... and two of the three plants sent up a flower stalk! All that patience had paid off!

I gave one amaryllis to my sisters and one to my mom, and the flowers didn't disappoint! As Gaby said, they were "very beauty-full." Perhaps the third plant hadn't stored quite as much sunlight as the other two, as it hasn't blossomed. Maybe next year!

The lesson I am taking from this is that people are like amaryllises. We all grow at our own pace -- especially when it comes to discovering and accepting the truths of life. For some people, it takes much longer than others. 

In this season of uncovering many painful truths about Canada's colonial history and its myriad injustices against our Aboriginal Peoples, we need to be patient with one another, not to give up on each other. If we can bring each other along with gentleness, kindness, atonement, forgiveness, and healing, hopefully we can all bloom together into something very beauty-full.

Please pray with me for that, and let's all do what we can to further reconciliation...

My "Uncle Vic" ring

My Uncle Vic is an amazing man, one of those people whose sometimes gruff exterior holds a heart of gold, the kind of guy whose straight face suddenly surprises you with a wink you didn't see coming. I didn't know him very well as I was growing up because he lived in Saskatoon, 520 km from my home, and when we did visit him, our visits were short because there were numerous relatives to see from both of my parents' families. But I always liked catching up with his kids, and seeing Uncle Vic and my dad kibbitzing. 

Over the last few years, I haven't been to Saskatoon, but my parents have told me some interesting stories about Uncle Vic. He got into and really enjoyed barbershop singing with a group in Saskatoon -- he's always had a great singing voice, coming from a pretty musical family. My kids were amazed by him and my dad harmonizing at a family reunion/birthday party a few years ago, as he was a great-uncle they had only just met, a part of their grandpa's life that they had missed out on. Vic was also a jack of all trades, having more varied occupations over the years than any of his brothers, or so it always seemed to me. 

Not long after I started my short-lived teaching career, I remember visiting with Uncle Vic and Auntie Jennie on my own steam, having driven all the way to Saskatoon without the rest of my family, a first visit as a young adult. We went out for lunch somewhere and caught up on life in general. When I learned that Uncle Vic was managing a jewelry store, a lightbulb went off in my head. I showed my uncle the birthstone ring I was wearing, good gold with a cheap imitation emerald that had a bad chip.

"I can fix that, no problem," he told me. "Just leave it with me." When I insisted on paying for the repair, he waved me off, saying it wasn't worth fretting about. So I gave him the address of the school where I was working in rural Alberta, and sure enough, about a month later, the school secretary handed me a very special package. My ring looked brand new, and I was so delighted! I sent Uncle Vic a thank you card and wore that ring proudly for many years, until my knuckles started to thicken and I couldn't slide it on and off my right ring finger very easily. I put it in my jewelry box, and only wore it on my birthdays.

In his retirement, Uncle Vic wasn't content to rest on his laurels, and took a job as Walmart Greeter in Saskatoon. The next thing the extended family knew, he was an internet sensation, because someone on a high-traffic Facebook page named him as their favourite greeter and all around good guy. There were dozens, if not hundreds of accolades from customers who appreciated his friendliness and his willingness to go the extra mile in helping people, and it was wonderful to see him recognized that way.

Unfortunately, 2020 has not been kind to my uncle, and my parents have been keeping me informed about a dementia diagnosis and other health issues. When I heard about Uncle Vic's struggles, I went straight to my jewelry box and put on my ring as a reminder to pray for him, Auntie Jennie and their family. The problem was that it only fit loosely on my little finger, but I took a chance and wore it anyway. In the midst of this pandemic, my aunt made the difficult decision to move to Calgary and stay with their daughter's family so she would have help caring for Uncle Vic, and many prayers from many people went with them.

About two weeks ago, after a wintry walk with Lee and the dog, I suddenly realized that Uncle Vic's ring was missing from my finger. I had switched from leather gloves to warmer mittens halfway through a walk around the Legislature grounds, and when I checked my gloves, mittens, pockets, the floor of the car, and every other possible place where the ring might have ended up, I grieved when I couldn't find it. Even more so when my dad called four days later to tell me that Uncle Vic was in hospital, diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

It goes without saying that this is a tough Christmas for Uncle Vic and his family. They are never far from my thoughts and prayers. I was thinking about him this morning as I was sorting our clean clothes to put away... and when I went to put a couple of sweaters in my dresser drawer, I noticed a glint of gold and green at the bottom. 

My ring probably slipped off the last time I put my sweaters away, just before the walk! I laughed out loud, delighted to see it again, and slipped it onto my finger. There it stays, a constant reminder of these loved ones who are walking the toughest road right now, that of illness and decline, one that we all walk in different ways and at different times. I keep them all in my prayers, and ask God for wise healthcare professionals and gentle moments of music, simple joy and deep love for my uncle, aunt and cousins.

Update: Uncle Vic died early in the morning of January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, with his daughter Nadine by his side. It's a comfort to know that God's presence was revealed (Epiphany means revelation) to him that day. Prayers for his family in this time of loss are appreciated.

Love in the time of COVID-19

In the five minutes it took me to put on my uniform for my ushering position at the Winspear yesterday afternoon, everything changed. Once dressed, I learned that Alberta Health Services announced that all gatherings of over 250 people were banned, effective immediately. As I put my uniform back on its hanger, I could hear a couple of younger staff who seemed quite panicked, saying, "How are we supposed to live through this? This is something completely new!"

I affirmed that yes, this is an unprecedented situation that we are living through, and that all we can do is take care of each other and keep our chins up.

The challenge in this time, as I see it, is to think beyond ourselves and to unite for the common good. Yes, let's listen to our health officials when they ask us to take measures to protect the vulnerable and ourselves, but let's also remember that we are all in this together, and that hoarding needed commodities doesn't help anyone else, while snapping at each other in our anxiety only adds to the feeling of panic. Kindness is much more helpful!

It's hard to know what's coming, but at times like these, a smile goes further than anything else to bring a sense of normalcy and calm to those who really need it, and to ourselves. In this time of COVID-19, as we live through the challenges that come with a pandemic, we need to turn away from "everyone-for-themselves" thinking, listen to wise leaders, avoid gatherings, care for our neighbours, and hold onto the wisdom of the ages. It isn't easy, and it will get worse before it gets better, but if we operate from a place of positive thinking as much as possible, we have a much better chance of overcoming the struggles ahead.

The wisdom of the ages that I'm holding in my heart comes in two phrases:

Love one another. - Jesus Christ.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. - Julian of Norwich

What wisdom of the ages are you holding close these days? Please share, as what you have to offer may be exactly what someone else needs to hear.

Let all families be holy

I hate it when I end up crying through Sunday morning mass, and lately, it happens more often than I like. You see, God and I have what I would call a wonderful relationship. In fact, I can't get along without God. It's just that some of the people who speak for God make me cry, and that's painful, period.

Today, the last Sunday of the year, is the Feast of the Holy Family. Really, it's a liturgy that is all about love. We heard about love, respect, and honour among family members in scripture from the Book of Sirach. Paul's beautiful letter to the Colossians (3:12-21) reminded us to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, to bear with one another, to forgive each other and to love. And then we heard about loving parents Mary and Joseph taking their infant son to the temple at the beginning of his faith journey. All beautiful and inspirational words!

It was the first few lines of the homily that set me off. Family values are under attack, we were told, by gay marriage and transgender activism. And the tears began to roll down my cheeks. I grew up in a Catholicism that brainwashed me against homosexuality, even as several of my Catholic friends who were gay or lesbian struggled with depression and self-loathing because our Christian culture labelled them as "disordered." It seemed to be a direct contradiction to the adage, "God does not make junk." As a young performer in a travelling show, I became friends with peers of many different backgrounds, cultures, and sexual orientations, and my friendships forced me to question the anti-queer mindset I grew up with because of my faith.

In the years since, I have realized that God loves queer people every bit as much as God loves me. Otherwise, why would God have blessed them with their different orientations? They are oriented differently not to spite the world, but because they have to be true to who they are, just as I do. And judging them helps no one.

In the last few years, I have witnessed the love and marriages of many queer friends who are being true to who God made them to be. And for the life of me, I can't see how Greg and Roy's marriage undermines anything. Karly and Inge and their two sons are as loving a family as mine. Their marriage is more loving, balanced and blessed than any of my heterosexual divorced friends' marriages ever were. And my neighbours, Leo and Markus*, are excitedly planning their wedding for September with every bit as much joy and anticipation as Lee and I did. They are a loving couple who deserve to be together for life, heart and soul. We need to remember that many marriages are about a loving unity that doesn't include procreation.

Love is love. And God is love. And since nobody I know can actually tell us the exact thoughts of this God who is love, and who clearly creates so many different forms of love, how can we speak against these other kinds of love, sexuality or gender simply because our experience is different? God is in Leo and Markus' relationship too, I'm convinced! It's full of goodness, truth and beauty,

I wish our homilist this morning had simply focused on the holy family as a model of love, and talked more about the beautiful qualities mentioned in the readings and how they feed our souls. I suspect I'm not the only person who needs to hear how every family that does its best to love one another is a holy family, even through our struggles. Perfection isn't possible, but love is, and families with trans-gendered or otherwise queer members don't need to be judged as somehow undermining family values, especially when we are all doing our best to love and support one another just as Jesus, Mary and Joseph did. God made us all holy!

God of love,
Thank you for the billions of love stories
that brought us into being,
that surround us,
sometimes challenge us,
and always sustain us.

Open our hearts to your love in its many forms.

Help us to act always
with love,
respect,
and honour
toward all members of our human family.

Clothe us
with compassion,
kindness,
humility,
meekness
and patience,
to bear with one another,
to forgive each other
and to love everyone who crosses our path.

Bless those families who struggle,
and help us to reach out to those in need
just as you reach out for us.

Bless us in this new year of 2018,
and let all families be holy
by our sharing in your love.

+Amen.

*I have used pseudonyms in place of my queer friends' names. 

How to avoid cruel and unusual punishment

It was bad enough getting my teeth cleaned by a less-than-gentle dental hygienist, ouch. What made it worse was the television on the ceiling of the room that was playing the U.S. President's press secretary speaking to the media while my teeth were scraped and scaled. When I told a friend about this morning's experience of being a captive audience in a dentist's chair, she laughed and said, "double cruel and unusual punishment, for sure!"

Like many people, I'm trying my best to find some good in Donald Trump -- or at least trying not to get into rants about him. I grew up hearing Thumper the Rabbit's voice (in Bambi) saying, "If you can't say somethin' nice, don't say nuthin' at all," though I now temper that phrase with Edmund Burke's "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing." My best theory about this whole situation is that perhaps the Holy Spirit is allowing the present president to teach the world that we can't wait for presidents to make the world a better place; we also have to engage in improving ourselves and the situations where we can make a difference, and speak up for those without a voice.

So far I've managed to avoid signing the many on-line petitions of complaint against the man (what will they prove, really?) and I'm watching what I say about him because I believe that all the nasty badmouthing of both sides in the last year or so seems to be what got us here in the first place. But with all the negative and fear-based things happening in the first few weeks of this presidency, it's really difficult not to continually assume that the worst will happen, especially when so many lies are flying around (and so many refugees who have already gone through "extreme vetting" and have valid visas are waiting for the U.S. borders to reopen).

When I first saw the video below, I was put off by the negative and mocking tone of the speaker -- but a few days further on, I'm thinking he makes some valid points, especially after seeing this morning's press conference. If the President continues to use the media to market and push some of the lies he's using to support his agenda the way he has been, it's definitely within the media's rights to push back -- to "pause the tape" and do some fact-checking so that the truth may be heard (more than) twice as often as the lies. Some of the world's present problems lie in the fact that so many people accept whatever the loudest or most "official" voice says. We can't even hear the truth any more.

But truth, if it is true, doesn't have to be loud and pushy. It is clearly "official" because it manifests itself in beauty, goodness, generosity, kindness, and understanding. If we don't want to live with at least four more years of this "cruel and unusual punishment," of lies and the backlash they create, we need to move into a more positive place. So how do we convince each other of the truth? Not with the angry voices of the President or Keith Olberman in the video, but maybe with some honest facts coupled with a lot of compassion -- and plenty of action to reveal lies for what they are.

What do you think?

Simple Suggestion #193... Say a simple hello

Maybe this wouldn't seem like a good suggestion to the extreme introvert, but to me, it's just part of living a life of courtesy and kindness. I'll admit it: I am an introvert (but not too far from the extrovert end of the scale), so I'm not the type to really go out of my way to say hello to people, especially when I sense that, like me, they might prefer their own little world. But it's always been a rather uncomfortable feeling for me to walk past someone without acknowledging them in some way -- eye contact and a smile, a nod, or a simple hello. A stranger coming down the sidewalk is just someone I don't know, and a little acknowledgment might be the difference between the feeling of not being worth anything and a happy day -- for both of us.

I never know what might happen when I say hello to someone. Usually, they say a simple hello back, and we continue on in our separate directions. But last week I said hello to a boy with a backpack who was shuffling along, head down as if he was rather dejected, and his head snapped up, he looked me in the eye, and said, "Have a good day."

I don't know about you, but I can't wish someone else a good day without improving my own somehow, a wee bit. Greeting other people is like throwing a little positive energy into the wind, and feeling it rush back to ruffle my hair, too.

A Kindness Song for a Sunday

Here's a lovely little 5 minute music video by rapper-activist Nimo Patel. It came to me from KarmaTube (on the sidebar) and is his response to a kindness challenge that circled the world through www.kindspring.org. What I love about it is that it underlines the fact that we don't have to be overwhelmed by how much there is to do; we can all manage one small act at a time. This production has some wonderful faces, and some great lines... I won't say more than that as I'm sure you'll see for yourself. Enjoy!

A gentle soul

Once in a while we meet a gentle person. Gentleness is a virtue hard to find in a society that admires toughness and roughness. We are encouraged to get things done and to get them done fast, even when people get hurt in the process. Success, accomplishment, and productivity count. But the cost is high. There is no place for gentleness in such a milieu.

Gentle is the one who does "not break the crushed reed, or snuff the faltering wick" (Matthew 12:20). Gentle is the one who is attentive to the strengths and weaknesses of the other and enjoys being together more than accomplishing something. A gentle person treads lightly, listens carefully, looks tenderly, and touches with reverence. A gentle person knows that true growth requires nurture, not force. Let's dress ourselves with gentleness. In our tough and often unbending world our gentleness can be a vivid reminder of the presence of God among us.                                  

-  Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, February 7

On Sunday night, I was unhappily surprised by the news that our 90-year-old neighbour was in hospital. The last time I had seen Bob seems like only a few days ago, when he brought me misdelivered mail. It was bitterly cold, and there he was in a cardigan at my frosty front door. If I hadn't been in the middle of cooking supper, I might have thought to invite him in for a few minutes, as I don't see him too often in the winter. I did manage to ask how he was. "I'm doing better," he said, and I asked if he had the cold that's been going around. "Something like that," he said, as he headed back down the steps and hustled home. "Stay warm," was his parting shot.

We never know the last time we'll speak with someone, but when I visited Bob in the hospital on Monday, it became apparent that the exchange at my front door was the last time Bob would speak with me. He passed away last night, and we miss him.

Bob was the gentle person Henri Nouwen speaks about in the passage above. Bob knew how to tread lightly when offering constructive criticism of my gardening and tree pruning techniques. Though he was hard of hearing, he listened carefully to questions about his garden and offered all sorts of advice, asparagus, apples, garlic, flower seeds, rhubarb, and compliments when my own garden prospered. He looked after his wife Mabelle very tenderly for many years, even when her Alzheimers sometimes made her less than tender with him. And I suspect he touched everyone who ever met him with his reverence and respect for them. A gardener all his life, a father, a grandfather and great-grandfather and a good neighbour all around, he was a person who knew that true growth requires nurture, not force, and he nurtured us all with his kindness and his gentle chuckle.

If I'm not mistaken, Bob lived his entire life in this neighbourhood. It was his father's farmland at one point, and Bob and his dad fought City Hall for the right to turn their cow pasture into the small park across the street rather than build a rectangular grid neighbourhood. I contacted the city to see if the park could be named for Bob's family, but the naming department people tell me it's not actually a park -- it's a "road right of way" and as such, can't be named. But anyone who knew and loved Bob knows it's Bob's park. It will always remind us of him.

Thanks for everything, Bob. You were definitely God's presence among us. Rest in peace, and say hello to Mabelle for us.