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!

Simple Suggestion #285... Build a garden blanket fort

Remember playing in blanket forts as kids? I think my mom is the queen of blanket forts. The ones she made with my kids were truly awe-inspiring.

Why am I thinking about this today? Well, it's over 30 degrees outside this afternoon, and that fact reminded me of the online workshop I took a while back that talked about how to climate-proof our gardens. Not that we can really climate proof anything... we're at the mercy of weather patterns that do as they must, that are only getting more and more challenging to live through in so many parts of the planet.

When the weather gets this warm, a garden can easily sunburn, so it's a good idea to move tender plants into the shade when possible. Failing that, we do what we can to soften the burning rays, and my solution this morning was to build backyard blanket forts for my tomatoes and peppers. Everything else will have to tough it out until the sun goes down and I can water again.

Climate change is real, and it's hard to watch the devastation it's wreaking on different parts of the world right now. About the only things we can do are to try to reduce our creation of greenhouse gas emissions, disengage from consumerism as much as possible, and source our food locally when we can in order to build up local producers so that we have them to fall back on as it becomes more challenging to ship food across the globe. I hope. 

Well, actually, there are hundreds of other things we can do, too, if we choose to live more simply. I started this list of Simple Suggestions back in 2011, and it grew and grew... If you haven't checked it out yet, it hasn't gone anywhere, though I've forgotten to add to it for at least a year!

If you're a gardener, I hope you already know this handy tip. For the time being, my tomatoes and peppers are protected until the weather moderates, and I'm trying to keep cool while praying for more temperate weather. 

God, help all the people and places that really need relief.

Looking for more Simple Suggestions? Click here.

The hug

I hadn't seen the young woman since our encounter on Easter Sunday. She showed up at Inner City Pastoral Ministry again this Sunday with a healed-over scar on her forehead, and found a seat at a back table, choosing to sit rather than dance this time.

But at some point during our Standing Stones service, she approached shyly, bringing me a copy of Alberta Native News, an Indigenous newspaper that is often found on the back counter of our worship area. I thanked her for it, bowing to her a little since she couldn't see my smile through my mask. 

She came closer, murmuring something about angels all around us.

"Yes," I said, "They look after us even when we don't think about them."

She put out her hand as though she wanted a handshake. I shook it gently, holding her gaze. When we dropped the handshake, she continued to look at me, and I knew, somehow, that she wanted something more.

"Would you like a hug?" I asked instinctively.

She didn't hestitate, wrapping her arms around me. I held her tightly, and she didn't let go for almost a full minute. My eyes filled with tears, as I thought about how she probably doesn't get a lot of hugs from the people around her on the streets of the inner city, and how my own children rarely hug me anymore, either.

When the hug ended, I said, "Thank you for the hug. I needed that," and we nodded to each other as she walked away.

I hope I was as much of an angel for her as she was for me.

Heartbroken

Somebody REALLY missed the memo. Pope Francis' visit is about seeking reconciliation and healing with Indigenous Peoples. It's not meant to be a show of clericalism the likes of which we haven't seen since I was born. I was there as a volunteer, in hopes of helping to facilitate reconciliation, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. What the **** was that?

If the Canadian Catholic Church really wants to build a relationship that moves toward healing and hope, it would give First Nations People, especially homeless ones, the seats of honour. It would put away the Latin (!) and communicate and pray with them in languages they understand. 

A reconciling Church would try to understand the complexities of family relationships among Indigenous families suffering from intergenerational trauma, rather than offering a homily on happy grandparents and grandchildren, especially since the Church was part of destroying those relationships. It would admit its complicity in helping to create a society that is particularly unjust toward First Nations.

And it would allow all Indigenous people to come to the table where Christ is shared, no restrictions, so that they can feel like the most honoured of guests.

This week isn't about upholding theological tenets or impressing the Pope. It's about really connecting with and listening to the ones he's come to meet on their lands.

Bishops of Canada, you have so much to learn about reconciliation.

I am more than a little angry, and heartbroken with the way you're doing things, but my feelings don't matter. Theirs do. I wonder what they are thinking and feeling after what happened this morning.

Enough with the ecclesial poop (I use the word intentionally) and circumstance. Let the Pope meet Indigenous Peoples on common ground, and really listen. And really allow all the truth to come out, and create possibilities and programs for healing.

Everyone else, get out of the way.

A new neighbour shows up

Pope Francis arrives in his Fiat

He's just a few blocks from here. His cortege arrived yesterday at about 1 p.m., a long line of about two dozen vehicles -- suburbans, Prestige sprinter vans, and two ambulances -- surrounding his little white fiat with the papal flag. 

For three days before he arrived, we heard a couple dozen RCMP and Edmonton Police on motor bikes practicing their motorcade skills, sirens blaring. I actually called the Catholic Pastoral Centre and suggested that Pope Francis probably didn't want to sound like a fifteen-alarm fire.

This morning my mom and I watched from her front window as he and his cortege left for Maskwacis to begin his "pilgrimage of penance" among Indigenous People here. Then I went home and watched the ceremonies online, beginning with a time of prayer at the Ermineskin Cemetery, and a simple apology to the residential school survivors gathered there. The emotion reflected in the faces of the elders listening to the Pope's speech made me cry.

His presence here on Turtle Island (North America) is a continuation of the fulfillment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action #58, asking for the Pope to apologize for the Church's complicity in the devastation caused by Residential Schools. But as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, RoseAnne Archibald, said, apologies are only as good as the actions that follow.

Still, we can be hopeful that, as this week's papal visit progresses, Pope Francis will speak more and more boldly about the steps the Catholic Church must take to make amends for centuries of injustices. It was the Church's Papal Bulls that led to Terra Nullius, the belief that non-European lands were empty and available for exploitation, allowing for the colonization of Indigenous lands and the subjugation of peoples and their cultures not just in Canada, but around the globe. 

If Pope Francis can open the Vatican Records related to the experience of Indigenous peoples and clearly admit to centuries of church disrespect, neglect, and injustice toward them, he will, in my books, live up to the radical example of the humble little saint from which he takes his papal name. Even better would be if he would liquidate some of the Church's many financial assets to actually finance programs that help suffering Indigenous people to heal physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, and spiritually. 

St. Francis of Assisi stood up against all forms of violence in his day -- he understood that all of creation is beloved of God, and he walked away from wealth and prestige to stand with the people of his time who were ignored by those who held power.

Dear neighbour for three days, Pope Francis, please do what is most needed. There are so many praying for you. Indigenous people and me included.

Thoughts for a Thursday

Most mornings I read the daily meditation that comes from the Centre for Action and Contemplation. This morning's carried a beautiful reflection from the thoughts of activist and mystic, Rosemarie Freeney Harding:

There is no scarcity. There is no

An abundance of roses on a single stem

shortage. No lack of love,

of compassion, of joy in the world.

There is enough.

There is more than enough.

Only fear and greed make us think 

otherwise.

No one need starve. There is enough 

land and enough food.

No one need die of thirst. There is

enough water. No one

need live without mercy. There is no 

end to grace. And we

are all instruments of grace. The

more we give it, the more

we share it, the more we use it, the

more God makes. There

is no scarcity of love. There is plenty.

And always more.

-- Rachel E. Harding, "Daughter's Precis," 

forward to Remnants: A Memoir of Spirit, Activism, and Mothering

(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015), [ix].

Let's live always with this kind of abundance and plenty in mind!

Morning meditation: God's abundant, sun-kissed beauty

And breakfast as a bonus!

 

It seems I'm being followed

 Look who found me when I turned over my compost pile this afternoon. 

Now, how would he end up in there?

It's been almost a year since my last interesting compost experience...

The Knave of Hearts also found me on a trip to the Taize Community 8 years ago.

For reasons explained here, he has come to represent the carpenter of Nazareth for me. I guess it's not him following me, so much as me following him, that really matters.

Still, it's always nice to be reminded of his presence...

The Tuesday morning crowd

Folks waiting for lunch at Bissell Centre

It's a warm one. This morning Quinn (the pastor from Inner City Pastoral Ministry) and I took a quick trip to Walmart for water, juice, snacks, underwear and toiletries, and went to offer what we bought to the folks living in tents and makeshift shelters around the Bissell Centre. They were glad to get supplies, and some stopped to chat with us, blessing us as they went on their way.

I was glad I went, as J, a regular at our Sunday Community of Emmanuel services, told me that she's going back to her home town in Iqaluit soon, since her father recently passed away, and she was here "looking after him" for the past 21 years. I received two big hugs from her, tiny as she is. I hope she'll be okay. 

Why am I moodling about my morning? Well, in case you missed it, Edmonton City Council recently decided against allowing small permanent encampments to be established for its homeless population, deciding that it was more cost effective to hire a few more outreach workers to go out to the camps scattered throughout the city. At present, there are many tents set up around the Bissell, and an outreach worker stopped by to say good morning. Quinn asked him what it was like to try to help folks in the area. 

"I'm having to cover a lot of ground," he said, "because they’re not just here -- they're spread all over, and down into the river valley. And then, just when I'm making progress to help someone with getting housed, their camp is dismantled because it’s deemed too messy or noisy, or violating bylaws, and I have to spend two or three days trying to find folks again because they've been forced to relocate." 

How is this more cost effective? City of Edmonton, are you listening to your own employees? Your Encampment Response non-Strategy isn't working very well.

Quinn and I found paths through the tent area in the vacant (but full) lot north of the Bissell to pass out our remaining water bottles, and lamented that, since some of the dwellings had encroached across a public sidewalk, it won't be long before police and cleanup crews dismantle them and send residents scurrying to find shelter elsewhere yet again. 

The tents, tarps, and belongings of these people will go to the trash heap, and they'll have to start over, scrounging for the basics. One of the dwellings I noticed was barely there -- a small blue tarp tied to a fence and held up with two small pieces of wood, open to the elements, two sleeping mats inside, tidy as could be. Of course, not many were quite that organized.

Heading back towards Quinn’s car, we noticed a young man in some drug-induced distress on the sidewalk in front of the Bissell. While Quinn went to look for a street healthcare worker, I stayed with the line of folks waiting to get into the Centre for lunch, making sure that the young man’s shopping cart was shading him from the hot sun. 

The people in line were concerned for the fellow, though no one knew his name. One offered his half can of Grape Crush, another asked if someone should call EMS. I assured her that the one resting on the sidewalk didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, and watched the interactions going on among the Tuesday morning crowd.

One of the most frustrating things about the City's response to homelessness is that it announced that it has increased the Bissell Centre's hours, when actually, Bissell hours have been cut back significantly. When we serve ICPM bag lunches on Sunday mornings, we were able to say "It will open at noon," but now we are constantly saying, "Sorry, it's not open today; come back tomorrow."

The homeless folks in the inner city face many challenges, but clearly, what gets them through, more than help from the city, is that they are a somewhat cohesive community simply because they know each other, and share similar struggles. This morning in the area around the Bissell, folks were looking out for each other, sharing things amongst themselves, loudly suggesting that the angry ones “walk away,” and encouraging each other to have patience. And they all seem to have more patience than I do. 

Or perhaps it's resignation, and who can blame them? 

Resignation about social issues among the general public gets us nowhere. Yes, encampments will have their problems, but dividing up community by frequently dismantling it only adds to the struggles these homeless folks are trying to handle in the best way they can -- by working together and helping each other. 

Those of us fortunate enough to have roofs over our heads need to get off our resignation.

What can we do? There has to be something. A province bringing in a surplus thanks to oil money has no excuse for its citizens having to live under tarps.

I guess it's time to write more letters and emails...

Sunday Reflection: Another prayer from the Inner City

(I wish I knew whose words these are so I could give credit where it is due. But perhaps it's enough for its writer that we are still praying these words, entitled Celebration of Life, in the inner city Community of Emmanuel (God with us)...

Gratitude to the author...

In the midst of hunger and war,

We celebrate the promise of plenty and peace.

In the midst of oppression and tyranny,

We celebrate the promise of service and freedom.

In the midst of doubt and despair,

We celebrate the promise of faith and hope.

In the midst of fear and betrayal,

We celebrate the promise of joy and loyalty.

In the midst of hatred and death,

We celebrate the promise of love and life.

In the midst of sin and decay,

We celebrate the promise of salvation and renewal.

In the midst of death around us, 

We celebrate the presence of the living Christ.

+Amen, hiy hiy.

And Happy Birthday and happy holidays to my sister, Jeanine!

Growing like the garden on Canada Day

I do love living in Canada... but I am only too aware of the way our country is divided right now between those who want to fight for the freedoms they feel have been trampled because of past health mandates and the collapsing economy, and those who wish the freedom convoy folks would go to Ukraine and come to an understanding of how free we Canadians actually are. 

I am also very mindful of how the establishment of Confederation 155 years ago was a trampling of the rights of our First Peoples, and the centuries of pain inflicted on them by colonists (European settlers and everyone who came after) make it hard to feel like celebrating.

So I am having a low-key Canada Day, putzing around in my garden between rain showers, and moodling in my mind about this beautiful stolen land we call home, and ways to live in appreciation of the freedom many of us enjoy as Treaty People. We have much to be grateful for, but also many reparations to make. There's much to ponder as we try to heal the divides among us, to welcome truth and work for reconciliation, and to be open to newcomers fleeing places of conflict. 

Happy Canada Day. May we all open our hearts to listen to one another, and create cooperation and healing in our country.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share two videos that show how much things can grow in one month. Can we grow bigger hearts as Canadians the way my fava beans grow? I think so.

Sunday morning beauty

 

It's a beautiful day. Thank you, God.

8 Ps

Dancing on Indigenous Sunday
at Inner City Pastoral Ministry

Though Jesus is a wonderful person of the Trinity, I often feel like his followers, in getting tied up in
arguments about sin and redemption more than emphasizing hope and love, have really messed things up at times.

So whenever Michelle, our Oskapewis (Elder's helper) speaks at the Community of Emmanuel of Inner City Pastoral Ministry on Sunday mornings, I usually find a deep wisdom in the Indigenous teachings she shares.

On Indigenous Sunday, she spoke beautifully about 8 Ps Creator gives us to help us along. Her words touched me deeply, so I asked if she would mind me sharing her teaching. Though I didn't get to these moodlings in time for National Indigenous Day yesterday, I will leave them here to mark Indigenous History Month. 

If we could celebrate Indigenous History by remembering and practicing these 8 Ps, maybe it would help truth and reconciliation to become more of a reality for our country:

The first P is Creator's Promise. That Promise being that Creator will always love us, and never leave us. No matter what.

The second P is Peace. If we can hold Creator's promise close to us always, we will be peaceful people who know that we are loved and cared for. The antithesis to peace is fear and anger, and Creator's promise is their best antidote!

The third P is Prayer. If we can talk to Creator daily, and listen for Creator's response in silence, in the words of those around us, that is the prayer that helps us to develop a relationship that continually reminds us of the first P, and holds us in the second.

The fourth P is Purpose. In knowing Creator well, and understanding that Creator wants good for all our relations, we can discover what we are called to do to create that good for all, moving out of selfishness and self-destruction to love and service of Mother Earth and all her children.

The fifth P is Pain. Creator allows pain in the world because we learn more from our mistakes than our successes. Creator doesn't want us to live in pain for long, though... just long enough to learn and to find a better path forward.

So Creator gives us the sixth P, Perseverance. It helps us to work through the difficult things that happen in every life, and it comes to us through the encouragement of others around us, and through the strength that Creator gives every being, the spark of life that is in each of us.

The seventh P is Patience, a very important gift that we all need, especially when we make mistakes and get down on ourselves. Creator's patience with us is endless, and we need to have Creator's patience with ourselves when it seems like we can't fix things on our own. We need to keep reaching out for help.

And that leads us to the eighth P, which closes the circle by bringing us back to Creator's Promise. All the Ps are single parts of our journey as people, but Creator's promise is also part of all the other Ps. Whichever P we might experience on a given day, it always comes with Creator's unconditional love and refusal to abandon us. That's the bottom line.

And it sounds just like what Jesus was telling us about God all through the gospels. Not sin and redemption, but God who is with us, no matter what. Except Indigenous teachings have been around a lot longer than Jesus has.

I hold both in my heart now, and offer this moodling for you to do the same.

Happy Indigenous History Month!