Simple Pleasures: Nature's tenacity

Yesterday, the sky was full of thousands upon thousands of sandhill cranes migrating north, sometimes playing in the thermals overhead, flying in spiralling clouds that looked as though they might crash into each other. Can you see them? I wish I had a better camera and could capture the sound that makes me look up every time!

Violas also appeared this week, pushing through a crack in the sidewalk.

And the scille that were eaten by some small critter in my yard? Well, a small patch of them survived!

In these days when human news seems to be going from bad to worse and I'm struggling to keep my chin up sometimes, there's nothing like nature's tenacity to remind me that greater forces are at work than human plans and economies.

Things are always changing, and that calls for adaptation. The cranes will adjust their flight paths, the flowers will bloom earlier or later, and wise human beings will find ways to work together for the common good.

Nature's tenacity is in all living things no matter what we two-leggeds do. These days, I'm finding that tenacity everywhere, and delighting in it. It's better than letting the news get me down.

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

The good ol' Chop and Drop

October 19th, 2021

Once upon a time, I subscribed to the tidy garden theory. A plant here, and another there, and nice clear black soil space in between (that had to be weeded regularly). 

That's changed over time. I took the Master Composter/Recycler course from the city of Edmonton 15 years ago, and learned many things. Through it, I rediscovered a friend/university buddy I hadn't seen in years. Mark had become an MCR educator who eventually became a Master Gardener/soil science fanatic too, and who tells me that bare soil is dying soil. 

Basically, bare soil is unprotected so it's getting baked and dried out, losing nutrients and moisture, and more susceptible to weeds. Mark taught me about using compost as mulch, and more recently, another MCR friend, Mildred, introduced me to her way of allowing plants to drop their foliage on the soil as natural fertilizer and protection.

Chop and Drop, she calls it, and I'm a convert. Rather than buying large quantities of garden centre mulch to cover soil and keep it moist, I use autumn leaves and leave my perennials to die back naturally in the fall. In the spring, I simply chop and drop anything that's left standing to tidy up my yard. 

Of course, chopped stems and stalks don't look quite as neat as bare soil or as uniform as wood chips, but they compost more quickly and actually started to feed the soil last fall as their nutrients leached into the ground during freeze-thaw cycles. Their stems are lighter and allow for some aeration as they decompose, even as they hold moisture in the soil.

In a world where we are facing so many environmental issues, Chop and Drop means that no garbage trucks are hauling my yard waste 85 km to the Ryley landfill, because it's being used to rejuvenate my soil. By reusing natural debris from plants to hold in moisture and enrich my garden, I'm not contributing to the destruction of trees for wood chips, I need no chemical fertilizers, and I've got my very own carbon capture and storage program!

April 29th, 2022

On April 29th, I chopped and dropped last fall's leftover stems and stalks in my perennial beds. It looks a bit messy at the moment, but once things get growing, it's barely noticeable -- except that it means I rarely have to water in the summer, and when I do, the moistened soil is protected by a layer of naturally composting leaves, stems and other plant debris.

The good ol' Chop and Drop is basically how God keeps things green and growing (the wind, birds, storms, and other natural things are the choppers and droppers). I highly recommend it. It can work in vegetable gardens too (but do it in the fall and dig the plant leftovers into the soil so they're absorbed/composted by spring). Your soil will thank you by being light and rich and full of life!

Give my front yard garden about a month and a half, and you won't even notice my chop and drop mulch...

Last June

Hey! Who's eating my flowers?

It's the most wonderful time.... of the year (I seem to sing this one a lot, have you noticed? I guess because there are many wonderful times of the year besides Christmas.)

Spring is probably my fave. So much potential!

On unrainy days you'll find me wandering the yard, or just standing and looking for new growth. And sometimes taking pictures of wee things sprouting. And sometimes posting them to Instagram with hashtags #ilovespringmiracles and #everythingsamiracle.

The first thing with more than your basic spring green to show up in my yard (I really shouldn't call green basic after seven months of winter white-grey-brown!) are tiny scille (plural of scilla), or squills. I get a charge out of their tightly-wound little blue buds -- I took this picture last week. It made me think of a little off-kilter earth on Earth Day, waiting to unfurl into deep blue flowers. I love when there's a little sea of them blooming among the autumn leaves that are the mulch in many of my flower beds.

This morning, I went to check on them... and hundreds of little blue flowers were missing! The plants are still there, and the little stems stand with nothing on top! I've been robbed (or rather, my scille have). That means no seeds for next year's bulbs, sigh.

This has never happened before. I mean, maybe a few have been eaten without me noticing, but usually there are hundreds of tiny cobalt blue flowers among my raspberry canes, lilies, and tulips. Finding not a one, I decided to check the front yard, and there I found one solitary scilla with two flowers peeking up. Fearful for its life?

I'm not sure if it's an early spring or a late one as far as squirrels' stomachs are concerned. Or maybe it was the voles and mice in the neighbourhood that ate all those little flowers, as I suspect they're temporary tenants in my leaf and compost bins. I'm a bit disappointed that they didn't leave any blue blossoms for their landlady's eyes to enjoy, but hey, if you're starving, beauty comes second.

So next year, if you happen to see me wandering around my yard with a pepper mill, grinding pepper onto some tiny green shoots, please understand that I haven't lost my marbles... I'm just trying to deter a few rodents and save a few little blue scille flowers just for beauty's sake.

Better luck next year!

Blessing Earth on Earth Day

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day this year?

Aware, as we are, of the places on the planet that are suffering and struggling because of war and climate change, it seems like nothing we can do is enough to make a difference. 

But in reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's beautiful book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Milkweed Editions 2013, ISBN978-1-57131-356-0), I was struck by her teaching that the Earth loves us by giving us everything we need for life -- not just the food we grow, but the air, water, soil and other beings with whom we share her abundance. 

So on Earth Day, though I can't personally do very much to slow the course of climate change or stop the war in Ukraine and other places, blessing the little patch of earth where I live -- in whatever ways I can -- makes sense to me.

Since it's a calm and somewhat sunny morning here, I carried out my annual ritual of scattering blessings around my garden. Using left over palms and dried cedar branches from Palm Sunday last year, some sage and tobacco, I made a little fire and sang El Senyor, a Taize song of thanksgiving, as it burned. This afternoon, I'll spread the ashes around the yard, using words like these:

Creator of all that is,

thank you for your abundant blessings

that come to us through Earth,

our Mother.

Thank you for all those who have lived here

over many centuries,

especially Indigenous Peoples

who lived in harmony

with all their relations,

and who have much to teach us.

Thank you for this soil,

which you have freely given

through the natural processes

of erosion and decomposition,

and for the seeds that only you can make to grow.

Bless this year's garden and help it to flourish:
bless the tomatoes and the berries,
the corn, beans, and squash,
and all other plant relations,
along with the birds, butterflies,
bees, spiders,
and others who visit
or live here.

Give us all enough warmth and sun, 
but not too much,
and rain when we need it.

Please protect this garden,
and all our gardens,
from drought or hail or damaging pests.

(And if you could keep the mosquito population to a dull roar,
I'd really appreciate it!)

Protect our trees from blight and strong winds,
and keep in your care the birds
who come to splash in the birdbath
or nibble the snow peas.

And if we should have one of THOSE storms,
may I be as gracious as Job and say,
"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away;
blessed be the name of the Lord."

Bless and help farmers with good weather conditions;
their gardens are so much bigger than mine!

I ask your special blessings on those who have had to flee

places where fertile earth is being pillaged by the ravages of war.

Please bring to us to a peace-filled harvest,
and help us to share our abundance with others who need it.

Break the hearts of the wealthy

so that they may do their part to share in the work

of adapting our world to climate change

and caring for those communities

and creatures that struggle most

because of it.

Thank you for all the life
that lives on this sacred planet.

Bless it,
and bless us,
and help us to remember
that your whole world
and all beings within it
form your beautiful and blessed garden
that deserves our love and care.

+Amen.

And then I'll give Mother Earth some sweet pea seeds so we can both delight in some fragrant summer flowers...

What are you doing to celebrate Earth Day this year?

Simple Pleasures: a hot "cuppa"

I don't remember much about Grade Seven, but Mrs. Pisesky, my Home Economics teacher, comes to mind whenever I make a pot of Orange Pekoe tea. It seems to me that when she taught us the basics of baking soda biscuits or whatever Home Ec meant in those Grade Seven days, she had us make tea, too.

Coming from a family of coffee drinkers, tea was rather exotic to me. But I learned to like Orange Pekoe because of Home Ec. To this day, a cup of it wakes happy olfactory memories, somehow. I suspect Mrs. Pisesky bought good old-fashioned Red Rose tea, and I learned to drink it with a teaspoon of sugar and a splash of milk in her Home Ec class once a week, long before I became a coffee drinker.

When I reached High School, my friend Mina introduced me to her mom's spicy-milky chai. Who knew how good black pepper, cardamom, ginger, and other spices could be when steeped with Taj Mahal tea and scalded milk? Some years later, Mrudula shared her masala recipe with me, and ever since, whenever I've wanted a more nourishing cup of tea, I make MMMMM Chai... Mina's Mom Mrudula's Marvelous Masala Chai. My daughter loves it, too.

After becoming a Second Cup coffee addict during university, tea left my consciousness for quite a while. But a 2016 January High Tea at Jenny Butchart's Residence in the gardens named after her (near the staunch High Tea city of Victoria B.C.) started me on a slow but steady turn toward a morning cuppa. Coffee's caffeine was getting to be too much for my inherited Essential Tremor, and during that visit, my best friend introduced me to a world of teas made from all sorts of blends of lovely organic herbs and spices. I owe Cathy a debt of gratitude for that!

And some of those teas have such lovely names. Pink Pearl (Green and White) Tea. Bachelor Button (Black) Tea (from Butchart Gardens). Gingerbread (Rooibos) Tea. And there were many others. My favourite at the moment is called White Divine, which has a light blueberry flavour and comes from a local coffee shop.

And then there are the backyard teas -- mint, and lemon balm, and raspberry leaf to settle an upset stomach. I've never been a big fan of the super-fruity commercial herbal teas, but they are a nice change once in a while. The teas mentioned above are just the shallowest end of the pond... there are thousands, if not millions of varieties, and more and more people inventing their own blends, which I would like to learn to do myself.

Don't get me wrong -- I haven't completely given up on coffee -- I drink decaf quite regularly, and still love my Lidia espresso once a week. That's a simple pleasure, too.

But after a weekend of feeling under the weather (no thanks to Spring Allergies that masqueraded as potential covid-19 and spoiled Easter plans with family) and several "restorative" cups of tea, I just want to draw attention to the simple pleasure of a good hot "cuppa" whatever kind of tea you prefer.

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

Embracing the Risen One

Pixabay image

Today's reflection is brought to you by 
John 20: 11-18.

I sought the one I loved,

my best friend,

but you were gone.

The strangers asked why I was weeping.

Isn't that what usually happens in the place of tombs?

They wouldn't (couldn't?) 

tell me where to find you,

so though it was difficult to see through my tears,

I began my search

by asking the gardener.

But it was your voice that said my name!

In an instant, I wrapped my arms around you

and felt your arms around me.

And we laughed and laughed

with sheer delight and surprise

-- and complete joy.

* * * * * * *

On Sunday morning at the Community of Emmanuel, Quinn invited me to proclaim the Easter story from the 20th chapter of the Gospel of John. It's another of my favourites, where Mary Magdalen can't see through her tears one minute, and the next, she leaps forward and wraps both arms around a laughing and risen Jesus. At least, that's how I picture it -- the ultimate happy ending!

Pastor Quinn gave a beautiful sermon about how we can be on our knees with sorrow and struggle and not see Christ with us because of the tears in our eyes and the pain in our hearts. I'm sure he said many other beautiful things as well, but I was distracted by a young woman who was dancing, just a few feet away from me, to music only she could hear. 

She flitted closer and closer until she was right beside me. Then she sidled up against me and rested her head on my shoulder, whispering something I couldn't quite hear. I rested my head against hers, and thought about putting my arm around her, but I didn't want to scare her away. We stood with our heads together for a few moments, and then she flitted away again.

I'm not sure what that was about for her, and I'll never know. What I do know is that, after reading about the way Mary encountered the Risen One, I felt like I had done the same, somehow. It was, for me, a moment of grace not unlike that of having a butterfly land on my shoulder. It wasn't quite like wrapping my arms around Jesus, but it moved me deeply.

I can't stop thinking about that young woman. My prayers are with her this week, that wherever she is, she can be safe, and cared for in the ways she most needs.

I also pray that this Easter Season brings you many opportunities to be embraced by the Risen One -- however he appears in your life!

A Good Friday Evening Prayer Around the Cross

If you are able, please join me in prayer and reflection this Good Friday Evening at 7 pm Mountain Standard Time. Christians from all denominations are welcome to pray in this ecumenical prayer that includes scripture, song, and ten minutes of silence. It's the silence that I particularly love, and knowing that I am not alone in it, that there are other people praying with me.

Every life is touched by suffering, and Good Friday is the day when Christ shows us how to suffer, and how to love beyond suffering. Tonight's scripture will be proclaimed in English, French, and Ukrainian, and we will sing of the mystery of Good Friday in a few different languages using chants from the Taize Community. 

All are welcome. Please share this livestreamed event with your friends -- praying together, even online and at a distance, is a powerful thing. If the 7 p.m. timeslot doesn't work for you, the video will be available for at least 24 hours.

You'll find the prayer live (and after the fact) at this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/1020594508867486.

Blessings of these holy days on you, dear readers!

Close encounter of the skunk kind

So much for my day lily...

After delivering fresh homemade Easter Bread to my family last night, Lee and I took Shadow for a walk in the 9 p.m. darkness. It was a chilly walk, and Shadow hustled home in a hurry because he just got a haircut on Monday and feels the cold more keenly ever since. 

As we turned the corner of the house to our back gate, he was near the end of his leash... and it looked like there was a cat in the middle of the space between our place and our neighbour's house. Not wanting an altercation, I yanked on the leash, and Shadow paused long enough for me to realize I was looking at a cat with two definite white stripes up its back. 

"Wait, wait, wait!" I told the dog, hauling him closer to me, heart pounding, holding my breath in case we were about to be blasted with that special brand of perfume... 

But no. The little critter backed away, and quickly waddled along our neighbour's sidewalk and under the shrub on the corner of their house. Shadow didn't have a chance to bark or even growl before it disappeared.

Thank God!

I've been smelling a lot of marijuana smells around our house, and thought our neighbours might be indulging in a little cannabis lately. I even asked our nephew if he might be trying the stuff, though he's not that kind of guy. 

Turns out, I was smelling a small black-and-white critter, who has been sizing up my flowerbeds, looking for some tender vittles in the form of day lily tubers. It dug quite a hole, but I'm not sure it managed to sate its hunger very much before we interrupted its plans!

Sir or madam skunk, you can help yourself to all the tubers your little heart desires -- just please don't spray us!

(And to the humans walking around our neighbourhood, I recommend going in daylight hours when you can see our little skunk neighbour a long way off!)

Sunday Reflection: The Good Thief?

Today's reflection is brought to you by 

Thanks to Philip K for sharing
this image on Flickr

Luke 23: 32-33, 39-43.

The three of us walked 

the same path

to the top of 

the hill.

We were subjected 

to the same punishment

and felt the same pain.

Or did we?

Two of us

deserved it

according to the

colonizers' law.

But you.

While we were engaged

in cutthroat pursuits,

you were helping

and healing

and talking about

--and showing--

how to love.

You.

In agony,

like we were,

for no reason

that I could see.

My partner-in-crime

muttered and scoffed

at the would-be-Messiah

hanging between us.

I am sure 

you heard him too

and finally, 

I could bear it no longer.

We have been condemned justly,

for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds,

but this man has done nothing wrong.

Jesus,

remember me 

when you come into your kingdom.

I could not 

see your face,

nor you, 

mine.

I knew of your deeds

from the stories 

people told.

What did you know of me?

Did you know 

the atrocities

I committed?

You made

no comment,

asked no question,

nor insisted on confession.

Just

Truly, 

I tell you,

today you will be with me in Paradise.

Millennia pass

and I become known as

the Good Thief.

But that's not 

it 

at all.

You welcomed 

me

as you welcome

everyone.

No matter what.

You offered love to 

me

as you offer it to 

all.

We may not be 

all that we could be,

we may not even be 

good,

but you love us 

into Paradise.

Period.

Thank you 

for your grace,

which makes up

for all we lack

and loves us 

home.

+Amen.

Creating a world of enough

Sign GBLI petition here

Like so many people, I live with my feet in two worlds. My main involvements right now are coordinating lunches for homeless folks with no disposable income, and being an usher at the Francis Winspear Centre for Music, which caters to people who have enough disposable income to attend concerts. 

Driving downtown for my shift last night, I saw patrons of the arts in glittering clothing, and Brian, who came to our last service at ICPM wearing filthy socks in place of shoes on (we did manage to find him a pair of second-hand boots).

All of the above tells me that our world is far from what God wants for us, and what true justice dictates. Every human being deserves a world of enough, but too many people fall through the cracks because of illness, misfortune, trauma, and other situations that leave them destitute.

But it doesn't have to be that way. People have been talking about concepts like Universal Basic Income or Guaranteed Living Wage for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. The problem is that they've been argued concepts instead of realities. Theorists never manage to get us to put our monies where they need to be! 

The idea is that if everyone has enough to cover their basic needs, all people benefit because no one has to pay for those who fall through the cracks out of neglect -- since there is very little neglect. Simply put, most people living below the poverty line will prefer to look after themselves and contribute to a functioning society if they can, rather than live on its lower rungs in an over-regulated welfare situation where they can never get ahead.

I've been looking for a good video presentation on the benefits of Guaranteed Basic Liveable Income (or GBLI, as it seems to be called in Canada) and haven't found much. Most of the presentations suggest that it's too risky or the projected results of a trial run are too uncertain to merit even an attempt. I'm wondering if those videos are made by rich folks who want to keep poor people poor instead of sharing their wealth.

The thing is, our present income assistance programs have so many tricky disqualifications built into them that some of my own family members will never get ahead. Instead of being a hand up, current social assistance programs hold people back through challenging limitations on how the money is allocated and used, while a GBLI means that people are free to make their own choices, no one is disqualified for having enough, and healthcare and education are available to everyone on a more equitable basis.

The only problem I can see with the idea of a Guaranteed Basic Liveable Income is that it hasn't been given a fair try in North America. That's why this post is about creating a world of enough, making sure that no one has to struggle for their basic needs. No one should ever have to choose between rent and groceries, or medicine and electricity!

If you agree, and you live in Canada, click here for the link to a petition you can sign to encourage the Canadian Government to get to work on implementing a GBLI for all. And if you live elsewhere, I hope you can look into the possibilities for your own part of the world.

Everyone deserves enough, wouldn't you say?

Lazarus revisited

This is still my favourite version of the Lazarus story that we hear in this Sunday's gospel reading. I share here a moodling from 5 years ago, revisited, because I think it sheds a different light on an old story, giving it a meaning that isn't usually preached in churches! 

* * * * * * *

A friend recently returned from a L'Arche retreat with a new view of the story of the death of Lazarus from the eleventh chapter of John's Gospel (I've borrowed from The Message and the Good News Translation for the version below). When we come to the gospel reading on the fifth Sunday of Lent, I like to close my eyes and see it this way…

A man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. This was the same Mary who massaged the Lord’s feet with aromatic oils and then wiped them with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Master, the one you love so very much is sick.” 

We don’t know much at all about Lazarus, other than that he was Mary and Martha’s brother. It is unusual that the two women seem to be the heads of the household and that Lazarus doesn't seem to bear any responsibility for looking out for his unmarried sisters in the patriarchal society of Jesus’ day. There are also no recorded conversations between Lazarus and Jesus, while we know about his conversations with Martha and Mary. These things could indicate that Lazarus might have been a person with a developmental disability who lived in the care of his sisters.

It's an interesting idea, and one that makes perfect sense to me because of my experiences with family members and friends who have developmental disabilities. They have a knack for gathering special people around them simply by their desire to have friends and by their unconditional love and welcome for everyone they meet. They are unapologetic about needing help, unlike those of us who are mostly able to care for ourselves.

So it’s not hard for me to imagine Lazarus seeing Jesus somewhere in his travels, taking a liking to him, asking him for help to do up his sandal, then inviting him to supper. This vision of Lazarus reminds me of my friend Harry*, who invited a solitary Japanese tourist at a campground to join his L'Arche vacation group for supper (Hiro was so moved by Harry’s openness and hospitality that later he returned to Canada to join our L’Arche community on a permanent basis, and Harry and Hiro are friends to this day).

I imagine that because of Lazarus, Jesus meets Mary and Martha, their brother’s caregivers, who are used to Lazarus bringing home stray dogs and new friends. They all welcome Jesus as if he was an expected dinner guest, and a deep friendship begins -- one that I'm guessing is full of fun, laughter and unconditional love. That’s why, when Lazarus becomes ill, his sisters send word to Jesus. They know that Jesus loves Lazarus, and they trust that their healer friend will help.

But Jesus is held up for a few days because his disciples want him to lay low, afraid after an encounter with some Jews who are accusing him of blasphemy and who might still be carrying stones in their pockets in case they meet Jesus again. So he appeases his disciples, saying that

“This sickness is not fatal. It will become an occasion to show God’s glory by glorifying God’s Son.”

Clearly, Jesus knows things that the disciples, Martha and Mary don’t…

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother's death. 

When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.” 

“Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her. Martha replied, “I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time.”

Jesus gives Martha a triple-whammy of good news. 1) Lazarus will rise, 2) knowing Jesus himself is life itself, and therefore 3) Martha and anyone who believes in Jesus will also have eternal life! He says:

“You don’t have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live. And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” After saying this, she went to her sister Mary and whispered in her ear, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”  

The moment Mary heard it, she jumped up and ran out to him. Jesus had not yet entered the town but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there. 

Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!” 

Mary is completely at home with Jesus. Her grief at losing Lazarus knocks her to the ground, and she doesn't care if Jesus sees it. She knows that he feels it too. If you've ever lost someone dear to you, you know what it can be like when a friend comes to be with you in your grief...

Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved.  

Jesus wept.

I love that these two words are the shortest verse in the Bible. If Jesus weeps, we all have permission to weep, and more than that, we all need to allow ourselves to grieve. He’s showing us that our human emotions are gifts, too. And if Jesus can weep, in public, every person can do the same no matter their gender, never mind the idea that "Men don't cry."

“See how much he loved him!” the people said. Others among them said, “Well, if he loved him so much, why didn’t he do something to keep him from dying? After all, he opened the eyes of a blind man.” 

In my mind, these are also people who loved Lazarus deeply. Lazarus probably united all the neighbours in Bethany – everyone knew him, and everyone looked out for him – and he looked out for everyone too (like my friend Thomas* does), greeted them all by name every day, smiled at them even when they didn’t smile back, and doled out plenty of hugs. So of course they’re a little miffed that Jesus would heal a blind man and not their beloved friend. And Jesus hears their murmurings and feels the same way about Lazarus as they do.

Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance. Martha, the dead man's sister, said, “There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!” Jesus said to her, “Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believed?” 

Martha’s heart leaps. Of course she believes in Jesus, who loves her brother so deeply. Anything is possible with that kind of love.

They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me.” After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”  

He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. “Unbind him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.” 

And there stands Lazarus, fumbling with the cloths with one hand, his other hand reaching out for his friends, the hugest smile on his face, probably even laughing with delight, as if to say, “I’m so glad you came! This calls for a celebration!”

Jesus healed many people in his short ministry, and could have raised many more people from the dead, but according to John's gospel, Lazarus is the only one. If Lazarus was a man with a developmental disability, Jesus' attentiveness and love for him tells us a lot about God's special love for people with disabilities of any kind.

And if God loves them so much, it seems we need to allow them more room to bind us together as community, to pay attention to how they call forth our love, and how their love helps us to accept our own limitations. Relationships with persons with disabilities help us to become people who celebrate -- not money, fame, or power, but rather -- every person because all of us have our own abilities and disabilities. Let's face it, none of us are perfect.

John's gospel tells this amazing story about life and death and life again before we hear about Jesus' death and resurrection. Maybe we've heard this story so many times that it's ceased to be amazing for us. But this version helped me to view it in a way that makes all its characters more real to me. My reflection for today is to imagine the celebrations that ensued for Lazarus, the man who called forth so much compassion and joy in Bethany. What an incredible party!

And when we all walk out of our graves to endless life with our loved ones, it will be even moreso!

*I use pseudonyms for my L'Arche friends.

Book Review: This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel

 As a follow up to yesterday's post, here's something I've been meaning to moodle about for a while -- Laurie Frankel's book, This Is How It Always Is (New York: Flat Iron Books 2018, ISBN 9781250088550). It's a fictional account of a family coming to terms with their child/sibling's gender dysphoria, and their acceptance of the journey as it unfolds.

In learning about my own family situation, I've read several good non-fiction books that helped me to understand the importance of supporting our youngest child as they "grew into" the person they really are. This fictional account of Claude's journey to becoming Poppy helped me to recognize certain similarities in our own family's experience of seeing and welcoming a non-binary person among us. Although it is fiction, it reminded me that no one is really alone in these situations.

Books like this one are important, because they help us to move beyond our own experiences and come to an understanding that, as with so many situations, our human knowledge is imperfect. So often, we have to feel our way along, making adjustments, until we get things right, or close to it. Parenting is never as simple as we'd like to think. As Rosie, Poppy's mom, says on page 378,

Parenting always involves this balance between what you know, what you guess, what you fear, and what you imagine. You’re never certain, even (maybe especially) about the big deals, the huge, important ones with all the ramifications and repercussions. But alas, no one can make these decisions, or deal with their consequences, but you…. 

That is a scary thing. And that's our experience too... We fuddled along and made many mistakes, but kept trying our best. After necessary surgical changes our child fits and feels more comfortable in their skin, whereas before, they chafed in an ill-shaped body. Can you imagine how that would feel?

Stating the obvious, life is complicated. Being transgender will never be easy in a world that is slow to understand, but it’s easier than living in a body that doesn’t fit, with the suicidal tendencies that too often come with that. If our culture, like Thailand's, accepted a certain fluidity when it comes to gender, suicide rates would fall, trans folks wouldn't have to be afraid of being targeted, and we wouldn't have to have the Trans Day of Remembrance every November 20th. 

Fortunately, for our family, our kid is strong and has managed to withstand some very tough times. I see their joy now that their body matches who they know themself to be, and that makes it all worth it. After some years of struggle, they are beginning to live into their life more fully, to try to BE without anxiety. There will always be strange looks and people who don’t understand, but the ones who know them love them as they are. 

I dream of a day when no one looks askance at anyone else for being different.

Laurie Frankel's This Is How It Always Is is a beautiful expression of the understanding and acceptance of a family who helps their gender-fluid child find herself. Books like this help people who don't know (or don't realize they know) gender-fluid people to gain some understanding of life beyond their own experience. That's what good fiction does -- it brings awareness of different ways of looking at the world so that we can accept each other better.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a parent, or who loves someone struggling to be who they know themself to be.

Celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

No matter how you feel about the Trans community, I hope you will pause for a moment to open your mind and read this moodling. 

As the mom of wonderful queer kids of whom I am very proud, one of whom is trans, I invite you to try to understand something that perhaps you've never encountered, or that you've already judged in your mind one way or the other. After all, we only learn through openness to one another. 

I don't often write about my kids because I want to protect them and myself from people who can't see that human beings are not static creatures. Why can't we evolve beyond the two check-boxes of male and female found in the book of Genesis? 

As a Catholic woman, I've had a long hard struggle to reconcile my faith with my kids' lived experience. But slowly, over the past ten years, I've come to understand that God thinks and moves and creates and loves outside the boxes that human beings have assigned to God's creativity through centuries of mistaken theological wrangling. 

I've realized that, basically, God doesn't judge us the way we (or our churches) judge each other! God creates and loves every last one of us, whether we fit into human-designed check-boxes or not.

The problem with boxes is that they have walls, and they are often given labels that, too often, divide us from each other. They allow us to pretend that people who are different from us are WRONG. And what has that given us over the millennia? If you really want to know, look up Persecution on Wikipedia and read the sidebar under Discrimination. The long list is enough to turn the stomach.

But the antidote to discrimination and persecution is education. My children have certainly educated me. My youngest child is my greatest teacher. As I watched them struggle with fitting into a gender that didn't feel right to them, my heart hurt. Many times I wished they could be so-called "ordinary" gender-wise, because being non-binary is not something most human cultures understand. (Some do.)

I'll admit that there are a lot of things I wish I had said and done differently when I learned that my child needed to take a different direction than my status quo expectations. It's taken a few years to forgive myself for my past inability to understand. I questioned my kid's sense of self, cast doubt on their decisions, and grieved the loss of the future I had envisioned for them in ways that weren't helpful. Definitely not my proudest moments -- it was more about me than about them. Damned ego.

But when I was able to talk to them, to really understand how they were feeling about themself, I came to see that they were doing what was necessary for them to thrive in this world, even if it meant leaving me behind for a time. It was a challenging road, but they have moved on to become who God made them to be. Which, of course, is as it should be. As I said earlier, I am proud of them.

Clearly, our world falls short when it comes to understanding and accepting those who are different. It expects everyone to live into the same so-called "norms" -- even if those norms aren't really "normal" and often arise out of the fear of difference that creates xenophobia, racism, sexism, misogyny, homo- and transphobia, and any other ism or -phobia that divides us. Fear (of those fears, mostly) sometimes keeps me up at night, when I worry about the safety of my kids at the hands of fearful people.

It all boils down to the fact that too many people forget how Jesus spent his time with the very people his community pushed to the margins. And too many people choose to ignore how a spiritual leader named Paul once laid it out for us: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ." (Galatians 3:28) For those who aren't Christian, there's an anti-discrimination rule that applies to pretty well every world faith, too: treat others as you want to be treated. 

It's all just basic respect.

We don't hear a lot about the International Transgender Day of Visibility here in Canada -- yet. In fact, I didn't even know the day existed until this morning. I do know about the Trans Day of Remembrance that falls on November 20th each year, a day generally spent naming trans people who have been murdered for refusing to identify themselves according to the sex they were assigned at birth. A very sad day.

But a Transgender Day of Visibility is an opportunity to celebrate! It's time to celebrate their ability to be visible in a world that denied or denigrated their existence for too long. We need to acknowledge that there are those among us who live their experience of gender differently than many of us do, who are less hung up on those M or F check-boxes, and who, because of that freedom, bridge the human-made boundaries between male and female in beautiful, gracious, and sometimes unusual ways. I know trans folks who are incredibly gifted and loving, and who deserve to be seen and celebrated in their own right on this day. They are some of my favourite people. Three cheers for them!

I've collected a couple of links to articles written by trans people speaking from their own experience. They deserve to be heard. The first is a parent who writes about their trans child way better than I do, the second is a two-spirit Metis elder who has come a long way to a self-acceptance that allows them to mentor others. And if you want to look further, here is a link to a Trans Day of Visibility and Trans History in Canada webpage. 

There are many other ways to learn about trans folk and the visibility that's been too long in coming. I offer these links today in the hope that they will help us all to realize that trans people deserve love, respect, acceptance, and friendship every bit as much as we do. 

After all, friendship, acceptance, respect and love are the beautiful gifts God gives to us so that we can give them to each other. Let's celebrate by doing just that!

(Thanks for reading. And if you want to engage in one-on-one dialogue on this topic, you can always email me through the link in my profile to the right.)

Simple Pleasures: Cloud watching

My favourite cloud of 2021

With the return of Spring, we're back to that time of year when the sky moves into focus -- or maybe my perspective does. Probably the latter, because as the seasons change, I find myself spending more time outside when the air is warmer, the light is brighter, the winds are softer, and the skies are bluer.

I don't know about you, but my eyes are drawn more often to clouds in warmer seasons. In days of deep-freeze, I'm so huddled into my furry-fringed hooded jacket that it's hard to really look around. But on warm blue-sky days, clouds steal the show.

I have always loved the fluffy masses of mist that float across the sky, and trying to see things in them. Being born and raised on the prairies, I somehow feel sky in my bones, if that makes any sense, probably because it was the biggest thing around when my family lived in a very flat place during my childhood. 

Sky is still the biggest thing around, but when our focus is this earth-bound dimension in which we live, sometimes we forget to look up to see those white cotton puffs, undulating grey waves edged with pink/purple/silver/gold, or towering dark cumulonimbus monsters with tongues of lightning. And really, that's a pity. There's so much to see!

My cousin Charlotte is a cloud watcher. Every so often she posts her own images of clouds that take my breath away, with the tag #cloudsarefrequentlyawesome (you won't find that on twitter, because it's a special Charlotte thing). How I love her posts and appreciate her tendency to notice the extraordinary beauty in ordinary things that, too often, we take for granted. Especially a sky full of clouds.

Clouds are poems just waiting to be noticed, as the founder of The Cloud Appreciation Society expresses so well in this video below. Having our heads in the clouds now and then is good for the soul, for sure. 

Enjoy the clouds today, and if you can't get outdoors, check out the ones highlighted in this lovely eleven minute video. Some of them are quite amusing!

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

A gentleman cabbie Samaritan

Today at ICPM, Pastor Quinn told us the story of the Prodigal Son so beautifully that the tears rolled down my cheeks. How blessed are we to have a God who loves us so unconditionally?!

But when I was passing out lunches after the service, it was another of the characters from Christ's parables who actually showed up... or so it seemed...

It began when I handed a lunch to a woman who told me her sister wasn't feeling well. "She's having a hard time breathing." She pointed to where her sister stood swaying on the sidewalk with eyes closed and a chalk white face. My heart hurt to look at her.

Photo by Adrien Ledoux on Unsplash

"Should I call an ambulance?"

"Could you call a cab instead? And can we use the washroom?"

"Yes to both questions. Can someone give me a cab company phone number off the top of their head?" 

A fellow piped up with a number, and I placed the call as I shooed the women into the building and toward the washroom. Pastor Quinn grabbed them some clean clothes, and the dispatcher told me the cab would arrive within ten minutes.

Four minutes later, a cab pulled up across the street, and my phone rang. I assured the driver that his passengers would be just a few minutes, and left my post at the sandwich table to knock on the washroom door and tell the women their cab was already waiting.

Ten minutes later, the cabbie called again, so I walked across the street to his car to explain the situation, saying, "They are just changing clothes so they will be clean in your car."

"Oh no no no no no," he said. English was likely one of several alternate languages for him, so I tried to explain again using different words.

"My work is hard," he said. "These people have troubles, yes. But I need to make living. I can't have dirty people. I can't have people who not pay. They not pay me. I have struggles from them. My work is hard."

"I am sure it is," I said, my heart hurting for him, too. "I know you are doing your best. These ladies need your help. If I had money in my pocket, I would pay you," I told him. "But my pockets are empty, and they need a ride to the hospital."

He softened a bit. "You not pay," he said. "You not ride."

But as the two passengers came to the cab, it seemed that changing clothing in such a hurry meant that one was falling out of her newly supplied sweatpants.

"No no no no no," the driver pleaded with me. "I cannot have her in my car." To her, he said, "You not dressed right. You not covered enough. And who pay me?"

"I will," she said. "We're not feeling well. Please, we need a doctor."

"She's wearing clean clothes," I assured him, and turned to adjust her waistband so it sat properly. "There, that's better, right?" 

The cabbie sighed, put on his mask, and got out of his vehicle. 

"Please," he said to the women, "Put things in my trunk." They complied, and as they helped each other into the car, I hurried back to the sandwich line. I hope everything worked out for the best.

At the end of the morning, on my way home, I found myself praying:

Creator,

be with those two sisters

as they receive the help they need

at the hospital.

Bless the hospital staff 

with patience and compassion

to help them feel better.

And please, 

please

bless the hesitant gentleman cabbie who, 

in the end,

was a Good Samaritan

of sorts.

Bless all cab drivers who,

out of compassion, 

take on fares 

and end up without pay

when faced 

with people

who so badly need help.

Thank you 

for being 

our prodigal God,

loving us no matter what.

Help us all to love like you,

and to be Good Samaritans

whenever we can --

without counting the cost.

Amen.

Simple Pleasures: Green growing things (a.k.a. houseplants)

Meet Rex. Rex has been with me in one form or another for four or five years. My husband and kids call Rex "the ugly plant," but I think she is incredibly gorgeous, especially when the sun strikes her in certain ways.

I have my friend Jocelyne to thank for introducing me to her a few years ago. I had never seen anything like her, but she was sitting in Jocelyne's window with sunlight shimmering on her fuzzy leaves, and I was drawn to her shapes and colours as though she was a magnet. Pictures just don't do her justice. 

I asked Jocelyne if she would give me a cutting, and she promised me that when the time was right, she would share some of her plant's progeny. And here we are, maybe five years later.

What's funny is that I didn't know Rex's official name until yesterday. When people (who are not my family members and have no biases against Rex) visited and commented on her beauty, I would inevitably ask them if they could identify my plant. No one could.

So yesterday, I finally solved the mystery. I web-searched "houseplants with purple veins." No go. I tried "purple-veined houseplants with long stemmed leaves." That got me a little closer. I tried "plants with red markings." I don't remember what finally worked, but eventually I found a picture of a plant similar to mine, and that led me to a whole page about Rex Begonias, which vary in colour and size. 

My mom grows beautiful flowering begonias every summer -- you'd think I might have recognized the shape of Rex's leaves as similar to Mom's plants! But Rex has never bloomed, though apparently she can put out small flowers if conditions are right. However, according to the webpage, those small flowers can't compete with the beauty of the plant's leaves.

If you haven't yet guessed, houseplants are one of the simple pleasures in my life. A friend of mine recently discovered the joy of green growing things in her home, and she's suddenly the proud mom of over 100 of them because Canadian Tire had a sale! 

I have a quarter that many, accumulated one at a time, many of them gifts, and most are surviving quite nicely, though they are often somewhat neglected during outdoor gardening season. We recently had an annoying fungus gnat infestation, but even that didn't diminish my joy much. (As much as I abhor pesticides, Lee picked up some Dr. Doom pyrethrin powder made from some sort of chrysanthemum compound, and the tiny fly-up-your-nose flies are down to a dull roar once again).

In places where winter is long and dark, houseplants are a simple pleasure that can enliven any room with a spot of colour and better air quality due to plant-filtered oxygen. I used to keep my plants all in one area, afraid I would forget to water somebody, but now they're spread around the house, and I haven't lost anyone yet. Lee has appreciated the plant companions in his work-from-home office during the pandemic, too. He says the air quality is better. 

Not all of my plants have names, but I have named a few that came to me because of special people:

Mary-John (from Lee's Polish grandparents)

Ruthie (from a cutting snitched
from the hospice where her
final journey took place five years ago)

Gaby (my dear Belgian host-dad)

Jay (our youngest)

Lidia (my Italian kaffee-klatsch friend)

and Louis (my father-in-law).

Just so you don't think I'm totally off my rocker, the rest of my plants are nameless, and the ones mentioned above have their names mostly in my head because of the loved ones connected with them. By all rights, Rex's true name is Jocelyne, because I think of her whenever her plant catches my attention. But I am delighted by the name Rex, too, because I've often thought a plant like her may have been around long enough to witness the tyrannosaur's era. She has that look about her, somehow.

Are there plants in your life that bring you joy? It's a question worth thinking about. If you like, send me pictures and I'll share them... The more we can be aware of our Simple Pleasures, the more gratitude floods our lives and reminds us of the good that surrounds us even in these challenging times, and I don't know anyone who can't use more goodness and gratitude. 

Thanks, Jocelyne, for sharing some simple pleasure with me through your Rex Begonia!  Even though I will never convince my family of her beauty, I love this plant, especially when I remember who gave her to me...

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

Rico's headstand

A couple of Sundays back, Rico came to pick up a bag lunch at Inner City Pastoral Ministry -- just in time, too, as we were giving away the last few. Rico is a kibbitzer -- he likes to chat and laugh and tease until he gets a smile. I hadn't seen him for a while, and I always enjoy his visits.

After the last lunch and cup of coffee were taken from the serving table and I started folding it up, Rico jumped to help me. "Allow me, Madame," he said, and hefted the table to carry it into the building. "Follow me; I want to show you something."

I was a bit surprised, but as he was already through the door, what could I do? He set the table down against the counter, removed his coat and spread it on the floor, and proceeded to do a perfectly controlled yoga headstand.

"Rico is 65 years old," he told me after he slowly lowered himself to the ground again. "Pretty good for a senior citizen, agreed?" 

I told him I was sorry I hadn't taken a picture of his perfect yoga pose, and asked if he could do it again. So he tried, but wasn't able to straighten his legs the second time. He held this pose until I snapped a few pictures, saying "I always have better strength the first time."

Pretty good for a senior citizen indeed! I figure that Rico's efforts deserve a bit of recognition, so I'm sharing them here, and looking forward to his next visit. You never know when he'll appear to chat and laugh and tease until he gets a smile.

Simple pleasures: sheets dried in the sun

Happy St. Patrick's Day, dear readers!

The birds are singing "it's almost spring!" and there's some good, solid warmth from the sun today. There's still a good 2 feet (60 cm) of snow, but with temps getting up to 9 degrees C (48 degrees F) this afternoon, I decided to wash and hang our bedsheets on the line. There's nothing like crawling into a fresh air-ed bed at the end of a long day!

With war constantly in the news, and local political shenanigans/divisions, I haven't felt particularly inspired to moodle lately, but today I signed up for Monday Night Write Night with a favourite local author through our public library, and I've decided it might be fun to do a little series of moodlings on life's simple pleasures. So if you have any favourites that you'd like to see here, let me know. Otherwise, you'll simply be subjected to mine.

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!

Fresh sheets seem to be a great place to start, and I suspect St. Paddy would agree. Enjoy your day, wherever you may be!

A little nature fix

Stumbled across this today, and realized it's a wonderful thing to have a nature fix, even if only online. Kudos to Robert Bush Sr. in Pennsylvania for sharing five minutes of footage of his local animal friends with us, without adding a goofy songtrack. I love the sound of flowing water. And there are so many different creatures who enjoy this log for lots of reasons. Enjoy!

A video worth sharing

 How I love this One. One by Birdtalker... Enjoy!

Where there's life...

There's hope.

In spite of the darkness and worry of what's happening across the world, we cling to hope, to prayer, to signs of new life, to colour, to small bits of joy and courage wherever we can find them.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of images and sayings and stories and songs to encourage us, but for me, the emergence of a trinity of tiny pepper plants from black soil speaks volumes about the tenacity of life... and hope.

Really, all we can do is stick together and support each other, and send our heartfelt concern and encouragement to those who need it most in whatever tangible ways we can. Click here to see Global Citizen's list of 22 ways to to help Ukraine on the ground where the trouble is, with everything from monetary donations, to calling on large corporations and politicians to do the right things, to following journalists on social media and learning more about what's actually happening.

From almost 8,000 km away, it's hard to know exactly what to do, but keeping the situation in our hearts is a good start... and if you're willing and able to join in Taize prayer from Edmonton on Sunday at 7 pm MST, that can't hurt, either.

https://www.facebook.com/events/736064777374788

We'll start with a gorgeous Ukrainian chant from the community of Taize, fill our hearts and souls with Christ's peace in the songs, silence and scripture of the hour, and send our peace where it's most needed... 

Please join us if you're able, and invite your friends if they're so inclined.