Wednesday, May 31, 2017

                I have been considering whether it is time to build an ark. Not that God has given me such a task, but with the amount of rain that we are getting in this merry month of May, the old joke comes to mind, “How long can you tread water?” Last year we were dying for rain; this year, it’s “Rain, Rain go away, Come again another day.”

                In biblical parlance, rain, floods, and drought were often considered signs of God’s activity.       

  

                Rain can be a sign of God’s covenantal blessing “So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul— then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and olive oil. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied,” (Deuteronomy 11: 13 – 15)

                Or the lack of rain, i.e. drought, indicated God’s displeasure over his people’s disobedience to the covenant, “Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and he will shut up the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you,” (11: 16 – 17).

                This probably seems like a lot of superstitious nonsense in our mostly modern, urban, secular culture.  Weather is simply weather and we take the good with the bad. Although, as humankind messes so badly with the environment, adversely affecting weather patterns, perhaps there is still an ardent message in the extremes that this planet is experiencing, a kind of judgement upon our poor stewardship and our indifference, ignorance and denial that is putting all of God’s creation in serious jeopardy.

                God has always used nature, our natural environment, to express and reveal his love, his hope, his joy as well as his disappointment and distress. Who has been awed at the sight of a sunset or an ocean view? Who has not trembled at least little in a fierce thunder storm?   

                Symbolically, God gives us his best, showers of blessing.  But if and when we abuse, neglect, ignore and abandon God’s Love, we may find ourselves in floods of being overwhelmed by the chaotic  world around us. Our prayer is like the one in Psalm 69, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck; I sink in the deep mire where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me…”

                It’s then we want a life line.

                One of my all-time favourite jokes is about the man who prayed fervently to God when the floods came and over took his house. When the waters reached his front steps, he prayed, “O Lord, save me!” Then some people in a canoe came by and offered him a ride. “Oh, no; the Lord is going to save me.”  When the waters came up to the second-floor window, again the man prayed, “O Lord, save me!” Then a motor boat showed up, and the people offered him a ride to safety, “Oh no; the Lord is going to save me.” When the waters came up to the roof, again the man prayed, “O Lord save me!” Then a helicopter hovered over the man’s house and offered him a ladder and a ride to safety. But the man said, “Oh no; the Lord is going to save me.” The man drowned in the flood. When he got to heaven, he asked the Lord why he hadn’t saved him. The Lord replied, “I sent you a canoe, a motor boat and a helicopter; what more did you want me to do?”

                One more rain-scattered thought today, expressed in the wonderful song by Sister Miriam Therese winter, “I saw raindrops’. I particularly find the third verse inspirational: “I saw Christ in wind and thunder, Joy is tried by storm. Christ asleep within my boat, whipped by wind, yet still afloat. Joy is tried by storm.”

Dale

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

                Thirty-nine years ago, on a Victoria Day weekend, I proposed to my wonderful wife, Susan. We were visiting my parents in Belleville. I chose a lovely little rose garden in a park not far from my folk’s home. She said ‘yes’ immediately.   We got back to the house to tell my parents and phone hers. There is a spurious family legend that I also intentionally timed it all so that I could still watch the baseball game with my dad. Talk about fake news!

                The moment, always fondly remembered, holds more poignancy today as our youngest daughter, Maggie, chose this past weekend, the Victoria Day weekend, to be married. There was a charming and delightful ceremony in First Baptist Church in Goderich (where they live and work) as she and Ryan exchanged their marriage vows. We are delighted and proud that all of our four children have found such terrific life-partners. Our family has been made even stronger and more complete somehow by the families they are now creating, be it grandchildren or grand-dogs.

                A lot has happened in those nearly forty years, but Susan and I have been blessed and then some! I might be tempted to give back a few years of ministry here and there but I wouldn’t trade our four children, Nick, Katie, Nathaniel and Maggie for “all the tea in china” as the old saying goes.

                Oddly, even though all our children have been independent adults for some time, the marriage of our youngest has seemed, for me, more transitional than I thought it would be – at least symbolically. A number of people at the wedding commented to us that it must feel good to have the last one launched or something to that effect. I hadn’t really been thinking of it that way.

                But it is true that we are truly empty-nesters now. (I may change the locks just in case one of them decides to come home to mother.)  This transition makes one sense the passing of time – not necessarily in a negative way, but in an awareness that we have done the best we could; they are all now making their own unique way in the world, and we have become more observers, albeit encouragers and cheerleaders, than hands-on participants.  All of that is perfectly OK as far as I am concerned.

It can be a relief in some ways. I no longer wait up anxiously to all hours of the night wondering where they are and if they are all right. We get to sit back and enjoy their journey, growth and progress. We get to baby-sit and spoil the grandkids, feed their dogs from the table, take vacations and holidays together, email and text, and though we may never stop worrying about them it is really cool that our children are our equals.

We made  - well mostly, I made – mistakes in parenting but by and large we didn’t mess it up too badly, I think. They weren’t perfect in growing up but neither were we. “They done turned out purtty good!”

“Point your kids in the right direction - when they're old they won't be lost,” (Proverbs 22:6, The Message).

Here’s hoping!

Dale

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

                Throughout the winter I would occasionally listen to a cable radio station which blends real nature sounds with music.  Babbling brooks. Bird songs. Thunder storms. The sound of gentle rains. Croaking frogs, whale songs, loons, even the sounds from jungles. It is quite soothing and meditative on a cold winter’s day.

                As I was listening this past Sunday, I saw that it was a very nice day and I chose to go outside and enjoy a cup of coffee in the sun and warmth instead of being stuck inside and listening to the canned music and nature sounds.

                As I sat there my small corner of the world came alive. I watched as bright yellow gold finches darted and flitted among the bushes and trees.  A pair of red cardinals joined their dance. Our song sparrows warbled joyfully. Red-breasted robins hunted for grubs and worms. Mourning doves, grackles, squirrels, chick-a-dees - all made our backyard full of life. Maybe, there is something to be said for the fact that our back yard is not much more than a meadow these days.

                The experience has caused me to reflect how much good abundance we miss if and when we don’t take a look at the world around us. I am not just talking about nature but including people and circumstances that are a part of our everyday lives.

It is easy to rag on social media but there is a lot of truth to the observation that more and more people can’t their eyes off their tech devices. They only know the world by what they see or hear on their log-ins. Their eyes are glued to their phones and they fail to see what or who is around them.

Never before have we known so much and understood so little. Never before have we been able to observe the whole world and yet see so little beyond the four corners of our screen-lit rooms and tiny mobile devices. Never before have we had so much choice and yet choose so little. Never before have we had so many “friends” but know so little about them other than superficial facts. Never before have we shared so much about ourselves and trust so few.  Never before have we so much news that horrifies us and felt so powerless. Never before have we access to so much knowledge and so little capacity to sort out truth from fiction.

My argument is that the real world is teeming with vitality, abundance, joy, peace, hope, love, justice if we are prepared to go looking for it. Social media is great but it is a tool, not an existence. It should not be our only environment in which we live.

There are some wonderful, mysterious, unexpected, colourful, wild, surprising, dazzling sights and experiences that grace us. There are people who are different than us and what a joy that is when you get to know them personally.  There are things to do, places to be, sights to see, that are bigger and brighter and more spectacular than a picture or video.

Many, many years ago on a trip to the Holy Land I can remember how some of my fellow tour members seemed to be always seeing their surroundings through their camera lenses. They took hundreds of pictures and this was before digital cameras. They were always having to find somewhere to buy more film. Then more and more pictures. Their cameras were always in front of their faces. They probably didn’t really see where they had been until they got home and developed their photos and slides. I took pictures, too, of course, but what I enjoyed the most was to see the whole picture live and let it in soak in just where I was and what I was doing.  I didn’t want to experience that trip only through a little view-finder.

The Psalmist helps to understand the importance of taking in the real world and the fresh, healing revelations this brings:

By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance, O God of our salvation;

you are the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas.

By your strength you established the mountains;

you are girded with might.

You silence the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

the tumult of the peoples.

Those who live at earth's farthest bounds are awed by your signs;

you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water;

you provide the people with grain,

for so you have prepared it.

You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers,

and blessing its growth.

You crown the year with your bounty;

your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,

the hills gird themselves with joy,

the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,

the valleys deck themselves with grain,

they shout and sing together for joy.  (Psalm 65:5 -13)

Dale

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

                I will confess that I have a love/hate relationship with our dog Kramer, one of our two, 10-year old Australian Shepherds. He is a very high-needs dog – full of separation anxiety, emotionally high-strung, doesn’t get along with our other dog and is a few kibbles short when it comes to a full bowl of smarts.  But he is uber-loving, friendly with just about everybody and Susan loves him unconditionally, and defends him when I am ready to take him to the nearest SPCA shelter (about twice a week, minimum).

                Even so, I become highly stressed and worried when he becomes sick. This week he became very lethargic and wouldn’t eat (both highly irregular).  Then he started to limp on his right hind leg. Then he had the messy trots -  I was running around the house with all-purpose cleaner and rug-spot remover.

                Off to our terrific vet, Dr. Jodi Thompson. And to make a long story short and so as not to gross you out too much, x-rays showed a sewing needle had somehow lodged in his back foot and was the cause of all the other symptoms. I have no idea how it happened. He stayed over night, on antibiotics and pain killers and was scheduled for minor surgery the next morning.

                Now comes the even weirder part. When the doctor phoned after the surgery, she said when she opened the wound the needle was already gone. She was as surprised as anyone. They checked his bedding and took extra x-rays, including of his stomach to see if he swallowed it after somehow getting it out, but the needle remains a mystery – both how it got into his foot and how it got out or where it is.

                Kramer is now home – resting comfortably with a steady diet of pills and medication for the next few days. Needless to say, I can’t afford to take him to the pound; I have too much invested in him. It will be Kraft dinner and soup for a while.

                If you have pets you will understand this story and the lengths and cost we owners are willing to go and spend. If you don’t have pets, you may think that this behaviour may seem strange for “just” a dog.

                Let me take a big leap from Kramer’s story to consider something Paul once alluded to, about himself. It had been a very humbling thing for Paul to admit that “a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan…” (2 Corinthians 12:7). It was a constant source of prayer, asking for relief from it.  No one really knows what it exactly was that was hurting him. Most authorities assume it was physical. I have wondered whether it had to with some sort of failing eyesight, maybe even as a result of the blindness he suffered on the Damascus road. At the end of Galatians, he refers to how large his own handwriting was, again an allusion to a problem with his sight.

Paul calls it a “weakness” and because of it, he finds a deeper relationship with God. “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness,’” (12: 8-9).

                Some might argue that it is a callous God who allows his children to suffer. Paul has not written that God gave him this thorn in the flesh. I am reminded of the many Psalms in which the petitioners are decrying and complaining about the physical suffering that is being experienced, and yet they remain constant in their trust (i.e. faith) that God has not and will not abandon anyone just when God is needed the most (e.g. Psalm 6 or 38). These personal laments are persistent cries of hope when there is “no soundness in my flesh,” (Ps.38:7). But rather than give in or give up, the speaker prays, “But it is for you, O Lord, that I wait; it is you, O Lord my God, whom will answer… (v.15).

                Thus it is, in a similar vein, that Paul finds his trust in God strengthened in spite of the thorn in his flesh.  It becomes a part of his Christian testimony that despite this severe impediment he remains ever faithful to Jesus Christ. It doesn’t stop him, but rather propels him. “Therefore, I am content with weakness, insults, hardship, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong, (2 Cor. 12:10).

                If and when you or I go through those thorny, prickly, side-hurting physical trials and tribulations who better to have on our side but the God of love and compassion? That’s when we need God more than ever. It seems a paradoxical mystery in some ways, how any kind of pain can possibly be a moment of grace and meaning, but as both the Cross and the Resurrection work together we believe that this Power of Life still works in us and through us.  

“If God is for us, who can be against us?”

Dale

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

                Many of us are familiar with Edgar Allan Poe’s eerie poem “The Raven”. If there is any line that I can quote by memory, it is “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.” Eventually it is revealed that the visitor is a raven who has come to torment the poor bloke who hears the raven’s tapping.

                I don’t have a raven but I do have a little song sparrow who perches at the end of a branch of a shrub at the outer corner of the sun room and it loves to rap at the sun room’s plate glass window. It has been doing this for several days. There are a pair of them and they must be besting nearby. But I don’t know why this little bird persistently is rapping at my window. Does it see something it wants? Does it want in? Is it just saying “Hi! I’m your new neighbour”?  Does it just want to annoy me? It especially seems to like it when I go into the sun room. It’ll hop right up to the window and start pecking at it. It is there as I write this, tapping and rapping away. I hope that it has a strong beak.

                An old favourite Sunday School hymn is “God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall.” Do you remember it? “God sees the little sparrow fall, it meets his tender view. If God so loves the little birds, I know he loves me too.” (Maria Straub) Sparrows are, perhaps, the most common of the bird population. One hardly takes notice of them. They are rather blandly coloured. They aren’t like cardinals, blue jays, gold finch and the like with their bright, showy colours.  They don’t have the bold reputation of eagles, hawks, or owls.  They can strip a birdfeeder in no time flat. As one writer noted, “Because they’re so familiar and seemingly ordinary, sparrows have become a symbol of that which is of relatively little value.” (R. Cotrill)

                I don’t know about you, but I have had plenty of sparrow-times in my life – times of relatively little value. These are times when one feels small, helpless, and pushed aside by the big birds. One is certainly feeling far from being the top bird of the roost. Sparrow-times are times when one feels so ordinary, plain and common that no one is noticing your needs, caring about your concerns or addressing your fears. So, we are left rapping and tapping at some sort of spiritual or emotional window, hoping to get the attention of someone or Someone on the other side.

                Psalm 84 tells us that “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God,” (Psalm 84:3). Jesus picks up this theme with his words of comfort and hope, “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight… Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows,” (Luke 12: 6, 7).

                Jesus told a parable that illustrated that God’s loving reign throughout his kingdom can be compared to a large bush that grew from a tiny, little mustard seed. “It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made their nests in its branches,” (Luke 13:19). Maria Straub described it simply, “God made the little birds and flowers and all things large and small; He’ll not forget His little ones, I know He loves them all. He loves me too, He loves me too, I know He loves me too. Because He loves the little things, I know He loves me, too.”

                Thus quoth the sparrow, “Evermore!”

Dale