(Ir)Reverend Ramblings

Ten years- that’s right, only ten years since that ubiquitous facet of our day-to-day living was developed. Facebook started ten years ago by the college upstarts who wanted a way to build a social network, or to connect with girls! It is unlikely that they had any idea that their brainchild would become a phenomenon that would change the world. And it has really changed the world. It has changed how we send messages, how we respond to people, how we announce things, how we share information, how we advertise, how we relate.

I am on Facebook and I check it daily, actually twice a day to see what “my friends” are up to. I seldom post anything. I usually just creep around and see what other people are doing! I think that Facebook is both a blessing and a curse. It does mean that I can connect with old friends, keep up with family events, and can send out greetings and photos to the masses. But it also makes me lazy as far as real conversation and relationship. I think I know what is going on with people because I read their Facebook page, but really the details are so sketchy that there is a lot of assuming going on.

As a Christian I have learned that much of my faith and in fact much of a healthy life is based on relationship. Facebook enables relationship in a techno-sort-of way but it disables relationship in a flesh and blood-sort-of-way. It has added a new dimension to how we connect which is a blessing but it will be a curse if we leave relationship to this kind of social networking. It is still important to talk to people face-to-face and to connect in a real-life heart to heart way.

Are you on Facebook? Do you think it builds relationships or diminishes them?

Monday night I went to see the movie Enough Said starring James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. It is a charming smart little movie with good humour and clever twists. It was Gandolfini’s last movie and it underlined how tragic it was to lose such talent.

The movie is about the bittersweet up-and-downs of relationships. It has left me thinking about just that – the challenge of relationships and how easily things can get off track. In the movie Eva, played by Louis-Dreyfus, finds herself attracted to Albert. He is fun, kind, and charming, but Eva is influenced by another and begins to notice, and point out, his faults and their relationship begins to spiral. The movie showed us regret, anger, apology, forgiveness and reconciliation.

In my ministry I have often sat with someone struggling to sort out their marriage. Too often people have an ideal and their relationship doesn’t meet it. I have often had to remind people that life is not a movie or TV show; they are fiction life is real. Relationships can be hard work sometimes and they cycle up and down somtimes warm and rewarding, sometimes challenging and difficult. Just the same, we were not created to be solitary beings. The first story of scripture tells us that God created two people because one was lonely and needed another for companionship and completion. As the divorce and break-up rate has continued to increase in recent decades many accuse people of just not trying. I think most often people do try and, thanfully, the freedom in our society has allowed people to get out of troubled and sometimes abusive relationships. Indeed I have sometimes counselled people to get out before it is too late. What I think the increase in dissolved marriages shows us is that relationhips require work and we can easily be influenced into thinking that leaving is easier than staying and working things through. That said, I still believe a good realtionship is worth the work no matter how hard the work is.

Today is “Let’s Talk” day, a day sponsored by Bell Canada to bring the concerns about Mental Health into the spotlight for at least today. It is a day when high-profiled Olympic athlete Clara Hughes brings to the public the concerns of mental health openly sharing her own struggles with mental well-being. This is the fourth year for the program, sponsored by Bell Canada, and today five cents from every text or long distance call made by Bell customers will go to mental health initiatives across Canada. Since the “Let’s Talkprogram began in 2010 more than $62 million has been raised for mental health programs across the country.

Despite good work being done by agencies for mental health awareness this health challenge still carries huge stigma in our society. People are embarassed and even ashamed to talk about their mental health concerns.

Recently I listened on-line to the sermon given by Rick Warren, evangelical pastor of the very succesful, mega-church in California, on the Sunday he returned to the pulpit after his family tragedy. The Warren’s son, Matthew, died by suicide last April. Matthew was 27 and had struggled for years with depression. Rick Warren spoke with heart-felt honestly about the pain and heartache that the family felt and how they had tried their best to support Matthew for the years as he battled the black dog of depression that accompanied him everywhere.

Over the years I have been in ministry I have often known of members of my congregation that battle depression and other forms of mental illness and almost without exception they do not want anyone else to know. Even though this need for privacy, or secretivness, about their illness only makes their isolation feel even worse, they just can’t talk about it.

I am grateful to Bell and people like Clara Hughes who will encourage us to bring mental illness out of the closet and help us move to a society of positive mental health.

Are you going to talk about it today?

The Practice of Testimony: people standing up in community worship and telling stories about how they have experienced God. It is an old-fashioned word – testimony – but it is finding new life here at BUC. Last Sunday was the first Sunday we invited someone to give a testimony at each of our services. The question was simple, “Why is God important in your life?”. The task not so simple as the person pondered how to present to the congregation the importance of God in life and how the call to discipleship came about.

The idea for testimonies first came to me a year or so ago when someone phoned me after a Sunday service. She left a message on my phone saying my sermon had twigged some memories for her. She wanted me to know how important her mother-in-law had been in giving her life She gave her confidence in her child-rearing but more importantly she invited her to be part of the faith community. This simple action changed her life and empowered her to be a woman of faith. Her comments were a testimony to me about the influence one can have on another.

After that I read the book Telling It Like It Is by Lillian Daniel. In this book Daniel tells of her congregation coming into a new phase of faithfulness when they included in their Sunday services the act of testimony. As she explains, to hear another tell the story of God in his or her life encouraged others to share their faith story. “Hearing another’s story of God’s activity convicts and changes us. Testimony”, Daniels says, “breathes new life into people and the congregations they love.”

When we tell another of God’s working our lives others are invited to tell how they have seen and heard and felt God’s presence in their lives. The stories we heard last Sunday were a delicious promise as to what we might hear in the weeks ahead as people share their testimony of God’s presence. I can hardly wait.

A post two days in a row! Don’t get your hopes up … it is not going to happen on a regular basis. It has occurred to me today is Wednesday – the middle of the week; today is the 15th – the middle of the month. A perfect day to share with you a little clipping that I picked up somewhere and now keep on my bulletin board
“Today I wish you a day of ordinary miracles …
~a fresh pot of coffee you didn’t make yourself
~an unexpected phone call from an old friend
~green stoplights on your way to work
~the fastest line at the grocery store
~a good sing-along on the radio
~your keys found right where you left them!”

Hello dear readers, so sorry I have been awol for a while. I think I had a Christmas hang-over – not the real kind of hang-over but just a too much festive activity, too many commitments and too many decorations to take down and put away, kind of hangover. Such that I have not had the energy or inspiration to open up (Ir)reverend Ramblings and post a blog!

To combat the situation I have been seeking refuge at the movie theatre. Now, before I go any further, you readers who do not live in Bracebridge need to know that we have one very good movie theatre with three screens. That said, sometimes the movie offerings just do not appeal to me. This week however, has been a bonanza. I saw Philomena last week and Saving Mr. Banks on Sunday night. I recommend both movies as good entertainment but also as a spirit stretcher.

Each of the movies is based on actual people and real-life stories. Philomena tells of a woman, reviewing her youth and the loss of the son she gave birth to as a teenager. He was taken from her and sold into an adoption. The movie opens on what would have been his 50th birthday and tells of her search to find him. Saving Mr. Banks tells the story of the development of the movie Mary Poppins. Walt Disney wooed P.L. Travers for twenty years before she sold him the film rights to her story. Both movies unfold a great tale but they each also tell of the need for each woman to reconcile her history and to find forgiveness both for herself and for those who disappointed her. So along with the characters of the story the role of forgiveness is a major player in each picture.

I am always grateful when a movie both moves me and makes me think. In Philomena she says to the Catholic sister, who was so mean to her for many years, “I forgive you.” The journalist who accompanies her on this journey of discovery looks at her with astonishment on his face and says, “I can’t forgive her.” It is both a tender moment but also a moment of truth as it points to the challenge and difficulty in the act of forgiveness. Likewise in Saving Mr. Banks the characters of Walt Disney and P.L.Travers share a moment of recognition as they must each forgive their disappointment and hurt as they remember their imperfect fathers.

Forgiveness is a call that is common in faith and is one that I think offers one of the biggest challenge to those of us who struggle to be faithful. How are you at forgiving? Do you find it helpful to see this kind of topic explored in entertainment offerings of tv and at the movies?

By my reckoning today is Day 9 in the 12 Days of Christmas. I have been waiting all morning for the delivery from my true love of the “nine ladies dancing”. Thankfully, they aren’t here yet! There is an interpretation of the twelve gifts that attributes Christian symbolism to each gift. By this interpretation the dancing ladies represent the nine fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I am not sure I believe that a song that on one level is such a nonsensical song, has such deep meaning but I do like the listing of these qualities and if in the midst of post-Christmas blahs and sugar-overload recovery we get reminded of the higher calling of these qualities so much the better.

Henry Van Dyke wrote a beautiful poem called “Keeping Christmas”. He begins with the reminder, “There is a better thing than the observance of Christmas Day and that is keeping Christmas.” He then goes on to explain how we might do that. The lines that spoke to me say:
“Are you willing to forget what you have done for people, and to remember what other people have done for you; to ignore what the world owes you, and to think what you owe the world; to put your rights in the background and your duties in the middle distance and your chances to do a little more than your duty in the foreground;”
He concludes with, “Then you can keep Christmas … but you can never keep it alone.”

And so dear readers as the Twelve days of Christmas wind to a close let us focus not on the getting but the giving; not on the retribution but the forgiveness; not on what we are entitled to but on how we can contribute.

Today we kick 2013 out the door. Here are some names that will stir memories of the year … Pope Francis, Nelson Mandella, Prince George, Mike Duffy, Rob Ford, Lac Megantic, Edward Snowden, Obamacare, Chris Hadfield, Miley Cyrus, Malala, Alice Munro … each name carries with it a whirl of memories as this person or event caused news.

The dawning of a new year brings with it new ideas, new hopes, new dreams and new plans. I love a new year because it brings a clean page to my living and a fresh start to my intentions. On January 1 I always breath deeply because even though it is just another day it is a day that offers newness and clarity. January 1 is when we hang the new calendars and look to the year that holds nothing but surprise! I also love a new year’s day because it calls for three dimensional viewing. We look back to what has passed – the events and the people that have influenced our living; we look at the current day and what is happening in the present moment; and we look to the future to see what will unfold in the days ahead. A New Year causes us to consider the past, the present and the future. Yes, I do make resolutions. No, I seldom keep them, at least not for very long. But there is something refreshing about declaring a new start to something. It is like shaking off the old and starting anew.

One of my favourite readings at this time of year was written by Minnie Louise Haskins in 1908 but came to popular imagination when it was quoted by King George in his Christmas broadcast 1939. I like it because my mother, who had an aptitude for quoting poetry, always quoted it on New Year’s Day when I was a child. It is old fashioned language but the sentiment is one of assurance.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God,
trod gladly into the night.
And God led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

Happy New Year – dear readers and many blessings to you for 2014.

I am working on my sermon. The reading for this Sunday is from Matthew. It is the beginning of the story of Jesus birth as Matthew tells it. He is concerned for Joseph. Dear Joseph who really seems to be one of the minor characters in the drama. He is often in the shadows, looking as if he is not exactly sure what his role is. We aren’t so sure ourselves. He is a husband and a father, but his fatherhood is suspect! But what I love most about Joseph is that he shows us what it is to be a person caught in a terrible situation and still do the right thing.

The story we will hear on Sunday tells of Joseph trying to decide what to do about the fact that his girlfriend is pregnant and she has told him he is not the father. He decides to sleep on it and he has a restless night because he can’t stop dreaming vivid dreams. Dreams where an angel tells him to stick with Mary, to see it through, to raise the child ( “By the way” says the angel, “it will be a boy.”) And while it might seem that as the story unfolds Joseph moves from centre-stage and Mary gets all the glory in fact we must remember that it was Joseph who got Mary to the stable and found at least a manger for the baby. It was Joseph who took his family to safety in Egypt (again, because an angel told him in a dream to hightail it out of the country.) It was Joseph who got his little family back to Nazareth where he no doubt held the baby as he cut his first tooth and steadied him as he took his first step. It was Joseph who taught him how to smooth a rough piece of wood in the carpenter’s shop and how to drive a nail.

Strong, steady, stalwart Joseph. Never centre-stage but the kind of guy you know you can depend on to be there when you need him. Joseph, he is my kind of guy.

Calgary resident Tom Crist was taken by surprise when he got a call while playing golf in Palm Springs, CA. The call was from the Western Canada Lottery Corporation advising Mr. Crist that he had won the $40 million lottery jackpot. That was news enough but even more surprising is that he intends to donate it all to charity. He says he has enough money and he knows that organizations and services can use the money.

His family found out about his win and his intentions at the same time that the rest of Canada did and they fully support his decision. This is in part because he wishes to donate a large portion to the care facility that looked after his wife as she was dying of cancer. The family have realized the value of a person over the indulgence gained with excess money.

His generosity has caused me to do a little scrolling around on-line about giving and my ears perked up the other evening as I made dinner. A speaker on the radio talked of the giving habit. He explained that studies have been done that prove that people just plain feel better when they give to charities and organization or even just help out a neighbour.

This season of giving can be challenging as we try to find the right gift for the right person but it is also a good reminder that giving is a source of pleasure as much for the giver as the receiver. There is ample opportunity to give throughout the year but often we feel more inspired at this giving time of year to share with others in need. IT seems when we are generous with what we have everyone benefits… we feel better for giving and the other benefits from our gifts.

Do you give regularly to charity? Are you a monthly donor to some organizations? Does giving make you feel better?