Gone Fishing?

I've been doing my best to keep up with both my Lion Lamb and Groundling blogs these past few months, which is a bit of a challenge, despite the lavish freedom of retirement. Where do the days go?

As we make our way into the heart of summer readership fades and that's a good thing. Folk are traveling and spending more time outside, which is certainly good for our spiritual health.

I am going on a brief hiatus, which sounds more painful than it is.  I haven't fished since I was a kid, but it worked for Jesus and his disciples.Actually, the blogging sabbatical will likely be a tonic for my creativity, but I shall return, probably in a week or so. 
Christ be with you! 

Jesus, Lord of the Starfields

Lord of the starfields
Ancient of Days
Universe Maker
Here's a song in your praise…

O love that fires the sun
Keep me burning
Lord of the starfields
Sower of life
Heaven and earth are
Full of your light…

Lord of the Starfields -- Bruce Cockburn – In the Falling Dark

Someone has taken this nighttime photo at the Lake of Two Rivers campground in Algonquin Park. What you're viewing is the Milky Way, the marvelous swath of stars which is our galaxy. Our sun around which the planets, including Earth, orbit is one of those stars. The Milky Way has been part of the night sky humans have viewed for millennia, and it has been studied and revered. It is becoming a rarity for most on the planet due to light pollution. It's estimated that more than 80 percent of children born today will never see the Milky Way. If you've had the experience you'll know how remarkable it is to see, a spiritual experience for many.

We'll be at Lake of Two Rivers for the next few days and on Sunday I'll lead worship there. The United Church has a ministry at Algonquin and clergy can sign up for a service, which I have chosen to do in retirement.

I'll focus on the gift of the night sky and remind worshipers that there are plenty of passages of scripture praising "the heavens," which are different from "heaven."  I'll read from the book of Job where God speaks of the constellations "when the morning stars sang together." It's tempting to think of the bible as "dark bad, light good" and Jesus does describe himself as the light of the world. We also read in Mark that Jesus went out to pray "early in the morning, while it was still very dark." Did he want the experience of the heavens as he communed with "Our Father, who art in heaven"?


Wherever you are, please say a prayer for our worship gathering.

Care for Our Common Home Conference

Recently Pope Francis hosted a conference at the Vatican with representatives from around the world and all walks of life. It marked the third anniversary of Francis' environmental encyclical called Laudato Si: Care for Our Common Home. I led a study group at the time Laudato Si was published and I feel that it is an important and nuanced call to action. Here is the description of the conference:

The Conference intends to assess the impact of Laudato Si’ and envisage the journey ahead. It will unfold following the “See-Judge-Act” trajectory of the encyclical. First of all, in line with the integral ecological approach adopted by Pope Francis, we will look at the crisis of our common home from a holistic perspective so as to hear “both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor” (LS, 49). We will especially listen to individuals and communities who are the victims of the crisis in basic areas like food security, health and migration, and with special reference among others to children, women, indigenous communities, minorities, and small island states. In a second moment, we will reflect on the criteria to understand and respond in an integral way to the crisis: ethical, economic, financial and political, just to mention a few.


At the conclusion of the conference “lines of action” were developed. These are specific proposals for making progress in achieving Pope Francis’ vision of integral ecology.
The lines of action are:

• Renew the commitment on the Laudato Si’ requests for an urgent radical ecological conversion to take action in the care of creation.
• Raise ambition at COP24 for a just transition to achieve 1.5°C goal and protect the most vulnerable.
• Deepen action among young and indigenous people during the synods on youth and the Amazon, and beyond, to ensure long-lasting ecological justice.
• Encourage financial institutions to support decisions towards an integral ecology by “walking the talk” as a Church, including investments with positive social and environmental impact.
• Engage the faithful in the celebration of the Season of Creation with other Christian churches, to motivate radical conversion and transformative action.

I pray that Christians of all backgrounds, people of other faiths, and all those of good will adopt these lines of action.

Worship in Woods and By Water

Well, I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Actually, I'm as prepared as I can be x 2 -- but more about that in my next Groundling blog.

Tomorrow I'll make my way to Darlington Provincial Park in Oshawa to lead a group of General Council 43 youth "pilgrims" in Worship in Woods and By Water. We've been scrambling around to find a venue with a shelter because the forecast is for rain. Originally we were going to be in the adjacent McLaughlin Wildlife Reserve but the park is a better spot if the heavens open. These are remarkable wildlife oases along the 401, North America's busiest highway.



These young people and other delegates to the triennial General Council have been spending a lot of time indoors and listening to a lot of words. As important as the conversations and decisions at Council will be, sometimes words are overwhelming. And hanging out in large spaces without windows can be soul-numbing rather than uplifting.

Our time together will include scripture and communion, but we will be outside. The sermon will be provided by Creator and Creation as we take time without words to listen and smell and feel.

Ruth and I still attend church on Sundays (son Isaac's congregation) but I've been telling people that since retirement I make every effort to be a "be-wildered outsider" rather than an insider. I hope that tomorrow can be a meaningful experience of God who is

Source of Life, Living Word, and Bond of Love,
    and in other ways that speak faithfully of
the One on whom our hearts rely,
the fully shared life at the heart of the universe.

Song of Faith United Church of Canada 2006

Comments?

Butterflies and Hope

 

Photo by Kim Smith Designs

Next week I will be taking a group of young people from across Canada on a contemplative walk at Second Marsh in Oshawa. They are the "pilgrims" who are attending what may be the last General Council as we know it for the United Church of Canada.

On Wednesday of this week I drove there to scope out the trails I knew well in another time. The good news is that Lake Ontario hasn't been moved. I was pleased to see that the monarch butterflies were around as well. These marshes and grassy areas along the lake are staging grounds for monarchs in the Fall, before they head southward across the vast lake, but their numbers are diminishing. There was plenty of milkweed in bloom and lots of the butterflies.

I noticed yesterday that Sir David Attenborough, the marvelous nature film-maker and guru of the environmental movement is endorsing a butterfly count in Great Britain. This involves spending 15 minutes counting butterflies and submitting the sightings online. Fortunately this has been a good year for butterflies in Britain despite 40 years of steady decline in populations.

I couldn't  recollect any mentions of butterflies in scripture and when I checked there were no references. Through the years preachers have used the caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly metaphor to help us imagine the death and entombment and resurrection of Jesus. But you might have thought that when Jesus said "consider the birds and the flowers" he might have included butterflies.

All I know is that butterflies are exquisite and deserve to be protected as an essential aspect of Creation.

Comments?



Protecting Sacred Elders

"The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that God planted."

Psalm 104:16 NRSV)

Have you every seen a baobab tree? That looks like the opening line from a children's book, doesn't it? I haven't been to Africa, so I haven't see one face-to-branch, but they have fascinated me for years. Baobabs are dying, so they are getting our attention. Some of these giants are more than 2,500 years old but drought and climate change are the likely suspects for their demise.

I saw another article about the threat to a sacred kauri tree in New Zealand called Tāne Mahuta, named after the forest god of the Maori people. Tāne 51.5 metres tall and has a trunk girth of 18.8 metres. Apparently the  physical majesty oTāne and the atmosphere around the tree brings tourists flocking to Waipoua. Sadly, a die-back disease, brought on the shoes of visitors, is killing kauris is now only 60 metres from this forest giant.



Tāne Mahuta

Feeling a little bummed out by now? Today I read that the famed cedars of Lebanon are having a rough go as well. They are mentioned in the bible, particularly in the story of Solomon, so it shouldn't be a surprise that one of the last protect mountain groves is called the Cedars of God. Jesus and his fisher disciples may well have used boats made of cedar from the ancient forests. Some of the remaining trees are a 1,000 years old and are now within a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And --you guessed it -- climate change is affecting habitat, as well as deforestation.


I may have mentioned that we revisited the blockbuster film Avatar not long ago There is a massive sacred Tree of Souls which comes under attack by the rapacious human colonizers. The disregard for trees results in a war with the indigenous N'avi people, and some devastating scenes in the film. But here on Earth this isn't fantasy. We're told repeatedly that planting trees is a key to reversing the effects of climate change, yet we're so willing to sacrifice what already exists, and that's profane. Perhaps we need to declare all trees sacred and our elders, and protect them accordingly.

Have you ever had a special relationship with a tree(s)? What do you think about the notion of sacred trees?



Tree of Souls -- Avatar

World Listening Day

This is World Listening Day and we are all invited to "take a listen" to the world around us. If you read this blog regularly you'll know that I encourage listening as an aspect of the Christian contemplative life. Here are some questions about listening today from the info provided by the World Listening Day website:

Here are general guide questions to consider:

What does your past sound like? What does your present sound like?
Which sounds do you wish to retain? Which sounds do you wish never to hear again?
Which sounds do you consider as toxic waste?
How does silence and noise sound in your future?
Which sounds have gone silent?
Can you still hear?

Blessing Bison in Banff

In the midst of so much dismal news about the negative human impact on the ecological systems which sustain us it's encouraging when a success story of restoration emerges.

Last year 16 bison -- six bulls and ten cows -- were reintroduced to Banff National Park in Alberta. The bison or buffalo had been wiped out in this area before the park was established in 1885. Happily, they did what bison are meant to do, and all ten of the females gave birth. Most of them are carrying calves again this year, so the herd will grow.

An important aspect of this reintroduction is the involvement of First Nations and Metis peoples in blessing the bison. The official statement for Banff National Park says that they committed to recognizing the spiritual, cultural and historical importance of bison to Indigenous people: “Parks Canada has invited representatives of each Treaty 7 Nation and the Métis Nation of Alberta to participate in a private blessing ceremony on July 16, 2018, at the bison reintroduction zone in Banff National Park’s Panther Valley.”

According to the Toronto Star, one of the elders going on the trip said he is happy to participate in another ceremony for the bison. “Before they brought the buffalo over there, our people blessed the park to welcome the buffalo back to the area,” said Leroy Little Bear, an elder with the Blood Tribe, or Kainai First Nation, in southern Alberta.

The reintroduction of bison is an attempt to restore a key creature to this ecosystem. At the same time, this is a spiritual initiative for Native peoples and its important that they have been invited to provide leadership. I feel that we must rediscover the sacred aspects of ecological balance and this involvement is essential.

Thoughts?

Speaking Truth to Power in Helsinki

The Kallio Lutheran church is one of the landmarks of downtown Helsinki, Finland. It's over a hundred years old, has two pipe organs, and lots of tourist visitors. Yesterday the church was notable for another reason. The congregation collaborated with the environmental organization Greenpeace to hang banners from the church tower proclaiming "Warm Our Hearts, Not our Planet." These weren't random statements about climate change. American President Donald Trump was in the city for what proved to be a shameful meeting with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin.

The key though is that a Christian congregation with a historic past was willing to put its building to good use challenging an administration which has contempt for domestic environmental legislation and has abdicated its leadership role in the Paris Accord or Agreement is an agreement within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It was adopted universally in 2015 but after Trump was elected the United States opted out, to the dismay of millions of Americans.

There can be no doubt where the message of the banners is directed. They are in English, after all, and while Trump may not have seen them, the world has. There are many ways for communities of faith to "speak truth to power" and this is a meaningful effort.

Bee Thou My Vision

We were kicking around the back roads of Prince Edward County yesterday (they're all kinda back roads) in the County when we came upon a lavender farm which is probably a little past peak, but not by much. We stopped and meandered about, taking in the sight and the fragrance. We noticed that the bees were there in their legions, working the blossoms. I checked later and it turns out they keep bees and sell lavender honey. Honey takes on different flavours and colours depending on the blossoms. I like buckwheat honey, which is darker and has a fairly strong taste -- sort of the porter of honeys.


We know that bees are having a tough time these days, European honey bees and the hundreds of other varieties of native bees, which pollinate just about everything. We're managing to kill off bees en masse with pesticides and diseases, yet without them our food supplies would be in serious trouble. We humans really are adept at fouling our own nests. There seem to be new books about beekeeping buzzing in from everywhere these days, perhaps because we "don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," or at least threatened.



My heart lifts when I see bees, in part because it's good to know that they are still around in places where they are encouraged to thrive, and because I shared several hives with a friend many years ago. I've also grown aware of the connection between bees and religion. The bee is an ancient Christian symbol, and virtually every major religion has bee imagery in their sacred texts. Monasteries, such as Buckfast Abbey seen above, have kept bees for centuries, and the modern portable bee hive with removable frames was developed by Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth during the 19th century. Along with the practical benefits of beekeeping there is a contemplative quality to apiculture despite the occasional sting.

And of course, one of my favourite hymns is Bee Thou My Vision...isn't that the title?