Quest for Quiet

This past Saturday we were "chief cooks and bottle washers" for one of our grandson's seventh birthday parties. Even though we were sort of in the background as the kitchen crew the noise level grew and grew, especially during the Pokemon card scavenger hunt. At one point I pulled out my phone and used the SoundPrint decibel app (free) and we were spiking above 80 decibels, the equivalent of a diesel truck rumbling past on the street. As I write in the quiet of my study it's just over 30. But what else would be expect from a fun kid's party!

The thing is, do we really want to live in a constant children's party? If your answer is "yes" then seek professional help immediately. Yet that seems to be happening in our culture, seemingly inexorably and exponentially. . 



A week ago in the Globe and Mail there was an article entitled The Quest for Quiet by Gayle MacDonald in which she muses on her growing desire for silence. Her husband is a little surprised by this development but it is important to her. 

Silence is a precious commodity that is disappearing, according to the World Health Organization, which has been tracking noise levels for over a decade. In its newest guidelines for Europe, it described noise pollution as an “underestimated threat” that hurts our health, contributing to everything from stress to high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, and of course, hearing loss. This comes at a cost of one million healthy life years – every year – in Europe alone, to the tune of more than €40-billion ($58-billion).

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health-and-fitness/article-in-an-increasingly-clamorous-world-silence-is-becoming-essential-to/

MacDonald also quotes Vancouver acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp who takes up to 60 people on one-hour silent walks in the city through the seasons:

“Many people are afraid of silence – find it oppressive or depressive – but the ones who join the walks are comfortable in it or they want to learn how to be comfortable in it. We don’t speak. We listen to the environment and I encourage them to listen to their own thoughts and reactions,” he says. “After the walk, we do an assessment. People tell me they feel a bond with the people in the group – without saying a word. In quiet, we listen to the world around us differently. We get better insight into ourselves and often to the people around us.”

I feel that we would all do well to become "acoustic mystics", finding the quiet places and spaces which we hear about in scripture for Hagar and Moses and Jesus and others. Hey, Jonah came out of the belly of the fish more attuned to the voice of God!



Ice Formation on the Moira R. during a quiet walk this morning 

Contemplation, Wonder and the Group of Seven

Yesterday we zipped up to Kleinberg and back for a visit to the McMichael Canadian Collection art gallery. We realized that the sunny day would be perfect for travel and to take in several exhibits, some of which are drawing to a close, and another which is just underway. 

“A Like Vision”: The Group of Seven at 100 celebrates the formation of the Group of Seven artists in 1920, although it ended up being the Group of Ten + One because several members came and went, and the "one" was Tom Thomson, who was instrumental in their formation as a group but died in 1917, mysteriously drowning in Algonquin Park. 

Each of the artists is featured in this exhibition, some with greater emphasis than others, all intriguing. 

It was an emotional and spiritual experience for me to walk through the McMichael in its entirety and that exhibition in particular. We lived in Northern Ontario for more than a decade and during that time we paddled and hiked to a number of locations in Algoma and the LaCloche Mountains where these men painted. We have actually stood on the spots where some of the sketches were done and enjoyed the same vistas. 

We also felt the powerful sense of the landscape which some of the artists, Lawren Harris notably, experienced as deeply spiritual. For Harris it led him to Theosophy while for me it has always been the Creator God of the Judeo/Christian tradition.

After spending a contemplative couple of hours in the gallery we walked outside in that beautiful setting and visited the small cemetery where six of the artists, family members, and the gallery's founding couple, the McMichaels, are buried

i would certainly recommend going for this exhibition alone (you've got until December) and to allow it to be a spiritual celebration of the beauty of Canada, including its wilderness. 

Going Buggy in Algonquin?

Dragonfly eating Mosquito...nice work!

God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed 
that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; 
you shall have them for food.
 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, 
and to everything that creeps on the earth, 
everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” 
And it was so. 
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed,
 it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 1:29-31

Some of you are aware that the past two summers I've led worship in Algonquin Provincial Park, part of what we hope is a reinvigorated ministry associated with Cathedral of the Trees. The United Church has sustained a weekly summer ministry in the park since the early 1950s but it had waned to the point of near-extinction. We're hoping that an emphasis on celebrating the goodness of Creation will provide a new focus and energy.

We've started musing about a theme for this year and I tossed out the idea of the sometimes unpleasant but absolutely vital reality of insects. The early summer in Algonquin serves up a bazillion mosquitoes, which can be crazy-making. Surely God got it wrong with mosquitoes?! They are more than an annoyance, they often carry diseases which can be deadly.

Yet most of us delight in dragonflies in all their sizes and they eat mosquitoes in abundance. Around the park there are a variety of songbirds and in the campgrounds there are woodpeckers, including the impressive crow-sized Pileated woodpecker. Guess what? They all eat insects,including mosquitoes, as do many species of fish. They are part of the web of creation, even though some of them may torment or even scare us.

One of the reasons it might be timely to have insects as a theme is that in many parts of the world they are in catastrophic decline. The use of insecticides over large tracts of agricultural land means that the little critters can run but they can't hide. We are most aware of the this with the "likable" insects such as butterflies and honey bees but the killers aren't discriminating. We have entered into a tipping point which is akin to the crisis Rachel Carson identified in the early 1960s. I can tell you from my Twitter feed that the chemical giants are still extolling the virtues of their products without any recognition of the possible harm.Canada is still dragging its regulatory feet on neonicotinoids, the pesticide linked to the decline of absolutely essential pollinators. 

Who knows what theme we will choose for our summer ministry in Algonquin, but it got me thinking. I would probably still curse the mosquitoes under my breath as we hike the trails of the park, but they are God's living, breathing creatures, just the same. 

Praying for a Butterfly Defender and Prophet

This morning CBC radio news played the sound of what might have been rain falling on leaves as part of the hourly national report. It was, in fact, the movement of butterfly wings as millions of Eastern Monarchs awakened in their fir tree roosts in Mexico.

In recent years we've heard about the alarming decline of the beautiful Monarchs which migrate from Mexico through the United States to Canada every year. Thanks to efforts all along the flight path, habitat is being restored for the vital milkwood plants the Monarchs feed on, and numbers have increased. There has also been increased vigilance in Mexico to protect the mountain forests where the butterflies winter. The drug cartels have far-reaching interests and forests are illegally logged for timber and clearing for avacado farming.

The CBC story was about the disappearance of Homero Gomez, a 50-year-old agricultural engineer who manages the El Rosari Butterfly Sanctuary in Michoacan, Mexico. He was last seen Jan. 13 while attending a meeting in a neighboring town and the likelihood is that he has been killed because of his work and advocacy..This is a terrible development. 



I have written about other environmental champions in different parts of the world who are harassed, harmed, and even killed for their outspoken efforts to protect the lands they inhabit and the creatures around them. Often they are acting on behalf of Indigenous peoples whose rights are trampled by governments and industrial interests. 

I grieve for the family of Homero Gomez and invite you to pray for all those who demonstrate prophetic courage on behalf of Creation. 

The day of Gomez' disappearance he posted two videos of Monarchs and you can see one in the article link below:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/homero-gomez-monarch-butterfly-activist-goes-missing-in-mexican-cartel-country

Fire and Flood Around the Planet

Smokey Melbourne, Australia

We have friends, a couple who are both retired clergy, who live in Canada for part of the year and in Melbourne, Australia during our Winter. They also love Venice, Italy, and have visited a number of times.

I've been thinking about them hearing about what is happening in both those cities during the past couple of months. Melbourne has been dealing with the heavy smoke of bushfires which are devastating vast areas of the continent. While it eventually rained (an answer to the concerted prayers in churches across the country?) it was brown with soot and dust, and gave way to destructive hailstorms. The environmental disasters of beautiful Australia seem like a series of biblical plagues. 

Meanwhile, Venice in Italy has experienced almost unprecedented flooding a month ago, with about two thirds of the city underwater and more than a billion euros in damage done. Historic St. Mark's church was damaged, as were other landmarks.

Our planet is under siege in these days of the climate crisis, and we can't dismiss these catastrophic events as "acts of God." I imagine the Creator is waiting for humanity to get its collective act together for change. The experiences of our friends are a reminder that no matter where we reside, there are people we know who are witnessing the crisis firsthand. 



Flooded St. Mark's Square, Venice

The Creation & Brian Wildsmith

Someone on Twitter from Britain was gleeful about finding a used pop-up book called The Creation by Brian Wildsmith in a thrift shop. The cover was intriguing so I started snooping around. It turns out that Wildsmith was a celebrated illustrator and painter, and there is a museum of his art in Japan with more than 800 works. He was born in 1930 and died in 2016, which is a full life. His children's books look enchanting, with plenty on subjects related to the natural world. He also did a number of kid's books on Judeo/Christian themes, including Moses and Jesus and Francis of Assisi. https://www.brianwildsmith.com/



A Nursery of Raccoons from Wildsmith's Animal Gallery

The Creation book has five pop-up pages which I'm sure are all wonderful. It was published in 1995 and is sadly out of print. I'm intrigued about the motivation for Wildsmith's faith-themed books but I can't find any information.

The person who found this treasure has good cause to be pleased. Um, God the Creator...my turn!




Pop-up page from The Creation

Some of Brian Wildsmith's Judeo/Christian themed books

• A Christmas story (Oxford, 1989)
• The Easter story (Oxford, 1993)
• Saint Francis (Oxford, 1997)
• Exodus (Oxford, 1998)
• Jesus (Oxford, 2000)
• Mary (Oxford, 2007)
• Moses (Oxford, 2007)

Young Prophets at Davos

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, second right, Autumn Peltier, Chief Water Commissioner of the Anishinabek Nation, right, Salvador Gomez-Colon, founder of Light & Hope for Puerto Rico, second left, and Natasha Mwansa of the Natasha Mwansa Foundation.

These four young activists, including Manitoulin Island's Autumn Peltier, have already been involved in a panel this morning at the World Economic Summit. It takes place annually at a swanky resort in Davos, Switzerland, and some critics ask why those concerned about the health of the planet would bother attending. It tends to be a gathering place for the wealthy whose economic interests do not lend themselves to radical change for the sake of the planet. 

President Trump has already spoken at Davos, condemning "doomsayers". Note that he's at Davos but wasn't at COP25, the climate change conference in Madrid this past December. Of course Trump is a disaster for the environment, dismantling protections in the United States and an impediment to collaborative global action. Essentially he is the stereotype of the impulsive, petulant teenager and the teens are the adults in the room. 

We can certainly pray for these remarkable young people and the movements they represent in various parts of the globe. They are  prophets, "living with respect in Creation," and doing so in ways that challenge those whose greed and self-interest blinds them to the urgency of change. 

Bless the Lord, Frosts and Snows

George Lake Killarney Provincial Park

Bless the Lord, winter cold and summer heat,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
46 Bless the Lord, dews and snows,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
47 Bless the Lord, nights and days,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
48 Bless the Lord, light and darkness,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
49 Bless the Lord, ice and cold,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.
50 Bless the Lord, frosts and snows,
    sing praise to him and highly exalt him for ever.

The Song of Azariah vss 46-50

In recent years we've heard about "Blue Monday" the mid-January day which is supposedly the saddest in the year. It is referring to the winter blahs, or blues, and must be a Northern Hemisphere phenomenon given that it is summer in the Southern Hemisphere. It turns out that Blue Monday was the marketing invention of a British travel company based on pseudo-science to ascertain the most depressing day of the year. Presumably we're all supposed to book our trips to sunnier climes to counteract the harmful effects of winter.

 

Actually, even though Blue Monday is short on facts it has prompted discussion about mental health which is good, especially since there is a Let's Talk focus later in the month. Since this is a "grounded" spiritual blog I would add that choosing not to hibernate during these months is essential to wholeness in body, mind, and spirit. We try to get outside several times a week for walks and other forms of exercise as reminders of the goodness of Creation in all seasons. I was able to cycle last week on a mild day, and yesterday and today we will cross-country ski. 

Ontario Parks tweets often about the mental health benefits of time spent in nature. I would add that as created beings we are meant to go outside, to experience the blue and green and white gifts of the Creator, including -- yes -- the cold of winter!

I hope no residents of the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland read this. After the weekend blizzard they will be offering up more curses than blessings...

The Epiphany in Creation

Diana Butler Bass is a Christian writer and theologian, and one of her many books is Grounded: Finding God in the World -- A Spiritual Revolution. It explores what it is to live faithfully on the Earth, celebrating the gifts of land, and sea, and sky, rather than simply waiting for a future heavenly promise.

On Sunday evening she attended a service at her home congregation, St's Aidan's Episcopal Church,  not far from Washington DC. She tweeted her appreciation later for the theme Mass on the Epiphany in Creation: A Eucharist Drawing on the Poetry of Mary Oliver.

This caught my attention because it connects the light of Epiphany with the created, Created world. And Mary Oliver, the Pulitzer Prize winner who died a year ago tomorrow, was a nature mystic, who was not attached to any religious institution for many decades yet conveyed a sense of the holy and wonder through her poems. I've heard that she returned to her childhood Roman Catholic faith in later years, but I really don't know. One of her last books of selected poetry was called Devotions and there is a devotional quality to many of her poems.

I contacted St. Aidan's and the Rev. John Baker kindly responded with the outline/order of worship for the service. I commend the participants for a service that interweaves Oliver poems with scripture and hymns and Epiphany themes.They also celebrated the eucharist or communion, the sharing of bread and wine, gifts from the earth. 

I hope this sort of liturgical creativity which honours Creation takes root and flourishes everywhere. 

MacDonald's Coffee & My Religion

Brenya Green of Toronto was disappointed when McDonald's wouldn't serve her coffee in her reusable mug. (Submitted by Jenn Derbach)

Three years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper expressing my frustration that a MacDonalds fast food outlet had refused my request to have a coffee poured into my travel mug. The excuse was that they don't do this because the travel mugs can be too tall for their dispenser, even though the two guys ahead of me ordered jumbo coffees which were in disposable cups much bigger than my mug. Those cups appear to be paper but are lined with plastic so they aren't recyclable. 

In the letter and in a subsequent blog I claimed that it was "against my religion" to create waste unnecessarily. To do so was an affront to the Creator and I would be taking my business elsewhere, either to Tim Horton's or to independent coffee shops which seem to have no problem accommodating clients with mugs. 

That's what I did, rarely stepping through the door of a Mickey Ds, other than for the occasional kids meal for the grandlads. Unfortunately we had several experiences at Timmy's where the server poured the coffee into a paper cup, then transferring it to a mug. Arghh! At one take-out window I heard the supervisor telling a trainee to just pour it into a paper cup, then into a mug in a tone which made the request sound like an imposition. So, we seldom get coffee there either, and we don't go for other food either. 

This seems to be a dumb business model or practice for both chains. I notice, though, that MacDonald's is making noises about changing its  policy. Here is an excerpt from a CBC:

McDonald's Canada plans to change its general policy of rejecting reusable mugs, a practice that has angered customers for years. On Tuesday, the restaurant chain told CBC News that it hopes to have a new national policy in place by the end of February, which will allow customers to be served coffee or tea in their personal mug instead of a disposable cup. 

"We listen to our guests, and we know this is an area of growing importance to Canadians," said spokesperson Ryma Boussoufa in an email. The statement comes after CBC News first reached out to McDonald's in October, inquiring about customer anger over its current policy.

Hmm. They listen? I suppose they have, but not in a hurry, When I phoned MacDonald's customer service three years ago I was dismissed politely but quickly. I will congratulate the chain for finally coming around. Repentance, forgiveness, and grace are all essential to the Christian life. And seeing is believing. 

I should note that I got lots of positive response about my letter at the time, including from people who recognized me and stopped me on the street to express support. The lone negative response was a lengthy diatribe from a member of my congregation who claimed I had besmirched the sterling reputation of the local MacDonald's owner, even though I hadn't identified a location (it was Picton.) Hey, you win some...

Here is the link to my blog from 2017

http://lionlamb-bowmanville.blogspot.com/2017/02/why-im-hatin-macdonalds.html

Cleaning up Newfoundland, One Harbour at a Time

Shawn Bath of Clean Harbours Initiative 

We love Newfoundland. We lived there at the beginning of my ministry and while I didn't much like attempting to pastorg five outport congregations, none of which cared much for the others, we fell in love with the beauty. Arguably, our theology of Creation was shaped in the wild beauty of The Rock and we have returned many times. We are actually contemplating another visit this summer, even though we've been there twice in the past three years. 

This morning I heard the first episode of a new series called The Fix on CBC Radio's The Current. Host Matt Galloway chatted with Shawn Bath, a diver and fisher from Bay Roberts, Newfoundland. Shawn heads up the Clean Harbours Initiative which has a staff of one -- Shawn. All by his lonesome, with occasional assistance, Shawn dives in fishing coves and harbours to haul up the junk people have thrown into the sea. So far he has retrieved at least 9,000 kilograms of garbage, although he notes he doesn't weigh everything. The items include car tires,"ghost" fishing nets (adrift) old batteries, household appliances...the list goes on. 



Shawn gets no funding to do this, and in fact he has given up paid work to devote himself to the task. He comments that Newfoundlanders have derived a living from the sea for generations and it makes no sense to treat it as a trash can.

There is an expression in Newfoundland, "dat's a sin!" to describe bad or destructive behaviour. Defiling the planet, including its waters, is a sin against the Creator. I was mightily impressed to hear about Shawn's project and his determination. He has a vision of a government funded clean-up of harbours with several teams working through the year. I know he's not holding his breath on this, but God bless him in his work. 

Praying for Rain in a Climate Crisis?

Archbishop Anthony Fisher 

Elijah went up to the top of Carmel;

 there he bowed himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. 

He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” 

He went up and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” 

Then he said, “Go again seven times.”  

At the seventh time he said, “Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand is rising out of the sea.” 

Then he said, “Go say to Ahab, ‘Harness your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’” 

 In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain

1 Kings 18:42-46 (NRSV)

 ...so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; 

for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good,

 and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

Matthew 5:45 (NRSV)

Yesterday Archbishop Anthony Fisher invited Roman Catholics in Sydney Australia to join him at St Mary’s Cathedral to pray for an end to the massive bushfire crisis and for rain.

I have seen a number of prayers which are responses to this calamity which has gripped virtually the entire continent, leading to the loss of human lives and an estimated billion birds, mammals, and reptiles, as well as vast areas of forest and untold numbers of insects. In addition, thousands have been forced to flee for their lives and in cities residents are attempting to function in the apocalyptic pall of smoke.

Rescued Kangaroos

Should Christians pray for rain in the midst of disaster? It seems so quaint or desperate to ask the Creator to douse the flames of a disaster which has almost certainly been exacerbated by human activity. Australia's current government has denied the imminent threat of the climate crisis and now thousands have taken to the streets in outrage.

Yet if marches are a legitimate response to this crisis prayers surely are as well. They are not a replacement for responsible action about the fires themselves and their causes, but for people of faith to implore God, the maker of all, to bring relief just makes sense. 

Archbishop Fisher composed a Collect for the Mass for Rain: “O God, in whom we live and move and have our being, grant us sufficient rain so that, being supplied with what sustains us in this present life, we may seek more confidently what sustains us for eternity.”

The Rev. Tony Hill, a parish priest in the Diocese of Sandhurst, Victoria, has written “A Prayer in the Face of the Terror of Bushfires.”

“God our loving Father, we are subject to the whims and impulses of our natural world... be with all victims who have lost their homes, their animals, their crops, their livelihood. 

Bless the many volunteers who support our firefighters with food and drink and all those who give to those left with nothing. We pray too for killed or injured wildlife; both native and domestic, and for trees and plant life that have been destroyed.

“Send out your spirit and renew the face of our injured and wounded land and all her people.”

Farewell John Crosbie & a Way of Life

 Master Mariner -- David Blackwood

Therefore the land mourns,
   and all who live in it languish;
together with the wild animals
   and the birds of the air,
   even the fish of the sea are perishing.

Hosea 4:3

When I was sent to Newfoundland in 1980 as a newly ordained United Church minister I learned about what was at that time a declining inshore fishery in a day of factory trawlers. I served five preaching points, five communities where three had numerous men (it was all men) heading out in boats under twenty feet in length to catch several species, although lobster was the most lucrative. There had been a time when boats similar to those caught cod commercially, but federal and Newfoundland governments encouraged fishers to invest in expensive trawlers which were very lucrative but were clear-cutting the ocean floor and sucking up what was once considered an inexhaustible cod stock. 

Then the cod were all but gone, and both those governments shut down the fishery. A way of life ended as 35,000 fishermen and plant workers from over 400 coastal communities were thrown out of work. An while there has been some recovery in the nearly thirty years since the moratorium it will never be the same. This past September we spent three weeks on Change Islands, Newfoundland, adjacent to Fogo Island. The fish plant there and on Fogo were both processing cod but there will never be a large scale fishery again. In the communities I served there are only handful of people who derive a living from the sea today. 

I am reminiscing about this because the federal fisheries ministry at the time of the moratorium in 1992, John Crosbie, has died only days before his 89th birthday. This means that Crosbie was born in pre-Confederation Newfoundland and would have been well aware of the days when cod was king in the economy of the dominion, then province. Crosbie was feisty and funny and blunt to the point of being bellicose -- a true Newfoundlander. He was an extremely unpopular man when he announced the closing of the cod fishery, but it was a "shoot the messenger" situation. When confronted in one community he yelled, "I didn’t take the fish from the goddamn water, so don’t go abusing me.



It is so important to remember that the abundance God has created on this planet cannot be abused and exploited without consequence. The arrogance of humanity has its perils, and even places where conservation has been a priority are vulnerable. When we were in Iceland a couple of years ago the guide on a one-day tour bragged about their sustainable cod fishery and pointed out the failure of ours. But cod have been moving north from Iceland, creating a crisis in their industry as well. It is likely because climate change is warming their waters, and massive tourism to that island nation is a contributor. 

Well, rest in peace, John Crosbie. 

Remembering an Indigenous Iranian

Ghanimat Azhdari

Yesterday I listened to a University of Guelph (one of my alma maters) professor speak about an Iranian graduate student named Ghanimat Azhdari who died in the crash of a plane which had just taken off from Tehran airport. She had only been a U of  G student for a few months but the prof  was obviously very impressed by  Azhdari, a member of the nomadic Qashqai tribe in Iran, who was doing research in the college of social and applied human sciences at the university, mapping and cataloging Iran's indigenous nomadic communities. 



Azhdari was a rigorous scientist but she also spoke about the sacred mountains and rivers. She was convinced that the scientific and spiritual were intertwined, which is common to many Indigenous cultures and a regular theme, including in yesterday's blog entry. She shared with colleagues the reverence for the natural world in her tribe's culture, including music and dance. 

While she was home in Iran over the break she sent back photos of her region, for which she had a great love. In fact she sent several pictures just before she boarded the plane. The professor was so stricken with grief as he spoke that he paused to shed some tears, a touching tribute to a student who had invited him to visit her homeland at a later date. 

This death and all the others are a terrible loss for Iran and for Canada, where so many of those who died resided. As we remember them in our prayers we can also pray for the protection of the wild beauty of Iran which Azhdari cherished. 



Zagros Mountains Iran