Advent 1: Hope

2 December 2012: ADVENT I—HOPE

Jeremiah 33:14-16

¹⁴ “‘The days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.

¹⁵ “‘In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. ¹⁶ In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety.
This is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteous Saviour.’”

Luke 21:25-36

²⁵ “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ²⁷ At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁹ He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. ³⁰ When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. ³¹ Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³² “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³³ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

³⁴ “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap. ³⁵ For it will come on all those who live on the face of the whole earth. ³⁶ Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.”

Introduction

Every year we come to this moment, just after American Thanksgiving (which somehow seems to define the Christmas season, even for Canadians). The stores have big sales that push them into the “black”—a meaning for Black Friday, for any Friday, with which Christians should struggle. Cyber Monday follows, as so many of us make the push to get our Christmas shopping done.

Then we get to church and we are reminded: It is not yet Christmas. First we remember Advent. First we prepare. We get ready for the coming, the advent, of the baby in the manger. First we look again at our world and ourselves and begin the difficult process of making sure that we are ready, that we can be ready, when the angels sing their tidings of great joy.

Thoughts on the Texts

1. Remembering the first coming always draws our attention also to the Second Coming, when Jesus returns in power and great glory and draws all things to himself. The texts we read refer to both comings. Jeremiah heralds the birth of the heir of David’s line; Jesus refers to his return.

Yet the two comings do not divide so neatly. Jeremiah heralds also Christ’s return. “In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety”: These words do not describe what happened when Jesus was alive, or what happened in the century following his death and resurrection. Still less do we see Jerusalem at peace and in safety today. God’s people (whether we think of the Jews or of the Church) still live scattered and persecuted. Something remains to be done.

And when Jesus describes the end, he says: ²⁵ “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ²⁷ At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Clearly Jesus is referring to the end of all things; but then he continues: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. ³⁰ When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. ³¹ Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³² Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ³³ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

We have used these words to guess at his return, and that may be what he meant. But it seems at least as likely to me that these words refer both to his coming death and resurrection as well as to the consummation in the future. One commentator observes that Jesus may have meant his own impending death and resurrection, but that Mark and Luke (who recorded these words) apply them to his return. In any case, we take Jesus’ first and second coming together: The one reminds us of and prepares us for the other.

A brief aside: “This generation will not pass away until all these things have happened.” The difficulty these words cause disappears if Jesus was referring to his own death and resurrection. But even if Jesus meant his final return, the difficulty is only in the way we take “this generation”. Another commentator notes that it means something like “the generation of humans on earth”. In other words, “People will not die out before I bring everything to its proper end.”

2. A second thought: These words are words of hope. Jesus came into this world to bring us hope. Jesus’ return is the guarantee that our hope is rooted in reality.

Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet. If anyone lived without seeing their hope realized, it was Jeremiah. He prophesied constantly that Babylon would destroy Judah—and so they did. He warned the remnant in the land not to flee to Egypt, not to fight against their Babylonian rulers. They ignored him and carried him off with them into Egypt, where he died, never seeing the hope that he proclaimed. Jeremiah complained bitterly to God, but he did not give up hope in God; and when God told him to buy a field at Anathoth (Jer 32), he did so.

So when Jeremiah speaks the hope of future peace and security for Jerusalem and for God’s Chosen People, he held to that hope in spite of his own great distress.

This past Sunday was Christ the King Sunday—the last Sunday before Advent. Lissa Wray Beal, our OT professor at Providence spoke in chapel on the theme of Christ the King, using Zechariah 9 as her text. Hear the prophet:

⁹ Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. ¹⁰ I will take away the chariots from Ephraim and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and the battle bow will be broken. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

¹¹ As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit. ¹² Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you. ¹³ I will bend Judah as I bend my bow and fill it with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece, and make you like a warrior’s sword.

Verse 13 locates the historical context of Zechariah’s words: slaves under Babylon, who have become slaves under Persia, and now live as slaves under Alexander the Great’s successors, the “Sons of Greece”. They knew what it meant to live as slaves and prisoners in a foreign land.

But Zechariah calls God’s People something else in verse 12: “Return…you prisoners of hope”! Prisoners of hope! What can it mean to live as a prisoner of hope?

Jesus tells us: ²⁵ “There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. ²⁶ People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ²⁷ At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. ²⁸ When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

Look Around Us Today

We live in a world divided between those who have more than they need and those who have almost nothing. Increasingly people are imprisoned by poverty and wealth.

You know the parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew 25. Often we use the parable to remind us that we should take care of “the least of these, my brothers.”  That is a good application of this passage, but there is something deeper, more powerful. Everywhere else in the gospels, the term “my brothers” refers to the disciples. One reading of this text is that Jesus is telling us how the Gentiles are judged: by how they respond to his followers, whom they find in those who are marginalized and oppressed. This remains true for us today. We find not only God’s people, but God’s Messiah himself, the King, when we meet the marginalized of the world.

Malcolm Guite is a “priest, chaplain, and teacher at the University of Cambridge.”  He has written a sonnet on the parable of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew 25.

Sonnet: Christ the King—Matthew 25: 31-46

Malcolm Guite

Our king is calling from the hungry furrows

Whilst we are cruising through the aisles of plenty,

Our hoardings screen us from the man of sorrows,

Our soundtracks drown his murmur: “I am thirsty”.

He stands in line to sign in as a stranger

And seek a welcome from the world he made,

We see him only as a threat, a danger,

He asks for clothes, we strip-search him instead.

 

And if he fall sick then we take care

That he does not infect our private health,

We lock him in the prisons of our fear

Lest he unlock the prison of our wealth.

But still on Sunday we shall stand and sing

The praises of our hidden Lord and King.

 

And With Us?

Where is Freedom? Note that those who hope are those who have nothing. Those who have something do not have hope—they don’t need it, so they can’t have it. Those who have nothing, have hope. Those who have something, have no hope.

Perhaps this is the basic lesson for us as we begin the season of Advent. Thanksgiving and Christmas teach us to think of how much we have. Advent reminds us that our wealth can become our prison. If we want to be ready for the coming of Jesus, we have to discover our poverty, our need, and so become a prisoner of hope.

The truth is, of course, that it is not only the materially poor who live in great need. I think of one a friend who has what most would call "a good life". Recently she did a chapel presentation on her own struggle with depression, in which one realizes that she came face to face with herself as helpless in the grip of her depression. It was in that helpless state that she found hope.

I believe that it is always when we discover our essential poverty in this life that we become “prisoners of hope”, able to receive the King of the Universe. Mental and emotional health is one of the most common ways that we experience helplessness in our affluent society; but the discovery comes through every way in which we realize that without God we are adrift in a hostile universe, destined to disappear into the cold vastness of space. Think of the feeling of facing Hurricane Sandy on the East Coast last month, helpless in the face of the storm.

This discovery sets us free to become fully at human in the wonderful vitality of God’s presence. G. K. Chesterton expresses what I have been saying in a profound hymn.

O God of earth and altar, bow down and hear our cry,

Our earthly rulers falter, our people drift and die;

The walls of gold entomb us, the swords of scorn divide,

Take not thy thunder from us, but take away our pride.

 

From all that terror teaches, from lies of tongue and pen,

From all the easy speeches that comfort cruel men,

From sale and profanation of honour, and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation, deliver us, good Lord!

 

Tie in a living tether the prince and priest and thrall,

Bind all our lives together, smite us and save us all;

In ire and exultation aflame with faith, and free,

Lift up a living nation, a single sword to thee.

Back to the Text

All of this is a general truth, found throughout Scripture. Our text locates the heart of this truth in the coming of Jesus into our world. It is not an idea that lives in some abstract space, unrelated to the historical specifics of our lives. Rather, we encounter God in the very concrete entrance of God into human history in the first coming of Jesus. And the promised return of Jesus at the end of history is as real as his first coming.

I have been reading J.B. Phillips, Ring of Truth: A Translator’s Testimony. He observes about this strand in the NT: “But the prophetic vision goes far beyond this. It envisages the end of life on this planet, when so to speak, eternity irrupts into time. There is no time-scale: there rarely is in such an earthbound factor in prophetic vision. …

This is the preparation, the training-ground, the place where God begins his work of making us into what he wants us to be. But it is not our home. We are warned again and again not to value this world as permanency. Neither our security nor our true wealth is rooted in this passing life. We are strangers and pilgrims and while we are under the pressure of love to do all that we can to help our fellows, we should not expect a world which is largely God-resisting to become some earthly paradise.” (Phillips, 1967, 77f.)

I like that: “This is the preparation, the training-ground, the place where God begins his work of making us into what he wants us to be.” We anticipate Jesus’ return, because our hope lies in the truth that this world is preparation, what C.S. Lewis called “the shadow-lands”, less real than the reality that awaits us in eternity with God.

A Closing Illustration

Let me close with an anecdote from his life that Phillips tells in this little book: pp89f.

“Let me say at once that I am incredulous by nature, and as unsuperstitious as they come. … But from time to time in life strange things occur which convince me that ‘there are more things in heaven and earth,’ John Robinson and friends, ‘than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ….

                Many of us who believe in what is technically known as the Communion of Saints must have experienced the sense of nearness, for a fairly short time, of those whom we love soon after they have died. This has certainly happened to me several times. But the late C.S. Lewis, whom I did not know very well, and had only seen in the flesh once, but with whom I had corresponded a fair amount, gave me an unusual experience. A few days after his death, while I was sitting watching television, he ‘appeared’ sitting in a chair within a few feet of me, and spoke a few words which were particularly relevant to the difficult circumstances through which I was passing. He was ruddier in complexion than ever, grinning all over his face and, as the old-fashioned saying has it, positively glowing with health. The interesting thing to me was that I had not been thinking about him at all. I was neither alarmed nor surprised … . He was just there – ‘large as life and twice as natural’! A week later, this time when I was in bed reading before going to sleep, he appeared again, even more rosily radiant than before, and repeated the same message, which was very important to me at the time. I was a little puzzled by this, and I mentioned it to a certain saintly Bishop who was then living in retirement here in Dorset. His reply was, ‘My dear [John], this sort of thing is happening all the time’.”

We wait for Christ, anticipating our entry into the reality God gives us, and living now according to that final reality.

Chipmunk 2012 Redux

Actually, I'm not bringing back the chipmunk that the neighbour's cat killed for us. I don't want him back; but we just downloaded some summer pictures from our camera, and that gives me an opportunity to show the bird feeder raider at work. Cute little fellow. I'm glad he's gone, and sorry that he had to go.

 

Beginning Examples

I have no time to blog in the coming week, so here a thought as I drop out: Someone asked in response to the last post if voting for a compromiser isn't the same as voting for nothing. Don't we have to stand on principle?

Yes we do stand on principle. That was one of my points in the first post in this series. Everyone should be free to speak on the basis of their own principles -- to speak freely and to be heard. But we have conflicting principles, and we have to find ways to work together.

Example: Some want politicians who hold to the principle of a balanced budget. No compromise allowed! But even business people who are the most fiscally conservative are willing to run a deficit if conditions require it. They know that cash flow is as important as the annual bottom line. And families are willing to take on long-term debt to buy a house. I believe (with the fiscal conservatives) that balanced budgets are basic to our national health. But when someone signs a pledge to never under any circumstances vote for a measure outside of that principle, we get the gridlock we see in Washington. Sometimes compromise is necessary.

Example: I am a pacifist (I prefer to say "non-resistant" or that I hold the peace position taught by Jesus). I am predisposed to oppose any military action of any kind. Ever. If I make my principle a hill to die on, I also use my peace principle to create conflict. Sometimes compromise is necessary.

Example: Proponents of abortion on demand ("pro-choice" to use their own language) support measures in the Access to Health Care bill that compel doctors and nurses to do abortions, regardless of their own religious convictions. The refusal to compromise the principle of choice becomes destructive of religious freedom. Sometimes compromise is necessary.

Hold on to your principles. We are lost without them. We can't think at all clearly unless we have and live by principles. But listen to the other: He/she is also a person of good will with real principles. We have to work together to make our country work.

Keep on Listening. Keep on Speaking.

Part 3. I'm trying to lay out some basic ideas about how to listen and speak in civic conversations about issues that polarize Americans and Canadians. I don't want to tackle the issues directly, but to see if there is some basic way that we might speak with each other to find a path forward in contentious areas.

So far I have argued that many of our differences come from the assumptions about life with which we approach the discussion. Some people say that only secular assumptions are permissible, but I have argued that people who are religious and those who say they are non-religious both argue from their own fundamental framework. Honesty suggests that we state what we believe up front, and courtesy suggests that we listen respectfully to those with whom we disagree. But are honesty and courtesy enough? Thus part 3.

In the present situation, when someone makes their case we tend to listen only long enough to discover whether he/she is supporting our beliefs. The comments that appear under news stories online show how little anyone is listening -- respectfully or otherwise. Is there an alternative?

I suggest that we listen with at least one purpose and on the basis of at least one assumption. 1) We assume that the other intends something good. When Republicans look for ways to cut the budget, we do not assume that their intention is to hurt poor people. When Democrats look for ways to help the unemployed, we do not assume that their intention is to hurt the wealthy. When those who call themselves pro-life oppose abortion on demand, we do not assume that their intention is to control women. When those who call themselves pro-choice support abortion on demand, we do not assume that their intention is to kill babies.

2) Our purpose? To discover what the other's best intentions are. We do not need to agree. We may hold that their actions will contradict their intentions. But our first step is to hear the other clearly.

Of course, when we engage in these conversations we want to convince other people that we are right. Does this approach mean that we just talk at each other and take notes to pass a test later? Can we still argue and debate and seek to persuade?

Of course we can. Indeed, we should. But it does mean that we argue civilly; we present our case respectfully; we recognize that we can be wrong; we seek to learn as well as to convince.

Perhaps we could take one simple step. Whenever a politician or other public figure presents their case, we can ask him/her: "Are you willing to compromise?" If they say, "No. I will stand on principle," we can let them know we will not support them. Those whose principles lead them to be inflexible and unable to listen cannot lead a country comprised of different and disagreeing groups of people.

So How Do We Speak? And Listen?

Yesterday I argued that everyone speaks from within some framework. When we engage in civic conversation in the public square, we speak on the basis of certain assumptions--religious or secular. Sometimes people will suggest that those who speak from religious assumptions should not do so, on the basis that they do not share those assumptions. But we all speak from some ground. We all assume a framework for living. So how do we speak to each other? And how can we listen?

This format--writing in a blog with limited follow-up--encourages oversimplification, and I doubt that I am able to probe the question in great depth anyway. So the suggestions that follow are simple and somewhat surface; but I offer them as a starting point.

1) When we speak, we should be open about our own stance towards life. If you speak as a Christian, say so. If you speak as a Jew, say so. If you speak as a secular person say so. Honesty is a virtue. When a candidate for the Supreme Court can say that his Christian faith will make no difference to his deliberations on the bench, I wonder what kind of self-deception he is engaging in. Who we are should inform what we think and say. So, step one: be honest about your presuppositions, your assumptions about life, your own framework for living.

2) When we listen, we should be ready to listen to those who speak from frameworks different than our own. Christians can listen to secularists. Atheists can listen to Muslims. Secular people and Theistic people should be able to hear each other.

3) When we start with different presuppositions, we will come out with different conclusions to the same data. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes it clear that in Canada the rights of the individual trump the rights of the community. There are community rights, but individual rights are paramount. From this basic assumption about life there flow privacy laws that make complete sense -- if the rights of individual are primary.

Many (perhaps most) societies give the primary right to something other than the individual -- to the family, or to the community (whatever that is), or to the State. Privacy laws as they exist in Canada make no sense in these societies. Different starting points lead to different conclusions, even when we have the same data.

4) We can listen to and hear different positions based on assumptions with which we disagree. We can listen respectfully and carefully, even as we continue to disagree.

5) We can learn from positions with which we disagree. We may continue to disagree, but starting from a different place in the argument allows us to see things that we do not see when we remain only in our own framework.

Applying these simple ideas to the conversation about Bill M-312, to which I referred yesterday: The proponents of the bill want to redefine human life so that a baby is legally human before birth as well as after. Those who oppose them recognize the political tactic intended to re-open the debate over abortion on demand. Accordingly they respond with vitriol and closed minds. there is a fundamentalism of secular zealots as well as of Muslims and Christians.

If they would set their own framework aside for a moment, they could perhaps hear the concern for human life that makes for a genuinely "pro-life" concern. Try to hear what the bill's proponents are saying -- don't commit to agreeing; just try to understand.

Then turn it around. Proponents of the bill can be just as vitriolic and closed-minded. Instead of accusing those who oppose the bill of being baby killers, try to hear their concerns clearly. What past actions and experiences lead people to be so afraid of the larger community telling women what they may do with their bodies? How has the larger society dehumanized women (among others)? Try to hear what the bill's opponents are saying -- don't commit to agreeing, just try to understand.

Simple steps, and incredibly difficult to carry out. Try repeating them when discussing same sex marriage. It is much easier just to decide that the person you disagree with is evil; but that approach leads to destruction. We're trying to build a country together, and we need each other far too much not to try to understand and learn from each other.

What Ground Do You Stand On?

I've been thinking, wondering how to encourage the kind of civic conversation that can move ahead constructively in our powerfully polarized environment.

A case in point. A private member in the Canadian Parliament has introduced as bill to redefine the meaning of "human life" in Canadian Law (Bill M-312). The bill had no chance of passing because it was perceived as (and intended as) a way to re-open the debate in Canada about abortion on demand. As a result, a full term infant five minutes before birth is not "human life" and five minutes after is.

I have little interest in arguing either side here. The comments that follow such news stories illustrates how pointless and polarized such debates are. Instead I want to use the case to examine the basic process of civic discussion as it now exists.

The usual argument for abortion on demand -- at least if the comments to the stories are any guide -- is that women have the ultimate right to decide what happens with their own bodies. The argument is compelling and should (I believe) carry a great deal of weight. the usual argument against abortion on demand is that the fetus being aborted is human, and that human life deserves the same protection under law as any other person. This argument is also compelling. One can see why some object to redefining the status in law of the fetus.

Again, I do not want to pursue the argument here. I want to examine the process.

Both sides make a strong case. Both sides start from clear assumptions, which they develop into a coherent position. The trouble is that their assumptions are sharply different. Often those who oppose abortion begin with assumptions drawn from a Christian or Judaic framework for living. But if they refer to their beliefs as Jews or Christians in making their case, they are told immediately that religion has no place in a civic conversation. "I don't believe the Bible, so you can't use it in this discussion."

What is not admitted is that those who oppose limits on the individual's right to control her own body also proceed from a religious framework. I define religion as a system that seeks to make sense of life and to answer ultimate questions about life. So naturalism -- the belief that there is nothing more than natural realities -- is religious in form, even if it is not an historic world religion. Similarly the secular worldview that makes the individual the basic building block of society functions as a religious framework for living.

So when people argue the case for abortion on demand, they build on specific philosophical and religious assumptions about the nature of life and of the whole of reality. If the Christian or Jew (someone, for example, such as David Novak, professor in Judaic studies at the University of Toronto and author of The Sanctity of Human Life, 2007) cannot use his/her framework for understanding life, then neither may the secular person, or the Buddhist, or the naturalist, or anyone.

We all speak from some ground when we speak. We all speak with basic assumptions about life and the nature of reality. Accepting that basic fact would be a step forward in the civic conversation -- whether about the meaning of human life in Canadian Law, or the way that we should respond to immigration policies in Canada, or about any other subject.

In a future blog I will ask what such a conversation might look like. At this point it is enough to say that the current conversation looks imperialistic -- the rule of whoever can shout the loudest and beat the other down. Such imperialism is the preserve of no one group. From Muslims to Christians to Secular people to the "non-religious": every one of us is capable of trying to win the argument by mobilizing force and destroying the other. I want to stop that and ask instead, when you speak, what ground do you stand on?

Life and Death on the Prairies

If I had been quicker with the camera, this would be an illustrated post. Maybe sometime I will post pictures of the chipmunk at its centre. This critter took up residence in the hole left by last year's prairie dog. We saw him from time to time raiding the bird feeders.

Lois and I worked out a plan to scare him, and scare him good. One bird feeder is beside the sliding doors to the patio. When we saw him through the glass doors, we moved quietly to the garage. Lois went around the house, picking up and stretching out the garden hose as far as it would go. I gave her a minute to get in position, then I burst from the garage onto the patio yelling like a maniac and charging the terrified chipmunk. He ran around the corner of the house -- straight into a blast of water.

Plan worked. But its only long-term effect was to make the chipmunk much harder to see. Then one day the chipmunk died. Or rather, the neighbour's cat caught the chipmunk. Based on the remains, they were a pair -- so we were headed for lots and lots of little critters raiding our bird feeders.

First I found a tail. Then I found another tail. Then later I saw the chipmunk himself lying on his side, apparently sleeping, but quite dead.

I confess to some sadness on his/her demise. I don't like seeing living beings killed, even though the circle of life is being demonstrated. But we also feel real relief at their death (maybe three of them?). Our feelings towards the neighbour's cat have also changed. He/She has stalked the birds sometimes, but they generally get away. We didn't like the stalking, but we really do like the freedom from chipmunks the cat has provided.

Now to find those prairie dog-chipmunk holes and fill them in before something else takes up residence!

Some Thoughts

My sister blogged on Paterno's (and Penn State's) fall here. Since it is unfair for me to post on my sister's blog and embroil her in debating the penalties handed out to Penn State by the NCAA, I set out some brief thoughts in my own blog.

One of the comments on her blog (from "Pebbles") said essentially that we should have no pity on the perpetrators -- they deseerve whatever they get. Whether or not this is correct, it at least suggests that we be sure we know who the "perpetrators" are. I have no quarrel with the trial and entencing of Sandusky. One may feel revulsion, sympathy, outrage -- whatever, with Sandusky; but he was charged and tried and convicted. And his crime is the greater in that no punishment can fix the damage he did to the lives of so many young boys in his charge.

But what of Penn State? And of Paterno? Two brief thoughts, concerning the process and the penalty.

1) The process: The essential charge against Penn State is that too much power was concentrated in the hands of too few people, most notably in Paterno's hands. But the process concentrated even greater power first in the Freeh Report -- one investigator's reading of the events -- and second in the NCAA commissioner's action. Freeh thus acts as prosecuting attorney and judge, with the NCAA meting out the penalty. Since the penalty requires us to believe that Paterno willfully covered up something that he knew and understood well, and since that charge is sharply at variance with 50 years of experience with Paterno in the public eye, it requires more process than an investigator handing down his own judgment. There is no place for Paterno or the university to make their defence. Without a real defence we have something like a lynching, not justice -- for the victims, for Sandusky, for Paterno, for Penn State.

2) The penalty: The penalty should be and is levied against Sandusky -- tried and convicted in a court of law. One commentator noted that when Baylor's coach tried to cover up a crime of murder involving one of his players, the NCAA refused to get involved on the grounds that it was a criminal offense. The courts are the ones to levy such penalties, not the NCAA. As it stands, the penalties are handed down with no due process, either in the Freeh Report or in the NCAA's own actions.

What I found most revealing was the decision to strip Paterno of 13 years of victories. That decision seems merely vindictive. Fines in excess of one billion dollars (including the loss of Big Ten revenue), plus loss of scholarships, and then the young men who had no part in any way in the events in question are told that they did not win anything, but simply forfeited?


There is talk of further legal action -- against Spanier for the alleged cover-up, and against Penn State for damages. One benefit of such action would be a real legal process, not just for the sake of justice for the victims, but so that we can know if the NCAA got it right, or if they were simply a lynch mob. Either way, the whole epsiode is a cause of grief for everyone involved.

One might ask what I think happened, what I think Paterno (and the university) did. I don't know. I would not be surprised, if we could learn the full truth, to discover that Paterno knew more than he admitted, and that he really did not understand what he was facing. It might seem odd to think that someone in his 70s, with so widfe experience of football, could be naive; but that may indeed be the case. Such naivety is no excuse; but it is a far cry from the charge of deliberately withholding information that Paterno knew to be true.

It also fits better with the local community's experience of someone who lived in a modest house beside a local park and used his high salary more for the bnenefit of the university than for himself (witness the Paterno Library). And with the experience of someone who insisted on his players holding higher academic standards than almost any other NCAA school. The charge was made in the past that Paterno didn't care enough about winning, because he really did want to build young men of good character.

My own sense at this point is that Paterno was better than he is being protrayed, and that he and Spanier took steps in 2001 that were wrong. Even granting a tragic naivety does not excuse him; as Freeh and the Commissioner stated, too much power was concentrated in his hands. But it reminds us that the one who committed so many crimes was Sandusky, not Paterno.

Some judgment and penalty is needed, but not a lynching.

Understanding

I'm currently participating in a mildly sporadic way in a conversation on the facebook Mennonite Church Canada page. I am impressed again with how difficult real understanding is. We assume quickly that the other's comments make sense (or not), which means also that we assume quickly that we know what the other has said. In fact, usually we don't.

I like the MCCanada discussion because the participants keep going while trying to figure out what others have said; the contrast with public sites is great. (Try going to CBC, for example, and reading all the comments made on news stories there. CBC is mild; CNN much worse; other sites are just depressing.) But even with great goodwill and a lot of effort, I suspect we don't understand each other well at all.

If we are going to understand each other at all in the conversations of life, we have to begin with a profound commitment to hear the other person. A negative counter-example is the failure of participants in the Anglican Communion to hear each other when they discuss whether or not they should ordain practicing homosexuals as Anglican priests. African Bishops have been quoted as asking North American Bishops if they would like prayer to have the demons possessing them cast out. One can guess that the African Bishops really don't understand what their North American counterparts are really saying.

But the North Americans fare no better; they speak in even worse terms. I remember listening to Bishop Sponge on a Minnesota Public Radio program. He stated that the African Bishops are unsophisticated, too primitive to understand the issue at hand. His language was frankly racist, and it was quite clear that he (and the North American Bishops in general) does not understand his African counterparts.

Do we do better, we Mennonites? Not necessarily. Wave Franklin Graham in front of our noses, and we react strongly enough to make me suspicious.

When someone sounds convinced that their case is complete and is convinced that those who disagree with them are morally or intellectually deficient, I get suspicious. I begin to wonder if we have really understood the other. I suggest some basic presuppositions in any conversation:
1) Assume that the other person is smart enough to have something worth saying.
2) Assume that the other person may be right in what they think.
3) Assume that the other person may not have understood my point.
4) Assume that I may be right in what I think.
5) Assume that real understanding takes significant conversation back and forth -- pushing each other and testing each other in the search for meaning.
6) Assume that something in the wrong position is right and worth learning from.

These are simple points. They are not exhaustive. I don't practice them consistently. But they give me a place to start in all my conversations online and in person.

The Great Feast

A barren feast before them spread
The table long and bare.
A tuneless song discordant rose
As dancers stumbled round
More fight, more flight, than dance,
With droning in the dark.

Reason surveyed her realm in wonder
Harsh laughter grated on her ears.
The feast of reason should be rich
Debauched with thought and not with fists--
Reason, not might, makes right, but all around the dancers clutched and struggled,
Grew silent, sobbed and wept
For the barren feast of reason.

Around the outer ring the judges sat,
Stern faces, eyes without laughter, songless tongues,
And condemned riotous reason.
Clouded and blinded with cataracts of faith.
Faith judges her sister;
Together her followers judge the chaos and the void.

Then a voice of gentle thunder,
Eyes gleaming like lightning in love,
Breaks through the formless empty strife
With the word: "Let there be!"
Life, love, laughter
Food, drink, dance, song,
Faith and Reason--let there be!

The sisters turn and face each other
Tentative steps and fearful smiles.
They join hands together and begin
So slowly at first
To dance, to sing--faster, joyously they sing and dance.

The table is filled with food and drink
The richest and best of fare.
Dancers follow in perfect step with laughter and with jest.
Arguments follow, grounded in Faith
Belief grows stronger, tempered with Reason.

When Faith and reason meet, great feast and joy!
Sober Reason, Buoyant Faith
Joyous Reason, Sensible Faith
Hands joined, singing in the garden, dancing in the city
When faith and reason meet.

Daryl Climenhaga
28 March 2012

The Razor that Keeps on Giving

Part 4. I have now used the new razor. I feel like a traitor, but it is better than the one I got 45 years ago. No surprise, I suppose -- four blades lined up in one against my oild single-edged blade. But then Lois gave me a shock, I have two razors -- the first one (a Schick) I ever got, and an interloper from Gilette that arrived in the mail. Now I have three.

Lois was doing her regular shopping and picked up some shampoo, when her friend pointed out that the same container of shampoo on another shelf had a courtesy razor attached. Gilette really wants to get these things into people's hands! So now I ahve three razors.

The reason Gilette does this is clear enough. The razor itself costs about $15 to $20. The balde cartidges are about $25 for a four pack. they're trying to get me hooked! Six dollars a cartridge, compared to my old single-edged blade at $1 each. Oh well, it does give a nice shave ....

The Razor (Part 3)

We just visited home for Christmas -- drive to Minneapolis; train to South Bend; rent a car and drive to Harrisburg. Drive back to Greenville and then South Bend. Fly to Minneapolis; and drive home. Events and people: wedding in Minneapolis, sister and brother-in-law in IN, parents and son and girlfriend (and other son and daughter-in-law [and dog] and other sister), mother, sons and wife+girlfriend and dog, friends in Minneapolis, and finally northwards and home! If it makes your head spin, ours certainly were.

At my Dad's a surprise awaited -- a razor sent by Gillette (I think) for our older son on his 16th birthday (13+ years ago). Since none of us lived anywhere nearby then, the razor became my father's instead. A double-edged razor of the old kind. Younger than my razor (two posts ago), but harking back to yet earlier days.

I did not use it. Vaughn did not take it. It remains with Dad, reminding us of days long past. We stand on the edge of a New Year, having shaved off 2011 and watched it fall to the ground behind us. I stand still between two razors -- a simple single-edged Schick, and a fancy dandy new Gillette arrived (of course) unsolicited in the mail. Between past and present, and embracing both.

The Devil's Razor

Gillette must have read my blog. No sooner do I refer to my faithful Schick, used since 1968, than a package arrives in the mail. A promotional from Shoppers here in town, including a new ProGlide Gillette razor.

What to do? I had just proclaimed my undying loyalty to the razor that had stood the test of time, shaving my scanty beard for 43 years, when a competitor arrives in my house and sits invitingly on the counter! What to do?

I suppose I will use it. I guess I'll at least try it (although my light facial hair hardly needs four carefully calibrated blades to provide extra comfort. The devil's razor to tempt me, or an unexpected blessing from Shoppers? (I was going to say "from God", but I don't want to exalt a local pharmacy to that status.)

Penn State

Joe Paterno. Extraordinary coach—remarkable man—enduring, committed to the right—now we add the flaw that reminds us he is as human as you and I.

What do we make of the events of the past month in which Paterno’s legacy was tarnished by the revelations of his former assistant, Sandusky, showering with many, many young boys while serving as their mentor and friend? What do we make of the likelihood that such “showering” was a cover or stimulus for pedophilia? What do we make of Paterno’s failure to pursue the discovery of this activity after Sandusky left Penn State, but while still a coach emeritus? What do we make of Sandusky’s claims that there was no sexual activity, only horsing around?

My sister wrote in her blog using the words from David’s lament at the death of Saul and Jonathon, “How are the mighty fallen!” She expressed well both the real goodness, indeed greatness of Paterno’s legacy, and the real and destructive failure of the university—including Paterno—to deal with the knowledge they had.

I don’t know what more the university should have done. Report the matter to the police? It seems that they did (although I find it difficult to know who really did what), but without pursuing the matter as vigorously as they should have. Reports were made up the chain of authority within the university. I hear people say, “Paterno was king, therefore he carries the greatest responsibility.” That makes little sense to me: Paterno, like any of us in the academic world, worked within a chain of authority, which he honoured as he should have. Certainly that chain failed.

I do know that we can hardly grasp how destructive Sandusky’s activity was. I think of a friend who tried to respond to similar activity within the church, and found the aftermath so destructive that he eventually took his own life. Even if the actions had not been with young boys, what was done with the victims without their consent was and is terribly destructive.

I still do not know how culpable Sandusky was. We’re waiting for the victims to tell their story, so that we can evaluate Sandusky’s claims that he was “horsing around”, but did not engage in sexual actions with the boys. On the face of it the claim seems unlikely, but we must listen to the boys before we make up our minds. I still do not know if Paterno should have been fired. He was at least naïve in his response, underestimating the seriousness of Sandusky’s actions.

I notice several other facts about our society in the aftermath.
There was a remarkable rush to judgment, with the sports media especially deciding they knew all the facts from the start.
We readily judge past actions based on present knowledge. It’s ironic that Paterno the football coach should be condemned by Monday morning quarterbacks. He himself agrees now, with what he knows now, that he should have done more. As a society we are convinced that we would have done more than he did—so good is our view after the event.
We continue to underestimate the destructive potential of wrong actions, such as Sandusky’s actions in showering with the boys. The showers may have begun innocently; they can hardly have continued so. (I am as sceptical as anyone, although I want to wait for a fuller version of the story.)

I think of one good result of Paterno’s final failure. I listened to the first game after he was fired, on Lion radio on the internet. Every commercial break included information about child abuse and efforts to persuade us to take abuse more seriously and bring it to an end. When Penn State was driving for what would have been the winning score (except that the drive failed), the students took up their iconic chant: “We are! Penn State!” It was a spine-chilling moment, and then there was a timeout—and a radio break. The chant was replaced with the reminder to end sexual abuse of children. The emotion of the game was framed in proper perspective.

In time perhaps we can recover a real sense of Paterno’s enduring legacy—a great man and great coach, who is as human as you and I, flawed and able to make serious mistakes in assessing another person’s actions. In time perhaps we can rediscover college football as a wonderful pastime. Framed within the far more serious and enduring task of relating to each other and taking care of each other the way that God intended us to. Ending abuse—abuse of children, abuse of any other person—is greater than any Penn State game. I think Paterno would agree and would be glad to see steps towards that goal as the best part of his own life. I hope he would agree.

The Razor of Time

In 1968 I bought my first (and only) razor. Then last month we visited Nevin and Ali in South Bend. It was a good visit. I attended a conference in Elkhart (the final celebratory gathering of the Global Mennonite History Project) and Lois spent time with N and A in their new house.

In order to do this together, we flew to TO, then drove from TO to SB in a rental car. That meant that I had to place my razor in the checked luggage for the first and last stretch of the journey. In between we drove. It was a good drive south, except for the hour spent sitting in line at the border at Sarnia. A small tip: Don't cross when everyone is going home.

The visit and conference were great. Breakfast with my sister and brother-in-law. A banquet at which we (Lois and Nevin and Ali joined me) sat with Paul and Nancy and reminisced and enjoyed. Then the drive back through Sarnia -- five minutes max this time. A small tip: Sunday afternoons are good for crossing the border.

Monday was excellent. Spent the night in Vaughn's micro-rental: 300 square feet near the U of T. Lovely spot (and small). Walked around the university and environs, and ate a breakfast in one place and lunch in another (a lovely Thai restaurant). Then flew back to Wpg. I put the razor in the checked suitcase.

But when we unpacked, I could not find my razor! Forty-three years of faithful service, and my razor was missing. I considered buying a new one -- discarded the thought. i emailed Vaughn and Nevin and asked them to search their residences. Vaughn's search was quick (small space); Nevin's was longer (two-story house). Both agreed: no razor.

I survived for two weeks on disposables then made a final search of the now empty suitcase. There was a soft plastic container in the suitcase. There inside was the razor -- lovingly placed there by Lois to protect it and the contents of the suitcase. How she missed it in unpacking, and how I missed it in looking there before that night I don't know.

But there it was. And now that part of my life is complete again. A symbol of continuity in the midst of so many other changes. My razor.

Change

Waves rolling, heaping up
Overwhelming crushing force of water pouring down
Deep deep breath
Face into the crash and roar
Riding through froth and foam and cataract
Of change.

Promises

Thirty-four years ago Lois and I were married. July 30, 1977--a day that lives in my memory, a good day, and the beginning of life as I know it.



I cannot imagine life without Lois, and I do not want anything other than what I have been given.




On our anniversary Lois gave me a little book edited by Scott Peck, a collection of sayings about love and marriage. Peck observes the way that his own marriage of 40 years (at the time of writing) illustrated Kübler-Ross's well-known five stages of grief: denial that the romantic love of the honeymoon phase had died; negotiations trying to recapture that first glorious stage; anger when it became clear that married life is a journey quite different from the courtship; depression as the realization of what married life is really like settled in; and finally acceptance of that reality. Peck observes that once the couple come to that final stage there is a depth of union and commitment and joy unknown to the young couple, and available only to those who persist through the whole journey.

It makes sense to me then that the first 20 years of our life together--lived in Indiana and Pennsylvania and Kentucky and Zambia and Zimbabwe--were more difficult than the past 14--since we moved to Manitoba. The first 20 were good years, but they were the learning years, the years in which we discovered what those promises meant, which we had made to each other so earnestly and yet with so little understanding. These later years have been richer precisely because they are the later years, the years in which the fruit of the first years come to maturity. There are still struggles: Struggle and life go together. But there is a safety and strength in our relationship that allows us to deal with the struggles of life.

My mind goes back to those first promises. We decided that we wanted to write our own vows. I think now that I would use the vows written by the church and shared by so many other couples through the centuries. Perhaps a bit of tweaking--to love, honour, and obey sounds strange to children of the Sixties, unless we can promise to obey each other (which would at least come closer to Ephesians 5: 21 than requiring the woman alone to obey does). But I have a greater appreciation for the strength of tradition now than I did then. Perhaps one of the effects of growing older, perhaps greater maturity, perhaps.

But we wrote our own vows anyway. I remember the dress rehearsal. We had decided to recite our vows from memory. I did not yet have them memorized. Lois was--shall we say concerned. I was not particularly worried, inasmuch as I was active in theatre at the time and knew that I had my lines well enough to say them the next day. And of course we both spoke our lines from memory. No problem.



Actually, a small problem. I have no idea today what I promised. Lois claims that it includes such things as, "I will always answer the telephone and write all letters that need writing." I'm pretty sure that those specific promises were not in our vows. And then she made a discovery. When our sons were visiting, she was going through boxes in the basement looking at old clippings and other memorabilia--and then she found the vows. I wanted to close with them, but we can't find them again. We'll look. Maybe some day I'll find out what I promised 34 years ago. For now I know it was a good deal. I've kept my promise (whatever it was). Lois has kept hers. The journey continues, and I like it.

Debt Crises and the Stanley Cup

Some time ago I was in a discussion about the various political upheavals we have been experiencing. Riots in Wisconsin (budget cuts), riots in Greece (budget cuts and debt crisis), riots in Vancouver (hockey – Canada has its own version of what is worth rioting for), and on and on. One member of our conversation laid the blame for all our troubles squarely at the foot of socialism. Of course Canadians would riot in Vancouver: We’re socialists!

One is tempted to tune the speaker out. He has (as they say) a bee in his bonnet about capitalism and socialism. Republicans (in the USA) are good; Democrats are bad. America in general is good; Canada in general is bad. International politics buttresses the argument – the United Kingdom is clearly in trouble because it is even more socialist than Canada. (Never mind that Canada and the UK both have Tory governments; when the bee is buzzing it doesn’t look for full facts.)

I’m sure I have misrepresented my friend’s viewpoint, but not by much. It sparks two thoughts for me. One is stated quickly: Resorting to this kind of stereotyping cuts off discussion, which is unfortunate. When I press him beyond his stereotypes, he shows himself to be thoughtful and intelligent, with good reasons for the positions he holds. His positions may be incomplete and a bit arbitrary, but so are mine. I wish that we could have more discussion in which we could both give reasons and leave out the stereotypes: We have something to learn from each other.

The second is the larger, more important point. When one discounts a group of people and all that they say, one tends to mis-diagnose the reasons for – in this case – the riots in various places. In the example I began with, attributing the riots in Vancouver to socialism in Canada is nonsense, but a bee in the bonnet buzzes whenever the enemy is in sight. The result is failure to see real causes, and thus failure to deal with real causes.

What was the real cause? I don’t know. But I contrast the events in Greece and London and Vancouver with the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. If any event should have led to rioting and looting on a mass scale, these events could have. But instead we read reports of Japanese people queueing quietly, remaining orderly under great stress? Why?

I don’t think that the difference between Vancouver and Japan has anything to do with political systems, some sort of socialist-capitalist divide. Nor is it simply a difference between Asians and North Americans – there are so many Asians in Vancouver that one could look for similarity on that account rather than so sharp a difference.

I would locate the difference in the larger Canadian and larger Japanese context. Canada has built a society on individualism writ large. Privacy laws elevate the individual above community. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms serves as a fundamental social and legal document to enshrine the individual as the basic building block of society. Japanese society is more communally-oriented, with politeness and harmony enshrined as the fundamental qualities needed to live.

Canadians are called “polite”, especially in comparison to our American cousins. But we would lose any politeness competition between Canada and Japan. Noel Paul Stookey (of the 1960s folk group, Peter, Paul and Mary) tells a story of performing in Japan. He comments that when they met anyone in Japan, they realized that they could never outdo them in polite behaviour.

When a great tragedy strikes – such as the earthquake and tsunami, or the loss of the Stanley Cup (I know that’s a lesser tragedy, but hey!)– underlying social values are revealed. The Japanese people continued to seek harmony and help each other. The crowd in Vancouver let off steam by rioting. Now Canadians have shown the ability to work together and help each other out in times of crisis. The floods that we experience regularly here on the prairies show Canadians at their communal and helpful best. But what is most clear to me is that social analyses such as my friend’s – it’s because they’re socialist – are badly misplaced.

I am working at this myself (more or less successfully): I want to move past easy stereotypes and avoid laying blame quickly in the various crises we face. I think that certain social and political positions make the best sense, but those with whom I disagree strongly often have significant wisdom for all of us to include in our social and political decisions. And we have a much better chance at solving the problems before us (such as the debt crisis) if we stop blaming each other and listen to each other more carefully.

A simple, almost naive, conclusion, but true nonetheless.

Easter Thoughts

I liked Easter. Holy Week moves me deeply as we progress through the depths to the greatest joy possible: He is Risen!

Some of us made that statement our facebook status on Resurrection Sunday: Christ is risen! On one such site one person (who happens to be a profess or philosophy, but that is a detail) left a comment as a question: Why do we use that tense construction? Why not “He has risen”? Which is after all what those who were first at the grave heard and repeated. “He is not here. He has risen, just as he said he would.”

He is risen. A couple of years ago I took a grammar course at Providence (AL 2), a venture back into the classroom from the student’s viewpoint. As we approached Easter that year I asked the instructor the same question, since it has rattled around in my mind for many years. Her response: “Subject + verb + complement.” that is: he is the Risen One. Like saying the grass is green: He is risen.

So what? As I thought about it, the simple grammatical shift from “He has risen” (verb in the past tense) to “He is risen” (Risen as adjectival complement) means something important. “Risen” is not just something Jesus did one day two thousand or so years ago. Risen is who Jesus is. He changed reality at its core and brought new life into the centre of death.

When Paul says that we walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4), he expresses this new reality. The people who have walked in darkness have seen great light; they have moved from the realm of death into the realm of life. They – and we – walk in the resurrection.

He (subject) is (verb) Risen (complement). Reality is changed forever,

Political Speech

As an American who is now also a Canadian, politics is a subject I venture into with trepidation. It is easier to simply get in trouble than to say anything constructive. Nevertheless, here is one thought only, echoing some thoughts my sister has expressed in her own blog: Resolved, that we state our position without recourse to fear-mongering.

Using fear is a potent weapon, more common south of the border than here in Canada. (Our Canadian version of “fear” is to end an argument by saying, “But that’s what they do in the USA!”) Voices on the right assure that Obama is the end of democracy as we know it and seek to rally the faithful against the greatest threat that America has ever seen. A few short years ago voices on the left claimed just as shrilly that Bush had made us a joke to the rest of the civilized world: his lack of intelligence and generally belligerent posture would destroy us if we didn’t vote him out.

There are real issues at stake: Bush’s brand of international policy was too aggressive for me; Obama’s commitment to universally-available health care costs too much for some Americans. But the use of fear as a primary weapon makes any real discussion of the issues almost impossible.

I noted this factor in, of all places, the American government’s response to the crisis turned victory in Cairo. I was driving and tuned in the AM radio. Rush Limbaugh’s voice filled the car – with his firm belief that Obama was primarily to blame for all that has gone wrong in Egypt. Say what? The only way that he could conclude that Obama was to blame for something that had almost nothing to do with him was by starting with the premiss that Obama is to blame for everything – a virtual anti-Christ. I tuned in to the next station as quickly as I could: 94.3 with music of the 60s and the 70s, restoring some sanity in my Corolla headed north on route 59.

What frustrates me in these conversations is the fact that voices on the left and voices on the right have significant contributions to make to discussion of the issues facing the USA. Social conservatives can help bring sense to abortion rights that trump any right of the unborn. Social liberals can help bring sanity to fiscal policies that leave the marginalised stuck outside the system. Fiscal conservatives can help us to find ways to avoid national bankruptcy. Libertarians can help us to reign in government control of every area of life. Classic liberals can help us find more progressive ways for the government to help in every area of life.

But a constructive discussion can take place only when the participants show respect for each other, listen carefully to each other, express their own viewpoint without using fear as a weapon, and recognize their own limited grasp of the whole picture.

I apply this critique to myself in the area of climate change. Those who see the danger of planetary destruction are as likely to try to scare everyone else into some sort of sanity by threatening doomsday if we don’t use long-life bulbs, recycle everything, take to bicycles, and eat locally. Well, the dangers are real; but it does not follow that those who are not convinced that climate change is caused by human activity therefore hate the planet. Or that they will change their actions if scared enough.

Better than trying to scare everyone is a straightforward description of one’s position. In my case, that takes the form of asking the question: How should a Christian treat God’s creation? One can give positive suggestions, with passing reference to the problems – rather than focussing on the problems and persuading everyone to become either profoundly depressed or a complete sceptic.

So, resolved: That we state our position without recourse to fear-mongering. Speak with respect, with passion, with a real belief that the other is a real person who also cares deeply about life and about what is good. Disagreeing with others is fine, healthy even. Trying to destroy the other is not.

Postscript: Part of my commitment to constructive speech is to avoid the “fair and balanced” claim of FOXNews or the “no rant no slant” claim of NPR News. We all have a point of view: Simple honesty allows us to express it, and respect allows us to benefit from the perspectives of other people.

Being Sixty (2): The Minnemingo Effect

Getting older teaches something, something I should always have known. I am not in control. Of anything. Forty-two years ago on the day before my 18th birthday I floated down the Minnemingo (or Yellow Breeches Creek) in flood. Dale and I began our canoe trip celebrating the end of the semester. A half hour later he almost finished it grieving the end of life. He ran from bridge to bridge under which the Minnemingo flowed, wondering if I had drowned, while I held with desperate strength on to the overturned canoe. Then Dale found me, and some nearby fishermen pulled me out, a bigger catch than usual!

At 18 I felt little outward fear -- the stereotypical invincible teenager. I feel the danger in retrospect, but then, not so much. Today, safe in my chair and pen in hand, I feel the river sweep me on, out of control towards a destination I cannot properly guess. "I am a stranger here within a foreign land ... ." I know that the destination is heaven: Siyekhaya ezulwini! True enough; but I cannot guess clearly what that means.

Meanwhile the Minnemingo effect is at work. Time flows in flood, each moment washing over me remorselessly. Some moments are wonderful; some are quiet; some painful. they all sweep me down the Minnemingo towards the great river (the Susquehanna, in earthly geography; the Jordan in some greater dimension). And I'm still clinging to my little canoe with desperate strength.

Life is good. And I am not in control.

Fritzie!

We have a dog. A lovely mostly black (with a bit of grey and white) longhaired miniature dachshund. We got him our first Christmas in Manitoba, so his age and our life in Steinbach have run together. Thirteen years old now. He and I fit together. We tend to be feisty at the same time, and creaky at the same time. I watch him stumble along some days and know that our old bones are moving on similar trajectories.




Last night he and I had a contretemps. We had friends over for a cookout, which included grilling corn on the cob in memory of African days. While we were eating our hamburgers Lois realized that he had gotten one of the corn cobs we had laid aside.

Now in the picture above and below, Fritzie is a delightful cute and cuddly dog. But with the corn cob in his mouth he was the mighty hunter with his prey. We would have let him chew his fill, but past experience suggested that he would then be sick. Worse, if he choked on a bit of corn cob, I might have to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on a dachshund! Not a happy thought.

I broke off a piece of nearby hamburger and went over to him. Fritzie ran. He is normally convinced that I am up to no good, and he is sometimes right. So he ran. He would have run from anyone and anything to protect his hold on the cob. I ran after him trying to get the hamburger in front of his nose. Drop the cob, eat the hamburger, and let me take the corn cob to safety. No such luck.

Finally I grabbed his collar and held him still, twisting the collar to get him to release the cob. With a yelp he let go of the cob, turned his head and caught my wrist with his teeth. Nothing deep or serious, just a scraping of the teeth across my wrist, but the blood flowed freely. I grabbed the cob, threw it on the table outside where we were eating, and ran for the bathroom.

I let cold water run over my forearm, and then applied rubbing alcohol to kill any bacteria. After about 15 minutes we decided that I would go to Emergency (with as low a level of emergency as one can think of) to make sure that the wound was cleaned and properly dressed -- and to get a tetanus shot. Three hours waiting for five minutes of medical care; but the ER personnel were gracious, and didn't laugh at me (at least not out loud). And I got my shot and my dressing, and finally also got my dessert back at the house.

Our guests spent half of that time waiting with me, which was a shame with the lovely weather we had yesterday. But I appreciated it; much better than waiting alone. Now Fritzie is lying at my feet as though we're best friends. Which we are. But i wish he wouldn't hunt so aggressively when there are defenseless corn cobs lying around.

Turning Sixty (1)

I used to think that age was unimportant. I enjoyed having people think that I was younger than my actual age, a state of affairs that lasted until about age 50. I remember quite clearly the evening a group of faculty went out to a restaurant. The hostess asked if I qualified for the Seniors’ Discount: I had gone from about 40 to 60 overnight! (I think it was something to do with my hair – sandy or reddish one day; white the next.)

I remember turning 40. We were in Zimbabwe at the time. Mike Burgess and I are about the same age, so we comforted each other as we went over the hill together. I remember that I could joke about it because the truth was, I didn’t feel old. I felt like 30, not 40. Fifty was a different story: it was the beginning of feeling older too.

Lois gave me a wonderful present: 50 birthday celebrations for my 50th birthday. We finally finished the last one as part of my 60th! And of course I was in good health, able to enjoy life in so many different ways; but I felt the reality of years, whatever the case.

Now 60. I feel older indeed. I enjoy playing recreational soccer in a six a side soccer league in Winnipeg. I am able to climb many many steps up to my office in the seminary five days a week. I met my old friend, Mike, last year. We were both 59 this time, but the years have weighed more heavily on him than on me. So why should I feel anything other than an appreciation for the years I have had?

The process of aging is difficult for us to comprehend. North Americans like to control their destiny. We have built a society (both in Canada and in the United States) on controlling our fate. But you can’t control time. Day by day, year by year, time moves on. We say that age is only a state of mind; but the years continue to move, whatever one feels. Your state of mind may help you feel better about it, but it does not stop the process – or even slow it down.

I suspect that the particular piece of “60” that I need to come to terms with is precisely this remorseless march of days. Since you cannot stop or slow (or speed up or otherwise change) the movement of time, one choice remains: to embrace it.

I haven’t gotten there yet. I played my first 6-on-6 soccer game the week after my birthday – and scored my first goal as a 60-year old. (I made sure that the goalie, someone I’ve played against often enough, heard about that afterwards!) I am still climbing the stairs to the seminary. I am grateful, truly grateful, for health and strength, for the ability to keep reading and processing and working in my professional field. I want to embrace my age.

But the struggle remains. I wish sometimes that I could go back to 40 and stay there – at least physically. I have no desire to re-visit earlier stages of life generally. Once was enough. But our senses live within our physical body, and the body is what ages. My inner self still sometimes feels like the 15-year old who first moved from southern Africa to Pennsylvania, or the 20-year old at Messiah College, or any of the other stages between then and now. But the body ages, and the struggle remains.

If anyone can solve the life-cycle for me, let me know; but for now I continue to thank God for the health I have, the years he has given me, and the days ahead.

Individual Rights

Recently my sister had an interesting blog on going to the movies. We share an upbringing in which we did not go to movies. I still don’t, although only because I don’t enjoy watching movies; she is now (in my eyes) something of a connoisseur.

One of the first movies she went to was “The Cardinal”, which includes the following (as she my sister describes it: “What I particularly remember about this movie is one scene where the central character, who is by now a cardinal (hence the title), learns that his sister is pregnant. When she is due to deliver her child, she learns that the baby's head is too large for the mother to safely deliver. The cardinal is faced with a decision. Give permission for the fetus's head to be crushed, and the sister thereby saved OR refuse permission in which case his sister will die.” The Cardinal chooses the latter.

That memory connected in her blog to a recent news story, quoted here from an NPR report: “Last November, a 27-year-old woman was admitted to St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. She was 11 weeks pregnant with her fifth child, and she was gravely ill. According to a hospital document, she had ‘right heart failure,’ and her doctors told her that if she continued with the pregnancy, her risk of mortality was ‘close to 100 percent.’” An administrator at the Catholic hospital decided that the abortion was permissible under Catholic Law to save the life of the mother and authorized the procedure. When the administrator’s bishop learned of it, he excommunicated her.

So the question, to which many Americans and Canadians give the answer as self-evident: “What is wrong with these church officials?” Even asking the question that way suggests that our categories are such that we cannot understand what is going on in their minds. We start with such differences in our basic assumptions about life that we don’t even know what has actually happened.

In the rest of this blog, my own short (short) version of the problem: The basic assumption that negates the decisions of the cardinal and the bishop is our cultural commitment to the supremacy of personal individual choice. The USA was built on the search for freedom, especially the freedom of the individual to run his/her own life as far as possible. In this respect Libertarians and Pro-Choice are alike (however differently any individual libertarian and pro-choice person may be) – they share their commitment to the supremacy of individual rights.

I know that this value is also at the centre of the way that I process life; but I am uneasy with it. The study if cultures reveals many different patterns in different societies, balancing the rights of individuals and the importance of the larger community in a variety of ways. I share our cultural commitment to the centrality of the individual; but I also believe that commitment to some larger whole is necessary for social and mental and emotional health. The movie and news story that we stated with pit the right of the individual against the value of community and conclude that the right of the individual cannot be limited in any way.

But what if the individuals in question have voluntarily chosen the larger community (in this case, the church) and voluntarily submitted themselves to the authority of the larger community? When we ask this question, people think of various tragic situations, such as Jonestown, and conclude that we dare not ever allow such a commitment. But devaluing this commitment can also become oppressive. How can we say to the individuals involved, “You have no right to choose to be part of a larger community like this”?

I do not like the choice made by the cardinal or the bishop: I think they got it wrong. But I wonder what we lose when we throw their options out the window. I am at least equally sure that a tyranny of individualism is no better than a tyranny of collectivism.

Preparation

Two weeks ago I attended a board meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Now Manitoba is generally colder and more wintry than Atlanta, so I enjoyed the relative warmth of Georgia in March. I didn't reckon with the dead grass season, so I was disappointed not to find green grass and blooming trees, but the meetings were good, and I could enjoy a trip back to Atlanta sometime. While travelling, I wrote the following as a way of coping with the 1 a.m. start to my first day of travel.

Friday morning one A.M.
For to early to be ... morning.
Quick shower, coffee, toast to go
Two hours and a half on the road.
A flight waits patiently
For groggy passengers, half asleep.
An hour later we land
Short flight -- long drive --
Still too early to be morning.

A new flight waits in turn,
Soon we climb -- higher, faster, further.
Voices pierced by one strong voice
The announcement cutting through conversations
Replacing sports and casual talk with
The business of flying ... and landing.

On the ground walking and walking,
Long passages, sign after sign calls out
"Baggage" -- somewhere ahead.
Pictures spring out, huge rocks on the walls.
Home! Ngivela eMatonjeni!
Words spring out within the rock pictures.
Nkosi sikelela iAfrika.
Thoughts of home, unbidden, unexpected
Interlude before we consummate our flights
And meet.

6 March 2010

Old Friends

Part One

Many years ago when the world was young, 1960 to be precise, our family moved back from a six month stay in Pennsylvania to what felt like home to me. We left the green grass of Pennsylvania behind and sailed off (it was long enough ago that ships were the cheapest mode of travel) to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Deepest darkest Africa, so my friends thought. To me, home.

I re-entered the school I had left six months earlier -- standard three at Hilside Junior School (which was, being interpreted, Grade Five in North America). I sat down in my new class at my old school beside a new friend, Norgrove Penny. Norgrove and I made friends quickly, as 10 year old boys sometimes do.

The next day Norgrove brought me something from his Dad. An envelope. With a picture inside. "My Dad says to take this to your father." I did.

Part Two

That same year Dr. Cherer Penny, a doctor for the Rhodesian Railways, flew across the oceans from Zimbabwe to the United States. He went to Chicago, to a medical course that would help him stay current with the latest medical practices and improve his skills for his work in Bulawayo. Being a thrifty man, he stayed at the local YMCA, while most of the American doctors attending the course stayed in nicer hotels. But not all. One other man stayed at the Y with him, Dr. Alvin Heise. Dr. Heise and Dr. Penny shared something also, a strong Christian commitment. On the weekend Dr. Heise invited Dr. Penny to his home in Ohio to visit his family and attend church with him. (Below: Drs Heise, left, and Penny, right.)

Dr. Heise's pastor was Rev. Andrew Slagenweit. Andrew and his wife Ruth were delighted to meet this Rhodesian doctor, especially since Andrew's sister, Dorcas, was moving back to Bulawayo with her husband, David Climenhaga.

Part Three

The stories came together. I took the envelope home, all unsuspecting. My Dad asked me what it was. "I don't know. My friend from school gave it to me to give to you." Dad opened the envelope and found a picture of his brother-in-law, Pastor Andrew Slagenweit, taken by Dr. Penny on his visit to Chicago and Ohio not long before. "How did you get this?" Incredulous question. "From my friend, Norgrove." "Who is Norgrove?" "My friend at school." How did he get this ...." You can imagine the questions that flowed, with no answer possible.

My parents and Norgrove's parents got together of course, and all was revealed. Norgrove and I played cricket and soccer and remained friends, but only for two years. Dr. Penny accepted a call from the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada to open a clinic in Hay River in the Northwest Territories of Canada. I suppose all the Canadian doctors knew how far north Hay River is! So he went, and eventually moved to British Columbia. Norgrove may still live there, but that is another story. We have not seen each other since.

I have seen Dr. Heise, though. I married his daughter, Lois. Our stories come together more than 32 years ago -- his encounter with Dr. Penny and mine with Norgrove.

Christmas 2009

We just travelled to visit our sons and my Dad and my mother-in-law for Christmas and New Year's. It was a good trip, spending time with family from both sides. A basic feature of such a Christmas is driving -- three days to Minnesota, then Indiana, then Pennsylvania; and back to Ohio, to Indiana, then Wisconsin (just before the Minnesota border), and home. Here follows an impressionistic reflection of the trip.

Driving to snow and slush we know lie ahead.
Driving from clear skies, wide open space left behind.
Driving, opening a way to people we love and miss.

Cold behind, deepest cold. Cold ahead, damp and biting.
Driving past rock outliers, seen by peoples past.
Driving into trucks, traffic, roads of mayhem and mess.
Closer, closer to those we miss and love.

Tunnel after tunnel, deep in rock,
Outside signals blocked and lost.
Toll piles on toll as trees and mountains
Crowd around our car, driving, driving home.
Dogwood -- Chestnut -- County Road -- Cripe.
Each place a piece of home with those we love
And miss when we are home

then

Driving, driving back from turnpike to interstate
To 10 and 59 turning north.
Driving north, sun behind and cold ahead,
Darkness falling early, moon shining bright on snow,
Driving back to deepest cold clear sky
And home. (Away from those we love and miss.)

Daryl Climenhaga, 3 January 2010

Advent Lessons and Carols

I am listening to the Lessons and Carols for the Choral Evensong in the first week of Advent from Rochester Cathedral in England, courtesy of the BBC. I appreciate these readings and carols, partly for the beauty of the music and partly for the depth of the readings.

Advent is a season of hope in the church's year. We anticipate the celebration of Christmas, remembering how the birth of a baby proved greater than the machinations of rulers and powers in the ancient world. The memory nurtures hope in us that the trials and terrors of our world also may prove weaker than the small blessings of our lives. A baby is born, and thousands of soldiers are sent to Afghanistan. Only hope can say that the birth is the greater event; but so proclaims Advent.

This weekend we have our annual Festival of Christmas Praise at Providence. I have a similar response to the readings and music each year in our own celebration. Hope requires constant nurture in a dangerous world.

But another note sounds in the readings and songs. Each year the hymn, "Lo, he comes with clouds descending", begins the Advent season, reminding us that the hope found in remembering the birth of Jesus is linked with the hope of his return.

Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favored sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign.

Every eye shall now behold Him
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.

The dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshippers;
With what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

Yea, Amen! let all adore Thee,
High on Thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory,
Claim the kingdom for Thine own;
O come quickly! O come quickly! O come quickly!
Come, Lord, come!

This link from youtube gives a good performance of this hymn, which is most sobering and stands alongside the hope of Advent with a kind of warning that we usually avoid today. The second verse, sung in the Choral Evensong as printed above, speaks of judgment on those who oppose the Messiah.

Judgment is a theme we prefer to omit from our thoughts about God or about the end of all things. But I don't see how to believe in hope if it does not also promise judgment. Revelation 6 pictures the saints persecuted through the ages as sitting within God's throne and crying out, "How Long, O Lord, will those who persecute us triumph?" Revelation then pictures these same saints as triumphant themselves, worshipping God with all evil removed.

I live in a world filled with evil -- from Zimbabwe to Afghanistan, and deep within my own countries of the United States and Canada. If that evil cannot be removed (because we are squeamish), I don't know how to anticipate Christ's return with any real hope. Or for that matter, how to live in the present with real hope for the future.

These thoughts are, I think, at one level somewhat simplistic or banal; but I note that they echo the lessons and carols. The lessons and carols themselves echo long and careful reflection on the core of Christian faith. As I said at the beginning, I appreciate these readings and carols, partly for the beauty of the music and partly for the depth of the readings.

More Friends

To restate my last post in quasi-poetic form:

Circles of life, within without
We sit, stand, walk together and alone.
Someone said: We are human only with people:
Umuntu gumuntu ngabantu.
We seek our circle.

I have heard somewhere
We must all as they say
Individuate.
Fusion of self makes bad health.
I am because I am.

God says: “I am.” We are
Because God is, and God made us
To find ourselves in us,
And only so to find God.

I have heard somewhere of soul’s dark night.
Forced individuation, isolation, atomization,
Alone in darkness
Pulsing with life yet lost
In wilderness of One.

Soul’s dark night brings blessing
So they say
So I believe (and have found).
Forced to one’s need in awareness of need
The place of pain and life.

When we stand again and enter light
We cannot remain
Alone.
We reach out our hands seeking
Communal life, pulses mingling and merging
In shared humanness, Ubuntu,
Life together.

If you love God,
Love brother, sister, neighbour, friend –
Else call God liar
And lose yourself as human.
In God we become each other’s
Bread and wine: Christ appears.

Friends

Over the past year I have spent a certain amount of energy in thinking about friendship. For whatever reason I have thought about the question of who my friends are probably more than I really need to. I know that others also ask this question: a facebook friend posted his status some time ago as “I’m finding out who my real friends are”; so here are some ideas that have surrounded the exercise, but without consideration of who my real friends are. (That question is one that does not belong in any public space!)

First thought: I was at a conference last February where one of the presenters described an idea behind the way that some emerging churches in Australia structure their lives: Everyone needs three circles of friends – a work circle, a community circle, and a church circle. These three circles are, of course, in addition to one’s own family circle. As I reflect on my own processing, I realize that I tend to overemphasize one or other of these circles. I sometimes try to load the whole of my friendship needs on to church, or on to work, or on to community (i.e., those people in my life who fit together as my friends, but are not part of my church family or my work group).

Friendship circles, especially in the individualized West, are usually not strong enough to bear the whole weight of any one person’s friendship needs. Therefore I need to nurture each one in its place and not call on any one circle to bear the whole load of friendship needs. Socializing with co-workers, involvement in a care group at church, and participation in interest-based groups all work together to supplement the foundation of care received from one’s own family circle.

Obviously for each person the blending of these three circles will be different, and there will be overlap as some people are found in one or two or all three of these circles. But the basic point remains: we lean on each other in ways that fit the respective places in which our friendship lives.

Second thought: We all bear responsibility for reaching out to others for our own friendship needs, and for inviting others into our circle for their benefit. Personality plays a huge part in this process: some reach out naturally, almost instinctively, while others struggle to reach out at all. Some need many people in their circles; some need three or four and find more than that stifling or draining. But in one way or another, we are all responsible both for ourselves and for each other.

I have experienced this dynamic in different places more than once. I find it relatively easy to reach out to others, but more than once I have stood on the edge of a new group wondering how to join in. I have been the one needing to be invited. I have also been the one looking at someone who wants to join a circle and speaking words of welcome while showing with my body language that the newcomer is not welcome. Of course, the newcomer reads the unspoken message and moves off soon enough.

Why do we sometimes close ranks like that? I can speak only for myself. I know that sometimes I think the newcomer is boring. Sometimes I think that he/she will get in the way of another friendship I want to nurture. Sometimes I’m judgmental. Sometimes I just want to be left alone. Since no one can be open to every one else all of the time, some sort of selection must go on. Friendship circles cannot be infinitely open, or they lose their ability to support and nurture those in them, and they lose their meaning.

But if they are simply closed, they become cliques, potentially destructive, whether at work or in the church, or in our communities. C. S. Lewis has written about the effect of the “Inner Ring”, the circle of people who are in the know and who wield an unhealthy influence in society. Somewhere between the infinitely open and the destructively closed, we need a balance in our friendship circles, inviting others in and yet remaining a healthy size. As one who has moved often, I see the difficulties inherent in maintaining such a balance.

Third thought: Friendship is one of the basic ways in which we love each other. Jesus often referred to his disciples as, “my friends”. Alongside the incredible love of God (agape) and the wonderful intimacy between a man and a woman in marriage (eros) stands simple friendship (philia). (One can add familial love or affection – storge – as Lewis does in The Four Loves.) Friendship is a basic way in which we discover God’s presence and in which we become fully disciples of God’s Son, Messiah Jesus.

That is, I believe, why we need more than one friendship circle: we mediate God to each other daily in the way that we treat each other – if we do so in genuine and caring friendship. To lack friendship, then, also means to be deprived of the full blessing of God’s presence in this world. God has made us so: that we mediate him to each other through our friendship.

Obviously this mediation occurs at different levels: with one person the friendship will be more on the surface, and with another more deep and full of meaning. Yet in every case it is truly God’s Spirit flowing through the bonds of friendship.

I wish I knew fully what I am trying to describe; but after almost 60 years of life on this earth, I know only that I need friends with every fibre of my being, and that I need to give friendship as deeply as I need to receive it.

Today

We call it Remembrance Day, and we remember. I think back to 1968, when I was drafted for Vietnam. I received a four-year student deferment, and I was a CO, so in the end I went to Zimbabwe doing a three year term of alternative service with our church instead of going to Vietnam. Of course, others drafted with me whose number in the draft lottery fell below about 130 (mine was 113) went to Vietnam.

I think back to to another war, Desert Storm. Lois and I had just returned from Zimbabwe to find talk of war everywhere. In Zimbabwe nobody was talking about invading Iraq. In Europe on the way back nobody was talking about invading Iraq. In the USA that's all we were talking about. It was like entering an parallel universe. Or coming from one.

I think of the present military actions (may we call them "wars" now) -- in Iraq and in Afghanistan, with the horrible shooting on an American military base. A counsellor who needed counselling and who acted out our worst fears, the enemy within.

I rarely wear a poppy -- more a matter of not thinking to put it on, or not thinking to put on MCC's alternative poppy. My poppyless state is less a statement than a lack of care about dress. But today many wear the poppy, not to remember war, but to remember those who fight. We all (or almost all) pray for peace. We all (or almost all) recognize that war comes when what we want fails. "War is hell": so said a soldier.

So we remember together. Our own brushes with war, and with all the other forms of violence in our world -- whether against children, or abused women, or through oppression and poverty. The acts of war and violence that plague or planet, the disease of our race: people made in God's image, fighting and destroying the image of the Creator.

As we remember war, we remember and pray also for peace. We work for peace. We want the Shalom of God's presence, life full and running over in place of hatred and death and separation. I wish God's blessing on all who work for peace in our world, whether sharing my convictions as a CO or somewhere around the world with the American or Canadian military -- or in the many armies of our world. God keep and guide us all.

More Thoughts on Acedia

In earlier writing I have noted my experience with what we might call acedia. I am not yet certain that the term accurately describes what I experienced; it may be that I was closer to a simpler depression than I thought; but I think that the spiritual element found in acedia (also known as “sloth” in the seven deadly sins) fits my own case better than simply the process of trying to deal with aging.

The key aspect I see in acedia is a focus on self that makes life difficult. Christian doctrine teaches us that our centre is to be found in God. As the Westminster Catechism puts it: “Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” If our purpose in life is to glorify and enjoy God, then self-centredness is one form of the first and primal sin, in which we dethrone God and enthrone self.

All of this is the most elementary material in becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “He who would be my disciple must take up his cross and follow me.” I have heard this text and many like it from my earliest days; but I’m a slow learner (or late in coming to any real spiritual and emotional maturity). So elementary or not, I restate some basic lessons for my own benefit. These lessons are variants on a theme: Let go of yourself; take hold of God.

The first notes the benefit of regular prayer. An old verse says it: “You must seek him in the morning if you want him through the day” (Ralph Spaulding Cushman, “The Secret”). I have said more than once that the regimen of early morning devotions I have often heard prescribed fits certain people better than others. I still say that; but I recognize that the appeal to personality type (you can’t expect an ENFP to be so regimented!) had become an excuse for not centring on God. The basic step over the past year of beginning the day with the Lord’s Prayer has been a small step. I have been surprised how big a step it has also proved to be.

From that small step grows a second and more helpful discipline, including prayer for myself, my family, my friends, and my own community. I am working at bringing regular reading of Scripture into the process. At the least I no longer can say that such a regular practise of discipline is antithetical to who I am. In fact, the very spontaneity of my daily life requires such discipline to construct a framework within which I can be most truly myself. Focussing on God at the beginning of the day makes me able to be God’s child more fully, which in turn gives me a real more substantial identity than the self-centredness of the past (a self-centredness that creeps all to close outside the door of my heart).

Third in the small steps towards God that I am taking is greater physical discipline. I have been exercising more regularly and carefully in the past months. It might seem that a focus on physical well-being would turn one’s heart and mind towards oneself and away from God. That can happen easily enough. So the way that I exercise becomes more important. I am experimenting with a rhythm of combining exercise with Taizé music – not everyone’s cup of tea (or glass of wine), but it may be mine.

A final step for now is to plan specific ways that I interact with other people. Inviting friends and acquaintances into our home for a meal; accepting greater involvement in our congregation’s life; playing chess on a Tuesday evening with friends; having a young person in the grip of despair over for coffee; genuinely listening to people in the dining hall (how often have I wanted them simply to listen to me?) – there are myriad ways in which one takes the focus of oneself.

I am a neophyte at this discipline. I recognize that I still take my mental and emotional temperature all the time. Perhaps we all do to some extent; but I want to find the kind of fulfillment that the Westminster Catechism describes, and I know that such fulfillment requires an intentional awareness of God and of others to a greater extent than before in my life. I feel a faint resentment that full healing of my own sense of being crushed requires that I stop looking at myself, but I know that resentment and being ridiculous are closely allied. And I want to keep moving away from acedia towards Paradise.