The book of Revelations - not a horror movie

How many Hollywood movies get made that tie into St. John's apocalyptic visions, making them seem as though a horrible dark end is the only thing God has planned for us? While it is true that there is a certain darkness in any of the apocalyptic books of the Bible, they make a more important point: at the end of any dark night, the day breaks.

Revelations has some of the most beautiful thoughts on how God plans to deal with us. Take this, for example.

Revelation 21:3-4:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
"See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away."

He will wipe away every tear - how wonderful is that? Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted - the beatitudes course through the veins of the New Testament, and even in the Book of Revelation we see that this is so.

I guess it is as they always say - the book is so much better than the movie. :-)

Did you hear the one about the priest and the athlete?

Seriously, it sounds like it should be a joke. Sadly it was not. Even though these athletes train for years, getting ready with every ounce of spirit and flesh they have, some joker can get drunk, rush the route, and take away an athlete's dreams.

Oh well - it appears the olympic committee will award a medal for sportsmanship to de Lima for his courage in completing the race. I hope he finds comfort in that. :-)

I can't concentrate

I have been a little out of focus since our loss. And I have been somewhat self-reproachful over it. But apparently is is not all that unusual.

I read in a BeliefNet article about Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the person who first theorized on the five stages of grief, that "the death of someone close to us has physical effects as well as psychological ones. Survivors usually have a lowered cognitive ability for six to eight months after a sudden loss—workers often have trouble returning to tasks they've performed easily for years after the sudden death of a family member."

I wrote in response, "I can attest to the cognitive impairment. I have not been the same the last few weeks, and I can't seem to get simple things done.

Fortunately, we were working on a very specific project for the family member we lost, and that has allowed us to an extent to keep our minds clear and focused. We have dedicated ourselves to completing this work in her memory, and it gives us a sense of purpose that we certainly would not otherwise have had. It is our last gift to her, but surely also her last gift to us."

We've latched onto the kitchen renovations as our memorial project. We are so lucky she got to see it in a near-finished state, and perhaps it was some sort of grace that allowed us to get there soon enough. Now we have to finish the job. She would want it that way, not even so much for her own sake, but for ours. It has become, perhaps, her way of remaining with us. :-)

My cat

This is my cat.

His name is Dusty, and he is nearly eighteen years old. An aquaintance of ours who lacks social skills told my daughter that he is "as old as cats can get" and will die soon. But I do not think this likely. Whenever we take him to the vet, she is stunned by his health and vigour. She couldn't believe he was even ten years old, let alone eighteen.

He's a character. This morning he was running back and forth in the living room, chasing something he made up in his own head, I guess - there was nothing there. He likes to sit on the kitchen table, a bad habit we allow him to indulge in other than when we are eating dinner. He likes to drink water from a bowl full of seashells on the balcony. I have not figured out why. When you get out of the shower, he goes right in, and chases the water down the drain with his paw.

My wife has long wanted a dog after the cat. This last weekend I remarked that the damn cat was "going to live forever." She kind of sighed and said, "probably." She was kidding of course.

She loves that cat. :-)

What is marriage?

Marriage is when two people decide to merge destines. Marriage is when I becomes We. Marriage is partnership, teamwork, friendship. Marriage is Love, and I mean Love in the truest sense of the word (the 1 Corinthians 13 or "God is Love" sense.) Attraction, romance, compatibility are not unimportant things - but they pale next to love.

Love is like this prayer of Tobias, from the apocryphal Book of Tobit:

Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors,
and blessed is your name in all generations forever.
Let the heavens and the whole creation bless you forever.
You made Adam, and for him you made his wife Eve
as a helper and support.
From the two of them the human race has sprung.
You said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone;
let us make a helper for him like himself.'
I now am taking this kinswoman of mine,
not because of lust,
but with sincerity.
Grant that she and I may find mercy
and that we may grow old together.

It is my wife and I's anniversary today. She has given me the gift of seeing the world through different, less cynical eyes. And I see clearly now, where before all I witnessed was an indifferent haze.

We will not always have each other - our lives on Earth are not endless, and no doubt one of us will have to go on without the other at some point. I realize that now more than ever. But we do have each other today. And for this, I am very grateful to a God who has given me so much. :-)

David Warren and the "culture wars."

David Warren has proposed in a column that the current election in the United States is about the culture wars, the struggle between Christian and "post-Christian" society. This is not a unique characterization, and it is certainly one that both the US political parties have sought to exploit. Howard Dean ranted about "fundamentalists" at one point (a word that is brought out to scare secularists) and certainly Karl Rove has done everything he can to cultivate among evangelical Christians that President Bush is one of their number. However, it is incumbent on Christian voters (not just in the US, but everywhere democracy exists) to realize that in fact the vast majority of politicians are on their own side. And to be fair, for these politicians to win at the cut-throat game of politics they probably have to. They do not so much actually take a side in the culture wars as make sure they are seen taking a side (or both sides if they can get away with it.)

Take John Kerry, for example. He's tried to be on every side of the moral issues. While opposed to marriage clarity amendments to the US constitution, he has also suggested he is opposed to any change in the definition of marriage. He has taken a strong stance in favour of abortion rights, but has conversely stated that he believes that life begins at conception. Why has he taken so many varying positions? Look to Machiavelli, and not principle, for the answer. The constituencies he has as his political base are secularist, and just as with religious voters, secular voters have certain sacred cows. However, this base is not large enough on its own to secure electoral victory. Thus it is necessary for Mr. Kerry in some measure to be all over the field.

Mr. Bush, on the other hand, has not had to be as ambiguous with where he stands. He can present a strong "stay the course" image on Iraq, oppose therapeutic cloning, propose marriage definition amendments, and advocate tax cuts without any ambiguity, because his base among religious conservatives agrees with him, and there are enough special interests who strongly support individual items on the list to beef his base up to winnable levels. However, he owes the good fortune of being aligned with his base to the steady dilution of the Christian message in many pulpits today. Many Christians overlook Jesus' message concerning the poor, but it is hard to reconcile policies that favour faceless corporation with Jesus – he who exalts the poor woman's temple gift, who tells of those who visit him in prison, clothe him naked, feed him, by doing this for "the least of those who are members of my family, you did it to me." And certainly Mr. Bush's rush to war in Iraq seems to be at odds with the Beatitude that insists that "blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God."

Christians can look at any political party's platform and see things they like. And they should be able to see things that they know to be wrong, too. No politician is going to be perfectly aligned with what you believe. So like you would when examining fruit in a store, examine the fruit of the candidate who wants your vote. Can you take the measure of a man or woman running for office without meeting them? I don't know. That is one reason why I always try and meet the candidates themselves here in Ottawa centre. I make my vote as locally focused as possible. Ultimately, it is about people, and not political party brand names.

It is incumbent on any Christian not to be a pawn in a culture war, a chess piece wielded by the powerful, but instead, to take a stand for the values and ethics that Jesus taught! Our influence may be limited. But like the slaves in the parable of the ten coins, we must invest the lot we are given wisely.

History will tend to itself

Politics is one of the biggest challenges facing religion. It should not be that way, of course, since religion really has little to do with politics. I remember from the Bible (1 Samuel Ch. 8) reading about the people coming and asking the judge Samuel to appoint a king for them, like other nations had, and how displeased Samuel was by this. He warns them the extent to which the king will be a burden to the people, who will have to support his royal lifestyle. He also warns them that a king will get in the way of their relationship with God (Samuel says "but on that day the LORD will not answer you") but they insist.

Jesus too tries to make clear that the individual's primary obligations are not national - they are personal. When he says that it is right to give the coin with Caesar's face as a tax payment, he tells us that our relationship with our country is personal - God does not demand of us that we be rebels or opponents of the "system", even if it is not perfect. We should cooperate with it, as even St. Paul tells us to pray for the authorities in power.

At the same time, we do not need to mix our faith with our participation in the daily world, either. I know I spend an awful lot of time worrying about things that ultimately I have no power to change. We are always hearing of wars, shenanigans at world bodies, corporate malfeasance, and badly behaved public figures, and it is hard not to be perturbed by it.

But what power do we have to change it? We of course have some influence in terms of who we vote for or making our voice heard. And certainly we should use that influence, albeit judiciously. But why worry about it? If you can change it, change it. And if it is not in your power to change it, try to understand it, and have peace about it.

As Jesus observes, God arrays even the lilies of the field, in a way that even Solomon was never dressed. The birds are fed. Tomorrow has enough worries of its own. God knows we have needs, but "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well." God never asks us to endure anything beyond our ability to bear. And that is not to say that life is always easy to bear - the last few weeks of my life have been a living testament of this. But my family, my brother in law, is getting through it.

"These things shall be yours as well" - seek God, first and foremost.

Life takes care of itself. So does history. The world will unfold as it should. Just play your part well. :-)

This spam I got

I frequently get spams telling me I can be an "ordained minister" within 48 hours.

I cannot imagine anything more awful, or profaning. Clergymen of all the major religions must spend years in a seminary learning not only the theology of their religion, but also how to help people. A big part of any minister's job is, well, ministering. Many of us want to help others, and as inexpertly as we can, most of us will help others during our lives. But when you take up the shepherd's staff, he says, "Feed my sheep." How will you do this if you do not know how?

People often apply for these "instant ordinations" as a gimmick, so that they can tell their buddies that they can marry people. Sometimes people pick them up so that they can in fact marry someone. Aside from the dubious legality of these ordinations, why would you step up to the plate and say you're God's minister, simply so you can do like the captain of the Love Boat and smile fondly at the bride and groom?

When my grandmother was buried, my mother walked into the house of the minister, and after talking for a bit, my mother said to the minister who would be presiding, "this is hard." The minister, a woman who'd been assigned two years earlier to the small town where my Mother grew up, just took my mother's hand, held it, and looked at her for five minutes, sharing the moment with my mother. Outside the rain sprinkled down. I truly felt God in that moment, in the simple service this woman offered my mother.

A real ordination is anointed - even a sacrament, in the more traditional Christian churches. God works through the hands of ministers, priests, and rabbis, who themselves have worked hard to be servants of their congregations, but also of God Himself. It is a difficult calling, especially in the Latin rite of the Catholic Church, where it is a separate fork in the road from having a family of your own.

We don't need the "status" of an instant ordination. We're all called to what Christians call the "common priesthood" of being a good example to others, and serving our families, our communities, and even strangers with everything we have to give. For that, you do not need a collar, robes, or any of the badges of office.

Want to be a minister? Smile at someone when you're grumpy. Be a shoulder to cry on when someone is grieving. Tell someone a joke when they need a laugh. Help a friend (or even a stranger) through a hard time.

Not all miracles involve parting seas. Moses would no doubt be the first to insist on that point. Every one of us has the ability to help God answer a prayer.

As Mother Theresa would say, "Let us begin."

Build your own recording studio!

My wife taught me a valuable lesson about surprises last year, for my birthday. A week earlier, I had spoiled a significant surprise that some people had planned for me, and she was upset with me. I told her that I didn't like surprises. Why couldn't life be ordered carefully, without surprises?

On my birthday, my wife led me downstairs, blindfolded, her sister, my brother in law, and our kids accompanying us. When we got to the basement, they let me look. It wasn't my basement, at least, not as I remembered it. A new room had been built, and a "Happy Birthday" banner strung over its door. They told me that they had built me a recording studio. Inside was all my music equipment, all set up and ready to play. I was absolutely stunned - but more than pleasantly. I learned that day that not all surprises are bad.

It is entirely possible to record high fidelity music with little budget. Your own computer has most of what you need to get going - all you otherwise need is a good sound card, instruments, a quarter inch to eighth inch jack coverter for your computer's microphone and line-in ports, a relatively quiet place to record, a decent microphone, and blankets.

The software to do the job is had quite easily. I use the open source Audacity program to record and clean up tracks, and I use Quartz Studio Free to mix it down in stereo, and add reverb effects (I don't like the recordings it does, which have a lot of clicks and noise.)

Forget American idol. Be a rock star, opera diva, or country legend in your own basement! :-)

Funny I should write about my niece...

Because she's here at the house! My wife went to take her to book a flight back to the Sault this morning, and they wanted seven hundred bucks for a flight they sell on the Internet for a couple of hundred. My brother happened to be at the airport (small world) and tried to get them on the flight. But the booking at airlines has gotten so complex, that they were basically forced to give up.

Instead my wife will drive her to the bus station at midnight, for a twelve hour drive. Hopefully she can sleep on the bus!

When I was a kid I always enjoyed circumnavigating the Great Lakes. It has thousands of miles of Ocean-like shoreline, and much of it is quite picturesque. Hopefully the bus will go by some of it.

Cowblogs

One of my favourite Ottawa area bloggers has been detailing her visit to Calgary, where she is doing research, and also looking out for cowboys. I wish her luck in both pursuits.

I have two favourite cowboys, when I look back. No, wait, make that three. I almost forgot Marshall Dillon from Gunsmoke. I still remember one episode when the good marshall got shot and I was so young I didn't yet know the good guys always come through. I was really worried he wasn't going to make it!

But in the modern idiom, there is Curly from City Slickers. Curly is a man of a surly few words, but what he does say lingers (sort of like an onion or an ogre, with layers.) He lingers in the film and in the characters' minds long after the trail boss keels over.

Then there is Clint Eastwood's anti-cowboy in Unforgiven. He understands where he has fit into the scheme of things, and it is not a pretty picture. He tells us that it is a "helluva thing to kill a man. You take away everything he's ever had and everything he'll ever had." But when the time comes for him to do just that, he does it unflinchingly, and unmercifully. Not exactly a role model, but Eastwood plays the character hauntingly, at once sympathetic and repulsive.

My niece, who came back into town last week for her mother's funeral, is an expert rider and works outdoors all the time. I suppose in some ways she is the closest real-life person I know to a cowboy. She brought her horses up to the cottage once. When they saw the frozen lake covered with snow, their eyes lit up like kids in a candy store, and they tore off galloping as fast as they could. She had to run them down on a snowmobile. :-)

Summer is waning

Day after day, the sunset comes a little earlier. We do not often realize it, but summer is a period of decline; the day's length peaks the first day of summer, and goes into decline until the winter solstice.

Conversely, winter comes when daylight is at its weakest, and on every day that follows winter's debut, the day grows a little longer.

The symbolism of our religious celebrations take on great meaning when you consider the seasons in that light. Christmas and Hannukah come when darkness is at its apex. For the Jews, Hannukah is the festival of lights, celebrating a lamp that would not go out in the time of the Maccabeans. And for Christians, Christmas is a celebration of the coming of the light upon which the darkness has never prevailed.

Easter and Passover come around the time of the vernal equinox, in the spring. Passover celebrates the delivery of the Israelites from the darkness of bondage, and Easter celebrates the final victory of light over dark, when death itself is handed its irreversible defeat. How wonderful that each is celebrated just as the sun begins to shine for the better part of the day! :-)

So perhaps it is OK for the sun to set. She always rises again, bringing light over the dark, "God's recreation of the new day."

St. Therese says:

"To live of love, it is when Jesus sleeps To sleep near Him, though stormy waves beat nigh. Deem not I shall awake Him! On these deeps Peace reigns, like that the Blessed know on high. To Hope, the vovage seems one little day; Faith's hand shall soon the veil between remove; 'Tis Charity that swells my sail alway. I live of love!"

The sun rises on the misty lake

Saturday night, my brother in law, my daughter and I went fishing. We only got two small rock bass, but that was OK. Being out on the quiet water, with nothing to say was nice. My brother in law said that it was awfully beautiful, and he meant it.

On Sunday, the sun rose for the first time I can remember in a long while. The lake was covered with mist when it did come up, and I sat and stared at it for a long time as the mist burned off. We worked on the kitchen. My daughter filled the hummingbird feeders, and they came. They chirped! (I never heard them make a sound before.)

We worked on the kitchen, cutting and planing boards for a new cabinet. The sun shone, and life continued. With a big hole, perhaps, but life continued.

Our weekend always ends with church. We have an 8 PM Mass, my daughter altar serves, and I sing in the choir. I always liked my weekends ending that way, but it feels more fitting than ever. If we live for the weekends, then perhaps it is well and just to give thanks to God at the end of them. :-)

A time to laugh, a time to mourn

That passsage from Ecclesiastes was one of the readings at the funeral service yesterday. Also read were 1 Corinthians 13, and John 14. Hundreds of people were there - some from her work, some from the cottage, many relatives, people from our church who attended their surprise wedding last year and knew my sister in law through my wife.

It was a remarkable funeral. There were many tears of course, but many laughs as well. Her husband, with his children standing at his side, delivered the eulogy, without having to stop and compose himself even once - a remarkable accomplishment I have never witnessed before. During the eulogy, a slide show my wife put together (showing many happier times) flashed on the screen.

Afterwords, my brother in law delighted in taking people with proferred handshakes by the arms, and drawing them into hugs. That was the kind of family we were. And still are. She leaves us a wonderful legacy.

I hope, for myself, to find peace soon.

Finish the Kitchen

I can't be with you
So let me leave you a list
And I'm going to be there
With a big unseen kiss

So watch me a sunset, laugh me a laugh
Love one another with all that you have
And finish the kitchen, do this for me
And a hummingbird feeder or three
And if you do the walkway, from heaven I'll see
But finish the kitchen for me

I know you want me
To lend you a hand
But I'm with the Lord now
To help with his plan

I'll be the moonlight, the sun on the dock
I'll be the joy and the lint in your sock
So finish the kitchen, do this for me
And a hummingbird feeder or three
And if you do the walkway, from heaven I'll see
But finish the kitchen for me
Finish the kitchen for me.

The wake today, funeral tomorrow

I don't know how I am going to do this. I realize the necessity of open casket wakes in coming to terms. But how can I see her like that? And more importantly, how can I watch the agony of my dear brother in law, or see my wife's suffering, when they go in with her like that?

As with all family church events, I have to do the singing. On the happy occasions, I love it. This time, not so much - but they need me to do this. I'm also a pallbearer, so the first song, one I wrote for their surprise wedding, will be from the recording.

My parents will arrive today. Thank God. My wife and I really need to see them. Both my wife's parents are gone now, and she regards my folks as hers too. I've been alone at home the last couple of days. Last night, my brother came and took me to a movie with his wife, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law. I thought it might be a relief to see a film. But the film in question, "Collateral" was very violent and brought me no relief or peace at all. In fact, I sat there looking at the bodies onscreen, realizing that I was going to have to see a real one the next day, of someone who was important to me. Still, the gesture was heartfelt, and I appreciated it.

As I was going to bed, I found a palm frond left over from the last palm sunday, stuck behind a painting. I put it on the ground, and I said, "Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord," in the hopes that He might come.

I'm still waiting, but I do know from experience that the Lord does things on his own schedule. I hope that He does come. Maranatha!

We were such a tightly knit family. An entire fleet of children, nieces, nephews, sisters, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, and close friends have been traveling on all my brother-in-law's errands as one giant herd. I am hoping he takes some comfort from that.

I ache

How I long to tell someone how much I hurt. Where do I turn? I can't go to my family. They all hurt too; if possible, more than I do. They need me to console; I have to live up to St. Francis prayer with this. And I can't just run sobbing to a friend. What friend can be comfortable with bearing that? Oh please Lord Jesus, hold me up in my grief. Make me a better monument to the love my family shares.

We had a couple of road trips planned, her family and ours (their daughter is grown and working now, but she always tried to make it back for the road trips.) We were going to round Lake Superior one summer. One year, we would drive up to Hudson's bay. She really wanted to drive down the Florida Keys, and I was her co-conspirator on that part. :-)

A year ago, my brother in law made all the arrangements to shock her with a "surprise wedding" for their 25th anniversary. He and my wife took care of everything - dress, shoes, veil, the church, getting all the relatives into town unnoticed. He pretended to get a phone call from my wife saying that our basement was flooded, and they trundled over here with the shop vac (unbeknownst to her, filled with her makeup and jewelry.) She was caught completely by surprise. She was so happy that day. I was the cantor at the wedding, and I wrote them a song (out of the Song of Solomon for the sung Psalm.) It breaks my heart that I am now going to be singing that song again, so soon, at a very different event at that same church. I do not know if I can even get through it.

My poor brother in law - he is trying so hard to be strong, and comfort others. She was his life. Hearing him cry when they came back from the hospital was the most heartbreaking sound I have ever heard.

This is so very hard.

"I have no rest; but trouble comes" (Job 23:26b)

I have not posted to my journal since Friday. In the time since that post, I have become a very different man. My family’s world has changed forever.

My wife’s sister and her husband were not just family. They were our best friends. More than that – words like that kind of trivialize the close affection we had in our family. We took our vacations together. Any time a summer movie came out, we went to see them together. My wife and her sister had birthdays two days apart. My brother in law and I have a birthday one day apart. We always, always had good times when we were together, even if we were working hard on wood gathering or renovations.

We did a lot of work on my brother-in-law’s kitchen in the week leading up to our recent family camp, along with my other brother in law. My wife’s sister really wanted the kitchen replaced - it was her one dream for the cottage. So this last Friday, my wife, my youngest daughter, and I went up to the cottage to keep working – we’re nearly done, and it would be nice to finish. It was going to be a week of mundane work, but it is summer – we would have some fun, too.

When we got there, my sister in law was complaining of heartburn, but she had done up a "to-do list" of all the things we had to do to get the kitchen completely finished. We took an inventory in our minds of all the tasks that had to be done, and we dictated them to her. She wrote them down in a French notebook my other brother-in-law had brought up the week of the major renovations. I decided to go to bed, and got my youngest daughter tucked in. I kissed my wife goodnight. My sister in law drank a glass of milk for her heartburn and went to bed.

I got up about 5 AM, and went downstairs to let the dog out to pee. A friend we had brought with us was standing in the kitchen and the light was on.

She told me that my brother in law and my wife had taken my sister in law to the hospital – she had woken up nauseous, cold and clammy, and had asked to be taken. I knew from my friend’s ashen expression that it was quite serious, but I had yet to know how deeply serious it was.

I ran upstairs. I thought about Schrodinger’s cat, as I prayed – if I did not yet know my sister in law’s fate, maybe my prayers could make it all right. I asked God, "Please Lord, whatever health my sister in law can have with these symptoms, please God let her have it."

The phone rang. I ran downstairs, and our friend answered it. I could tell before she got off the phone to tell me that my dear, sweet, funny sister in law – a sweet woman so much like my wife – was lost to us.

Knowing that I needed to get phone numbers, I went out to her car, and started sobbing, lung rattling sobs. Dread, grief, unbelief, the sharp sting of finality, anger? I can’t tell you what I felt. In some measure all of these things. I was useless at looking for phone numbers, that’s for sure.

I ran down to the dock and I raged at the sky; "Lord! Could you not hear my prayers? Why couldn’t you answer them? And if you couldn’t answer them for me, then why not for her?" I let myself get angry at God, because I knew somehow that God was prepared to let me. He is our parent, after all – and parents above all are tough and can take it.

What I did not know was this. My wife and brother would give me the details later:
An hour earlier, my wife came downstairs to let the dog out to pee. When she came downstairs, all the lights were on. She saw our friend and my brother in law carrying my sister in law out to the car. My wife ran to get dressed and dashed into the car with my brother in law. He raced down the back road, gunning for highway seven. If he could make it to the hospital in Perth, maybe things could still be all right.

Bundled into the back seat, my sister in law kicked and thrashed. My brother in law had to lock the car windows, so she wouldn’t hurt herself. My sister in law said she was dying, and then tried to reach for her husband. He was giving everything he had to driving, so my wife took her hand.

Then she said,
"I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!"
"It hurts! It hurts!"
"Please God, please make it stop!"

And then, she stopped breathing. My wife jumped into the back seat, and began to administer CPR to her sister. She was instantly come over with a sense of peace, on the first breath she gave. She knew her sister was gone, but as a last gift, she gave my wife that last connection of souls that let her know everything was all right somehow. My wife knew however that my brother in law could not just let her go like that, so they pulled into the cop shop as my wife continued CPR. The police officer on duty, who I gather was an incredible comfort to them cleared them a spot to continue CPR, and hailed the volunteer firemen. The firemen came, but since my wife knows CPR and none of them had any training she did not, let her continue. After twenty minutes of futile effort, the police officer raced them in his truck to the Perth Hospital, at incredible speeds. It was not enough. It would turn out later she had had a massive heart attack she had no hope of surviving.

When they told me this story, my anger with God withdrew – God had answered a prayer: my sister-in-law’s, not mine. I wanted to keep her here, and my sister-in-law wanted to be released. The night it happened (after a throng of family had come up to the cottage), I flipped open my Bible, and it fell open to Job, and one of the passages I read most frequently. In it God asks if Job was there when the foundations of the world were laid, and if he had understanding.
I must confess I do not. I do not understand God’s plan, but He continues to prove He is aware of what he is doing. At a time like this, our faith is challenged: can we put trust in God?

Ultimately we must. His will is going to be carried out, no matter what. If we do not trust Him, we are in for a life of pain, incomprehension, and questioning. And the moment we do put our trust in him, we are rewarded with the compassion, consolation, and peace of a God who never fails to give these gifts to us, if we are open to them.

Incidentally, when that phone call came and I ran down to the dock to shout at God, two hummingbirds came to the feeder, and stayed there for what seems like hours. My dear, sweet sister-in-law loved hummingbirds – posters, statues, and artwork abound through their cottage.

Hummingbirds never come that early in the morning. And they certainly don’t linger like that.

My beloved sister in law, for whom I was deeply affectionate, was forty-four years old. Please say a prayer for us.

New Bushism

I am quite fond of President Bush's verbal gaffes. They're just misstatements, and we all make them. But President Bush has a knack for making them funnier than most! In a speech yesterday, he said, "They never stop thinking of ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

I remember once we pulled up to a gas station and stopped in front of a pump. My elder daughter asked my wife, "Are you getting gas?"

Awakenings

Doctor Oliver Sacks wrote Awakenings about his experiences restoring the consciousness of a group of people who suffered from an epidemic in the 1920s. In particular, he spent a lot of time with a patient he calls “Leonard L” – the first patient he brought back using the Parkinson’s drug L-DOPA.

Leonard L suffered from encephalitis lethargica, a disease that affects the mind in a way similar to Parkinson’s. Sacks learned from his experience with these patients that Parkinson’s sufferers lose their sense of the passage of time, and that this may be the primary cause of most symptoms. Tragically, L-DOPA was not the miracle treatment it first appeared to be, and his patients lost their fairly brief return to normality. (I muse on this topic because for a while last night, I watched Penny Marshall’s movie of the same name, starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro.)

Today, I just happened to be reading about Stephen Hawking’s musings on the subject of creation, and God, in which he sees time as the means to understanding how creation could have a beginning and end. Cosmologists have long been bothered by the idea that time could have a beginning and end – it drives them crazy, for no reason that I can think of (other than that the idea is very suggestive of God.) I have written about this before.

One of the ways that cosmologists try and deal with the idea of time beginning is to come up with a mathematical conception of time they call “imaginary time.” Imaginary time allows the concept of finite time, with a beginning and end, to be taken out of the equation. As St. Augustine notes, time is a property of the universe and does not predate it. Cosmology’s imaginary time works from a similar point of view – if time is a dimension of the universe, then time itself is a created aspect of the universe, and at some point tracing back the singularity of the big bang, it can be mathematically viewed such that its flow merges into the big bang event. And voila – by using imaginary time to erase the opening boundary of time, the beginning of time is kind of taken out of the equation.

But cosmologists such as Hawking acknowledge that in “real time”, a time traveler going in reverse towards the big bang would definitely perceive time to have an origin, for they would reach it and be able to go no further.

But “real time” is not without its flaws – for it is rooted in our sense of the passage of time. Unlike people afflicted with the diseases that Oliver Sacks has studied, normal people are quite convinced of their own sense of the passage of time. If you look at your watch, and then look at it an hour later, you are quite convinced an hour has passed – in an absolute way.

The problem is, Einstein demonstrated that time’s passage is affected by relativity. The faster you go, the slower time passes in relation to objects moving at your prior speed. Time speeds up and slows down, based on how fast you are going. Yet your sense of the passage of time does not offer the neurological equipment to compensate for this. If you traveled ten Earth years at near the speed of light to Alpha Centauri, and then came back, you would return thinking that a few days had elapsed, and would instead find all of your relatives twenty years older!

So are the cosmologists wrong to extrapolate an imaginary time to handle their tremendous physics problems – probably not as physicists. But to apply their concepts to our sense of beginning and end would be a mistake. But for us to rely too much on our own sense of time might be a mistake, too.

We use time to navigate our lives. So it is no surprise that try to understand the eternal with five senses that don’t apply to the eternal. But what awaits us on the other side of our lives is so far beyond our understanding, that our imagination genuinely fails us. We have no problem imagining hell – many of us live there now, and so artists paint scenes of torment, cruelty, and malice, set over ulcerous fires. But what of heaven? Who has ever painted a picture of heaven that you thought was believable? None of us really accepts the quaint notion of seraphim with harps? What marvelous pop songs have you heard that sang out about heaven in anything but an Earthly way?

Perhaps the limitations of our senses are a good thing.

I’ve always hated surprises, such that my wife has had to scold me a few times in my life when I’ve circumvented a surprise. Perhaps God, by placing Heaven so far above and beyond our reach as artists, poets, and linguists – outside of time, outside of Earthly dimension – perhaps God has created the one surprise I cannot circumvent.

I can only hope.

When I went to post...

I saw in the corner that the JibJab guys started a blog. Now I forgot what I was going to write about.

Couldn't have been important I guess. Do you think Wil Wheaton ever writes blog entries as useless as this one?

Thank you for your years of service - by the way, you're fired!

This is absolutely unbelievable! A man who was fired by Health Canada three weeks ago got a thank you letter the other day for his 35 years of service, from the department that fired him. Shouldn't they await the arbitration results first?

My daughter is wearing Marx glasses

No, not Karl Marx - the Marx brothers. She looks like a goof. I put my reading glasses on her just a few moments ago to see what she'd look like. She looks surprisingly like my wife. We just came back from the Royal Buffet at Bank and Hunt Club - in the summer, neither my wife nor I like to cook. We don't have air conditioning, and a hot kitchen is just no fun.

Going to a buffet actually seems like the most sensible thing you can do for family harmony at dinner. If you drag children, you don't have to nag them to eat whatever it is you made that offends their palate. And you don't have to take offense when they refuse. It is perhaps not the height of culinary sophistication, but I long ago gave up the notion that I am more gourmet than gourmand. :-)

Yes, I am consciously interupting the sermon blog entries with a dose of my life. It may only be my opinion, but an online journal is more interesting if the writer's life makes it onto the page somewhat...

I discovered that I am still the number one gospel artist on mp3.com.au - it may be a marginal artist category, but I've been in the number one or two slots consistently now for nearly half a year. I was surprised to find that this was still so, because I haven't updated my site with any music in months. I have to get back to that - my wife says I am at my happiest when I am actively making music.

Every hair on your head is counted

Every hair on your head is counted.

Jesus of Nazareth said these words to his disciples two thousand years ago, and it is one of his most beautifully expressed insights - God is not, he tells us, the impersonal clockwinder of the deists. "Every hair on your head is counted" - I know everything about you.

God is not a Santa Claus, spying on us with a coal and toy list. He knows everything about us because he created everything, and he created us. He is more intimately connected to us than anyone else we have ever known, even our parents. He doesn't have to watch and wait for us to do naughty things, in order to prepare our Christmas coal. He already knows every flaw we have. But God is Love. He is literally love itself. The hardheartedness we may carry inside, the weariness of the world - this has no place in God. As Jesus himself says, "Behold, I make all things new." God is not only prepared to overlook every stupid thing we've ever done, he is prepared to take us well beyond it.

And take heart - even if you are not a Christian, many if not most religions say the same! The scriptures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all tell us that God is not always a partisan to the rich, the powerful, or the well off. Indeed, He is friend to the poor, the innocent, the downtrodden. In the stories these traditions give us, God leads slaves out of Egypt and makes a great kingdom of them; He lets a young boy with a sling defeat an unstoppable Philistine invader; he raises from the dead the son of an impoverished widow (through the prophet Elijah) and stretches her one day supply of bread baking supplies for two years!

These words that follow are my hope - they are the beatitudes; and the hope of all Christians is founded on them - can there be a God when the world we live in seems to be full of such unnecessary suffering? Absolutely, yes there can! Because as much as God lets us have reign over our lives (even to our own despair), we do not have reign over our souls - and a good thing that is. In falling before him, broken, we are raised up beyond where our own feeble limbs have the power to bring us;

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Take the red pill

Sister Wendy Beckett, a Carmelite nun, thinks that the woman posing as St. Mary Magdalen for Pietro Perugino is not ready for real meditation. She says, "It is the easy silence, of which the most accessible form is the daydream. Real silence is both supremely simple and yet not easy."

For a time I seemed to be able to reach a kind of meditative awareness that was both outward and inward, the beginnings of a true shedding of self. But I find in the last little while I've lost this. I suppose I should be both patient and diligent. Going into a quiet chapel or sanctuary is a reliable shortcut to this place, but ideally I think I should like to be able to reach it anywhere, especially at home.

A priest of my acquaintance uses breathing and visualization techniques to help people meditate. These things do work, and St. Ignatius himself practised a kind of visualization meditation. However I think these can be parlour tricks. God is everywhere at once. I do not need to visualize myself at the feet of Mount Sinai, or by a burning bush. God is right here, right now. I need to do a better job of quieting my mind, and letting Him in to fill the emptiness. Does that sound like something Yoda would say to Luke? :-)

It would help I suppose to rid myself of empty distractions. There are many ways in which we fill our days with mindless diversions. I have one in the room right now - behind me, the boob tube is playing "Brother Bear."

Above all - let go, and let God. I learned that from someone I admired.

Maranatha!

Norman Rockwell's America

I love looking at Norman Rockwell paintings. There is a sandwich shop down the street that has a Rockwell showing a young boy fishing with his dog. The details say so much - the soles of the boy's feet are dirty, the dog is looking up at him in a conspiratorial way, and a dragonfly is perched on his rod, (demonstrating how inactive a sport fishing really is.)

A critique I read of Rockwell's paintings went so far as to suggest that Rockwell's America is dead today, and may never have really existed. I cannot accept that; any great artist is simply reflecting on what they see, and what they paint is an aspect of reality, if a subjective one.

Rockwell's paintings are a meditation on the complexity of simplicity. The simple interpersonal transactions of small town people - men meeting at Shuffleton's barber shop, or an artist sheepishly painting himself - are moments of rich detail. Rockwell paints with the eyes of a child, seeing every good thing, and wondering about it with even a certain glee.

Here in Canada, we have Leacock's "The Sinking of the Mariposa Belle" as a richly captured small town moment.

People who say that this Canada and that America never existed do not make a convincing case for anything - other than the fact that they have perhaps forgotten their own childhood. :-)

evolver, reloaded

Well I am back. Back from what? I cannot say for sure; it always takes a couple of days to digest a vacation. I remember reading a couple of years ago that a person's intelligence actually decreases by a measurable amount when they have been on vacation.

I am glad that I still have ten fingers. I have spent a lot of time outdoors - for the last three days I have been camping on an island with my many in-law relatives in Big Gull Lake, in Ontario. We do this every year, and as I noted earlier, the rite is called 'Family Camp.' There is no electricity, no campground lot or facilities - our camping is quite primitive, but there is a great deal of fun, and usually no small amount of alcohol, for at least the over-eighteens.

My brother in law bounced all the kids around the lake on an inner tube, I spent half my time snorkeling with my younger daughter, and at night, I'd play campfire songs with my brother in law. (I must define what 'campfire songs' means - James Taylor, the Beatles, and Five for Fighting, and not 'Down by the Bay.' ;-)


Last night, nature moved me in the way she regularly does. The moon came up, and the lake turned silver. The few wisps of clouds took on the same silver light, and you could see everything - the way you usually expect the night of a full moon in winter. Around one in the morning, the loons began to sing. Down the lake, they called over and over again, with that long, beautiful echo only a loon call has. The silhouettes of pine trees stood out against the sky. I just lay there for a while in the tent staring at all this, before I fell asleep. As I fell asleep, I wondered what beauty there might be on the surfaces of other planets - if ours can be so beautiful, how different and wondrous must the nights be on other worlds? Is not God wonderful?

Not that every night was like this, of course. The first night was a miserable rain-soaked affair, and many of our tents got wet, even though they were weather-proofed. But you can't enjoy the good parts about camping, if there aren't some grimy and wet moments to go with them. :-)