Reflections from the now Past-President of ANW Conference (Peter Chynoweth)

Thanks everyone!

2011-06-01T14:42:00.001-06:00

My time as President is now ended. Thanks to everyone in the Conference for making it a very special time for me. I have appreciated the opportunity to meet many of you - sometimes to renew friendships and connections and also to connect with some of you for the first time.

My term ended on Sunday, May 29 as the closing act of the Celebration of Ministry Service. The service was pretty much all I had hoped for and even more (certainly in terms of length!) and I am deeply grateful for the team that put it together in such a wonderfully integrated way - especially since we never met face to face, only had one voice to voice conference call and then finished the collaborative process by conferring by email either with the whole group or between members of the team.

The venue was outstanding. The Heritage Amphitheatre in William Hawrelak Park in Edmonton is a great place. It proved to be a wonderful place for a worship service - combining the opportunity to worship without walls in the midst of God's creation and also to feel protected from any of the elements that might have made the space uncomfortable. As it turned out there was no reason for discomfort. The temperature was fine, the breezes were just that - only breezes and about the only detracting aspect of the day was that the sun shone so brightly that it made the screens a little hard to see for the worship service that was being projected. It was difficult to see but not impossible and that certainly relieved one of my anxious moments in the run up to the worship service.

I learned a lot about preparing worship for projection, and these learnings will be helpful to me as I move into what has become pretty much a standard form of media for worship in this generation.

I also had affirmation for the idea that if you find capable people and then trust that they will do their part, wonderful things will result.

I now look forward to a time of discernment as I reflect on all the things I learned and gained from my time as President and as I consider what new things I am being called to. One of those things I have already accepted - my offer to continue writing for "In Contact" on a somewhat regular basis was approved by the editorial board. I will be focusing on the "view from the north" likely keeping the title "Northern Light".

I will also post here from time to time - sometimes augmenting what I say in my columns in the Observer insert, sometimes repeating those columns for a wider audience and sometimes just taking time to reflect on our relationship with God and God's creation with "northern eyes".

Finally it would not be proper for me to reflect on my time as President without offering a few other expressions of gratitude. When I was first nominated for President I made sure that the people back home were informed. This included people from the Yellowknife United Church congregation, and most importantly my partner Sharon. They all said they were willing to be a part of all this. The people of Yellowknife United Church are a very special group of people. They have been unfailingly supportive of my time as President, counting the time primarily as their own time of blessing rather than as a time when they would lose a part of me.

And as for Sharon - there were many times when because of the travel that I was required to do, that we were apart, but she has been a wonderful support for me during my term. She has built me up when the schedule or the requirements of the position have seemed too large or complicated and she has been a wise and capable source of insight into some of the things I wrote or tasks I have been asked to do. There is nothing truer to be said that even though because of where we live she was not able to accompany me on many of the visits and trips, this time of my term as President was a partnership. Sharon was always there in some fashion - having contributed to making the trips work, having offered early morning drives to the airport, and being the supportive and reliable presence back home. It will be good to be together more again, now that this term has ended.

I also have to offer thanks to Heather and Jeff, Steve and Coral and of course Tekerra. One of the cherished bonuses of many trips to and through Edmonton was that I was able to watch Tekerra grow. I was able in part to do this because I often stayed with Steve and Coral and Tekerra during these trips. Accommodation on many occasions and wheels almost as many times were provided to me by them, and thus helped to save the conference some dollars in what was anticipated (although I think it never quite worked out that way) would be a somewhat larger travel budget given that the President was living north of sixty degrees.

Heather and her little dog Oliver (hey, I'm a Wizard of Oz fan!) moved to Yellowknife in the early months of my term, and their sharing of our place was an unexpected delight, and a way to ease the loneliness for Sharon in the times when I was away. It is somewhat ironic that Heather will be moving away again just a month after the term ended. Oliver is going to stick around for a little bit, so the loneliness won't be quite as sharp, but we'll miss Heather.

Thanks everyone. Mahsi Cho!

Thoughts and Prayers for the people of Slave Lake

2011-05-18T13:08:00.002-06:00

A letter to the people of Alberta and Northwest Conference

Many of us in theConference awoke on Monday morning to news of the destruction thathas occurred in Slave Lake as a result of raging wildfires pushed into the town by winds of up to one hundred km per hour. As the dayprogressed we heard estimates that a large percentage of the town wasdestroyed, including many key buildings and churches, but moreimportantly, the homes of hundreds of Slave Lake residents.

With the town having beenevacuated it is likely that many Slave Lake residents do not yet knowwhat happened to their homes.

I know that you along withme are praying for the residents of Slave Lake as they face thedevastation and grief of so much loss. All reports so far haveindicated that despite the tremendous speed at which this catastrophehas happened, and the large number of homes, businesses and otherbuildings that have been destroyed, there has been no loss of life.We can hope and pray that this small blessing in the midst of suchruin will continue to hold true.

The work of re-buildingwill take not only hard work, but also the strong commitment of manypeople, and a strength of will that will be hard to find in the midstof such loss.

We all know that thechurch is more than a building, but for those people who have losttheir place of worship, it will be an especially traumatic time.However, the church ismore than a building and I know that the church is also more than thepeople in a particular community. And so I invite us as the church tobe with the people of Slave Lake, offering the hope and presence ofGod in all the different ways that are possible.

Please hold the people ofSlave Lake in your thoughts and in your prayers, and be encouraged inwhatever way you can to offer whatever other assistance you can.

We also hold in gratitudeeveryone who has responded to this crisis, and made things just alittle bit easier in the midst of shock, loss, fear and disbelief.

We will continue tomonitor the situation in Slave Lake, with particular concern for thecommunity of faith, and we will provide updates as soon as we can,along with any information we can provide about ways that you canhelp in the days to come.

And to the people of SlaveLake, may you know the power, strength and love of God in this time,and may God's presence be made known to you by the people of God whoare standing, praying and working with you in this very difficulttime.

Ash Wednesday #2!

2011-03-09T13:58:00.002-07:00

Because the Lenten Discipline is free-form this year (as I mentioned in my previous entry) I can even put two entries up on the same day!

I reflected on what a pleasant chore it was for me to choose music for Lent today. As I searched for suitable hymns and choral responses I came across #109 in Voices United "Now Quit Your Care". I liked it. At first I thought the words were written by Percy Dreamer (what a great name for a hymn writer that would be!) but when I looked again I noticed I had mis-placed the "r" and it is Percy Dearmer. Being unfamiliar with the tune I went to that fount of all audio (and video) knowledge - YouTube and found this link to the King's College Choir, Cambridge singing a Christmas Carol in French to the tune in question: Quittez Pasteurs. Here is another nice one with better video.

This only confirmed for me how much I love Choral Music especially as sung by British choirs. This is music that inspires me - and more about that in a later post!

And yes, #109 VU is in the order of worship for Sunday.

Welcome Back!

2011-03-09T13:45:00.001-07:00

The title of this post might be a cheery message to anyone who in vain checks this blog on a regular basis. It could mean to them that their search has finally yielded some results. If the title fits your situation you are welcome to use it!

My intention however was really to welcome myself back. Yes, indeed, it has been a while since I blogged here, and certainly the most prolific time of blogging is now more than a calendar year back.

I am referring to my Lenten discipline of 2010, namely the discipline of writing a blog entry every day (save Sundays) in the season of Lent. I recall near the end of last year's effort that I promised to come back in a while and offer some reflections on the whole experience. Such are the busyness and distractions of life that it took until the beginning of the following Lent to even offer a whiff of such reflection.

Not apologies, just observations...

A while ago I decided that my Lenten discipline this year would be to read my Lenten blog from last year - one entry each day, in the same order that I wrote them last year. At first it sounds much easier, and in reality it probably is, but I suspect that it will also allow me to do the kind of reflective analysis that I had hoped to do earlier. You see I can think back on last year's practice and recall some general themes - a certain ebb and flow that occurred as I walked the Lenten journey. That's part of what I am looking for. I also have a sense that I got off to a really good start last year - with lots of insights and ideas. It will be interesting to me to see if that recollection is mirrored in what I actually wrote. I will also be curious to see if the more difficult times (somewhere in the middle) are reflected by the quality and length of post I did last year.

The view from my office window,
Ash Wednesday 2011

I also promised to add a photo each day in Lent. I'm not sure how well that worked out. I had actually forgotten that part of the plan from last year. As it turns out I have my camera with me today and it is very easy to take a photo similar to the one I used last year. It's interesting to see the difference from one year to the next. It's a bit later in the year this time, but also much colder - twenty degrees celsius colder! The skyline has changed a bit too! I've been watching the new DIAND (Department of Indian and Northern Affairs) building going up. It's the big yellow thing in the middle of the photo. The yellow is the insulation which they've been adding all around the building for the past two or three weeks (which means of course that the skyline is actually changing every day, if not every hour!)

It is not my plan to do a blog entry every day in Lent this year. Some days I will likely be prodded into responding to last year's entry either by reacting to what I wrote last year, or perhaps heading off on a tangent. I recall having some interesting thoughts and ideas around the whole idea of spiritual practice and spiritual discipline and I am giving myself permission to be more free-form this year - writing some days, photographing other days, being a creative writer on still other days and some days only reading what I wrote last year and perhaps reading some other daily Lenten study resource.

I also know that I will be involved in at least two other spiritual discipline situations in the coming weeks. On Sunday some folks from Yellowknife United Church are going to create a temporary labyrinth on the floor of our worship space and people will be invited to walk the labyrinth. I'm looking forward to it. Following that, members of the congregation have been invited to participate in the document that was put out by Alberta and Northwest Conference related to the "Listening Year" which everyone in the conference has been invited to engage. It contains some spiritual practices which seemed a very fitting connection between the desire of the conference to hear from us while at the same time allowing us the opportunity to engage in spiritual practice. I hope that my insights from last year's blogging discipline might be a helpful addition to the process.

So, here we go, another Lent has begun. I've fulfilled my first commitment by checking out what I wrote on Ash Wednesday last year and here is an entry for day one this year.

By the way, I spent some time today selecting music for the first Sunday worship service of Lent and that too was a helpful thing for me today. I enjoyed reading through some hymn texts and indices in my goal of picking music that would serve us not only for this coming Sunday but in some cases throughout the season.

Lent can be such a rich season. I heard someone say that a few weeks ago and wondered what they meant, and doubted that it would ever apply to me, but I can truly say that after this little bit of hymn choosing, reflecting on Lent, reading what I wrote last year and now writing these few words, I find I am actually looking forward to what the season might have in store for me and us (with that "us" being vaguely (and comfortably) defined!).

Blessings...

Peter

Dark and Cold: Warmth and Light, A Christmas Message

2010-12-23T12:47:00.000-07:00

It istwo days before Christmas and the days are getting longer. That's abit of a big deal for us who live north of 60 degrees latitude. Wewatched with interest and excitement a few days ago as the earth'sshadow passed across the moon on the evening of the solstice, turningthe moon a rusty red. It was a crisp clear night and we and ourvehicles were parked all along the ice road which runs acrossYellowknife Bay from Yellowknife to the community of Dettah.

Thenext morning I had the honour and privilege of travelling north ofthe Arctic Circle to the community of Fort McPherson to take part ina commemoration of the 100^th Anniversary of the “LostPatrol” - a tragic story in the annals of the Royal NorthwestMounted Police – which later became the Royal Canadian MountedPolice – when four members of the RNWMP set out on a regular winterpatrol to Dawson City. Unfortunately through a combination of neverhaving done the patrol in that direction, terrible weather with thetemperature plunging to the minus 60's Fahrenheit and of course thelimited light at this time of year, they never made it. All of themperished in the frozen land, but only after a terrible forty sevendays of trying to find the route and running out of provisions.

Coldand dark are a fact of life for us who live in the north. Many of theChristmas carols we sing at this time of year make mention of thecold – perhaps more fitting to our Canadian climate than to that ofthe first-century Middle East, and the dark, as the shepherds beheldthe choir of angels.

But thebirth of a child in a stable, in a place that was not home for Maryor Joseph, reminds us that so often the gospel is an upside downstory – a story of the surprise of God's presence in unexpectedways, a story of the last being first, a story of the last and theleast being first at the feast. And so, I look to the cold and thedark for the lessons they can teach me about God's presence, and Ithink of the resourcefulness and courage of people who face hardshipand trouble with faith in the power and presence of God to sustainthem.

We talkof light – and light is wonderful, and revelatory, and for peoplewho live north of the Arctic Circle – like the people of FortMcPherson and other communities, there is a big celebration when thesun returns on or about January 6 (how wonderful is that littleconnection between Epiphany and the return of the sun!), but I inviteyou to think of how many good ideas, how many inventions, how manylives were transformed in the dark of night – in dreams that becamefulfilled, in bedtime meditations, in the ideas that popped intoactive minds, and in that birth which we celebrate at Christmas –in the darkness of a Bethlehem night.

Mayyour Christmas celebrations – in worship, in the gathering offamily in whatever forms they take, in communities across ourwonderful and diverse church in this conference, be ones which bringout the value and support of tradition, but may they also be oneswhich are open to insight and wisdom in the unexpected, in the upsidedown way that God has always spoken.

You area blessing: Be a blessing...

T-Rex Jesus

2010-10-23T11:50:00.000-06:00

So, it is happening again. Senior High Rally started around 7pm last night (Friday) and it is still before noon on Saturday and of course the creativity is flowing. This morning the home groups were invited to re-imagine a biblical story and we were inspired to see, hear and incorporate the good news in wonderfully imaginative, humourous and insightful ways.

Zachaeus the Raptor and T-Rex Jesus. Noah and his wife booking a vacation on a "Zoo Cruise" gone wrong, but ultimately right. The story of Jonah told in a game of tag. A commercial for that new healing product "Jesus Touch" gel including the requisite list of side effects (except in this case they were all to be desired rather than feared!).

I heard it said last week that if you want something transformative to happen to your congregation just offer to host one of the two rally events that are held in our conference every year - Senior Rally in October and Junior Rally in March.

Nothing that has happened so far at Sherwood Park United Church has caused me to change my mind on that one!

Reporting in as one of the Chaplains at Senior High Rally 2010 in Sherwood Park United Church.

Back at last...

2010-10-15T23:42:00.000-06:00

Here's a curious little piece of information. I wrote a blog entry every day for forty days in Lent and before that off and on - pretty much every time I wrote an article for "In Contact". Throughout the Lenten writings and in most of the previous entries I invited people to interact with me. Not once did anyone comment online with regard to anything I wrote. It was easy not to get an inflated idea of how many people were reading... I knew a few who were reading the writings in Lent, but I did not expect that there were too many others.

In an interesting irony, the title of the last Lenten writing was this: Is this how it ends? Of course I was referring to the end of the Lenten season and the disciples commenting on the death of Jesus, but for those people who kept checking the blog after Lent, it probably had a different ring. It could well be the question I was posing to myself after completing the Lenten discipline that both challenged and inspired me.

But over the past three weeks or so, I have had several people make reference to the blog and while they have expressed an understanding that I've been very busy, they have also mentioned that I haven't added anything lately. You may know who you are - and now you know that those little comments dropped into the middle of other conversations have sparked a rekindling of my blogging enterprise!

So this entry is an answer to all of that. No, that was not how it all ended - at least in blog terms, and no it was not how it all ended for Jesus either.

Lessons for me?

Resurrection themes can pop up in the most unlikely of situations.

Keep on writing because you never know who is reading.

Lessons for you?

Keep on letting me know you are reading - whether it be by commenting in the blog itself or by letting me know the next time you see me. I am always happy to write in response to questions or requests. In fact I commented to someone recently that I get inspired by deadlines, but I also get inspired by questions.

Posted in Banff, Alberta on October 15 while attending the Banff Men's Conference - more on that later!

Seventh Saturday - Day Forty

2010-04-03T20:33:00.000-06:00

And is this how it ends?

That might have been the question that Jesus' friends asked when they witnessed the final days, hours and minutes of Jesus' trial and execution. On a much less important scale, it is also the question I am asking in this my final blog entry in this season of Lent. As I predicted a couple of days ago, the last few entries have been in some ways the hardest to fit in to a busy schedule, but as it turns out they were not the hardest to do. A number of incidents have occurred in the past few days that have reasonably easily led me to a blog topic. The hardest times were a couple of weeks ago when I was very tired and just wanted to go to bed but could not because of the commitment I made to myself and others to keep this as my Lenten discipline. It was then that I found myself asking the questions about whether it was a worthwhile exercise to have a Lenten discipline that seemed more like a chore that had to be done than a spiritual exercise that could possibly lead me to a deeper relationship with God.

Now that I've kept my commitment to the spiritual discipline, I can honestly say that there are other ways that I think would have helped me to accomplish the deepened relationship with God. However, this discipline has also been worthwhile for me. I feel good about having achieved what I said I would do. I feel particularly good about the first couple of weeks of entries. It was then that I was able to spend some focused time on the topic of discipline and those first few entries will be a helpful guide for me in times to come - as background material whenever I have occasion to talk about the importance of keeping a discipline, and as a guide and a distance marker for me in my own self-directed spiritual journey. Perhaps it will also be helpful for me as a resource in any future spiritual direction that I undertake.

Rather than enter a wilderness at the very beginning of this journey, the wilderness came to me in the latter part. That's okay and it is a helpful learning for me in case I ever choose this form of Lenten discipline again.

That's what is on my mind late into these final hours of Holy Week. I've been particularly appreciative of the second discipline I chose for this week, namely the walk through Holy Week that has been provided for me in the entries of Iona Dawn: Through Holy Week with the Iona Community. I've been both affirmed and strengthened by the things the writers there have offered to me - affirmed because often their words about particular incidents or situations in the gospel stories have matched my own and strengthened because I've also been given helpful new perspectives.

I am going to take a few days off now, from making entries in this blog. I will return however and give a more considered reflection on just how the Lenten portion of this blog has been for me. I am going to do this as much for myself as for anyone because I really do want to spend some time in reflection and analysis into the process of writing something every day for a specified period of time.

Blessings to all who have been reading here.

I will be back in a few days.

Holy Saturday,
Yellowknife,
April 3, 2010

Seventh Friday - Day Thirty-nine

2010-04-02T23:13:00.000-06:00

Good Friday
The news today called this the most important day of the year for Christians. I'm not sure about that. Despite its significance, I'm sure that commercially, retailers would say that Christmas is the most important day and theologically I think it is still Easter.

It was probably the busiest Good Friday I've spent in twenty years of ordained ministry. I got up and went to work about the same time I usually do. Then I spent some time changing the arrangement of the chairs for Good Friday worship so that it was a bit more compact. We are hoping to webcast the worship service on Sunday so that family members who can't be here on Sunday when Tekerra is baptised can join via the web. So, I spent some time assisting the fellow we've invited to help us with that.

After the Good Friday worship service I went quickly home for lunch and then I was back at the office for baptism preparation with Steve and Coral and their friends Adam and Nicole whom Steve and Coral have invited to be Tekerra's godparents. We were also joined by Marg and Lloyd as representatives of the YKUC congregation.

After the baptism preparation I spent an hour working on some of the technical details of the webcast with moderate success and then got ready for a rehearsal with the YKUC Players - a small group of children who've been working on a couple of dramatic presentations thar will be part of Easter morning worship. The rehearsal went reasonably well and left me feeling pretty good about something that has been a bit of a worry for me over the past couple of weeks.

Then it was time to return home for Easter Dinner with all of our Calgary and Edmonton guests, plus a couple of others as well. It was a busy, happy time together at table.

I mused the other night that it was going to be a challenge to fit this blog into the schedule. I was right. I have one more entry to go to have fulfilled my commitment to make it a Lenten discipline. I expect to make it.

Was it a Good Good Friday? Yes - busy, very busy - but good.

Yellowknife
April 2, 2010

Seventh Thursday, Day Thirty-eight

2010-04-01T21:41:00.002-06:00

The Night of Questions

As I understand it, the tradition of observing the Passover Seder is one that is guided by the questions of children. In this way, the story gets told, and one can assume, because it is the children who ask the questions, that the story also gets remembered better. It's a wonderful tradition, in that it honours the children as ones who are always welcome at the table, and it gives them an important - one could say vital - part to play in the drama that unfolds. It is a deeply rich meal not in proteins and nutrients for the body (although it could also be that) but in proteins and nutrients for the soul. The tradition is important and retelling it helps to build the tradition generation after generation after generation.

And so we gathered this evening for our version of the Seder - the meal of Passover, complete with macaroni and cheese playing the role of manna, but also with the traditional symbolic elements. It was a wonderfully rich evening not only because of the food shared but because of the conversation shared.

It seems entirely appropriate on a night when the questions of children (scripted though they might be) are the ones that lead us through the tradition, that my night should have been enriched with a most penetrating question from one of our young congregation members. She watched the drama that the youth group portrayed - telling in summary form the story of Moses - how he came to be in Pharaoh's family circle, and then how he defended his people, ran away and then heard the call to lead his people, the Hebrew people out of Egypt. The drama ended with a depiction of the various plagues ending with the most dreadful of them all, the one that killed all the Egyptian firstborn male children, but "passed over" every Hebrew household that had a smear of blood from the sacrificed goat or lamb on its doorposts.

My young questioner was obviously listening and watching very intently. I know this because of the questions she asked. What if a family of Egyptians had not enslaved the Hebrew people? Why would God kill the Egyptian children even if they had done nothing wrong? Wow, it's the kind of question that leaves you grasping for the right words to say. And of course she asked it within earshot of her parents, who were also listening to how I would answer that one. We talked about God's love for everyone - that was the basis for the injustice she perceived in the story already, so that was not a hard sell. We talked about how different people in the story would understand it differently. The Hebrew people certainly understood that God was on their side. But God doesn't take sides! How would the Egyptian people understand the story? How could they understand an impartial God if their oldest son was killed even though they had done nothing wrong? In the end, I felt reasonably good about what I said - despite some fumbling thoughts as I tried to answer the questions - for I said that I did not have all the answers, but I asked my young conversation partner to never stop asking those kinds of questions, for it is those kinds of questions that drive us more deeply into our faith, it is those kinds of questions which lead us to work more earnestly for justice, it is those kinds of questions which help us to understand God differently. I asked her if she thought that God every cries. I asked her if she thought that God might be crying over what happened to the Egyptian children. She said that those kinds of questions are the kind of questions that make her head hurt, but I think she accepted my suggestion that she should keep on asking them.

Yellowknife,
April 1, 2010

Seventh Wednesday - Day Thirty-seven

2010-03-31T23:56:00.002-06:00

Changing Course

This is my second start at today's blog entry. It is a change of course. The last couple of days I've been reflecting on the reflections in the book Iona Dawn: Through Holy Week with the Iona Community. That's what I started to do again tonight, but in so doing the writing got too personal and I was not ready to make it available in a blog that could be read everywhere.

That's the one thing that I haven't done in this Lenten blog - do a lot of writing about where and how this blog might be read. I know there are a few of you out there reading it on a regular basis - or at least you were at one point, but when I last checked I did not have many followers, and no comments have ever been posted. I have a feeling that some things have been said to me or done for me as a result of things I wrote about only in my blog, which indicates that more people are reading than I thought.

I fully expect when Lent is over and I no longer need to write here as part of my Lenten discipline, that I will stop doing a daily entry. It is also my intention to do some reflection on the whole experience. Where did this take me, what did I learn, would I do it again, were there themes or directions that came up that I did not expect - all those kinds of questions. But that is for when it is all over.

There are still three (not counting tonight) entries to go so I will save the reflection until it is all over. However, I also know that my commitment to the discipline will probably receive it's biggest challenge in the next few days.

We are having visitors for the Easter Weekend and the first ones arrived today. There will be lots more demands on my time besides the regular extraordinary demands of Holy Week and Easter. It's all good - it will be wonderful to share time together and to have people around. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the visitors who arrived today: Our granddaughter - who will be five months old on Easter Sunday - the day of her baptism, arrived at around noon today. She brought her parents with her - well they actually brought her, but we all know who the real focus of attention will be.

But that's why blog entries will be hard to complete in the next few days - with all the people and activity to attend to, to say nothing of the extra pressure and responsibility of planning Holy Week and Easter worship.

And so, that's all I have to say this evening. I might eventually get around to finishing that "other" entry and doing something with it, but I think it will always be a little too personal for the blogosphere.

TTFN

Yellowknife,
Wednesday, March 31

Sixth Tuesday - Day Thirty-six

2010-03-30T23:23:00.000-06:00

There were no questions at the end of today's reflection in Iona Dawn, except the lingering question that the reflection left with me. It told the story of Rachel - grieving her dying husband and receiving the pattest and least helpful of answers from her priest.

Am I that priest? Would I answer her questions with the same kind of pat answer, and dismissive assurance?

I trust I wouldn't, that I would not feel the need to try to lessen her grief with unhelpful 'there-there's and deny her anger with God with a 'soon it will all be better'.

I did a lot of reflecting on the Good Friday experience today as I tried to get ready for worship in three days. All the liturgical resources that ended with a note of hope seemed so out of place, so quickly reassuring. As much as I dislike the idea of atonement - that someone without sin had to die for all our sins, and will therefore search for other reasons for Jesus' execution, I also want to hold within me the grief, the pain, the complicity that we the members of the crowd share in what happened. Easter does not hold the same importance without Good Friday. That's why we mark Palm and Passion Sunday as well. It doesn't make sense to go from celebration (flawed though it was in concept and expectation (I'm talking Palm Sunday here)) to celebration without reflecting on what went on in between.

The fact is that political disturbers - whether peaceful in their methods or not - can get executed. Oscar Romero came to mind today, and just now so did Martin Luther King, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Good Friday is not going to be a happy service. It never should be, and the pain and sorrow, sadness and despair are as important to us on the Easter weekend as the celebration that comes with sunrise on Easter Sunday.

Sixth Monday - Day Thirty-five

2010-03-29T23:11:00.001-06:00

Double Discipline

I hinted at this on Friday with a haiku but I have decided to take on a second discipline for Holy Week. I bought the book of Holy Week reflections a couple of years ago, but I did not use it at the time. This year I saw the book advertised in something else I was reading and it reminded me that I have it.

I have to say I am really looking forward to using it this year, first of all because after getting this far with this discipline of writing - which I admit has been quite challenging at times, I am ready for a spiritual practice which involves reading, reflection and some questions. Reading what someone else has written is going to be a little easier than having to come up with something to write every day. Secondly I am looking forward to it because it is called Iona Dawn and it comes from the Iona community. The work of the Iona Community really appeals to my celtic roots.

Today's reflection from Iona Dawn was by Jan Sutch Pickard and in the piece she reflected on the passage where Jesus weeps for Jerusalem. Jan wrote about the many reasons why God still must weep for Jerusalem. As the daily reading comes to a close, Jan asks these questions:

Where do you feel God is weeping, in other places in the world right now?

The lives of innocent victims were changed forever again today, in Moscow, from which we received word of two suicide bombers who blew themselves up along with a large number of other subway riders. God is weeping.

God continues to weep for the people of Haiti, who are still desperate almost three months after the January earthquake.
What can you do to express your common humanity with the people in that place?

I don't know what I can do directly to express my care and concern and sorrow for the people of Moscow. I can pray that a peace with justice will find a way as the resolution to the problems that are sending people to make such dramatic, inhumane, and destructive actions.

We joined the many millions of people who made a direct financial donation in the days immediately following the earthquake. Perhaps it is time to make another.
What in your own country, community, or family life might make God weep?

I think God continues to weep over the two solitude fathom that separates aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in our country.
In these situations, can you see the way that leads to peace?

Yes.
What are they?

As has become so apparent to me in the past few months and years - it is all about relationship. Relationships - healthy, whole , respectful relationships are the only way to create peace and understanding.
What would be the first steps?

Taking a step outside of our normal path of walking. Swallow pride, swallow fear of embarrassment, swallow fear of saying the wrong thing, swallow fear of difference - and reach out.

Sixth Saturday - Day Thirty-four

2010-03-27T23:10:00.000-06:00

Six Word Story Time
Probably the most memorable night at General Council 40 was the evening when each table group was invited to write a six word story about the work that the General Council had done so far, the mood of the meeting, or a particular theme or incident that happened during our time in Kelowna.

After the stories were written, we were invited by the moderator to come to the microphones to share the work of our creative enterprise. It was a wonderful evening composed of laughs, poignant moments, brilliant insights and just a fun evening to take our minds and hearts in a different direction for a brief time.

Hopefully the six word stories that were shared that evening will be preserved in some fashion, because they just might be some of the best stuff to come out of the General Council. That is not meant to be a criticism of the important work that got accomplished, it's just that I think the creative work we were called to do with the six word stories was something that helped us to think differently, step outside the box and do some dreaming with both seriousness and whimsy.

The "six word story" theme was inspired in part by this famous six word story by Ernest Hemingway: Baby Shoes For Sale. Hardly Used. It makes sense that Hemingway, the master of minimalist writing would be the one to come up with such a meaningful and mysterious story in such a few words.

I hinted last night that "six word stories" are the prose version of the haiku which have appeared in this blog on more than one occasion. I also hinted in one of my haiku verses that a six word story might show up in this night's entry. Let's see how it might go:

Lenten practice sometimes works for me.

Every Sunday a little Easter. Hallelujah!

This dude's off to bed Goodnight

Yellowknife,
March 26, 2010

Sixth Friday - Day Thirty-three

2010-03-26T23:54:00.002-06:00

When in doubt, haiku
Just like people have 'comfort food' - the dish they go to when they need something that reminds them of home or happier days, or just when they aren't feeling particularly creative about cooking dinner, or because the comfort food is based on things that are always in the pantry, fridge or freezer - I've decided that I have a 'comfort creative outlet', namely the haiku.

I first learned of haiku at the Ministry of Supervision course - about fifteen years ago. I remember an afternoon where we were given various options to draw upon (pun sort of intended) the other side of our brain. Someone described the five, seven, five pattern of this kind of Japanese verse and I was hooked. I don't write them all the time, but every once in a while when I need to explore things a bit differently - and escape the prose which is my normal style of writing, I will put my mind to work on the minimalist exercise of writing some.

I wrote some haiku at GC40 last summer when commissioners were also asked to do something creative. It must have been of interest to someone because haiku got a mention in the reporting back the next day.

So, I once again call upon my 'comfort creative outlet'. It is time again to pare some thoughts from the day, and some events of the week into seventeen syllables each:

This week's glimpse of God:
A lenten epiphany:
It's relationship!

Just like what to write
The photo quest does vex me
I know - a hydrant!

Facebook and Twitter
Community builders both
but so is Worship!

Twitter and Facebook
a place to get together
just like coffee time!

Read "Iona Dawn"
My Holy Week discipline
Can I handle two?

"Six word story" time
The prose version of haiku
I'll try tomorrow.

Look for things to say
Counting out the syllables
five more and you're done!

Good night followers
This list of poems complete
Now I can go sleep....

Yellowknife,
March 26, 2010

Sixth Thursday - Day Thirty-two

2010-03-25T23:12:00.001-06:00

Open Source II - The Sequel
So, I woke up this morning and almost decided to delete yesterday's entry and replace it. I've thought lots about Open Source as a concept, and I've talked about it with a good number of people, but never in a coherent, straightforward, answer-all-the-questions kind of way. I've done lots of reflecting on the topic. It may seem a bit far-fetched, but I think there are strong connections between the Open Source movement (I will continue to call it that, unless someone can write and make a good case not to call it that) and the DRM debate that is going on around music CDs, movies and computer games. It also has some connections with peer-to-peer file sharing and the whole issue of copyright and intellectual propery.

So, I've talked with a number of people about Open Source software, and I freely admit that part of the point of these conversations is to help me come to an understanding in my own mind about the whole issue of "open source". Unfortunately, I am still working it all out, and that's probably why I wasn't satisfied with what I wrote yesterday (and actually if you are checking the dates and times - it was really quite early today!).

Open Source is more than just a collection of really good and really cheap (as in free!) software, although those two attributes are not to be sneezed at. For me there is an interesting ethic to be explored. And I also think there is a spirituality behind that ethic. So that, along with the fact that the software I use is both good and free, is why I am so attracted to the whole idea of Open Source. For me it has something to do with being gifted by God and using those gifts to develop software and then allow people to have it for nothing - as long as they agree to make their own work available as well.

I really do want sometime to explore the whole spiritual background of developers of open source software. Because I think that community-developed (a term that is sometimes used to describe open source contributions) software is an important, tangible example of the kind of community that is described in the aforementioned book of Acts.

The whole idea of free to use, free to change, free to buy software movement, brings one into discussions about giftedness, intellectual property and other ways of organizing ourselves. After all, doesn't free stuff do a real number on the prevailing system of values? What would it mean if we all bartered our way around the money system.

So not only does Open Source help me get stuff done freely (in all the ways you want to define it), but it helps me to reflect on the ways in which God has gifted those around us.

I still don't feel like I said everything I wanted to say in a manner that is straightforward and understandable, but perhaps a little better than last night's posting.

Of course this all sounds a bit like this: Using Open Source solutions - which end up being better in quality as well as free, helps me to think about God and the way God has gifted us. And that, my friends, is how the action-reflection- action cycle goes. Which all means that using open source is much like a Lenten discipline. They both lead me on a path which ends up being close to where we started. And they both help me to reflect on God and God's relationship with us.

I hope that makes more sense than last night, and I expect you have not heard the last of this subject!

My graphic today is one that comes from the Free Software Foundation which is known for its Gnu logo - depicting the animal called a Gnu. However the Free Software Foundation also produces software which is labeled with the Gnu name. And what does Gnu stand for? Well it is a self-defining acronym meaning Gnu is Not Unix. Do you get it? It's a little inside joke that often shows up as a kind of naming convention for Open Source software.

Yellowknife,
March 24, 2010

Sixth Wednesday - Day Thirty-one

2010-03-25T00:16:00.004-06:00

Open Source

So this is one of those days when I wasn't sure what to write about. It was a busy enough day with it being the turn of Yellowknife United Church and Holy Family Lutheran Church to provide the lunch for the Lenten Lunch series that is offered by the Yellowknife Ministerial Association every Wednesday during Lent, but as you can see that would have been a pretty short post!

So, I spent a few minutes on Facebook looking for inspiration, but nothing served as a muse. So, off I went to Twitter. The last tweet I tweeted (is that the correct way to say that?) was almost a month ago, when I mentioned this blog. Because I haven't been on Twitter for a while there was a long list of tweets from the United Church which is one of the Twitter accounts I am following. And there I found the comment that was the spark for this evening's blog entry. The tweet asked: How would the United Church of Canada look redesigned by Apple?That turned my crank or pushed my button! I quickly replied with this: I would much rather see what The United Church of Canada would look like redesigned by the Open Source Community.

I can't believe that I've posted thirty entries here and have not yet mentioned Open Source. You see, it is a big focus for me. It intrigues me. It inspires me. It keeps me well stocked with software. I use it every day of my life, and someday I would like to study even more closely the community that produces it. If I had taken some different turns earlier in my life I might well have been a contributing member of the Open Source Community rather than someone who simply uses the stuff that others contribute.

If you want to know more about the Open Source Software movement (I'm not sure that it is a 'movement', but for sake of a better term, that's what I'll call it) you can find out lots on the Web - in fact it is one of the best places to find out information, because a lot of Open Source programmers use it exclusively - to promote, collaborate, and distribute their products. Look up the name Richard Stallman on Wikipedia (which by the way in many ways has connections with the Open Source Community) or put his name into Google. Read the book by Eric Raymond The Cathedral and the Bazaar. There's an online version of it here.

And I really would like to see what the United Church would be like as designed by the Open Source Community - although some might argue that that's the way we are already. I haven't given this a lot of thought, but here's a quick list of good things about Open Source Software:

It is 'free'. The phrase that's been coined to explain this characteristic is this: "free" as in speech, not as in beer. Which means that you are free to see the code for the software and make it work the way you want to make it work.

It is usually 'free' - as in "it doesn't cost you money" - or as in beer.

It is peer reviewed, and usually very good software - certainly very valuable when you consider how much you pay for it!

It is updated more frequently and therefore improves more quickly than commercial software.

Commercial software often charges more money for new, improved versions.

It sounds more like the kind of software the Acts community would have used.

So, I wonder how does this translate to the United Church of Canada?

Are we 'free' as in speech? - Not bad, and our rules of governance are fairly easy to come by. Our traditions and long held ways of doing things are not always quite as transparent or easy to figure out. The General Council spent some time talking about the "source code" of the United Church last summer - better known as The Basis of Union. Some think a rewrite with an archiving of the original package might be a good idea.

Free as in 'not costing any money'? Free to join - a least dollar wise. Free to attend. Free to participate. But pretty soon we hope your thanksgiving and your understanding of being a steward might change that - although you are hopefully always free to choose.

We have lots of stuff that's peer reviewed in the United Church. It's how we do a lot of our business. Sometimes the testing needs to be more thorough, and perhaps the work needs to be better at handling a variety of special cases.

I'm not sure how good we are at updating. Some parts of the church get updated more often than others, and it can sometimes take a very long time to get anything new going. See the comment above about dealing with traditions.

See #4!

This is an interesting one for me. I think that "open source" is ideally suited to the church. It's developed in community. It is free - in both ways of understanding, and I think there is something about 'grace' tied up in the whole "Open Source" ideal.

Well, this has been a bit of whimsical look at something that I take very seriously. The post has been mostly this way because it's been off the top of my head. But it has got me thinking and perhaps once I have had a chance to do some more thinking about The United Church of Canada as designed by the open source community, I'll have more to say.

Finally, just to give you an example of the way in which open source is so much a part of my world every day, let me just list a non-exhaustive list of the software I use that is 'open source' along with the commercial or closed source equivalent - some of which I have, but some which I use 'open source' instead of.

Item	Open Source	Closed Source or Commercial
Operating System	Ubuntu Linux	Microsoft Windows 7
Web Browser	Mozilla Firefox	Microsoft Internet Explorer
Email Client	Mozilla Thunderbird	Microsoft Outlook
Photo Editing	GIMP	Photoshop
Office Suite: Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Database, etc.	Openoffice.org	Microsoft Office

To name but a few....

Yellowknife
March 24, 2010

Fifth Tuesday - Day Thirty

2010-03-23T22:58:00.000-06:00

March Light
One of the wonders of Yellowknife is the light in March. Followed closely by the sun in March. Well actually they are one and the same, but with slightly different characteristics. Often the memory of something or the description of something ends up being better than the real thing. Once in a while though the real thing is better than anyone can describe or remember. That's the way it was for me when I drove the "Going to the Sun" highway in Glacier National Park in Montana. I had heard that it was a wonderful, scenic, mouth open kind of road. How can anything be that good, I wondered. And then I drove it. It was far and away better than I had imagined.

And it is the same way with the light in March in Yellowknife. This is the fifth time I've experienced it and every time it is better than what I remembered. I don't know why it is better than February, or even June - there is certainly more of it in June, but I think it has to do with the blanket of snow - the usually bright and sunny days, and the fact that we are getting more than twelve hours of it now that we've passed the spring equinox. It is also the harbinger of spring despite the fact that we'll likely have snow on the ground for at least another six weeks or so - it's too far north for groundhogs!

As I said, even the sun is a wonder, although today you wouldn't really know it. The temperature didn't get above -22 all day and the wind was as biting and nasty as it has been all winter, but even so there was just a hint of warmth in the sun even if the air all around us was unseasonably cold even for Yellowknife.

Perhaps this is why the Snowking makes sure that his month long festival takes place in March. Because he knows that there will be bright light, lengthening days (they gallop ahead these days - about six minutes a day - which only makes sense when they go from five hours of daylight on December 21 to twelve hours of daylight on or around March 21) and the occasional reminder of warmth.

I gloried in the light as I walked home for lunch today. I'll remember it for next year, but I just know that next year it will still be better than I remembered!

Yellowknife,
March 23, 2010

Fifth Monday - Day Twenty-Nine

2010-03-22T23:39:00.001-06:00

Yellowknife Moments

I have a folder on my computer called "Yellowknife Moments". In it are filed stories of things that happen in Yellowknife that are unlikely to happen anywhere else. Yellowknife truly is a different kind of place, and that's one of the main reasons we like living here. Here's a brief tale from a couple of months ago, before I tell you of the Yellowknife moment we had this evening.

I was out for a little trip on one of the snowmobiles we are taking care of while their owners complete an assignment with the Mennonite Central Committee in Mexico. I was two turns from home on the streets of Yellowknife when I noticed that the Sports Utility Vehicle approaching me was slowing down. I had to look closely to realise that it was braking for ptarmigan (there actually is quite a popular bumper sticker in Yellowknife that reads 'I brake for ptarmigan'). As they were crossing the street in front of him, and therefore in front of me, I also had to brake for them. That's Yellowknife Moment Part One - a snowmobile and an SUV on the city streets braking for ptarmigan - hard to picture that happening anywhere else. But wait, I'm not done - I continued around the turn and then made the next turn on to our street, down our street and then in to our driveway where there is a trail into our backyard where I turn the snowmobile around to be ready for the next trip. As I drove into the back yard, there perched on the rock outcrop that overlooks our back yard was a nice bushy fox watching me.

All that was a bit of an aside, a fond memory of my last Yellowknife Moment before tonight. It is typical of the kind of experience we've come to expect in this place, but one which still impresses us. The occasion is the yearly Peter Gzowski Invitational golf tournament for Literacy. This is an event which moves around the north - from eastern arctic to western arctic and lots of places in between. However, we usually get a concert in Yellowknife regardless of where the golf tournament is taking place. A few years ago the golf tournament was played on a miniature golf course carved out of the snow on Great Slave Lake right next to the Snow Castle which also is on Great Slave Lake - built pretty much entirely out of snow and ice (ice is frozen in sheets to make the window panes). Apparently they used flourescent red balls, and I'm not sure what they used for clubs. This year the golf game is being played on the ice in Hay River, but as the invitees and performers usually have to come through Yellowknife anyway, and as this is the community with the largest population and therefore the best place to do some fund raising, it was time for the Peter Gzowski Invitational Fund Raising Concert for Literacy.

Where else but Yellowknife can you attend an intimate little concert with such well known names as Russell De Carle (of Prairie Oyster), Barney Bentall, Connie Kaldor, Jonathan Torrens along with the fantastic harmonica playing of Mike Caribou Stevens (follow the link to find out more about this amazing musician and his work with "at risk youth" in the north). However, the evening was not limited to these great 'imported' musicians, because we have some of our own. Yellowknife is a treasure chest of fantastic local musical talent that can challenge some of the best in the country and tonight was no exception - Sophie Léger - fresh from a gig at the Vancouver Olympics and Pat Braden - who plays the Chapman Stick and all of it hosted by Shelagh Rogers.

Now before you think that you might be able to attend a concert like that somewhere near where you live, let me just say that I'm pretty sure it just would not be the same, because you see there is a certain 'northern spirit' which always accompanies these kinds of event - and believe me we've seen some pretty well known musicians and other artists in our four+ years here - for example, Murray McLauchlan and Ian Thomas performing a little concert in the room next to my office for about twenty people a couple of years ago! This "northern spirit" is such that it welcomes celebrities like the ones who were here this evening (and they'll be back for another concert tomorrow night - in case you can arrange a quick flight to Yellowknife!) but it doesn't do so with a large amount of fanfare. It's just all laid back - as Canadian as it gets I think - and you can mingle with them at the intermission, or have your photo taken with them, and share a story or two. It's as if Yellowknifers just know we have a good thing going here, and anyone - celebrity or otherwise - just has to find that out. I'm pretty sure that's why Peter Gzowski liked the north so much (in fact Shelagh Rogers practically said that this evening - that this is where Peter could just be Peter - and I think Shelagh nailed that 'northern spirit' nail on the head with that comment) and that's why this Peter likes the north so much as well.

north literacy:
fine people from near and far
sing and play for funds

Yellowknife,
March 22, 2010

Fifth Saturday - Day Twenty-Eight

2010-03-20T23:16:00.000-06:00

Following on from Friday...

Evening too tiring

for long wordy blog entries

must find better hour

Don't worry my friends

these poems won't keep coming

but for now they work

Children's theatre,

rewiring electric stuff,

was my afternoon.

Must we talk of God

for God to be a part of

the conversation?

Tomorrow will be

a day without an entry

so this might be it!

Yellowknife,

March 20, 2010

Fifth Friday - Day Twenty-Seven

2010-03-19T22:55:00.001-06:00

A New Tack

The Lenten practice that first alerted me to the fact that it was okay to add something for Lent rather than just give something up was a ministry colleague who wrote a daily piece of haiku poetry based on a Lenten daily lectionary. I'm not following a daily lectionary, but the idea of writing a few pieces of haiku to sum up my day, has some appeal. So, here are a few....perhaps with a bit of explanation. I think I mentioned the Easter Drama Day Camp which was the main agenda item for yesterday. Here it is a new day, and other work awaited, so:

Day camp now over

other tasks await my ken

a blog entry too!

And a haiku for a spring(!) weekend:

Seasons meet these days

Lent and Spring come together

bringing us light twice.

And finally, a couple of haiku answering questions about the purpose of these blog entries:

Where is God in this

the theologian's query

and God helps answer.

Blogger says good night

Haikus achieve the object

of saying something!

Yellowknife,

March 19, 2010

The last time I wrote some haiku as a creative outlet was in Kelowna at General Council 40.

Fifth Thursday - Day Twenty-Six

2010-03-18T23:10:00.014-06:00

God is in the Connections
Probably for a long time, but certainly in the past six or so years, I've been increasingly aware that my personal theology is strongly attached to the idea of connections. Maybe it was when I first heard the adage concerning the butterfly that flaps its wings half way around the world having an effect on something in our own area, that I began to form this notion. Some people would name this a theology of relationships - and it's not a bad adjective to describe the idea, but I still like 'connections'. This is not just a theology of person connected with person, but a theology that includes connections with everything in the universe. In quantum physics, the search for these connections, and the theory that ties them all together is sometimes called the Grand Unified Theory. It's fascinating, even if only barely understandable to me.

I write about connections today not because of some sudden Grand awareness of a cosmic connection of the Grand Unified Theory variety, but because I had a day of simple connections that was both pleasing and affirming of that theology of connections for me.

What were these connections that have left me feeling a certain sense of well being?

Because of all my recent travel it has been three weeks since I was last able to attend a weekly Northern United Place coffee break. Originally I wasn't supposed to be there this week again, but a change in plans, which will be detailed below, meant that I could go. It's a simple thing, but this small community gathering which started a couple of years ago, has become an important ministry as well as a place of connection not only between residents, but a place of connection between Yellowknife United Church, and some of the people who call Northern United Place their home.

The other connections I made today were with a small group of children who signed up to participate in an Easter Drama Day Camp. This is the second last day of a two week March break for school children in Yellowknife. The first week off was taken up for some by the Arctic Winter Games which this year took place in Grande Prairie, Alberta. It has been our practice at Yellowknife United Church over the past few years to offer a kind of Vacation Bible School day near the end of the winter break, often with a focus on Easter. This year it was advertised as an Easter Drama Day Camp, but because some of the participants were involved in a community dramatic production, we decided this year to make it a half-day camp. That's why I was able to attend the Coffee Break in the morning.
So, a small group of us - three adults and five children - spent the afternoon in worship, singing, playing and learning some things about Easter as we heard and acted out the story in a number of different ways.

It was fun, gentle, and respectful.

The way I see it, God is always to be found in connections. And so today, I at least, found God

Yellowknife
March 18, 2010

Talking about connections at the
Yellowknife United Church
50th Anniversary Worship Service

Fifth Wednesday - Day Twenty-Five

2010-03-17T22:49:00.001-06:00

Where do I turn at the bump in the road?
I guess I knew these days would come on this Lenten journey. Just as I mused yesterday evening at how I've been pretty good at keeping at this particular discipline, I find myself for the second day in a row, seeing this as a chore to be done, rather than a practice or discipline to be explored.
I went back and read some of what I wrote in the first week, thinking that it might help me to return to the sense I had when I first got started. It helped a bit.
I also know that some of these feelings are related to the sense of tiredness I've been feeling the past couple of days. I know I was more interested in writing at some point during this morning or afternoon than I am right now, but the good thing is that I am writing, even if it is about not feeling the urge to write, or not quite getting the spiritual boost that this discipline is supposed to give me.
I wrote in one of the early days that I get it and I understand a bit of what it must be like to be part of a religious order where discipline is a regular part of every day, hour and minute. I do get it, but I also expect that the sisters or brothers in the religious order must have days like this where they wonder why?
Tomorrow looms as yet another busy day, so I am going to go to bed and see if I can find the rest I need. I will do so with a mind and heart that is focused on recapturing the spiritual aspect of this discipline, so that I can come back to the practice tomorrow with more energy and interest.

Yellowknife,
Wedneday, March 17, 2010

Fourth Tuesday - Day Twenty-four

2010-03-16T23:38:00.004-06:00

Sobering Statistics

I had a busy day, but it's kind of one of those days where despite the fact that I did lots, I cannot look back on the day and list off what I accomplished. I just know that the day went quickly, and I did not do everything I had hoped to get done.

The day was also punctuated with a thought-provoking message, that has had me thinking about it off and on throughout the day.

For some reason I did not read the message until today even though it first arrived in my inbox on February 19, just a few days after I started this blog. I wonder how this blog would have changed if I'd read it sooner?

The message was a forward of an email sent out by a ministry colleague in Vancouver. Over the past several years he has taken to plotting trends in such things as membership, church attendance, baptisms, weddings and funerals in United Church congregations. These are all graphed based on informaton provided in the annual yearbook of The United Church of Canada.

The trends, if they are to be believed and there is no reason not to believe them because they are simply based on the numbers provided by those people in the church who file the statistical information, are quite sobering. To summarize the statistics, we are headed by the year 2025 to a very different church - one characterized by very small numbers - in membership, in attendance, in baptisms, weddings and funerals.

The statisfics were accompanied by a commentary which paints a very dismal but not unrealistc picture of where we are headed in the space of the next fifteen years.

Unfortunately it is the kind of information that can drag us down or draw us back.

In my latest report to the Executive of Conference I reported that there are many things which seem to pre-occupy us in the church these days. They most often relate to the same kinds of information detailed in the report, namely lagging attendance and membership and the consequent dropping numbers of professions of faith, weddings, baptisms and funerals. In the same report I outlined how when I am visiting a presbytery, while acknowledging these concerns, I try to accentuate the positive aspects that I find. I really do believe there is something going on in the world as it relates to the presence of the Spirit among us. Whether it is The Great Emergence, or something akin to renaissance, reformation or the like I really do believe that a new and encouraging and exciting wind is blowing. I also realise how difficult it can be to look past old buildings and memories of the good times, and not want to have them back. But as I said recently at St. Paul Presbytery, this reformation, resurrection, and renaissance information is most of the time extremely important, if we can get past the stuff that will draw us down or drag us back.

The church is not suffering through these agonizing times with the statistics that describe them and the tough decisions that accompany them because God is gone. God is still here, calling us to a new place, a new understanding of what it means to answer the call of the spirit in these times. But they are scary times - for sure, and we won't really know where we are until the emerging church, the emerging spirit, the transformed, reborn and reformed church has finished its emergence. And even then God will still be calling us to be something new.

It's kind of a tough way to end the fourth week of Lent, but the predominant feeling for me is one of hope, and anxious excitement about where all of this will lead - if we can only get past the things that drag us down or draw us back....

Yellowknife,
March 16, 2010

What is the right metaphor for the times we find

ourselves amidst? Is it a whirlwind, a maelstrom,

or a puzzle?

Fourth Monday - Day Twenty-three

2010-03-15T23:58:00.003-06:00

On Contemplation
Long ago I came to terms with the fact that my particular personality is one that keeps me from keeping at something for a long time. I've tried to maintain a spiritual discipline at various times in the past but they've only lasted a short while - even though I've found them to be helpful. Therefore I'm feeling somewhat self-satisfied that I've kept at this particular Lenten discipline as long as I have - with only one late posting and one completely forgotten posting (although added after I realised it and had time to write and post an entry). I almost forgot again this evening, partly because it is a Monday, and partly because I was busy doing some other work.

Our Lenten discussion and contemplative prayer group met last night. With a certain amount of trepidation I suggested that we spend the last thirty minutes in silent, contemplative prayer. I said it with trepidation because I had no idea how long that would seem. Would it seem like a really long time? How would I judge the thirty minutes - not wanting to look at my watch too soon, but also not wanting to go way overtime (although I never thought that would be a possibility).

One object of comtemplative prayer is to clear one's mind. This is easier said than done, and certainly as the leader and the time keeper, it is never completely possible to clear one's mind, because the timing issue is always there in some fashion.

Anyway, in order to get this posted before the stroke of midnight, let me say I was very surprised when I sneaked a look at my watch - with no idea how long we had been keeping silent, and discovered that it had been approximately twenty-five minutes.

I really appreciate the opportunity to spend that time in silent prayer - now I just wonder how I might be able to convince myself to make it a regular event.

Yellowknife,
March 15, 2010

Fourth Saturday - Day Twenty-two

2010-03-13T21:42:00.002-07:00

Looking in, Branching out
(The theme of the Alberta and Northwest Junior High Rally 2010)

Once again I find myself blogging in the air. Fortunately, writing on the plane is something that I find relatively simple to do. I guess it is up to you, the reader, to decide if I do it well.

True to what I predicted in yesterday's entry (and it seems quite some time ago that I did it) the evening got considerably more busy.

In my comments to the Youth Rally participants I said that Youth Rally is one of the best things that happens in the Conference. I wasn't just being kind. There is an incredible group of people in our conference that is very gifted in planning and presenting an event which both in theme and process is imbued with the work of the Spirit. This is the church at its very best - sure of the message, secure in the process, committed to the purpose and joyful and appropriate in the fulfillment, which leaves me feeling very good about the church.

Praise God for the Youth Rally Leadership Team. Praise God for the youth who come. Praise God that this is a vital part of who we are as The United Church of Canada and may we grow from the wisdom and talent they offer!

En route between Edmonton and Yellowknife
March 13, 2010

Fourth Friday - Day Twenty-one

2010-03-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

Lenten Devotions and the Half-way Point

When I committed to making this blog my Lenten discipline, I had no idea where it would lead.

I am sitting in a room at St. David's United Church in Leduc, waiting for the start of the Alberta and Northwest Conference Junior High Youth Rally. When I first arrived, only a few people involved with leadership were here, and there was some busyness associated with moving stuff into the church and setting things up for the rally band and so on. Since I had no specific job to do, I busied myself with looking around, reading bulletin boards and other such things that help one to get a 'feel' for the place. I expect it will feel a lot different in just a couple of hours as more and more youth arrive and the energy level, especially after a long drive to get here for some of them, picks up. Right now there is relative peace, although the numbers and the busyness are increasing even as I sit and type. I'm sitting in one of the rooms that will be a breakout room during the rally, but right now it is pretty much empty. It also serves as the church library. The librarian has taken initiative to select a number of Lenten devotional books and set them out on a cart for people to browse and perhaps adopt as the one they will use for their own Lenten time devotions. There is a good variety with suitability for different age ranges covered by the various options. The one that caught my eye is called "Chocolate for Lent". A catchy title to be sure, so naturally it was the one I picked up. It turns out that it is based on the movie "Chocolat" which I've had on my list of "to-be-viewed" movies for quite a while now. It's now moved up a little on my general to-do list!

All of this browsing and waiting led me to consider once again the purpose I had in mind by choosing this as my Lenten discipline. There are plenty of Lenten devotional books out there, and it was not my intention to add to the list of them by my daily writings. Although having said that I recognise that my first week of reflection was kind of like a set of devotions on the practice of devotions. No, that was not my intention, but I also understand that it might end up that way for some people as well as myself. It has also served as a kind of travelogue and journal. And sometimes it is just a place where I can sit and muse.

What I do know is that while I'm looking forward to the Youth Rally very much, I'm also looking forward to my trip home tomorrow afternoon and being able to spend the rest of Lent in my own place. It seems interesting to me that I titled my reflection for Sunday "Coming Home" with reference to the parable of the Prodigal Son which is in the gospel reading for Sunday, but I've connected that title in many other ways already - a possible lead-in to my reflection on Sunday and perhaps a certain insight into what's happening on this particular Lenten journey for me - which has very much been about physical journey as it has been about spiritual journey.

Chocolate for Lent - perhaps not, but a little home cookin' is something I anticipate...

Leduc, Alberta
March 12, 2010

Fourth Thursday - Day Twenty

2010-03-11T22:19:00.000-07:00

Other Ways
Today's blog entry comes at the end of two days of meeting with the Alberta and Northwest Conference Executive at the Providence Renewal Centre in Edmonton. It has been a good place to meet with pleasant and simple lodgings, good food and well appointed meeting space.

Not only is the Providence Renewal Centre a fine place to meet, it is also the home for the Sisters of Providence, a Roman Catholic women's order and a place which offers space for spiritual retreats.

Places like this are most often found within the Roman Catholic tradition, and whenever I am at one of them, the opportunity to book time and space for a spiritual retreat is one that crosses my mind.

I remember in the first week of writing this Lenten blog that I reflected on the practice of keeping a Lenten discipline and mentioned that even a few days into it, I was able to discern why someone might be attracted to living their life by following an "order of discipline". Spending even a couple of days in an environment such as this brings that reflection to mind again. Following an "order" or practicing a "rule" or "discipline" is not one that would fit well into my life, but as I said then, I kind of "get" some of the attraction. It is yet another way to achieve the same kind of spiritual deepening that is meant to happen by taking on a Lenten discipline. The same goes for a spiritual retreat. Each of these in their own way is a path towards deeper relationship with God.

I took my own little retreat today after lunch, looking for a dry path (that I could manage in my Birkenstocks) among the shrubs, trees and well groomed gardens of the Providence Centre, and while I had to do a little lawn whacking (venturing off the walk way in order to get back to my origin without retracing my steps) I did make it without having to step on any snow or even any terribly wet grass.

I was struck by just how peaceful the ten or so minutes were for me, a welcome respite from what has been a very busy and deeply engaging meeting, with significant and anxiety-filled discussion. This little walk among the gardens reminded me of other times when I've taken time to walk in the forest or other such places, and allowed me to recall how important those times are for me in my own spiritual journey. I just wish I could remember that in times when I truly need to find a place of deepness and connection with the earth. It seems most times they happen by circumstance rather than by design.

Edmonton,
Thursday, March 11, 2010

Fourth Wednesday - Day Nineteen

2010-03-10T22:46:00.003-07:00

On the road again - forty-eight hours in the life of a Northern Resident. Did I say that Lent was about 'Journey'?

Unlike two weeks ago, when I sat in the Yellowknife Airport departure lounge for three hours waiting for a flight to leave, eveyrthing about the flight this morning seemed normal. We left on time and about the usual time the Captain came on the public announcement system to tell us we would be at the gate by ten to nine. But as we descended, the clouds never seemed to get any closer. We kept going down, but never seemed to get through them. I dozed off for a moment and then woke up to see that things had cleared below us, or so I thought. It was only a few moments until the captain came back on to tell us the fog had rolled into Edmonton and we were in a holding pattern for fifteen minutes to see if the fog would clear. I think I counted four or five circuits - weather absolutely clear from Wabamun all the way to the Rocky Mountains over three hours drive to the west, but right over Edmonton was that same pillowy blanket of fog that had prevented us from landing on time. After the fourth or fifth circuit we unmistakably climbed out of our hold and headed south. Strangely it was quite a while before the captain confirmed what I already knew. We were headed for Calgary.

So here I am sitting at Gate 42 at Calgary International Airport while fuel is loaded, some passengers are unloaded, and the remainder of us are waiting patiently and impatiently for the fog to clear in Edmonton. I am supposed to be chairing a meeting, but the scheduled start was twenty minutes ago - so no point in worrying about that.

As I sat here I began reflecting on what a difference forty-eight hours can make. About forty-seven hours ago I was sitting on the frozen expanse of Walsh Lake on a beautiful, reasonably mild March day, seeing if I could attract a fish to the line I had dangling down a hole cut in the ice. It was peaceful and relaxing - a welcome respite from the frenetic pace I've been setting lately.

Two weeks ago I was in a situation that is somewhat reminiscent of today's adventure, The one big difference is that the fog rolled early into Edmonton that day, so we sat in Yellowknife waiting to board - with internet and cell phone at our ready command to tell people what was happening, instead of sitting in Calgary waiting to head back to Edmonton.

Three episodes of waiting - two out of my control and one completely at my control. Time passes at the same rate every second, minute and hour, and yet the way we spend that time, the attitude we have during its passing and the thoughts that occupy our minds make all the difference.

Gate 42, Calgary International Airport
Calgary, Alberta
Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Third Tuesday - Day Eighteen

2010-03-10T22:18:00.002-07:00

Discernment and Bread/Fruit for the Journey

Apologies to my faithful readers. Yes, I missed posting this on the right day. Better late than not at all!
We had a meeting of our local Community Life and Membership Committee this evening. On our agenda, among other things, was 1) an evaluation of the Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, 2) a review of the after worship refreshment supplies, and 3) a final edit of our local church brochure. Interestingly enough there were issues of food and/or healthy eating associated with each of these agenda items.
It seems to me that food has become one of the button issues in today's world. Is it a coincidence that we ended up talking about food so often in our meeting last night or is it a theological nudge?

One school of theological thought would claim that there are no coincidences; that because everything is connected, we need to pay attention to the so-called coincidences in order to discern what they might tell us about the call of God.
And so the question that comes to mind with respect to the various food references at our meeting is this: Is there something to be discerned about where God might be leading us?

I hope that you the reader do not take this theological reflection as an undermining of the decisions the committee took - it certainly is not intended that way, except to raise issues that came to mind during our discussion, but which were also niggling at me after our discussion. So I truly raise them as a question about whether there might be some theological discernment at work here.

The arguments pro and con are not new. In fact, they seem to come up in churchcircles with regularity. They centre around cost, convenience andconscientiousness. Cost is ever an important concern of every church congregation, as is convenience in a world where people and their time are stretched ever more, and conscientiousness is just another way of saying: faithfulness.

In our discussions the first issue we dealt with was a request for some healthier options to be made available at the Pancake Supper. Not much needs to be said about the positive reasons for this. In a world where we are constantly being alerted to the importance of healthy eating, the arguments for healthier options are obvious. However, there are also arguments against. One is the tradition of Mardi Gras - when rich, perhaps unhealthy foods are used up in order to remove the temptation of eating them during Lent. It's also about cost. How much more would it cost to offer healthier food and would we have to implement a quota system in order to control how much of the healthier food we would be required to offer? Of course there's also the "Why change a working system?" argument.

The second "healthy food" discussion at the meeting centred on whether real juice would be offered during fellowship time. It's actually a discussion we began a few months ago, but which never really came to a conclusion. Again the pro arguments are obvious, but cost and convenience are once again the main cons.

Ultimately the committee decided against the full healthy option in both cases, opting to continue the healthier choices that were implemented this year at the Pancake Supper.

As mentioned above, the decisions were made, and I'm fine with them, but my role as theological reflector cannot help but notice the irony or coincidence of having the issue of healthy food come up in one particular meeting of a committee which is not given at other times to any discussions about food. This led me to do some thinking about what it all might mean, and to ponder whether we were indeed being nudged by God.

Let's consider what some different choices might mean:

One change could lead to another. We could become known as the church which offers healthy food options. We could advertise a "new and improved" pancake supper with vegetarian sausages and fresh fruit to put on our pancakes. We could advertise our belief in making connections - connections with God, connections with others, connections between what we eat and how we live - where connections with God happens at worship while connections with each other happen at fellowship time and connections with healthy bodies are made because we offer real juice.

Okay, okay I'm dreaming here - but this is what mission is about. It's about discerning what kind of community of faith we are - what kind of community of faith we want to be and then making sure that our actions - both public and private, match what we say - "walking the talk" is another way to say it. It all starts with discernment - where and how is God calling us. What do we want people to know and learn about God because of the way we make ourselves known in and about the wider community?

We could be the "healthy food" church .That says something about God and ourselves and the connections between us.

We could be the "open and inviting" church. That says something too.

We could be the "warm and friendly" church. That's what most churches say they are, but visitors know very quickly whether it is true or not.

We could be the "affirming church". Do our statements - public and otherwise, written and understood, really tell that about ourselves. Do we live it?

We could be the "coffee cup and blue jeans" church.

We could be all of the above, or none of them, and be something else.

Just how would you describe your desire for your church? What does it say about who you are and who you think God wants you to be as a community of faith.

Those are the kinds of questions I'm thinking about this day...

Yellowknife,
Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Third Monday - Day Seventeen

2010-03-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

How many chances?
One of the readings for the third Sunday of Lent (which happened to be yesterday) has in it the parable of the fig tree. Jesus tells of a landowner who had a fig that did not produce. The landowner wanted it cut down, as it had already had three chances to grow some figs. But the gardener protested, asking that some digging be done around the roots, some extra fertilizer be added and then if it did not produce, it would be time to cut it down.

This has so much resonance with our fig tree that I have to tell the story...

Many years ago I bought a small ficus benjamina - better known as a Weeping Fig. This poor plant was continually on the verge of being cast into the refuse heap as it was often down to one leaf - partly due to my own forgetfulness when it came to the chore of watering it, and partly because it seemed that every time it got moved, it would lose most of its leaves. I once read that the plant had brittle connections between the stem and the leaf and it was thus very sensitive to being moved. I discovered only yesterday with some quick research on Wikipedia that it is not about being brittle but rather that the plant is very sensitive to changing light conditions. When it is moved, the old leaves which are used to the type of light in one place fall off, and new ones that are adjusted to the new lighting conditions grow back. Regardless of the reason, the result was the same - namely that I very often had a plant with very few leaves, and quite often only one.

This was long before I was married. The subject of the lonely one-leafed fig tree came up quite a few times after marriage but I successfully pleaded its case.

Long story short - here's a photo of the way it looks now - an iconic symbol of the value of second, third and fourth chances - and an important symbol of our married relationship!

Yellowknife, NT
Monday, March 8, 2010

Third Saturday - Day Sixteen

2010-03-06T22:01:00.005-07:00

Journey/Journal - coincidence?
There is a certain compulsion in this season of Lent to make our Lenten discipline one that is reflective, introspective and deepening. The celebrations in the season are to be kept to the Sundays during Lent - the little Easters that we are told are to be celebrated each week, even during the Lenten season. I think for the most part I've stuck to that path so far this year.

However, it also occurs to me that this blog can also be a form of journal - which at times can simply be a relatively unreflective telling of a day's events. So far I've tried to be reflective even as I've relayed what has been going on for me over the past week and a half. But today, I'm going to leave the reflection to another time or perhaps another person, and simply recount some of the events of today.

We were invited to visit with our friends at their cabin on Prelude Lake this afternoon. So this morning we ran a few errands in preparation for this outing and then this afternoon traveled down the Ingraham Trail to the access road to Prelude Lake park which also provides access to the lake. Our friend had arranged to meet us at the boat launch at 1:30. We arrived along with our warm clothes and contributions for dinner and soon thereafter, the snowmobile and accompanying sled/toboggan/komatik arrived.

After a twenty minute snowmobile across the frozen and snowy lake, we arrived at their cabin in the midst of a lovely sunny and bright day. In fact it was so lovely that we immediately set out for a walk on the lake. This included a visit to the local eagle's nest before we returned to the cabin.
Conversation and Scrabble followed and then it was time for supper - which was shared with good conversation and good food.

Supper complete and the dishes cleaned up it was time to head back across the lake, and home with our souls refreshed, our stomachs satisfied and our Vitamin D concentration greatly enhanced.

The clear sunny day translated into a lovely starlit night. About the only thing left to top off a wonderful day would be a spectacular display of Aurora Borealis. Not yet, but we'll keep on watching!

Saturday. March 6
Yellowknife

Third Friday - Day Fifteen

2010-03-05T22:39:00.002-07:00

Reflections on Journey
In some ways this blog entry contains the deepest reflection I've done since beginning on Ash Wednesday, yet as I read it, it seems the most sketchy and disjointed of any I've written so far. I learned a lot about journeys - both physical and metaphorical in the past two days, and a lot of what I learned came from doing the reflection - the results of which are published below. In some ways I wanted to ask myself the question, "Why do we use journey as a motif for the Lenten Season and really for a life of faith?" What is it about journeys which are compelling and instructive? Here then is what I wrote:

Here's a non- exhaustive list of the kinds of journey that came to mind:

Adventure
Refugee
Expectation
Farewell
Familiarity
Discovery

Adventure: I've had a few of these in my lifetime: Africa, journeys while in Africa, in Europe, in Europe as an adult, many backpacking trips and canoe trips

Refugee: only one that could loosely be defined as refugee, but only in the end. It did not start out that way.

Expectation: I think my first trip to Yellowknife could be classified in this category

Farewell: A very strong resonance in me with respect to the trip home for my Dad's funeral and some connection with this trip as I journey home from attending my Grandmother's funeral.

Familiarity: I recall the trip home on weekends from Univeristy, the trip to the cottage when we were young, and The Icefields Parkway

Discovery: north to Alaska, the Ingraham Trail, Going to the Sun Road

What did I learn from these?

Adventure is fun but also scary. Adventure is not for everyone, but God is active and alive for people on an adventure trip. On such a journey one feels more exposed and therefore you become reliant not only on yourself, but you are also more keenly aware of providence.

Refugee journeys: Reluctant, regretful, resistant journeys. A journey you don't want to make but must be done. Refugee journeyers place themselves almost completely into the hands of God.

Expectation: Journeys of the heart are often this kind of journey - the destination is important not because of what but because of who!

Farewell: These are often journeys about a journey. Some of the adjectives that come to mind are: raw, introspective.

Familiarity: The old becomes the new. Journeys of presence where the familiar changes and thus subtly creates a context. Familiarity also creates contenment and peace.

Discovery: These journeys are similar to advenutre but somehow different.

Some scriptural examples of each:

Adventure: couldn't think of one

Refugee: Abram and Sarai; the Hebrew people of out Egypt; Mary, Joseph and Jesus escaping Herod; Joseph (son of Jacob); Noah; Jonah; Jacob; Ishmael - in other words one of the most common journey motifs in scripture

Expectation: The land flowing with milk and honey; the journey of the Magi

Farewell: Jesus and Jerusalem, Mary in the Garden

Familiarity: none come to mind

Discovery: the journey of Jesus in Galilee; the journey of Abram and Sarai

What did I learn about myself and God on this journey of mine?
- people need to hear positive stories about their relationship with God
- it's all about relationship and it's important to be there
- families need storytellers to share the stories
- Family relationships can be really strong even over the distance of time, and even if there has been little contact

Once again the photo will follow...

Third Thursday - Day Fourteen

2010-03-04T19:26:00.005-07:00

Sometimes it is about the destination...
Today started out very early. I went to bed at 1 am Winnipeg time and my alarm was set for 3:15. I actually woke up before any of the three alarms went off and I never did get the wake-up call I had asked for - but probably because I was down in the lobby to checkout before the scheduled wake up time.

There's a strange thing that happens in Winnipeg airport. The first flight out is at 5:10 am for Toronto, but security does not open until 4:10 am. This results in a really long line of people waiting to go through security when they arrive up to two hours before their flight. I stood there, number twenty-five in the line thinking about the sleep I could have had instead of the time spent in a lineup which was not moving.

You could almost say that the last minute price I found for this set of flights on Wednesday morning was providential because the Toronto flight was absolutely full. In fact the gate agents were turning standby passengers away on a regular basis. So I don't know if I got a discounted seat because it was the last one, but I certainly appreciate the fact that the cost of my flight was considerably less expensive than when I first started looking at the beginning of the week.
We arrived in Toronto in spectacular weather - sunny and mild.

Kairos and Chronos time are on my mind this evening as I ponder the events of the day. It really is hard to believe that the description I wrote above is a description of this day. It seems at least as if it happened yesterday. The dividing point between chronos and kairos happened in the couple of hours between arriving at my sister's house and our departure for Coboconk and the funeral for my grandmother.

The time with family during and after the funeral was certainly kairos time - God's time. Not in the depth or meaning of the service, although it was fine, but just in the time of reconnection with family members. Some of the people there I have not seen for probably twenty-five years.
And yet in many ways, reconnecting with them was in many cases just as if I had seen them just last week. That's how it can be in families sometimes. And it certainly was that way with Grandma - every time I saw her it was so low-key in the same sense - namely that it was if we had seen each other just recently.

I have another long trip tomorrow - but hopefully with a bit more sleep this time - and therefore more time to do some deeper reflection on all that's happened in these three days.

And that pretty much sums up what I have to say this evening.

Photo to come....

Third Wednesday - Day Thirteen

2010-03-03T22:55:00.003-07:00

Journeys are us

Lent is most often portrayed as a journey just as the faithful life as a whole is often described as a journey. I recently read a song or poem which put it this way: 'where the journey is the destination'.

Little did I know when I began this blog that my own Lent would be so literally punctuated by journeys. Yes, I knew about the scheduled trips - part of my responsibility as President of the conference, but now I find myself on another trip, a last minute flight booked only this morning. It's a trip to be with family as we gather to celebrate the life of the Chynoweth matriarch - Hilda Annie Louise Chynoweth (née Bryant) - the one and same grandmother that I've written about in my previous two blog entries.

I'll probably have more to say about that time a little further along. It's going to be a bit of an epic ride - Yellowknife, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto - with a very short night in Winnipeg, but it will be good to be there, even if extraordinarily tiring.

What is it about journeys that attract us as a metaphor for life and faith?

Of course there are the scriptural touchstones: the journey of Abram and Sarai, the exodus out of Egypt, the itinerant ministry of Jesus in Galilee, the meaning filled trip of Jesus into Jerusalem, and Paul's trips around the Mediterranean. Both real and metaphorical these stories tell us about leaving one place to find another - perhaps they are refugee stories, or stories of adventure. They might be trips to find something new or oneself. I think it is also about experience instead of answers. We may set out with a destination in mind but we discover that what happens to us along the way changes us, perhaps changes our priorities and our ideas of what it is that we seek.

And so it is that the journey describes an open endedness that allows us to travel ever further on.

And thus ends today's journey....

En route to Calgary, with some additions in Winnipeg

March 3, 2010

Second Tuesday, Day Twelve

2010-03-02T23:19:00.000-07:00

Melancholy
That's the word that is going through my head at the moment. It's a word that too often, I think, gets associated with Lent. I looked it up on Google (does anyone look anywhere else these days? - except of course for the new Microsoft Google competitor: Bing) and the definition came back to me with insightful accuracy: A feeling of thoughtful sadness.
I think people expect that the dominant mood in Lent should be melancholy, but I don't. The thoughtfulness yes, but the sadness, no.
However, that's different for me today. My melancholy comes from continuing thoughts of my Grandma. I was pretty much okay with everything, as I said yesterday. How can one be sad for long knowing that she lived for one hundred years - just think of that. I phoned her on her birthday two weeks ago by making a call to my sister's cell phone. Wendy said she thought it was the first time in Grandma's life that she had ever spoken on a cell phone!
My melancholy this evening comes more from the sadness my sister was feeling. I read to her the words I wrote yesterday in this blog, and together we shed some tears as we remembered. They didn't affect me at all that way when I wrote them yesterday, but sharing them with her and hearing them out loud was different. My melancholy also comes from thinking about my aunts - the closest family members to Grandma - her kids.
I'm going to write a tribute to my grandmother that will be read at her funeral. I'm at peace with that as my way of being there for her, and I relish the thought of putting memories of her into words that will be shared with loved ones at the celebration of her life - the second celebration in less than three weeks! It's my way of being there with them, and I am so looking forward to writing it. Even now it is being formed in my mind. I expect it will bring poignant memories to those gathered, but possibly a few smiles and perhaps even a laugh. I think that would make Grandma happy.
I'll take some time off on Thursday during the time of the funeral, and I will imagine all the people gathered listening to what I wrote and together we will be drawn closer over the kilometres of distance, as we remember a good long life, well lived.
So, this is not a Lenten melancholy - just a melancholy and it won't last.

Yellowknife,
Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Second Monday, Day Eleven

2010-03-01T23:53:00.004-07:00

Habits, Journeys, The Everyday

What is more important? To make sure that something gets posted every day during this Lenten season, or to make the attempt to say something important or profound every day?

I'm still tired after my multi-faceted trip last week, and I really need to go to bed. However, the practice I've adopted for this Lenten Season is calling me as well. So I guess my answer to the question posed above is to post regardless of how important or profound. The Lenten journey will be completed step by step. Some steps will seem more important, or will represent an important change in direction, while other steps will simply be the ones to carry the journey forward. I think tonight is one of those.

Someone recently said that if you do something for six weeks straight it becomes a habit. Habit is what got me to the keyboard this evening, because my comfy bed was certainly offering another option. We'll see how strong the habit is by the end of Lent.

Some observations from the past forty-eight hours:

Hockey is as important to being Canadian as they all say it is. A whole plane load of people bound for Edmonton from Grande Prairie will never forget where they saw the game and the so-called 'golden goal'. As one observer put it: 'You can't make up something like that. No script could have written it any better'. Some images and memories will also remain with me - 1) practically everyone in the boarding lounge at Grande Prairie glued to the two televisions they've installed in the area. 2) All of the ground crew huddling together and watching the television in the boarding lounge through a big window on the outside of the terminal building. I wish I'd been close enough to retrieve my camera and take a photo of them. 3) The flight attendants leaving the inflight televisions on as we sat on the pavement waiting for take-off - except that the pilots were waiting for the end of regulation time (which we all hoped would end with the score Canada 2 USA 1), but we all know what happened. 4) The video system reset that occurred once we were in the air, and having to watch all those Westjet ads as well as the list of pay-per-view movies - and then finding that three minutes of the overtime was already gone when we finally could change the channel back to the hockey game. I missed first-hand Paul Henderson's famous goal when it happened in 1972 so I had to watch a recorded version knowing how it all ended. So for me the 2010 Olympic Ice Hockey Gold Medal was more exciting because I saw it live.

Today is also the day that my Grandmother: 100 years, two weeks and one day old slipped from this earthly life into the spirit world. One cannot be too sad about such a long life, well lived, but it definitely is the passing of that generation for us. What a wonderful thing that she spent her hundredth birthday with some three hundred friends and relatives. God bless you Grandma - your creativity, your easy going nature, your love of children, your deft and crafty fingers and thanks for all those rides on your summer rural mail delivery route. May we recall one last elevator bump on the road! (Readers and Followers: Send an email, or post a comment if you would like an explanation).

Perhaps today was just a day of ordinary stepping on the Lenten journey, but I will always remember it as the first day of March and the last day for Grandma on the earthly part of her life. Rest in peace.

And that's all I have left on this day. There are other topics just bubbling under the surface, but I need to go to bed.

Monday, March 1

Yellowknife

This is my grandma, a few months short of 100 years, and the last time I saw her in October 2009.

Second Saturday - Day Ten

2010-02-27T23:35:00.004-07:00

Discipline is Commitment
The hardest time to keep up the daily discipline is at the end of a long and tiring day at the end of a long and tiring week. In the first week of this Lenten blog I was surprised to see where the reflections took me - namely on a series of insights and learnings on the subject of discipline. I felt that this second week was a departure from the intent and mood of those first days. However, this evening when there is yet another replay of today's curling on television to watch, and I am drawn to return to reflection on the theme of week one.
What is the value in sticking to the promise you make to yourself with a Lenten discipline? Is it counter-productive to stick to the commitment when it is so tough to complete? Where is God in this?
Commitment is about trust. If you say you are going to do something it is important to follow through, even if it is only a commitment to yourself. Trust builds good relationships. Trust builds self-esteem.
Trust has come up a number of times this week in conversations and side conversations in a number of settings.
We've talked (especially at the 'Living the Faith' workshop on Friday) about the new reality in the generation that is now in its early twenties. Trust is placed in connections in networked groupings, in technology and the power of technology to allow people to connect. Trust is not placed in multi-national corporations or even as much in the company that employs you. Trust is personal and not corporate. Of course these are generalizations, but they do seem to be true in the particular.
Is trust a spiritual gift? What about mistrust or skepticism?
I think they are both spiritual gifts in their own time and place. We talk about trusting in God. That's a good thing. But we also value doubt - and the questioning that comes with it. In particular our denomination is one that places questioning as a vital aspect of the faithful journey.
In this entry I've traveled from commitment - the discipline of doing something because I promised myself I would do it - and the wondering whether that is something that is of God in this covenant to keep at it all during Lent - to trust, and finally to the importance of skepticism and questioning.
I think I just described one version of the Lenten journey - perhaps a fitting way to end this second week on this my journey.

Spirit River,
February 27, 2010

The Lenten journey might be long and narrow like this one on the island of Maui!

Second Friday - Day Nine

2010-02-27T00:52:00.001-07:00

Lenten Blog - An opportunity to engage in theological reflection

One of the things I've come to realize is that a daily blog is something like a daily journal except that it is not at all private, especially with the possibility that anyone with internet access can read it. A second observation is that I am beginning to appreciate the opportunity to intentionally engage in theological reflection that comes with doing something on a regular basis like this. That particular insight is also the reason why I am a bit tardy with this evening's post. I've been attending a series of meetings this week, and they have all provided me the opportunity to engage with others in reflection about the church - and in particular the tension that is so clear between the exciting possibilities for transformation that I believe are happening all around us, and the struggles that the church is going through institutionally as the less desirous effects of this transformation are making themselves known. It was said most clearly this weekend when someone mentioned that church buildings used to be the greatest assets the church had, but now aging structures are proving to be a great liability. Of course this is only one example of a range of effects of the incredible shift that is happening in so many areas in our culture. And so this face to face opportunity to engage in stimulating conversation has meant that my new found desire to do theological reflection in this blog has been reduced. Add in an evening of watching the final minutes and replays of all the excitement and disappointments of this day at the Olympics and before I knew it, the day was gone. I hope you will all (whoever you are!) forgive me for not getting this posted until just before midnight Pacific time!

Today a group of people in Grande Prairie participated in 'Living the Hope' - a workshop presented by Lesley Harrison and Graeme Burns from Emerging Spirit. Once again we were excited by some stimulating information and some thought provoking insights on just where the church may be headed and what we need to do about it. As I've found in past Emerging Spirit presentations the material is quite interesting. It alternately leaves me wondering how it could be possible to tap into some of the searching thirty and forty somethings that we are told are out there, and how I would deal with the incredible change that such a prospect would lead me to have to handle. As we all know, change can be both incredibly exciting and scary all at the same time.

I was a little disappointed today when I noticed that the coffee cups we were using are disposable, but mollified somewhat when I had a chance to look at them more closely. The first thing that attracted my attention was the world map profile on one side of the cup. Intrigued I held it up and noticed that there was a certain 'green' message on the other side. It forms the subject for the photos today. You can make your own decision about how 'green' they are....

Spirit River

Friday, February 26, 2010

Is this paper cup a 'green one'?

Second Thursday - Day Eight

2010-02-25T17:46:00.001-07:00

kd lang, The Olympics and Lent
I am en route Westjet 167 Edmonton to Grande Prairie pondering possible subjects for today's blog entry. I wasn't sure if the Olympics were going to make it into my Lenten discipline this year, but that question was answered a couple of days ago with 'Remember the Joy' - a mantra not only for success in sport and play but more generally for the faithful life. The Olympics came up again as I thought about the Globe and Mail article I was reading in the departure lounge. It told the story in its own way of last evening's hockey game between Team Russia and Team Canada and the importance of hockey to the Canadian psyche. As I am trained to do I was just now reflecting on the situation trying to discern where God can be found in such a closely watched, intensely important event even if it is only so for a small population of people relative to the world's population.
Of course it is a tricky question because many Canadians will likely have interpreted the 7-3 Canada win as being indicative of God having smiled on our team. However I doubt that God's presence had much to do with the outcome.
Another Globe and Mail article revealed what it could about the upcoming closing ceremonies and speculated whether there would be any change to the high-tech aspects in light of the Olympic cauldron hydraulic glitch that marred an otherwise spectacular opening ceremony. The article also speculated on who from the list of Canadian talents might perform at the ceremonies. That of course brought to mind the performers at the opening ceremony. One of the most spectacular contributions was what I consider the best rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah ever done, namely the cover of it recorded on kd lang's nationalist musical tribute - 'Hymns of the 49th parallel'. kd lang is a national treasure and that song stirs me every time I hear it. However I did realise that her performance resulted in yet another glitch, namely that during Lent we are supposed to put away the Hallelujah's until Easter. I guess VANOC never thought of that one!

Technically, it's not a photograph, but 'tis an obvious choice. And it fits with the theme of my blog entry last week when I mused about Winter Trees and the Lenten temperament.

Second Wednesday - Day Seven

2010-02-24T22:38:00.002-07:00

Just say 'Yes' to Care of Creation

Probably not surprisingly a 'hot' question in many different circles is a debate over climate change. It came up in the St. Paul Presbytery meeting today and then as I drove back to Edmonton, there was a news item indicating that Maxime Bernier has once again launched himself into the public eye with his pronouncements about his doubt in the science of climate change.

I'm still convinced by the overwhelming majority of scientists who say there is no doubt about the fact that human activity is having an effect on rising world temperatures. But even if the science is wrong I don't understand what the problem is. Do people really think that we should be able to do whatever we want with the earth's resources? Do people really think that the oil and gas will last forever, or that it doesn't matter to what extent both financially and ecologically we go to get the heavy oil (as in oil sands) out of the ground? Come on people, even if our activity had no effect it still makes sense to treat the earth with respect, leave it better for succeeding generations and respond with gratitude to the gifts we have from God.

Edmonton,
Wednesday, February 24

These not-quite-fledged eaglets are worth saving!

First Tuesday - Day Six

2010-02-23T19:31:00.003-07:00

Remember the Joy
It hasn't been difficult to discern that the Winter Olympics have been sharing time with the Season of Lent. Of course the Olympics have generated lots of debate about the sport results, the television coverage, and the way the city of Vancouver and community of Whistler have hosted and responded to this international spectacle.
With host broadcasting responsibilities having moved from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to CTV and its sibling networks, my favourite network, CBC, the public network, has primarily been doing games coverage on the Radio One network.
As I drove to visit St. Paul Presbytery I heard a wonderful discussion about the value of play in our lives. It focused on 'play' as experienced by children and the right to play that is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Right to Play is an organization heavily supported by Olympic athletes that provides opportunities for developing world children and adults to participate in organized sport.
All of that discussion was inspiring and interesting, but the part that was particularly hard for me to hear was the reminder to high caliber athletes to remember the fun they first had when they were first attracted to their particular sport. The coach or sports psychologist used 'Remember the Joy' as the key phrase to help the athlete relive the fun and joy of their sport and release some of the pressure that can hamper a performance.
I love that phrase 'Remember the Joy' and the sentiment behind it. What if we did the same in our community of faith? What would it do for our worship and mission if we 'Remembered the Joy' and celebrated joyfully who and what we are?
It's not just about fun, although fun is important - it's about remembering the joy that comes with fulfilling our mission as God's people.

Tuesday, February 23
Vermilion

'Remember the Joy'

First Monday - Day Five

2010-02-22T15:45:00.002-07:00

'Let Go and Let God' vs 'Greet God and Get Going'
Yesterday as I was leaving my office after some hectic data gathering for the yearly filing of Statistics. I found myself reflecting on the tension between "getting things done" and "taking a break". Many times at church meetings I've heard people describe the freeing experience of "letting go and letting God". Such declarations are often met with head nods and other affirmations.

We get it. We recognise the importance of taking time, forsaking the "to-do" list and making time to be in touch with our spirits and The Spirit. However, just as often, or even more, I've heard the opposite at meetings - a lament on just how busy things are and just how long the "to-do" list has gotten.

I think I was forced by The Spirit into this short but deep reverie. You see I had had three or so days of the second situation - the lament. Expectations, requirements and tasks had built up and despite attempts to deal with some in the previous week I was constantly and continually interrupted (and yes, the interruptions are also my work) by other things to do which at the very least spoiled the concentration I needed to complete some of the other things. Many of them were not my things, but work put upon me by other deadlines and responsibilities. Therein lies the tension. Often we are not the ones who will be disappointed or offended if we choose to take time away. As much as the affirmation and nodding heads understand the need, they won't be quite so obliging if the work I choose to put aside is going to hamper, hinder or otherwise disrupt other people's ability to accomplish things.

And that's what led me to my Sunday afternoon reflection. I dearly wanted to take the afternoon and evening off, but there were people and groups of people wanting me to get some things done (many of whom would have no idea how busy my schedule was, nor would they know they were putting this pressure on me) to say nothing of my own desire not to disappoint them or miss deadlines.

As it turned out, it seems that something in my overload control system must have kicked in because I went home, worked on some of the work I had to do and then completely forgot about an event I had committed to lead in the evening!

But then as if to lead me further into reflection I got up this morning, got ready (including an extra stop to pick up something I had forgotten in my previous day's haste) and arrived at the airport only to discover I had booked myself on the wrong flight. This has not been a stellar twelve hours as a self-esteem booster. Just to prove that things are not always in my control (or out of control!) my flight was delayed over two hours. Suddenly I had some "found" time.

What to make of all of this? Sometimes things just click and we might imagine God smiling on us as we happily move from engagement to engagement and task to task, finding just the right resources to make our work go quickly, and just the right schedule so that things fit into place. Other times it seems we can't win for losing and the "best laid plans" as Robbie Burns opined, "gang aft a-gley". It is important for me to find the smile of God in both. Often, the train wreck days are the ones which bring the most joyous memories but only after they are all done and over, while the days that click provide much quicker feelings of accomplishment and efficiency.

I'm sure that my Sunday afternoon musing and the series of happenings which added reflection points to the process will not be the last time such thoughts pass through my brain. It seems a fitting, even if unexpected topic for a Monday morning in Lent. Chronos and Kairos - creative tension and helpful dialectic.

En route between Yellowknife and Edmonton,
Monday, February 22

Today's photo should be self-explanatory...

First Saturday - Day Four

2010-02-20T23:44:00.003-07:00

Discipline is Worship and Worship is Discipline

It appears that this first week of Lenten blogging has ended up being a series of reflections on the subject of adopting a Lenten discipline. Yesterday the insight was that 'Discipline is Prayer'. Today, the insight as I wondered when I would have time to do this is that 'Discipline is Worship' and 'Worship is Discipline'.

Here is what I mean:

As I've said before this week, the point of taking on a Lenten discipline is to help us intentionally focus on our relationship with God - but when we do that we are drawn to remember and reflect on the ways that God has blessed and called us. So, 'Discipline is Worship'.

On the other side, the act of attending worship is therefore a discipline.

This has led to an interesting insight for me - namely that the act of attending worship in and of itself can be a good thing - regardless of what gets said, sung or prayed during that worship time.

I wonder if any of this will work it's way into tomorrow's reflection?

Yellowknife
Saturday, February 21

Ecumenical Easter Sunrise Worship in Jasper National Park (Pyramid Island)

First Friday - Day Three

2010-02-19T16:52:00.002-07:00

Winter Trees on a sunny day...

Winter tree scenes often evoke an introspective mood in me - just the sort of mood one might expect to be in in the season of Lent. It is not depressing, or morose, or a "blueness" (although the hue might lead one to think that!); just a cool, deep, inner journey. You'll see why I chose this type of scene in the words that follow...

Discipline is Prayer: That's what I've discovered in the first three days of this Lenten journey.

And here are two more learnings from the first two days:

Adding something can actually mean giving something up.
A discipline works because it focuses our minds and draws us into an inner conversation.

But what is an inner conversation if not prayer. And a lovely different kind of prayer - more of a conversation than a simple list of things we are thankful for and things we want to draw to God's attention (which of course has always mystified me - why does God need to be told about all the troubles - except that the immanent God, the 'divine' within us needs to be informed - so that our divine attention is focused on the things we would have God working on). No, this prayer is a conversation - speaking and listening.

This spiritual practice, this Lenten discipline has also been great as preparation for our Sunday evening learning and contemplating. Just three days worth and I'm already chomping at the bit to share what I've learned. I'm trying to imagine what it will be like when I've had thirty some days to add to the experience.

I'm still a bit anxious about what will happen next week when much of the time will be spent in meetings and travels. I'm anxious because I don't want to break the habit and I'm anxious because I'm already looking forward to the time I spend each day in doing this, and I don't want to miss out!

First Thursday - Day Two

2010-02-18T21:21:00.003-07:00

On Discipline

I'm only into my second day and I can already see how the 'discipline' idea is starting to work. Because I've made this pledge to write something every day I am drawn to think about it, and because I think about it I am drawn to reflect on the purpose of a Lenten discipline. The point of course is to consider our relationship with God.

Yesterday I mentioned the irony of adding something to a busy life, but as I considered when and what I would write today I realized that the discipline of adding something amounts to the same as 'giving something up' because in order to add I have to take away from something else.

Yet another idea came to mind this afternoon during my walk home for lunch on another gorgeous day. Mild and bright it seemed more like a March day in Yellowknife than just past the middle of February.

Anyway, I thought of another possible discipline - a pledge to do at least a half hour of reading from my current novel. I'm already a day behind and if I don't get busy this evening I'll be two days behind. However, even if it doesn't work out I can keep it in mind for Lent next year, or even as something to consider for another time altogether. After all a discipline is not just for Lent. In fact, all the reflection today caused me to consider those people who join a religious order and thus make discipline a part of their every day in every month and every year. I've never really understood that decision - or is it a calling? Until now...

Here's the story about today's photo. It was well into the evening before I was able to put finger to keyboard. So....no lovely photos of today's beautiful weather. Instead I looked around and found this lovely cross - a gift from a friend in Jasper - which reminded me of the sort of thing one might find on the wall of a member of a religious order - as alluded to above. I had to play around with the lighting - because the flash kept creating a reflection on the glass of the frame. I finally settled on this one without flash which created the warm, earthy tones that I think help with the theme of today's reflection (no pun intended!) (If you look carefully you can see the bead artist's signature in the corner)

Yellowknife

Thursday, February 18

Ash Wednesday - Day One

2010-02-17T11:34:00.003-07:00

On Adding To Not Giving Up

Probably a decade ago I encountered the idea of adding something for Lent instead of giving something up. I was a member of Ecunet. A ministry colleague whose name has long since faded into the recesses of my fifty-plus recycle bin wrote a Haiku based on a reading from a daily lectionary. He would post the poem in a meeting on Ecunet. I was inspired and impressed by the idea, and right then realised that there can be just as much discipline in sticking to an accepted task as there is in giving something up. In fact, if the discipline, like his, includes a piece of writing or art, then not only is the life of the artist focused on the Lenten discipline, but it is also likely that others will be given the opportunity to learn something about themselves and their relationship with God, as long as there is a place for the work to be placed in public view.

Our household considered the idea of giving up meat for the season of Lent, but all of us, having had a few weeks to consider the idea realized how difficult that was going to be for us. Of course that's the whole idea, but it wasn't just the discipline we would have to have for our own meal preparations, but also the requirement that each of us would have in trying to avoid meat in meals cooked by others. All of us have either trips or special meals planned for some point in the season and it just looked like it was going to be extra difficult to stick to it. Of course, there will be some meatless dishes. It isn't that there was a certain appeal to the idea when we first considered it.

What to do?

But then I thought. What can I add for Lent?

I have admittedly struggled to find time and topic for this blog, at best being spurred on by the "every two month" deadling that comes to me for articles in "In Contact". What about a discipline of blogging every day during the season of Lent?

So here we go. Ash Wednesday - the first day of Lent and so far it is working! I'll take Sundays off - just like Lent does, and I still have those trips I referred to before, so it may take some creative use of technology to get it done, but this is going to be my Lenten discipline - 2010 - an entry every day in this blog.

It may seem crazy in a busy life to add something but I have faith that the beauty and power of this ancient tradition will work its own power for me.

And you'll get to hear about it! Let me know how you think it is going!

I'm also going to to try to take a photo every day and add it along with my words.

Today's view is the one I have from my office window, looking out on the downtown of Yellowknife on a mild (-11 deg c) winter day. It's the kind of day we don't usually get in Yellowknife - sunny and mild. Usually the brighter the day, the colder the temperature.

Yellowknife,
Ash Wednesday, February 17

Dreaming of a "Green" Christmas

2009-12-24T12:10:00.002-07:00

Dreaming of a “Green” Christmas

A Christmas Message from the President

of Alberta and Northwest Conference

Yellowknife, Northwest Territories

Where I live there have been no worries about not having a White Christmas since about the first week of November. Even so, that's a couple of weeks later than usual. While it may just be part of a year to year fluctuation, in these times in which we live, whenever the weather is different, especially with regard to warm or cold, we can't help but wonder if it is part of the bigger trend. With the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen just recently concluded it is rightly on our minds to think about the earth and what we, the people who have it as our home, are doing to it.

I can't help thinking of the angel song of Peace on Earth and interpreting it for our time as “Peace for the Earth” for it seems to me that the land is in deep need of more peaceful and more gentle interaction with us its inhabitants. And so for me this Christmas I am divinely disturbed by a kind of restless peace – a peace that invites me to touch the earth more lightly and to continue to speak to those who have the authority and the influence to make the same kinds of changes on a grander scale.

At the same time I am inspired by the radical statement of hope for the world that comes with the birth of a child. The child in manger is a living expression of joy, love and grace, and a message from God that says, “Choose Life in all its abundance!”.

May your Christmas time be one that is grounded in faithful traditions, encouraged by new ways of building community, and which tells the story in action of God's love for all.

Merry Christmas and Peace for the Earth!

Blessings...

Peter Chynoweth

President,

Alberta and Northwest Conference

Leadership, Leadership and Leadership

2009-11-12T23:30:00.004-07:00

A couple+ months of the busy fall season are now behind us, and I've had a chance to learn a bit about how the pattern of travel is going to be for my term as president. I mentioned at the October meeting of the Alberta and Northwest Conference Executive that it is a "northern thing" to make one trip south accomplish a number of different purposes. October was just such a month - a twelve-day trip and four different activities.

I was honoured to be invited to attend the gathering of newcomers at the aptly named "Newcomer's Event". This is an annual gathering to which ministry people who are new or newly returned to Alberta and Northwest Conference are invited - along with partners. The group met in the peaceful surroundings of the Star of the North Retreat Centre in St. Albert. Just to make me feel at home, we had a lovely several inches of snow all during the first day of our gathering. The two days of discussion, community building and resource sharing along with visits to the Conference Office and Revelations Book and Gift Co-operative and hearty shared laughter during the Wednesday night games session left me feeling good about leadership in the church. There are many challenges facing us in the church these days, but there are also many fine leaders willing to face those challenges, and some of them can be found among the people who've arrived in our conference from places all over the continent.

The next stop on my trip was not one that came as a result of my position as president, but it too provided a helpful insight into leadership. It has been my practice to attend the Banff Men's Conference about once every two or three years. This year's planning committee was faced with several last minute setbacks when first the expected music leadership became unavailable and then just a few weeks before the conference, a change in theme speaker was announced. Despite these changes, attendees at this year's conference were treated to a very meaningful set of theme presentations by Darryl Auten, who used his skill as a potter to illustrate and expand the theme outlined in the book of the prophet Jeremiah - the same theme used at GC40 - Down to the Potter's House. The new music resource people - one half of the group rEvolve in the form of Chis Giffen and Gord Oaks - were an inspiration and a delight. Not only did the men attending the conference get a chance to learn and sing some of their great music, but it gave me a chance to reminisce fondly about my recent attendance at the fortieth General Council (GC40) this past summer in Kelowna, where I was first introduced to a good number of the musical selections and where the full complement of rEvolve members was present as the General Council music resource team.

My mother turned eighty-five on October 22, so the next part of my trip was a journey to Ontario to visit with her and to help with the planning and throwing of a birthday party for her. It was a good party with a good group of church friends and family members there to greet her and wish her well for the years ahead.

Next on the schedule was a stop in Airdrie to attend the Senior High Youth Rally. I was very pleased to be able to fit a visit to the Rally into my October journey. A visit with the youth taking part in Youth at Conference in May had inspired me to maintain a connection with the youth of the church - for the energy, insight and perspective they have to offer. I arrived in Calgary somewhat late after a flight delay, so I only had time for a quick "hello" on the Friday night of the rally. A good rest (which is more than some of the other leaders could claim!) and I was much better prepared to spend an interesting day at Airdrie United Church where the rally was taking place. Of course, as I expected, it was a wonder-ful time. The most exciting discovery for me (and really should I have been that surprised?) was the quality and depth of leadership being provided to the youth rally. I sat with the leadership team on Saturday afternoon as they debriefed the rally so far, and was nothing but impressed by the insight, dedication and commitment of this group of young leaders.

Finding a Way

2009-08-28T17:08:00.003-06:00

Welcome to the online version of "Northern Light". I expect that if you are reading this, it is because you saw a link to it in the September 2009 edition of "In Contact", the Alberta and Northwest Conference insert in The United Church Observer.

As I said in my first "Northern Light" print column, I hope to use this blog to interactively pursue some of the themes I touch on there. Comments are welcome and in fact encouraged. I am sure that our discussions will inform subsequent "In Contact" contributions.

If your first arrival in Yellowknife is by air (quite common) or by boat (romantic, but not so common for a first visit!) the structure pictured here will likely be the first hint that you are getting close. It is the head frame at the Con Gold Mine. The Con Mine and Giant Mine - both situated within the Yellowknife city limits are no longer active. The land they occupy is being reclaimed. Reclamation involves removing all the mine buildings, and because that means the red topped head frame as well, it is causing a bit of a stir among Yellowknifers.

It might not seem like a pleasant landmark, but the Con Mine tower is a distinctive and useful navigation aid. Not only does it mean that you've arrived in Yellowknife, but for boaters, dog mushers, para-skiers, and snowmobilers it is a very useful and reassuring sight. It's kind of like our own magnetic north pole, or a GPS waypoint that can be seen for many kilometres in all directions. It has guided many people home, including me!

So when talk of tearing it down is broached, many people just can't imagine how that can happen. They speak as if they've lost their way.

I am reminded by this of another "way", namely "Followers of the Way" - a term that has been used to describe the early Christian community. I'm sure these our ancestors in faith were excited, confused, eager, anxious, wondering, determined and hesitant all at once. That's the way it is when you find yourself in the middle of something that is emerging - strange and exciting all at the same time.

I can't help but feel that present day times are much the same. We know that the great peril of climate change looms over us, and I don't dismiss the importance of the issue at all. In fact, I think that it is the most important issue we face - one that will challenge us physically and spiritually. I also feel that there is something happening in the world, and in part it comes from a groundswell movement of young people working on climate change issues and particularly the ways that human beings contribute to the problem. It is a spiritually based movement, one that serves to take us in new directions, with new insights, new ways of being in community together, with new openness to different expressions of faith, and a theology of inclusion that breaks all boundaries of separation, including ones we did not even know were there.

These then comprise "the way" I feel the spirit is leading me at this time as president - climate change, new ways of being community, emerging church.

What do you think? Thumbs up? Thumbs down? "Preach it brother!" or "Where did that come from?" Let me know with your comments.

Note: Links to outside sites do not constitute endorsement of the content, but rather serve as invitations to further reflection, study and information