Bringing in the Sheaves and the Simpsons?

Bringing in the sheaves,

Bringing in the sheaves,

We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves (repeat & repeat & repeat)

How many movies and television shows depicted earnest Christians of an earlier day in their little churches warbling one of what were apparently the only two hymns they knew. These olden days hymns were Amazing Grace and Bringing in the Sheaves, although only the first verse for the former and the chorus for the latter. Sheaves made it into multiple episodes of Little House on the Prairie (not surprising) but also the Simpsons and Two and a Half Men. I was impressed to see that it  is also in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. 

Today's psalm reading is 126 with the heading A Harvest of Joy. I may have known that this was the inspiration for Bringing in the Sheaves but I had forgotten. A quick check reveals that it didn't make it into Voices United but it wasn't in the old Blue Hymnary either. When I read the lyrics I can appreciate why.

Nostalgia and corniness aside, this psalm that could be an antidote to the seemingly joyless realities of the moment. These are uncertain times for Canadians as our American neighbour, our "best friend whether we want them to be or not" has stabbed us in the back, led by their lunatic president. We are also dealing with "wars and the rumours of wars" and a global climate emergency. To put it in theological terms, it all sucks, or so it seems.  

While circumstances may feel like a nightmare at times we are invited to trust that God is with us and will restore our fortunes. This may be a tall order but pessimism and despair really aren't attractive options. Our Creator and Redeemer will give us good dreams, replacing our tears with laughter. Could we laugh at the surreal imposition of tariffs on a small island off the south coast of Australia populated only by penguins? 

My apologies if I have planted an ear worm for your day...bringing in the sheaves...

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,

    we were like those who dream.  

Then our mouth was filled with laughter
    and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
 The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we rejoiced.

 Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
  like the watercourses in the Negeb.
 May those who sow in tears
    reap with shouts of joy.
 Those who go out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    carrying their sheaves.

Psalm 126 NRSVue

The Paris Express & the Annunciation?

 

I enjoy the novels of Emma Donoghue although they can be harrowing. Her breakthrough novel was Room and others I've read such as The Pull of the Stars and Haven certainly create high drama. She is an excellent writer, so I made sure I was on the library list for The Paris Express and lots of people are waiting eagerly behind me.

 I'm about 100 pages along and I'm pleasantly surprised that one of the passengers on this 19th century French train is the American artist Henry Tanner. Henry Ossawa Tanner was a person of colour, called a mulatto in that day, although I didn't know this until The Paris Express. Black artists such as Tanner, novelist James Baldwin, and singer Josephine Baker made their way to France where there was less discrimination and greater opportunity to thrive. There is currently an exhibition in Paris featuring several of them, including these three. 

I've enjoyed Tanner's detailed and evocative biblical paintings for decades and used them as sermon illustrations a number of times. His depiction of The Annunciation, the angel Gabriel appearing to Mary,  is a meaningful antidote to the more formalized images from Medieval and Renaissance art. 

Tanner shows up early in The Paris Express which is based on historic events including a train wreck in Paris in 1895. Since I know that he survived (if he was actually on that train) I'm anticipating how Donoghue ensures his well-being!

The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water (1907; oil on canvas) by Henry Ossawa Tanner.

                                             The Banjo Lesson (1893; oil on canvas) by Henry Ossawa Tanner. 

                                                                      (There are no banjos in the Bible!)

Carbon Pricing R.I.P

Tomorrow a group of us will join at Trenton United Church for our third and final session on Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home. In 2015 Pope Francis issued this encyclical that is entirely devoted to addressing the global climate crisis, inviting Christians and all others of good will and faith to cherish and protect the Earth.   

This papal position paper was released about six months before the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris and is still the most comprehensive statement on the subject from a religious standpoint. The timing may have been intentional, a faith statement to offer moral and ethical perspectives on the subject.

 That climate summit called COP21 produced an agreement signed by 196 countries and gave hope for a turning point in international action. According to the UN website: 

The agreement aims to keep global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further, to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To achieve these ambitious goals the Agreement sets in place provisions for enhanced cooperation among nations on climate change mitigation, including through market-based approaches, such as carbon pricing.

Canada was a signatory to the Paris Agreement and eventually introduced carbon pricing, often called a carbon tax, to require emitters to pay.The idea was to use both a carrot and stick to get the biggest offenders to find solutions for carbon emissions that are giving the planet a fever. Carbon pricing has always been contentious and even though the federal government gave rebates to most individuals Canadians to offset the cost it has been a constant target of naysayers.

Now it is gone. Today the federal government under new Prime Minister Mark Carney  fulfilled his promise to "axe the tax", to use the slogan of another political leader. Ending the program is calculated to change the narrative in the current federal election race and it seems to have worked. Fuel prices have already dropped so lots of people will be thrilled. 

No alternative has been proposed by the Liberals who are hanging on to power by a thread while the Conservatives continue to act as though climate change doesn't exist. It's hard not to be cynical about politics in general and I am dismayed that climate action has all but disappeared as an issue during this election. The former Environment Minister has been banished to another portfolio and we really don't know what it expected from his successor, should the Liberals be reelected. 

Ten years ago Pope Francis understood that the crisis we face is urgent and that it presents both a threat and an opportunity. Laudato Si offers a big picture that politicians won't grasp because they fear the consequences or are motivated by greed. Where did we all put that moral compass? Are we counting on an ailing pope, political cartoonists, and the ghost of the  Green Party past to keep us on course? 

Tomorrow I will share with the group this quote from Laudato Si that asks a compelling question: 

We need to strengthen the conviction that we are one single human family. We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. What need does the earth have of us?

There is Room For All on Transgender Day of Visibility

 

There is room for all in the shadow of God's wing.

There is room for all,sheltered in God's love.

And I rejoice and sing, "My refuge and my rock in whom I trust."

There is room for all, there is room for all. 

More Voices 62, inspired by Psalm 91

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;

2 Corinthians 5:16-18 NRSVue  (from Lent 4 epistle reading)

This is Transgender Day of Visibility and we have to wonder how transgender persons feel in a time when they are being told that they should not be visible or respected in places where they had made progress.

In the United States Trump has led the way on the "only two genders' front and institutions have been threatened because they upheld LGBTQ2S+ recognition. Some of them have capitulated and others have been forced to comply with new legislation, including libraries. There have been purges in the military as well.  

In an interview back in January Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, a man who aspires to be Prime Minister, said  he is only aware of two genders — male and female — and that the government should leave questions of gender identity alone. When he was then asked whether he would request that the U.S. to recognize the gender-neutral “X” marker available on Canadian passports, he didn't answer the question and talked about the cost of living instead. This is not the leadership I expect from a PM. 

There are transgender persons in our congregation and I sense that they feel part of our community of faith. They are involved in a number of aspects of church life. We are largely an older bunch yet the acceptance on the part of seniors who certainly didn't grow up with any conversation about transgender persons seems genuine. For a lot of us this has required repentance and conversion. We have recognized that we had biases that were not consistent with the gospel and often cruel. We have changed our hearts and minds because we follow Jesus whose acceptance went far beyond cultural norms. 

Welcoming congregations as places of sanctuary for LGBTQ2S+ persons are essential. In Canada transgender persons are about .33% of the population yet are often demonized as predators and a general threat to public safety. At times this borders on hysteria. They are far more likely to be subjects of violence and discrimination and, not surprisingly, have a higher than average percentage who struggle with mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. 

There is too much "fine print" Christianity that proclaims acceptance for all only to make the circle so small that many are excluded. As Christians we can take the lead in modelling wider acceptance rather than reinforcing stereotypes and rejecting God's children. Every day we can ask how there is "room for all." 

Beyond "Us & Them"

 

Yale professors Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore, Jason Stanley

Yale University in the United States is one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world -- what academic wouldn't want to teach there? It turns out that three professors are fleeing to the hinterlands of Toronto. Okay, the U of T isn't exactly a backwater. In fact, it is also a highly rated university but these three profs will be leaving their country and higher paying jobs in order to teach in a democracy. 

If that sounds extreme, Dr. Jason Stanley,  a professor of philosophy is convinced that the Trump regime is in the process of an autocratic takeover and creating a far-right regime. He sees that universities, including Columbia, have been threatened with the withdrawal of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding if they don't capitulate to the Trump administration's demands. In Columbia's case this is supposedly over allowing anti-Semitic behaviour on campus when, chillingly, a number of Trump's minions are anti-Jewish. 

This is more than uninformed alarmism on Stanley's part. He is the author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. He and his colleagues will be joining the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy with a goal of making it "a world centre of democracy in these emergency times.", as Stanley puts it. 

What comes to mind listening to Stanley's chilling rationale? First of all, the "double-speak" of George Orwell's novel 1984 (written in 1949). Then there is the picture of Canada as a haven from a fascist, misogynistic theocracy in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (published 40 years ago.) 

I've also been thinking alot about The Plot Against America,  a novel by Philip Roth.It is an alternative history in which Franklin Roosevelt is defeated by Charles Lindbergh in the presidential election of 1940. Lindbergh was openly anti-Jewish and in this story he quickly moves to first marginalize, then persecute Jews, with help from the wealthy, including Henry Ford. 

There is an excellent HBO television series with the same title and earlier this year we watched if for a second time. The promises of making the country great again, isolationism, and upholding supposedly white Christian values are all there, from a novel written 20 years ago.

We can hope for more of a "brain drain" heading northward by Americans who understand that freedom of expression and upholding democratic values are worth cherishing. We can also pray that a day will come when they feel safe in returning. 

A Sacred Relationship with the Land

 

                                        The community garden at Hoʻoulu ʻĀina.

Today folk from Trenton United Church will enjoy a contemplative walk through an urban park, culminating with an outdoor celebration of communion which I will lead. Well, that was the plan, and why not? Last year on this date the sun shone and the temperature was balmy. We're just grateful that the power is still on since everything is coated in freezing rain and it's still coming down. Oh, Canada!

Shall we go to Hawaii instead? I've noticed and written about the growing number of initiatives to get people outside and, if possible, moving as an aspect of healing. Everything from Forest Bathing, to PaRX prescriptions, to outdoor schools for children. As the population of Planet Earth becomes more urban we're realizing the restorative power of Nature/Creation for the health of body, mind, and spirit. 

                                                       Children washed turmeric at the preserve.

It's a tonic to read in the New York Times about a clinic developed over the past few decades on what had been derelict land in Hawaii. Just the title of the piece is uplifting: At This Clinic in Hawaii, Nature Is the Medicine. Here a few paragraphs from the piece written by Cara Buckley, with photographs and video by Marie Eriel Hobro: 

The air is filled with birdsong, the land a tableau of soft greens and gentle light. This is Ho‘oulu ‘Āina, a 100-acre preserve with an unusual twist. Linked to a community health center, it is a place where patients come to heal the land, and themselves.

Twenty years ago, Ho‘oulu ‘Āina was neglected, overrun with garbage and invasive plants. But today, it’s thriving. And the volunteers and patients who spend long hours there, removing nonnative plants and growing vegetables, fruit and herbs, have experienced a restoration of body and soul. 

There is growing research that shows how spending time in nature can improve mental, physical and cognitive health, something that the stewards of Ho‘oulu ‘Āina have seen firsthand. 

Older people once dependent on canes and walkers have regained some mobility. Diabetics have seen their glucose levels drop. Depressed teens have grown bright-eyed. In Hawaiian, the name Ho‘oulu ‘Āina means “to grow because of the land,” and they have. 

“Many people within the health center saw the land as a means to improve human health, sort of a tool,” said Puni Jackson, the program director at Ho‘oulu ‘Āina. But for Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, who make up a majority of patients at the clinic, the connection to nature is familial and profound, Ms. Jackson said. “It’s a sacred relationship,” she said.

A sacred relationship. More and more I feel that we've missed an essential aspect of the gospel message, or at least downplayed  that Jesus did a lot of his best work en plein air, as I suggested to anxiety researcher Dr. Holli-Anne Passmore earlier this year.

 It wasn't just that Jesus changed lives as a healer, he did so outside. He had eye-opening conversations with his disciples as they rambled and climbed. The gospel writers tell us that Jesus took time for restoration and deep listening to God on hillsides, alone. As we make our way through Lent toward Holy Week we are mindful that the last hours before his arrest were spent in an olive grove. 

As I look out my study window I see the ice glistening on the waving branches of a birch tree. It is actually lovely, but in my mind I'm on my way to Ho‘oulu ‘Āina. We'll have our Trenton UC sacred ramble eventually!

Scott Garlough, the operations manager at Ho‘oulu ‘Āina. “It’s the land that actually does the teaching,” he said.

A New Vision for Danforth Church

 

                                                                     Danforth Church, Toronto

I heard an interview with a representative Mwarigha from Woodgreen Community Services  about the redevelopment of a historic church in Toronto that had been for sale for some time While lots of church buildings have been repurposed or demolished because the congregations bit the dust, this one is different. The congregation has traded some of the value of the property to have the sanctuary restored so they can continue worshipping in this location and continue to provide outreach ministries. I found an article about this project in the Globe and Mail and here is an excerpt:

And WoodGreen, to their credit, thought it might be nice if the diminished congregation could still attend services in a retained portion of Siddall’s building and, further, that residents of the Danforth might like architectural continuity.

“We came to a fairly creative solution,” continued Mwarigha, who uses only one name. “WoodGreen will buy the land from you at a discounted rate; in exchange for the land, you will get 5,000 square feet of footprint in the building [and] on that footprint you will recreate the sanctuary and a smaller church space.”

That way, the church could also continue to provide meals to those in need and services to the community at large – “I actually did go to the church to attempt to become a tango dancer [but] that did not succeed,” Mwarigha laughed – and, by careful demolition and the insertion of an eight-storey tower, WoodGreen could provide 50 residential units for seniors.

“It is vibrating,” Mwarigha said with a smile. “The church is back in action, working to develop and facilitate the programs that they have traditionally provided during the week. On Sunday they’ve got the church service … and it’s open to tenants in the WoodGreen building … on the side door you see WoodGreen staff coming in … and all the interconnections between this integrated approach to social housing … and you see marker events happening, be it open houses, Christmas parties, Canada Day events.

This is an impressive partnership and given that thousands of congregations are in their last days across the country this use of property makes so much sense.In the CBC Radio interview Mwarigha was respectful about the history of this faith community. 

Here is my one quibble with the conversation. The church was never identified, and after a search online I discovered that it began as Chester Baptist Church on the Danforth, then  became Danforth Baptist Church, and eventually Danforth Church. 

This was once the congregation of one of Ruth's sisters and her husband when they were young, as were many of the group of people who were attempting to provide an alternative congregational life in the heart of the city. Martha was the lead singer for a band that included Fergus Marsh, one of the musicians who played regularly with Bruce Cockburn. The church had a downstairs coffee house on Friday nights and we went on an evening when Fergus and Hugh, his brother, were in the band. Cockburn showed up because of his connection with the two of them. 

I've noticed that often now news outlets write or speak about churches without using their names, let alone their denominations. This happens regularly in local reporting.  They wouldn't do so with individuals or even with other institutions, it seems to me. We realize that we are in a largely secular society yet it doesn't take much to be respectful of what these places or worship and community service have represented and in some instances still want to be. 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/toronto/article-prefab-units-help-to-speed-toronto-church-conversion/

                                 Woodgreen Community Services Redevelopment of Danforth Church