We Fly Away

Lord, you have been our dwelling place

    in all generations.
 Before the mountains were brought forth
    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn us back to dust
    and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”
 For a thousand years in your sight
    are like yesterday when it is past
    or like a watch in the night.

 You sweep them away; they are like a dream,
    like grass that is renewed in the morning;
 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
    in the evening it fades and withers.

 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
    our years come to an end like a sigh.
 The days of our life are seventy years
    or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.

                                     Psalm 90: 1-6, 9-10 NRSVue 

I close my eyes

only for a moment and the moment's gone

All my dreams 

Pass before my eyes, a curiosity

refrain

Dust in the wind

All they are is dust in the wind 

                               Dust in the Wind -- Kansas, 1977

Regular readers of this blog will know that I'm inclined to read a morning psalm offered through the daily ecumenical lectionary, or table of readings. I often look at the other passages for the day as well. My go-to bible version is the New Revised Standard Version (Updated Version) but I regularly turn to the superb Hebrew Bible translation by scholar Robert Alter. From time to time I compare notes with the contemporary version of the late Eugene Peterson called The Message. 

Some times these passages are perplexing, maybe boring, occasionally disturbing, but most often thought-provoking and inspiring. The daily psalm actually repeats for three days and then moves on to the next. The latter part of this week is Psalm 90:1-6 but I've gone wild and read to the end of the psalm at verse seventeen. 

What strikes me about the verses I've highlighted from the psalm is the acknowledgement that life is fleeting, even when it is long and satisfying. Of course, the average lifespan in developed countries has extended through the millennia. Japan now has more than one hundred thousand citizens aged 100 or older. Eventually, though, we are all "dust in the wind" to quote from a surprisingly introspective and rather biblical hit by the rock group Kansas almost half a century ago -- yikes, time does fly! 

The psalmist encourages us to be aware of our mortality and to "wake up and fly right" in our relationship with God.  Yes, there is plenty of toil and trouble along the way yet we can do our best to live with purpose and a desire to follow in the path of justice and love God sets out before us. I suppose we could talk about this together but I might not be able to hear you!

Watching and Wondering and Bird Migration

Yesterday we paddled in to a spot in a Conservation Area in our region to enjoy yet another perfect Fall day. We built a fire, read books, and one crazy 72-year-old donned his wet suit and went for a swim. Yup, chilly. 

This morning we chatted about the profound silence and tranquility. The water was like glass and it was so still we could literally hear dropping leaves hit the ground. We felt blessed by the Creator.

What was missing on a late October day were the birds we saw on the same lake in May -- loons, ospreys, merlins, and kingfishers. They have departed for warmer climes. 

We are coming to the end of the Autumn migration season during which up to a billion birds are recorded in flight across the continent each night. This is a miraculous event which takes place while most of us are sleeping.  

During the Summer I read a book called Watch and Wonder: Birding as a Spiritual Practice. It is by Ragan Sutterfield , an Episcopal priest  in Arkansas. He reflects on his life-long passion for birding in the context of the twelve months of the year with chapter headings such as hospitality, abundance, vision, patience, and friendship. Every chapter was thought-provoking and an invitation to "consider the birds of the air" to use the words of Jesus, to be attuned to the world around us in communally or in solitude. 

I wrote to Ragan and encouraged him to create a study guide based on the book because I've discovered that there is a growing enthusiasm for birding, perhaps because we know that bird populations are diminishing. There is even a phrase, "early onset birding" to describe the growing number of young people who are taking up the pursuit, or practice, if you will. 

It is vital for all of us to ponder the natural world, to pay attention to the birds and Monarch butterflies, and dragonflies in migration, to appreciate the interconnectedness of all living creatures. There are no  national borders for these creatures, no Lake of America, no tariffs. 

Yesterday we watched and wondered, thanks be to God,  and Ruth may have heard the wild hoot of the elusive Demented Oldster. 

Ecocide Amidst the Olive Groves

                                                            Olive Trees on Fire in the West Bank 

If you besiege a town for a long time, making war against it in order to take it, you must not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. Although you may take food from them, you must not cut them down. 

Are trees in the field human beings that they should come under siege from you?  

    Deuteronomy 20: 19 NRSVue

1 Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning,
give me oil in my lamp, I pray;
give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning,
keep me burning till the break of day.

    Oldie Goldie Chorus 

I have experienced what I would describe as visceral anguish over the destruction of the tiny enclave of Gaza, home to more than two million Palestinian people. In three years roughly 75,000 have been killed, the majority civilians. The UN estimate is that 20,000 children have died, including about 500 from starvation. 

Nearly 90% of the population has been displaced as homes, infrastructure, and heritage buildings have been destroyed. The amplification of cruelty and revenge by Israel after the Hamas terrorist attacks three years ago is so disproportionate that it's little wonder that the term genocide is used to describe what has unfolded.

What about ecocide? A recent report states that more than a million olive trees in Gaza have been destroyed as well. Olives are central to the agricultural economy of the Palestinians territories, both Gaza and the West Bank. The trees have been bombed, bulldozed, and burned by the Israeli military and settlers in the West Bank. The olive harvest is underway and in the West Bank the level of violence by settlers has escalated with burning of trees and physical attacks on Palestinian harvesters. Genocide is accelerated by ecocide. as soldiers stand by, refusing to intervene. 

In the past few days a Washington Post photographer was beaten and European Union observers during harvest attacks in the West Bank. Finally the Israeli government has arrested some of the perpetrators because of the international condemnation but based on history its unlikely that anyone will be prosecuted. 

This is hideous and the hypocrisy is glaring. Militant Jewish settlers make the claim that the bible gives them title to this land yet as I've written before scripture expressly prohibits the destruction of fruit-bearing trees. 

The olive branch of peace is biblical and there are many references to olive trees and fruit and oil. Olive oil was used for anointing and for light in lamps Where is the commitment to peace in this war torn region? Where is the light? 

The night before his crucifixion Jesus prayerfully struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane, an 

olive grove which still exists in Jerusalem. We should all feel anguish at this destruction at every level. An election is at hand in Israel we can pray that change is at hand, although I'm not holding my breath. 

                                             Garden of Gethsemane Olive Harvest 

Olive oil and table olives are crucial to Gaza's local agricultural economy, but in Palestinian culture, olive trees are much more than just a commodity. They are symbols of continuity, resilience, and attachment to the soil. Many groves are hundreds of years old and passed down through generations.

Holy, Wholly Entangled Life

 

                                                    Change Islands NL -- Ruth Mundy

There are no mushrooms in the bible, neither in the Older or Newer Testaments. Lots of trees and tons of grain but not a verse about mushrooms. There are religious practices which consider the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms as sacramental but that ain't happening in Judaism and Christianity. 

Just the same, I would argue that mushrooms and fungi in general. are an oft ignored gift from the Creator, a conviction that took me years to realize. While we were on Change Islands,  Newfoundland, in August I read Robert McFarlane's book Are Rivers Alive? where he writes about a demanding multi-day hike into the Ecuadorian cloud forest with a team including mycologist Guiliana Furci. She converted him with her evangelical enthusiasm for the astonishing variety of fungi they encountered. She promotes the notion that we should refer to flora, fauna, and funga because the complexity of our ecosystems are so reliant on the connectivity that fungi provide.

The same day I read about this we walked through the woods to a shoreline trail and encountered a variety of mushrooms along the way. We knew of another trail up to a height of land where we have been treated to lots of fungi in the past so we walked it the next day. Sure enough, we were treated to perhaps a hundred or more mushrooms of beautiful variety. We took our time pondering them because, well, why wouldn't we enjoy them? The kind friends who loan us their seasonal home there do consume some of the mushroom bounty of the islands but we're a little too chicken to harvest them. 

On our return to Ontario I borrowed the brilliant Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake with it's great introduction titled What's It Like to be a Fungus? This all got me thinking about Canadian Suzanne Simard's groundbreaking (soil-breaking) book Finding the Mother Tree which argues that  trees in a forest are interconnected, communicating and sharing resources through a complex underground network of fungi.

We live on a planet of extraordinary complexity and wonder, often spreading, interweaving beneath our feet without our awareness. We are meant to be lovers of the Earth and we must rediscover the the humility (humus=soil) to receive wisdom from Creation and Creator.

I began by saying that there are no mushrooms in the bible and no sacrament to go with them. Yet there is plenty of bread and wine in scripture, including the elements of Jesus' final meal with his disciples which became the sacrament, the profound mystery of interconnectedness  we call the Last Supper, among other names. Of course both bread and wine require yeasts for fermentation and they are forms of fungi. 

Thank God for fauna, flora and funga!

                                                                 Change Islands NL -- Ruth Mundy

Murder on the Camino Pilgrimage?

 

Until a few days ago I had never heard of Dutch author Anya Niewierra. Perhaps i should be embarrassed because she is the Netherlands' number one bestselling author and has penned six books. In my defense, only one has been translated into English, the murder mystery/thriller The Camino which has sold 800,000 copies in her homeland.

 I'm well into it having been drawn by the title on the "new releases" shelf at the library. The Camino, or The Way,  is one of the most famous and ancient of pilgrimages in the Christian world, from the 10th century onwards. There are actually several routes with the longest one, about 800 kilometres, beginning in France and concluding in the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The key character in the novel undertakes the Camino exactly one year after the shocking suicide of her husband while he was doing a solo pilgrimage to celebrate recovery from cancer. She had no intimation that he would take his own life, and makes the trek as way to address her ongoing grief, following almost exactly his route on his timeline. Along the way she uncovers some of the mystery of his childhood and early adulthood in the former Yugoslavia and in doing so puts herself in peril. I'm enjoying it -- God bless libraries. 

Both the husband and the wife are atheists yet there is a sense that on their journey both find solace in places of worship in various communities with all their Christian symbolism. A famed chocolatier, she makes a side trip to a convent renowned for its chocolate and discovers that her husband had visited the same location, although he hadn't mentioned it in his daily texts. 

This "not religious but spiritual" undercurrent is consistent with the realities of the Camino today. While participation in this demanding pilgrimage is growing -- roughly 200,000 walkers a year -- many do so for reasons other than faith as the principal motivation.

 I know three people who have walked the Camino, one who assured me with a bit of a scoff that it was more for the physical challenge than faith, while another is an always sincere but sometimes tentative Christian who wanted to prove he could do it in his early 50s (he completed it.) I would say that the person with the strongest Christian intention was our son, Isaac, who walked the longest route, alone, when he was nineteen. As parents we were somewhat trepidatious but he reeled off an average of about 30+ kilometres a day with the enthusiasm of youth. 

I would endorse the novel, even though I have about 75 pages to go. It's certainly a way to experience the Camino without developing blisters or braving inclement weather. 

The Autumn Tabernacle Choir

Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts.

Worship the LORD in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth.

Say among the nations, "The LORD is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity."

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar and all that fills it; let the field exult and everything in it. 

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with his truth.

Psalm 96: 8-13 NRSVue 

Today the Common Lectionary scripture readings offer two psalms for the price of admission, 99, and 96. Of course, most congregations don't include one psalm, let alone two, sadly, a habit of omission I got into as a worship leader before I retired. Don't ask me why because I don't really have a decent reason other than changing liturgical fashion. 

I love the notion of the Creator arriving to a fanfare from Creation itself, not just fickle humans. There are some Christians who are endlessly suspicious of pantheistic thinking. worshipping the Earth like ill-defined pagans, rather than the "true" God. Yet if God brought all things into being, and chose to be with us in the person of Jesus, and blows through our midst as the Spirit/Wind/Breath, do they really have a leg to hop around on? Doesn't it even vaguely occur to them that we are in this frightening environmental crisis because of a "beam me up Scotty" theology that isn't scriptural? 

This is the time of the year here in Ontario when the voice of the choir that is Fall foliage offers a unique rustling song to accompany the changing colours of the leaves. I'm totally on board with this being an encore performance of awe and gratitude to the Creator. Eugene Peterson's The Message scripture paraphrase offers an exuberant interpretation of this psalm:  

Bravo, God, Bravo!
Everyone join in the great shout: Encore!
In awe before the beauty, in awe before the might.

 Bring gifts and celebrate,
Bow before the beauty of God,
Then to your knees—everyone worship!

 Get out the message—God Rules!
He put the world on a firm foundation;
He treats everyone fair and square.

 Let’s hear it from Sky,
With Earth joining in,
And a huge round of applause from Sea.

 Let Wilderness turn cartwheels,
Animals, come dance,
Put every tree of the forest in the choir—

 An extravaganza before God as he comes,
As he comes to set everything right on earth,
Set everything right, treat everyone fair.

,

                                           Psalm 96: 7-13 The Message