A Covenant Before the Creator

 

There are a fair number of United Church congregations which include a Land Acknowledgement before or within their worship services each Sunday. They are not all the same but all of them recognize that the land on which we meet is a traditional territory of an Indigenous community that existed prior to colonization. To a degree these acknowledgements are also a recognition that we are all Treaty people with rights and responsibilities. The Treaties made between Indigenous peoples and the representatives of the British Crown were intended to be reciprocal rather than capitulations by First Nations and Inuit and Metis peoples. 

The language used in these treaty agreements suggest promise relationships akin to biblical covenants and they are based on sacred trust. I came upon a recent piece by Indigenous writer Brandi Morin about the separation question on the impending Alberta referendum with the powerful header you see, above: 

A Covenant Before the Creator: Why Alberta's Treaties Cannot Be Broken

The historical record shows the Creator was invoked as a a party to every treaty signed on Alberta land. A referendum cannot undo that

Morin goes on the describe the central place of Creator and Covenant language in the original treaties and that ignoring them is messing with God. I can't quote Morin's article at sufficient length but I'm grateful that she opens up this conversation. 

As National Indigenous History Month draws to a close we might all delve deeper into the meaning of our Treaties and Covenants. As a Christian denomination that attempts to take Truth and Reconciliation seriously we need to listen and learn and respond whenever these covenants are undermined or broken. 

Here are a few lines from the article among many that are thought- provoking: 

This land was never surrendered. It was shared. Before God. With God watching. 

Much of mainstream society has drifted away from the Creator- Indigenous peoples, by and large, have not. The relationship with Creator remains central to who we are, how our nations govern, and how we understand our obligations to one another and to this land. That is not a relic. That is a living reality. And it is precisely why what was sealed in ceremony on those treaty grounds still holds.

As Good as Gold

But knowing their hypocrisy, [Jesus] said to them, “Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.” And they brought one. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.”  Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.

    Mark 12 15-17 NRSVue

 When Peter said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the children are free.  However, so that we do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a coin; take that and give it to them for you and me.”

    Matthew 17: 26--27 NRSVue

I'm definitely showing my age when I admit that as a kid finding a nickel or a dime meant sugary treasure at the corner store. In the early 60s even a penny bought three black balls. Did we like black balls? It didn't really matter because they cost so little.

Children of that era figured out quickly that coins were valuable and paper money was wealth. When the one-dollar "loonie" was introduced almost 40 years ago it felt that we were going backward initially, then we all got accustomed to both loonies and toonies. We have moved ever closer to a cashless society anyway, using cards and devices to make our payments in even the remotest of settings. Our eleven-year-old entrepreneur granddaughter accepts e-transfers for her crocheted creations although she still hits up Grandpa for folding money from time to time. 

I'm intrigued by a new exhibit called As Good as Gold outlining the history of money in this country. According to the Globe and Mail article: 

Most of us don’t carry a lot of cash in our wallets these days, given the ubiquity of credit and debit transactions. Change feels like a dead weight. But an exhibit by Toronto-Dominion Bank, which features currency used over the past 230 years, offers a rare historical glimpse into a world that is slipping away. 

As Good As Gold: The TD Bank Currency Collection is an exhibit held in – where else? – a steel-reinforced vault at the bank’s headquarters in Toronto. It includes early pre-Confederation promissory notes from merchants, grocery stores and lumber companies, dating as far back as 1790.

The first Canadian currency arrives in 1851, when each dollar was backed by gold. From there, paper notes become increasingly ornate to reflect their nation-building role in establishing trade, trust and commerce.

Cool. As I read about the exhibit I wondered about money in the New Testament and realized that even though peasant cultures tend to be barter based there are a fair number of money and cash references, including the warning above.

We do depend on moolah to make our societies function and some amass staggering amounts they will never actually see while others beg on street corners or play instruments  behind open instrument cases for cash. Churches may be heavenly minded but they are down to earth in seeking financial support and, yes, many have made generosity easier in a number of ways. And we're told that God loves a cheerful giver!

The point is this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully  will also reap bountifully. Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

                         2 Corinthians 9: 6-7 NRSVue

 Then one of the twelve, whose name was Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him over to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver.  And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.

                          Matthew 14: 14-16 NRSVue 

                                           Elon Musk becomes a trillionaire (briefly) earlier this month 

Embracing Church of the Wild

 

1 Teach me, God, to wonder, teach me, God, to see;

let your world of beauty capture me.

Praise to you be given, love for you be lived,

life be celebrated, joy you give.

                                                                Voices United 299

church

1. a building for public Christian worship.

2. public Christian worship of God; a Christian religious service.

Early yesterday morning we headed out in our kayaks onto the Bay of Quinte, an arm of Lake Ontario. We checked that the wind speeds were low, the temperature was perfect, and it was simply a glorious summer day. We paddled for just over an hour before the bay became busier with motorboats and fisherfolk, enjoying a stretch of shoreline with only a handful of residences. We saw plenty of creatures including blue herons, ospreys, egrets, a green heron, kingfishers, a beaver, a deer, and turtles. We love it along here and the risk of being out on bigger water is moderate.

As regular readers will know, we consider spending time in the natural world as sacred and we do so as often as possible in every season. We have done so over the course of 50+ years and we hope to continue doing so as long as our general health and the grace of the Creator allow us to do so. My aged joints grumble a lot more now getting into the cockpit of my boat than they once did but I'm not prepared to stop just yet.

Is this "church"? Some would say no, emphatically, and certainly the congregation was small in terms of humans, although "For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” Matthew 20:18. There was a heavenly, watery host when other species were counted in. We often offer praise, perhaps a recalled verse from a Creation hymn, and we have a brief physical ritual of acknowledgement of the Creator we engage in. There is no building but each space is a templum, using the definition of dedicated to a deity, place of divine worship, sanctuary, shrine, temple. 

                                                                          Photo: Ruth Mundy

There is a book Church of the Wild: How Nature Invites Us into the Sacred. The author,  Victoria Loorz, is passionate and persuasive in speaking about the formation and  transformation which unfold in the natural world. She is a founder of the Wild Church Network with a growing number of wild churches, committed to worshipping en plein air. 

The natural world -- that world where we already belong -- is an alluring invitation into the sacred, into a relationship with something larger. And that very sacred presence invites us into the wild. The whole process is holy. It is a dynamic, a reciprocity, a loving conversation, a relationship -- one that includes me and you and God and the whole wild, alive world. 

I love inspirational church architecture, old and new, but more and more I chafe at supposedly sacred spaces that don't even give a hint of the glory of Creation. How did we ever get to the place where it became either/or for our worship gatherings and we shut out the outside world with stained glass windows? Some modern church structures have no windows at all. 

This morning we attended worship 10:30 at Trenton United and it was a meaningful service. Before we did so we drove to North Beach Provincial Park and were there for the opening at 8 AM. In the solitude we went for a swim and listened to a loon calling from across the bay. Both experiences fed our souls. 

                                                                     Photo: Ruth Mundy

Sublime Twelve

The Mission of the Twelve

 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town,  but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick; raise the dead; cleanse those with a skin disease; cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.     Matthew 10: 5-8 NRSVue

Twelve. Did you know that the number 12 is considered a sublime number? I didn't either but a few days ago I got up at the ridiculous hour of 5 AM (a regular occurrence) only to discover that I had misread the clock and it was in fact 4 -- arrghh!

I listened to a CBC Radio Ideas episode at that ungodly hour with the title 12 is Sublime. Here is the description of the show: 

The decimal — or base 10 — system that we use for all our numbering needs comes to us so naturally we barely notice it. But in the past, there have been other contenders, among them: 60, 20 and, perhaps most promisingly, 12. Why was 12 so promising? 

Twelve is a “friendly” number because it is so highly divisible compared to 10. But there is so much more that makes the humble dozen extraordinary. It is one of only two numbers ever discovered to be “sublime.” And that description has nothing to do with the fact that 12 is a number highly significant to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism — and even Hellenism. Still need convincing of 12’s perfection and indispensability? Check your watch.

Within the first few minutes the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve disciples came to mind, as well as the 12 Days of Christmas came to my mind. Sure enough, all of these were explored as was the 144,000 elect from the book of Revelation -- 12 times 12 thousand. The 12 Days of Christmas were the bridge between East and West in the celebration of Christmas in the Roman Empire. 

I was surprised a while later when the daily gospel reading was titled The Mission of the Twelve (from Matthew 10, not 12). 

This is an interesting episode at any hour and you might want to seek it out as a podcast. 

The Tragedy of Camp Mystic

 

                                  Camp Mystic Texas cabin after the flood of July 4, 2025

Almost exactly a year ago heavy rains and catastrophic flooding occurred in Texas Hill Country. This was one of the deadliest storms in US history and nearly 140 people died . 

Amongst those who perished were 28 campers and staff members from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp which would have celebrated its 100th anniversary this year. The meandering Guadalupe River turned into a raging torrent and swept away many of the young girls in the lower lying cabins. 

In April there were hearings into what went wrong at Camp Mystic and last week a report from the Texas Legislature concluded that the camp did not have written emergency ​evacuation ⁠plans and poorly trained its staff, Some of the parents of children who died testified in April and called for the closure of Camp Mystic and this week the camp filed for bankruptcy.

                                                               Camp Mystic in a happier time 

I have followed this story to a degree, perhaps because I worked at Christian camps in my youth and our children and grandchildren have attended them. We know what joyful, formative places they can be, including for faith. 

I have yet to hear anything about climate change as an intensifier of the storm. I don't know whether those who owned and supported the camp actually "believe" in climate change in a state where so many are deniers, including lots of conservative Christians.

There is a term "an act of God" to describe natural disasters but there is strong scientific consensus that climate change is disrupting weather patterns and that belief, one way or another has nothing to do with it. It is the scientific reality of human-caused climate chaos.

What happened at Camp Mystic was a tragedy and the families of the children who died deserve prayerful support. Perhaps closing the camp was the only possible outcome, bankruptcy or not. 

 It's hard to know if this will be a wake-up call regarding what we are doing to our planetary home. We can pray that politicians everywhere including here in Canada will come to their senses about the threat we face. God the Creator, help us all. 

"I Trust You" Prayer

 

“When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words.  Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Matthew 6:7-8 NRSVue -- Jesus of Nazareth

Last evening I watched a short video that popped up in a social media featuring an aging woman I'd never heard of before. She was observing that she's spent a lifetime praying, often lengthy and earnest. In recent years she's realized that she's been telling God things she/he/they already knows, so why go into such detail? In this season of her life a three word prayer has become her go-to, "I trust you." The wisdom of this simple prayer really hit home.

This morning I cycled to visit two elderly people son Isaac asked me to see just once when he was away for few days because they are in Belleville hospital. I've continued to drop by over the past month or so because they're nearby, their stays have been extended, and I just like both of them. One is struggling with health complications, the other is on the way to a new home in another city nearer family. I shared the "I trust you" prayer with them and they both really like it. I began our concluding prayers with the words "we trust you" although I added some condiments particular to their situations.

As I was leaving I encountered the lovely midlife daughter of one of these persons who drives an hour each way to support her parent. I could tell she feels the weight of doing the right things in her role and so I shared this little prayer with her -- what did I have to lose? Her face lit up and she said "is that enough?" She commented that on her drive she prays but isn't always sure what to ask for or express. I told her that this prayer works for me and she said that she's going to start using it. 

We do make prayer complicated at times, or even give up praying because we are tongue-tied or weary or feel that we aren't being heard. We can certainly chose to offer more, but when we're tangled in life's weeds, a simple expression of trust may be sufficient. We have a lot of challenging circumstances in our lives at the moment so "I trust you" is going to get a regular workout. 

"Out of the Closet", Faithfully

 

This is Pride Month in Canada, an opportunity to acknowledge the challenges and accomplishments of the LGBTQ2S+ community across the country. We attended the regional event in Picton, a town in Prince Edward County and somewhat to our surprise there was a big turnout and a really celebratory vibe. I saw a long lineup of really...colourful...individuals at a food venue where the vendors were a Syrian once-refugee family we know, the two women dressed in black hijabs. I had to smile, proud that this is the Canada I want to celebrate, one where there is broad acceptance and inclusion. 

I caught a glimpse of a former parishioner from a congregation I served and I sought him out through the crowd. He was there as part of a group sponsoring LGBTQ2S+ refugees from countries where their orientation is shunned and decried, often led by religious groups. In some of those countries their orientation is illegal and even punishable by death.

We caught up on our lives and he told me that his partner had died, a source of deep sadness. I assumed that he was a gay man but he never spoke of his orientation and he never acknowledged he had a same-gender partner even though we had several LGBTQ2S+ staff members in the congregation. 

Looking back through 37 years of pastoral ministry I can identify a number of LGBTQ2S+ members in the various congregations I served who never "came out of the closet" during my time, or only did so with considerable caution and with the assumption that I wouldn't share this reality with others. They didn't want the drama or possible rejection and in some situations they were not "out" to family or even spouses. Closeted is an older but apt term because they too often were in a stiflingly enclosed place psychologically and spiritually. And think about it, heterosexuals don't have to identify their orientation in any public way.

A couple of weeks after I began ministry in 1980 in outport Newfoundland a boy of 16 took his own life. He walked past his family watching television, took a rifle out of a cupboard, and went  into the backyard where he shot himself. The traumatized family called the paramedics, police, and the new minister. Because the first two were nearly an hour away I arrived first to the chaotic scene and went to the body in the dark. There is no seminary preparation for this sort of pastoral situation and I was 25-years-old. 

It was decades before it occurred to me that this bright young man, passionate about the arts and theatre, may have been gay and quietly in despair. While this may be stereotyping on my part, his interests were certainly uncharacteristic for guys his age in that culture. Derogatory jokes and nasty terms for gay people were still very much in use at that time. 

We have come a long way in our society but we need to continue on a path of affirmation and love in Christ's name. God give us the grace and courage to lead the way, faithfully. 

The SBC, Untruth, and Disunity

 

The men take themselves so seriously

with their coats and votes,
while Spirit laughs, plants trees, grows fruit.
The Southern Baptist Convention
said women cannot preach and lead.
So silly. Like standing on a bank
yelling at the river to stop flowing.
Like ordering dawn to become night.
Like scolding the tide from the shore.
Like expecting Spirit to ask permission
before descending where She will.
Women will keep preaching
because a voice older than any vote i HAV IN
keeps saying: Yes, her. She’s the one.

                                     Samantha Bise 

Not long ago I wrote about the impending creepy and misogynistic motion at the Southern Baptist Convention to deepen its ban on women preaching, including commenting online about sermons. The measure, sponsored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, is known as the "Truth and Unity Amendment". In the end the vote wasn't even close with 75% of the "messengers" supporting the amendment. This is supposedly biblical, ignoring the Easter story in John's gospel in which Mary is the first witness to the Resurrection.  

It's part of the relentless efforts by male leaders in the SBC to silence women in expressing their God-given faith. Some congregations and high profile women have been kicked out, harassed out, or left in frustration. This is about power and control, not the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

There are some great cartoons out there including one where the Risen Christ speaks to Mary Magdalene on Easter morning:

Jesus: Go and tell the men I have risen!

Mary: Crap, This is gonna sound crazy but I can't. In 2026 the SBC voted to silence me.

Jesus: What's the SBC? 

I wish I could share the image with you but it isn't accessible. 

I have included the powerful poem, above. "So silly. Like standing on a bank yelling at the river to stop flowing."

Cat Stevens & Morning Has Broken

 

1 Morning has broken like the first morning,

blackbird has spoken like the first bird.

Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!

Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word!

2 Sweet the rain's new fall sunlit from heaven,

like the first dewfall on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,

sprung in completeness where God's feet pass.

3 Ours is the sunlight! Ours is the morning

born of the one light Eden saw play!

Praise with elation, praise every morning,

God's recreation of the new day!

                                                       Voices United 409

In the early 1970s Cat Stevens was the folk/pop/rock dream guy. With dark and unruly hair and beard he churned out hits including Wild World and Peace Train and Moonshadow --I can hear you humming them!

 Perhaps the most improbable of his popular songs was a cover of a hymn with lyrics written in 1931, set to an even older Gaelic tune. Morning has Broken is in many hymn books and over the years folk in different congregations were surprised that we were singing a pop song,  assuming Cat Stevens wrote it. 

                                              

                                                                       Rick Wakeman 1970s

I discovered recently that the jaunty keyboard intro to Steven's version was created by Rick Wakeman of the prog rock band Yes. Steven's heard him noodling before the recording session for the hymn and liked the tempo and feel of his playing so asked him to do the intro in that style. When you listen there is a sense that the ear-catching first bars settle into the hymn in a more familiar way, with Cat's guitar as accompaniment. 

It's interesting that while this is a Christian hymn, reflecting Stevens' spiritual quest, he eventually embraced the Islamic religion and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He all but gave up musical performance and song-writing for a couple of decades. Eventually he realized that musical expression was not forbidden in Islam and now performs and records under the name Yusuf. 

Fifty years after the the 1970 release of Tea for the Tillerman, in September 2020, Stevens remade the album as  Tea for the Tillerman2. This version includes new lyrics and new instrumentation, and he sings along with his 22-year-old self in Father and Son. We received this second version as a gift and quite enjoyed the changes. 

The Solstice and Celebrating Creation

 

                                                                 Killbear Provincial Park

All things bright and beautiful,

all creatures great and small,

all things wise and wonderful:

in love, God made them all.

1 Each little flower that opens,

each little bird that sings,

God made their glowing colours,

God made their tiny wings.  R

2 The purpleheaded mountains,

the river running by,

the sunset and the morning

that brightens up the sky;  R

On this Summer Solstice our daughter Emily and husband Brad are camping in beautiful Killbear Provincial Park on Georgian Bay. It is a place of memories for Brad's family and where he proposed to Emily. They are urban people with a trendy part of downtown Toronto as their current habitat but both of them spent lots of time in the outdoors as they grew up and still love the natural world.  

                                                      Killbear photos June 21 2026 -- Emily Hendriks

They were also raised in Christian families which attended church but that's not part of the rhythm of their lives at this point, Yet they have noted that there is a sense of the sacred in this place and that they have spontaneously sung a couple of hymns while they're rambling about, a somewhat surprising admission.  In a text exchange Emily commented that the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful was bumping through her head yesterday. It sounds perfect for the location. 

Perhaps our favourite Solstice Day ever was on Haida Gwaii a couple of years ago. We celebrated the astonishing natural abundance of this island archipelago off the BC coast on what is also National Indigenous Peoples Day. It couldn't have been a better setting. 

Wherever we are today we can give thanks to the Creator and celebrate the gifts of Creation. 

3 The cold wind in the winter,

the pleasant summer sun,

the ripe fruits in the garden:

God made them every one.  R

4 The rocky mountain splendour,

the lone wolf's haunting call,

the great lakes and the prairies,

the forest in the fall;  R

5 God gave us eyes to see them,

and lips that we might tell

how great is God our maker,

who has made all things well.  R

Refugia for Butterflies

                                                        Yellow Swallowtail

"The private garden has become the last viable habitat for many butterfly species in developed regions of the United States. A functional house — with correct slot geometry, a puddling station, and untreated wood — can mean the difference between local extinction and a stable population. The problem is not people's willingness. The problem is that most commercially available butterfly houses simply do not meet the basic biological requirements."

Dr. Patricia Nguyen Entomologist, UNC Asheville — Dept of Biology & Environmental Studies

 Nearly 20 years ago I stepped away from congregational ministry for a few months to recalibrate and renew.  I spent about half the time in an old farmhouse on Ragged Chutes Road in the back of beyond. The sprawling farm was at the end of the gravel road and I was alone during the week with Ruth joining me on Thursdays evenings after work, then driving back early on  Monday mornings. During the week it was just me and the critters, the deer and bears and coyotes. There were also birds and dragonflies and butterflies aplenty. I called this spot Refugio, a Spanish word meaning shelter used to describe the hostels on the Camino pilgrimage. The farm was a safe and healing place amidst the big pines and maples. 

I came across the word in it's plural form recently in the title of an article in Nature magazine about the decline of butterflies in North America: More than 70% of Americans live in areas with no natural refugia for butterflies. The private backyard may be the last one left.

Butterflies are not decorative. Where they disappear, the birds that feed on their caterpillars disappear. The wildflowers that depend on them for pollination stop reproducing. The decline is not an aesthetic loss — it's a collapse signal. And the signal has been flashing red for years.

The article is also about Dot Calloway, a woman who crafts butterfly refuges for backyards, something I'd never heard of before. They are essentially butterfly hostels with carefully calibrated slots where the butterflies can tuck themselves away from predators as well as providing a source of water with a perch. To me they look like little chapels. What a wonderful vocation, a practical commitment to Creation. She writes a letter to every buyer. Sadly, Dot is closing her workshop after more than 30 years. 

In our backyard we see monarchs and swallowtails and viceroys and others. We are we are always pleased to observe them at a couple of bushes adjacent to our deck with blossoms that attract them. I suppose it's very nerdy to get excited about a yellow swallowtail but I'm happy to confess that for me it's a sacred encounter. 

Dorothy "Dot" Callaway (75) in her workshop in Weaverville, NC. Thirty-two winters, more than 3,000 houses — and now the last collection.

https://craft-folk.com/pages/dots-butterfly-house?gad_campaignid=23758989514&wbraid=ClMKCAjwrs7RBhAlEkMA0iCF2XNz_KmwAoCAYzEN_MJH86DkYdVDqEe3ALAPVu2_DQPaziiontPRHztcK0HSn-24ZxXbBQ__5FoSm70FSM_9GgJgUg&shem=rimspwouohe,

Juneteenth, Hush Arbors & Black Ecotheology

                                                                  Hush Arbor Worship Service 

 Happy Birthday to our wonderful son, Isaac, and to Wordle -- definitely in that order.

This is also Juneteenth, a federal holiday in the United States to commemorate the end of slavery following the Civil War. The enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation happened last in Texas on June 19, 1865 and by the 1890s Juneteenth was used to acknowledge this auspicious date.

On  this Juneteenth I'm pondering all those people who were enslaved by supposedly Christian supremacists yet continued to worship the God of liberation and hope. And I'm particularly mindful of those who chose to join together for worship away from their enslavers in secluded outdoor settings termed "hush harbors" or "hush arbors". A harbour is a safe haven and an arbour is a wooded area so both make sense. These meeting allowed Black identity to flourish away from white missionaries and slave masters who used religion to enforce submission. 

I wonder if theses "invisible churches" were part of the foundation for Black eco-theology which is now receiving scholarly attention. I mentioned last year that I read the eye-opening Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. Author Tiya Miles posits that Tubman, a courageous liberator of enslaved persons "is arguably the most famous Black ecologist in US history" because of her broad knowledge of woods and waterways on the secretive path to freedom.

Miles quotes scholar Dianne Glave who notes that African Americans have long envisioned the environment in luminous and evocative, capricious and perilous ways.

Happy Juneteenth to all those who seek the depth and breadth of this day in all aspects, including Black eco-theology. 

Creating an Ethical Will?

I came upon a passing reference to a legacy document in certain expressions of Judaism termed an "ethical will." The term intrigued me so I did some searching and found this in my Jewish Learning:

For centuries, Jewish parents have passed down wisdom and values to their children by crafting end-of-life documents called tzava’ot or “ethical wills.” Much as a legal will enables one to dole out assets and possessions to one’s heirs, an ethical will gives the writer an opportunity to share their wealth of wisdom: lessons they’ve learned over a lifetime, where they found meaning in their lives, and what they may want for their loved ones going forward.

Traditionally, Jewish ethical wills contained a number of items, including burial instructions, debts and obligations to be paid, requests that family members carry on specific religious traditions, and blessings over the family. But modern ethical wills are less about accounting and instruction and more about imparting wisdom or wishes or simply reviewing one’s life. They are often written in the form of a letter and addressed to one’s children, but they can take many forms. There is no halachic (Jewish law) template or script they must follow.

In the Middle Ages, ethical wills were shared privately among families. One of the most famous ethical wills from this time was written by Spanish Jewish physician and scholar Judah ibn Tibbon to his son, Samuel when he died in France in the 12th century. It ran over 50 pages long and covered a wide range of topics, from the importance of books — he wrote the familiar line “let books be your companions; let bookcases and shelves be your pleasure grounds and gardens” — to a harsh rebuke of his son whom he felt wasn’t living up to his expectations.

 Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Israel holds a number of ethical wills hastily written by Jews before they were killed at the hands of the Nazis. 

I hadn't heard about ethical wills before but the notion grabbed me. We have three adult children with partners as well as four grandchildren so during the pandemic we updated our will from decades ago, doing everything online. We were relieved to have attended to this legal housekeeping but it never occurred to us that we might create a complementary will conveying wisdom and values.

I'm pleased that all of them have adopted our love as nature, so this is already part of our legacy. We have encouraged Christian faith with the components of generosity and compassion and we see this to varying degrees in each household. We brought our children up to be respectful and welcoming to what we then called gays and lesbians. All of them have LGBTQ2S friends and are open in ways we couldn't have imagined when we were young. 

What would any of us include in our version of the tzava'ot or ethical will? I want to give this a lot more thought in the days ahead, because the clock is ticking! 

On Eagle's Wings at 50

 

Author, composer and professor Fr. Michael Joncas holding a June 2024 letter from former U.S. president Joe Biden by the bookcase where he framed and displayed the original 1976 score of "On Eagle's Wings," in his apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota, May 2026. (NCR photo/Camillo Barone)

In 1976  Jan Michael Joncas, a 24-year-old who had temporarily stepped away from a vocation to the priesthood wrote a hymn for a friend whose father had just died. It was sung at the funeral mass and quickly gained popularity that spread broadly over the past half century. The hymn, On Eagle's Wings, has been sung as an anthem and hymn in many churches, Protestant and Roman Catholic, in times of sorrow and joy. 

In Voices United, a United Church hymn resource, On Eagle's Wings is number 808, in the psalm section because it is based on Psalm 91, a source of comfort for Joncas when saying the daily office. He is still alive although serious health issues have left him unable to sing the way he once did or to play the guitar. 

The original 1976 score of "On Eagle's Wings" by Fr. Michael Joncas, framed and displayed on his bookcase in his apartment in St. Paul, Minnesota, May 2026. (NCR photo/Camillo Barone)

I read about Joncas in the National Catholic Register and here are a few paragraphs from the article" 

"I pray that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven," Joncas said with a faint smile and watery eyes. "I just keep hoping that more and more we will respond to the spirit of God and have a transformation of our world."

Looking back, he says the most surreal moment for "On Eagle's Wings" may have been Nov. 7, 2020. While he was watching television, Joncas heard Biden quote the hymn during his victory speech. Later, Joncas wrote the president elect a letter explaining the song's origins.

"I have carried your words in my heart for decades and sung them at more Masses than I can remember," Biden wrote back. "When I meet families and communities who have experienced deep loss — from natural disasters, violence, and other circumstances out of their control — I often share your words with them as a blessing, with the hope that they will be comforted by them, as I have always been."

Imagine, a considerate and compassionate president!

The Face & a "Glass Darkly"

 

 For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.  And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

                                           1 Corinthians 13: 12-13 NRSV, KJV

Ten days ago I listened to a fascinating interview on CBC Radio Sunday Morning with Fay Bound Alberti on our millennia old preoccupation with the human face. The podcast teaser describes the conversation this way: 

Selfies, social media and facial recognition have made us hyper aware – and hyper critical – of our own faces. But Fay Bound-Alberti says these innovations are just the latest examples of technology re-shaping our relationship with our faces. The historian and founder of King’s College London's Centre for Technology and the Body joins Piya Chattopadhyay to chart how mirrors and portraiture gave way to modern phenomena like "Zoom dysmorphia" and "looksmaxxing".

If you have any awareness of social media you'll be aware of the myriad "influencers" who set crazy expectations for personal appearance, particularly the face. Many of them are women although lots of men are involved in the online preening. As Bound Alberti reminded us, AI and filters and cosmetic surgery are employed to create the perfect image. 

I have noticed over time that there are many untimely deaths amongst these influencers, sometimes from surgery gone wrong or drug overdoses. It also seems that some of them die by their own hands at young ages, perhaps overwhelmed by the impossible standards they have set and can no longer maintain. At the gym there has been a growing presence of teens whose workouts include a lot of checking out their physiques in the mirror-lined walls. 

As I venture deeper into the "face like 50 miles of bad road" phase of life I am certainly aware that looks are fleeting. 

I think too of the passage of scripture from 1 Corinthians called the Love Passage so often included in Christian marriage ceremonies. As the wedding party would stand before me, often having spent a fortune on makeup, we would hear about the deeper qualities of love and the truth that we only have a partial image of life's meaning now with the implication that the day will come when we are fully understood, truly seen, by God's mercy. 

Decades ago I saw ancient mirrors in the Israel Museum which would have been possessions of the wealthy. Even still, they were made of polished metal and lighting would have poor by our standards so the reflected images which were far from perfect. 

It turns out that Faye Bound Alberti lives with prosopagnosia, or face blindness. When host Piya Chattopadhyay asked her what she would leave listeners with she suggested that we need to be kind to ourselves. Good advice. 

 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

                                      I Corinthians 13: 4-7 NRSVue

                                                Mirrors in the Israel Museum