Recognizing Saints

I have not been blogging for a while. This is probably no loss to any because we all have too much to read or post or think about. I too among all these things have had a slow slowly emerging couple of paragraphs mostly thinking ... something which I knew eventually I would need to share in this space. I seem to be encountering yet more faces of God. It is kind of different than the interesting articles I see posted or read in newspapers and periodicals. Also it seems consistent with what I have been saying recently: God is not so much akin to explanations as to experience. I confess that even as I present this as fresh and new beyond my reading, I am immediately reminded of a book, a weird little mission book read several years ago.[i] I have read about this before, probably read but never digested! That book fits in here somewhere. Hang tight and read on!

My wife and I were in Mexico for two weeks. We know we cannot afford these luxuries any more, but when you have fellow church members who invite you to come along – why not?  One day I took a taxicab heading for a local church of the Vineyard persuasion to join them in one of their touristy mission trips to the local garbage dump to feed the hungry there. Enroute to the church I enjoyed some conversation with the driver whose English was quite good, talked about many things: interesting stuff like cartels and governments, about politics in Canada and Mexico and safety and faith – yes Christian faith. In short order we were brothers in the Lord – even quoted a commonly held Bible verse to each other (Matthew 6:34)! Half an hour after he had me delivered to the church location and I was making sandwiches among other do-gooders I realized my cell phone was gone. Lost! This right on the heels of a notification received the day before that next cell phone bill would include an extra $70 for out-of-country data! Aagh, what a schlope metz I am! After a short burst of emergency self-loathing I suddenly felt a quiet peacefulness, informing me “Your brother the taxi driver probably found it in his car. He will return it safe and sound by end of day. Relax!” I participated in the day’s planned activities. That evening the adventurous phone was back in my hands. I was grateful for the returned cellphone, but even moreso that I had been enabled to believe in a stranger all day long!

Another tour had me riding a bus on the new Federal Highway 40 on top of and through the mountains Mazatlan to the city of Durango. My goal was to get as close as possible to the locale of some of my relatives and my grandparents’ graves. I had limited success in solving those geographic historical queries, but among fellow tourists met a ‘former’ Mennonite, she and her husband happily in the United Church in Manitoba – extremely pleased to discover an ordinary looking Mennonite who did not resemble the people they thought they came from. Conversations became fascinating, actually hilarious, especially when an American tourist, a black woman born in Malaysia of Hindu parents from different castes and a Christian husband now deceased declared that meeting this Mennonite preacher and these United Church people was God’s gift in her spiritual journey. Not lost on me was this obvious kairos moment. God is so much greater than our various ethnic religious cultural origins.

Back home, now I’m making up for lost time! There’s work to be done! On the door-knocking campaign trail for a hardworking political candidate, one evening I’m at a fundraiser. Now fundraisers are not my forte even among my churchy Christian friends, given this preacher’s slender retirement portfolio. I’ve learned my place in my church community. Fundraising happens among others! 😏 Not so among these politician friends. I am invited to a fundraiser among people also with deep pockets publicly announcing the thousands they will contribute. Feeling surprisingly free in this environment I eventually make my little speech. “My contribution may well be the smallest here tonight - perhaps like the widow’s mite in the Bible. Also I believe the scripture which says not even the left hand needs to know what the right hand is giving. So I’d rather not tell you the amount, but trust me I support all of us in this meaningful campaign.” Then, surprise!! Later, as we are lining up to process our donations, when it's my turn the treasurer guy warmly addresses me as “Brother.” I was touched. He is the financial coordinator for our local candidate; “brother” is now the simple deep to deep handle between the two of us. Once more I am granted an occasion to recognize the connectedness so obviously beyond political party, church or culture or lineage. The greatest recognition is common faith in Jesus Lord and Savior.

I also recognize almighty God, Creator, Allah as one who breathes breath (ruach) into all living beings. This, along with my unending discovery of fellow saints here, there, and everywhere also stretches into the occasional mystery of divine breath. I take a fairly brisk walk every morning. Recently for several days in a row I met the same person at a certain intersection, each time with a little nod of acknowledgement. A few days ago there he was again. I greet him cheerfully, even with reference to a slippery patch just back there. I press the Walk button, turn to continue the chat. He is gone; nowhere in sight; not a noise, just gonnzos! Next day I see another walking a different crosswalk, but same intersection; he too disappears almost before my eyes! I interpret this as a reminder that this particular intersection in this last year was the location where two persons lost their lives in two different motor vehicle accidents. My wife is not convinced by my interpretation of these visions I have seen – probably connecting them to some pills I take.😍 I am okay with this - no need to convince her that these visions were real. To me it is of the mystery and the experiential; not the academic or journalistic stuff I read or the explanatory sermons which I hear too much of these days. I am content and can even rejoice in extrasensory Presence occasionally coming my way.

Just yesterday I visited a dear elderly friend from our church, a brother who lost his wife just a few months ago. Given present circumstances he has chosen to move into a slightly smaller condo, same building. When he opened the door to show me the new place I breathed deeply, luxuriating in the fine natural light coming in the several windows. “Exactly”, he said with a smile and obvious satisfaction. “These windows are the reason.” I understood, we understood. Life is facing him with a few more new challenges. The windows of this place will be a fine vantage for his continuing journey. I appreciated him sharing this holy moment with me. I’m reminded of a song I learned when I was a kid.

“The windows of heaven are open. The blessings are falling tonight.” [ii]

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[i] Willis G. Horst, Toba Spirituality:The Remarkable Faith Journey of an Indigenous People in the Argentine Chaco (Elkhart, IN: Mission Insight #19, 2001).

[ii] English gospel tune. Author unkown.

Logbooks and Sermons

I just fired a couple of shoeboxes full of sermon notes into the recycle bin. This has been contemplated for a number of years. In spite of my resolve to put some ‘stuff’ into garbage or recycle bins every time the scheduled City truck comes around, many times that weekly tip has been quite effortless for the big machine. It's hard to throw stuff away. This time I did it – I bit the bullet. 😓 Whoosh, those weighty shoeboxes slid in and mingled with all the other valuables (?) in the truck.

And now it is done. The hardest part obviously was letting go – those works of prayer and exegesis and stories in agony or inspiration - most of them handwritten. I did not take typing in high school, opting for the academic courses rather than those mickey mouse career type classes my brothers and some of their friends opted for. Consequently, each of these sermons were a few handwritten paragraphs of prose, and that followed by point form – bullets often with tiny squiggly diagrams in the margins. Those margin pictures would be the real inspiration, usually the gateway to the extemporaneous! Nothing there except the ignition, the image in my head essential to communicate something - at least so I hoped! After delivery those notes would be slipped into 71/2 x 101/2 inch envelopes and then into the shoebox filed simply by biblical reference or text! These sermons would come in handy someday, I thought, when I’d be retired and want to summarize or expand on all the great wisdom I had disseminated! How wrong I was about that. Even as I preach the occasional sermon these days, there has been no research needed in the shoeboxes.

Irony. There is another pile of documents taking up space in my closet. These have a rougher tougher look to them, simply laying there piled atop each other. Logbooks, lots of them, right beside the shoebox sermon notes. This may seem incongruous to many, but not to me. They take up equal or even slightly more shelf-space. My family and many friends and colleagues know that my professional ministry career, serving as pastor of several churches beginning in rural Saskatchewan and then in two urban settings in Alberta, came to an end thanks to, yes, mental illness. The great redemption of this almost sad career path is that my planned recess into “a few years of trucking” to claim some reprieve, became a career move, twenty-one years of longhaul trucking. I delivered my last load in October, 2017, grateful for 2 million accident-free miles, with new and old friends all over, new joy in family and life in general, and a fresh faith in God, the same One who was subject of all those sermons – and a pile of logbooks!

Those ‘comicbooks,’as often referred to by trucker friends, were actually legal record required by Department of Transportation to be availed to inspectors at any time – regulations still stamped into my brain, [U.S: Every 24 hrs maximum 10 hrs driving, plus 4 hrs at work not driving for maximum 14 work hrs, 10 hrs sleeper which could be split between afternoon siesta and night time zees] a good system once you got the hang of it. Occasionally in recent years I have paged through some of these. I am shocked at the recall. Each page opens up the memory, including whether it was a good day or a bad day. Sometimes I can even recall an exchange or two with manager or dispatcher regarding circumstances unfolding in that particular trip, etc. I even recognized an occasional Time Off (TO) stretch which was in reality time spent in a repair shop 😳, then followed by extra hours of desperate night-time driving in order to deliver on-time (therein of course the comicbook delineation).  Aagh those delivery pressures, the curse of us truckers and the proud fresh promise of grocery stores! How us truckers sympathized with one another about the hard lives we were living! 😎 Each of these pages has a story, and the memories still too tender for the recycle bin.

I could go on (and on) now with trucker stories! But I shall not, in deference to all my non-trucker friends! My main point is a theory about memory. Seems to me that it is easier to dump a load of ideological theological teaching sermonizing material than it is to dump a pile of logbooks, memories, incidents good, bad, or indifferent. That is likely why the logbooks still have a place in my closet. Logbooks are rich in imagery and sentiment, a ticket to remember, while sermon notes only needed for the occasion that day behind the pulpit, namely to create a pulpit experience. Recently a friend told me that his mother in a dementia care facility would occasionally speak about past incidents often confusing characters or spoken words, but remembering quite clearly whether it had been a pleasant or unpleasant encounter, and fully remembering if she felt offended. Memory, is it composed of information or of incident? I’m not ready to make a big assertion here, but obviously for yours truly the incident recall is better, actually more accurate than the info recall.

Something of this also has application to end of life. A few days ago I was summoned at short notice to conduct a funeral service for a complete stranger, with a family and community also strangers, most of them from an Indigenous village in northern Manitoba. Obviously there was an identified need for a 'God Representative', but beyond that they were easy. I was both surprised and moved by the meaningfulness of the simple service which included quiet, almost inaudible heartfelt sharing and then graveside interment where nobody would leave until everybody had submitted handsful or spadesful of soil into the hole. "We always bury our own", so I was told. Needless to say it was only my clergy presence needed. Beyond that they owned the grief and the love for the young woman who had died. 

This week our church also tended to yet another death. A dear friend from our midst has suddenly slipped away. There are many options these days for end-of-life services as conducted by clergy or celebrants, usually facilitated by funeral directors. Still thinking of the indigenous funeral just experienced, imagine my relief when I noted this funeral would be preceded by a viewing. Standing by the casket, even if only briefly, was at least as important to me as the ordered words about how interesting or nice he was and what he taught us, etc. etc. The words of eulogy or sermon will likely slip into oblivion, but to view my friend even in final repose was sacred, the best way to say good-bye.

I’m glad my sermons are now dumped. The logbooks will follow shortly. Everything in its order and its time.   

For everything there is a season and a time for every matter under heaven: ² a time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted; (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2).