Grow Mercy

Spiritual Formation and Briercrest

1 comment June 30th, 2007

My hour with the Spiritual Formation class–a diverse group, ages, backgrounds, professions–was actually a delightful experience. And I know Deb’s presentation of the Enneagram was great…many comments.

I talked about Benedictine spirituality and mindfulness, and on spiritual disciplines. I was encouraged by the reception and the questions.

One question–a hard one–was whether I thought my spiritual formation, my Benedictine path, was making me a better person.

How do I measure that? I did find something like an answer. In 1984, when I began volunteering in Edmonton’s inner city, I was out to save people…but I didn’t really see people. Today, that agenda is gone. I can no longer fathom seeing people as ministry opportunities. I see them, like I see myself, simply and profoundly human, trying to make sense of this world and our place in it.

To a certain sectarian view of Christianity I have lost my way. I think I’m finding it.

Thank you Briercrest Seminary and everyone in the Formation class. (For anyone interested in references or whatever, I’ve posted my presentation in the Benedictine Journey page.)

Technorati Tags: Briercrest, Missionary or Mission Field, Benedictine Path, Christianity, Spiritual Formation

Contemplating Moments and Briercrest

8 comments June 23rd, 2007

Wish me luck. I’ve been asked, by my Dr.-brother Sam Berg, to take an hour this Monday to bring my slant on God Awareness and Benedictine Spirituality to a Spiritual Formation class at Briercrest College and Seminary.

I’ve done this before and I’m never comfortable. And, admittedly, I’m even less comfortable now. Added life experience has left me with fewer answers and some embrassement over past pronouncements.

But, at least the timing is interesting. Because recently a friend wrote to me explaining that her "faith-system" has crumbled.

I’m thinking that she has had what Thomas Merton calls "a contemplative moment." That is, an experience or set of experiences that has exposed a disconnection between what she has, for years, theologically assented to, and her everyday life.

In other words, she is living through a kind of faith-vertigo that has showed up all kinds of spiritual clichés. Once comforting and seemingly solid, now quite hollow. And now comes the readying to recline in and with something else, something real. What that is, how that will come, is yet to be determined.

I remember having the prerequisites of Christian life down, and I did a good job carrying them out. But, as poet David Whyte has said somewhere, it was like, "part of me was imitating myself." This is a description of a heart unconvinced of real engagement and so it’s a heart on a collision course with the truth of life.

But the "contemplative moment," or moments, are not quasi-mystical-intellectual experiences. They come in and through the emotional mess of life. They are "rags of light," experienced on "broken hills."

And these "moments" reveal that life cannot be sustained by propositions, specifically Christian propositions. That propositions are lies if they lead. That propositions are only true as by-products of story, of narrative, and connect with truth only through ongoing existential verification.

It’s like Barbara Brown Taylor in her book Leaving Church says,

"Narrative is not a choice I make when it comes time to tell the truth; it is the way that truth comes to me–not in crisp propositions but in messy tales of encounters between people and people, between people and creation, between people and the Divine."

As a Christian, when Jesus becomes more artefact than present-story it’s time to stop.

When I can no longer locate my story among the "street people, hookers and bums," or more urgently and at least as profoundly, read my narrative as part of the lynch mob, corrupt corporate execs, scaly operatives, and suicide bombers, it’s time to stop.

Time to rekindle, if possible, a desire for connecting moments. This is apparently an answer, but really a non-answer.

Technorati Tags: Briercrest College and Seminary, Thomas Merton, Barbara Brown Taylor, Spiritual formation, Benedictine Spirituality, Christianity, David Whyte

Just an Albertan

2 comments June 22nd, 2007

Deb and I, checking the ally for PETA members just before we head out on another one of our weekly rodeo adventures. She ropes steers and I ride wild brahmas, and then take their horns.

Sure I’m green, but I’m still an Albertan.

Technorati Tags: Alberta, Suzuki Swift, Amos Lee, Rodeos

Geez’s Summer Issue

7 comments June 20th, 2007

I’ve referred to geez magazine (see sidebar link) a couple times in past posts, but, forgive me, I need to make special mention of geez’s sixth issue because they’ve published something of mine.

So, next time you’re in Chapters, Coles, Smithbooks…pick up a geez. Better yet, by-pass the nasty conglomerates and subscribe directly. Why? Well, yes, there’s me, ahem, but infinitely more than that…as say the editors,

Because it’s time we untangle the narrative of faith from the fundamentalists, pious self-helpers and religio-profiteers. And let’s do it with holy mischief rather than ideological firepower.

Technorati Tags: Geez Magazine, Holy Mischief, Seeing the Wonder, Christianity, Spirituality

Dad

4 comments June 17th, 2007

Years ago, in those foggy days right after my father’s rather sudden death, I was going through some of his old books. I found a scrap of paper upon which he had written a short prayer. It said, "Yes, peace that passes understanding…but give me the understanding that brings peace."

I wondered what he was going through just then. My father sought understanding. He saw his quandary. The note referred to Philippians 4.7, where St. Paul speaks of the peace that passes all understanding.

But his line was a rebuttal. He was saying, fine, Paul, but I still want the kind of understanding that brings me peace. Dad was a realist grappling with his faith.

My father had many occasions to question his faith, question the faith of his church. And I’m certain now, all these years later, that the questioning ran deeper than any of us suspected. But why would this surprise me?

He was, through this little scrap of paper, crying a Psalm…Give me understanding that I may live.

I remember riding my bicycle home from work after the long distance call from my mother and my brother Paul, informing me that my dad had died of a heart attack.

I stopped on the bank of the North Saskatchewan and sat down in the grass. I’ve always loved rivers and so I just sat there watching the grey-green water.

The city sank away. The sun shone warm and the air had a deep-fall fragrance. In that heavy brilliant afternoon the outline of my father’s smiling face came into view and a the outline of a poem came to mind–a poem that I would later read at my fathers memorial.

Today, his etched face–is still etched in my mind.

I see him sweating, black dirt ground deep in the creases of his wet face. His shirt stuck to his back, rivulets of water running down under his cap, down the side of his face as he shovelled, hammered, lifted, pulled.

I see him crouching, head down, helmet on, while sparks shoot past his arms and legs and bounce up off the hard-packed dirt of the log tractor-shed.

He welded a bird bath together using steel discs of the old seeder. He used farmer–rods, 7014’s. That piece of modern art was eventually anchored in the ground in front of the picture window of the cabin, the cabin he created from the warehouse that was once attached to our store in town, the Springside Shopping Centre.

In the small living space at the back of the store I see him sitting at the table, beside him a shin-high stack of newspapers and magazines. I hear him, being cynical, and hopeful, about the state of the church, the municipality, the country.

I see him entering the rainfall and weather conditions in that acre of space beside each day on the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool calendar that hung behind his chair.

I hear him half a mile away in the field, singing above the roar of the Cockshutt tractor…singing what he always sang in the middle of the field …"How Great Thou Art."

In the Baptist Church, I’m noisily fidgeting while Pastor Ulrich preaches and I hear him signal, as he always did, with a long drawn-out throat clearing. I face front quick as a consonant, and feel his eyes for a long time on the back of my head.

I hear him laugh mercilessly as he tells the only off-colour joke I’ve ever heard him tell. The one about the farmer who found the whistle in the manure pile. What did he do with it? He blew the shit out of it! All the kids roar. Aunt Nettie and Uncle Harold laugh too, but not quite as much as dad.

I see his thick wavy black hair sprout from underneath a toque that has climbed up the back of his head while he lays up an even row of snow beside the red Ford half-ton — stuck, on the way to the farm. A farm that raised pigs, hundreds of laying hens, and killed over a thousand turkeys and a farm that compelled dad to be experimental, a general store owner, a public school trustee, a Co-op board president, a bus driver, a Gideon, a deacon…

I see him reading at the table of our other farm–"Jonat’s farm"–the farm we never quite felt at home with. I secretly thank him as he pretends not to notice the scent of tobacco after I come back from smoking a "rollie" behind the bin.

I feel his sadness and tension as he drives me to meet friends, friends I’ll leave to the coast with, leaving him behind, not seeing him for several years.

Decades later and two months before his death, I hear the pride in his voice as he recounts the good that all his children did. Kids from small town partner well and make good. Did we recognize ourselves in his rhapsodizing? Dad did.

And a year after his death I dream him in that robins egg blue suit of his, sitting at the dark-wood dinning-room table, and we are all around and we’re laughing.

Technorati Tags: Jake Berg, Springside, Riverside Farm, Beauty

Well, Well, Well

Add comment June 15th, 2007

As a kind of follow-up to yesterday’s post, and as well, a basket full of other interesting health bits, check out Connie Howard’s piece in Vue Weekly.

Technorati Tags: Vue Weekly, Connie Howard

Rage and Road Mercy

6 comments June 14th, 2007

This morning as I walked, I was witness to an instance of road rage. A man in a van, honking. Smashing the heel of his hand into his steering wheel. Pounding his fists on the dash. Yelling.

The air inside the van was finally too full to contain the tinder-dry rage and he opened his window to let it out. And out it came.

Everything–all of it venomous–all directed at one lady in a small blue car who misjudged the traffic light change and the line of vehicles ahead of her and wound up in the middle of the intersection preventing the van from pulling out.

The lady, wisely, stared straight ahead, not acknowledging the tantrum. Much the way, I’m guessing, she would refuse to acknowledge the tantrums of her preadolescent. But an adult male having a tantrum is a frightful thing.

I walked between the van and the car with some misgiving. The green stream carried on and finally tapered off a red light interval later. The intersection cleared and the van pulled away and left me wondering what this added and took away from his day.

What it is that sets us off?

Last evening over supper my son Mark told us about a construction site supervisor who perpetually speaks with a raised voice. It’s like he’s in a perpetual argument. Anger subsiding only in sleep. And perhaps not even then.

We are an angry bunch. This is an angry generation. We seethe. We hate spasmodically. We have scorn seizures. We curse within and we murmur audibly and beneath our breath.

We mouth breath in short gulps, the oxygen only reaching the top of our lungs, and the bile stays in our blood.

We conceal most of it, but occasionally–for some more often–it catches us in an instant and we find ourselves in the grip of an incendiary fit. The place for healthy venting having been lost.

Our desires twist us around their fingers. Our communal experiences are shallow. Violence is contagious, air-born, even recreational.

We have few models to counter all this. Certainly, for example, none in parliament. Question period produces enraged doubles. Everyone mirroring and mimicking each other–the object of debate being the debate. Any real dialogue is swallowed up and the issues long forgotten. We need to find our models beyond our "leaders."

We need refuge from our fear. We need a fortress from our miserly desires. Better, we need a mercy-light, and we need a love-light, held for us by someone with no axe to grind and nothing to prove.

We need to receive our lives back through a renewing of our desires…a reordering of desire through the eyes of someone without envy or rivalry. We need to open ourselves to someone with lots of time to wait at intersections.

Technorati Tags: Road Rage, Anger, Violence, Parliament, Question period, Father James, Beauty, Peace

Suite Subterranean Blues

8 comments June 12th, 2007

…Johnny’s in the basement mixing up the medicine / I’m on the pavement thinking about the government…

The first time I moved to Edmonton I lived in a basement suite. 1978, if you’re asking. Another life, another time.

Anyway, I had no idea our tenancy in that little sunless domain could have been illegal.

Apparently, 90% of Edmonton’s basement suite owners have no idea either; or if they do, they’ve have decided the rules surrounding their subterranean suites are silly.

But easing up on below-ground suites makes obvious sense and should be one more piece to our housing shortage solution. At least a few of the city’s "working poor," currently living in our shelters, would jump at the chance to rent a basement suite.

So if you’re listening dear City Council…grow mercy.

If you’re interested, here’s what this morning’s Edmonton Journal had to say:

City planners want to ease rules on basement suites…Cheap housing needed quickly

SUSAN RUTTANsruttan@thejournal.canwest.com

If the city wants to aggressively promote secondary suites it should encourage them in new houses, not just older ones, a new report states.

The report from the city’s planning department says roughing-in the wiring and plumbing for a secondary suite in a new house would cost about $3,000. Building a basement suite in an existing house can cost up to $25,000.

However, the narrow lots of some newer neighbourhoods may make the addition of secondary suites - and the parking the tenant will need - a bigger challenge there than in older neighbourhoods with big lots, the report says.

City councillors are holding a public hearing Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. on loosening city rules to promote more secondary suites. Basement suites - most secondary suites are in the basement - are seen as a quick way to provide cheap housing, which is in short supply in Edmonton.

In some cities, such as Calgary, promoting more basement suites has caused controversy. The Wednesday hearing may show what Edmontonians think about the idea, but so far, only a few people have booked time to speak.

Edmonton allows secondary suites only if the house is next to an apartment block or row housing, or is in an industrial or commercial area.

It’s the tight restrictions that council is considering changing. The report recommends the city set up a team to manage inquiries, develop programs and enforce new rules for secondary suites.

Getting approval for a secondary suite under existing rules has been tough, the report states. Of 30 applications made in recent years, only seven were approved. Most are opposed by neighbours.

There are thousands of secondary suites in the city, 90 per cent of them illegal.

The average price of a single family home in Edmonton has risen to $426,000 in May. Average price of a condominium in May was $266,000.

Apartment rents also are rising and the vacancy rate is 1.1 per cent.

Okay, regarding the Bob Dylan references:

A special Grow Mercy prize goes to the first person who can tell me what album the song, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" first appeared on.

Rule: You can ask one friend but you can’t Google. (Except Jeff H. and Gary F., no asking at all.)

Technorati Tags: Homelessness, Working poor, Basement Suites, Edmonton City Cousil, Edmonton Journal, Bob Dylan, Subterranean Homesick Blues

Everyone needs a Poem

5 comments June 11th, 2007

I’ve been adopted by a poem. By a line in a poem. And by a small entry on the flyleaf of the book where my poem lives.

Tuesday last, I’m lying on a grassy bank in Crescent park, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, rereading Wendy Morton’s Shadowcatcher. I pause at the flyleaf and find my direction, my dedication.

All books have flyleaves. Andrea told me that the flyleaf is one of the greatest of inventions. It hadn’t occurred to me but she’s right. Flyleaves give you a place to pause, to gather yourself for just a moment. They give you time to let your eyes adjust to the light, to sip wine before the meal. Otherwise a book begins too abruptly leaving you no personal space.

But the flyleaf is also the perfect place for a short hand written note, a thought, a personal dedication. I have this in Shadowcatcher. It says, to Stephen, "who waltzes in and out of what matters."

That afternoon, when I read my poem, and dreamt again of waltzing in and out of what matters, the fountain in the crescent watercourse turned bright blue.

You say I’m dreaming. And I say, "Of course, but it also happened just as I say."

And while the blue was spouting bright a swan swam by, and a couple walked by, arms linked, looking into the baby carriage they were pushing, and some kids were throwing bits of bread on the water."

Everyone needs a poem." For Wendy Morton, who commits random acts of poetry, this is close to a mantra.

I think, as well, everyone needs to see their name applied to the front of a book. A dedication, a declaration that you are here, and it matters.

Everyone needs a poem. Here’s mine:

Everyone needs a poem.

And so when I came to the last poem in "Shadowcatcher," I left the grassy bank and waltzed down to a park bench, deciding to read it to the first person who happened by. It was a lady, white hair, seventy-five years old I guess.

I get her attention by asking her if anyone has ever read her a poem. She said, "Not once, never." I ask her if I could read her a poem. She smiles slow, and says, "Sure, yes, why not."

I read her "The Path." It’s a poem of ordinary memories of the land, of home, of old countries, of connections.

As I read I’m aware of my own odd excitement. When I finish I look up; she’s been smiling. I tell her I’ve just committed a random act of poetry. She smiles broadly and says, "Thank you," and continues on down the path.

Technorati Tags: Wendy Morton, Andrea House, Swans, Random Acts of Poetry, Shadowcatcher, Beauty, Peace

Jesus and Just War

4 comments June 8th, 2007

David Silverman / Getty Images

Before reading scripture non-sacrificially, that is, before coming to the place of reading all of scripture through the lens of the gospel, I was a "just war" advocate. In a way, reading the Bible through the Gospels instead of the other way around is the only way to read it against yourself, instead of for yourself, an admonition, I believe, of Karl Barth.

Anyway, before this kind of slow organic existential realization, I reckoned the best a Christian can do in the face of conflicting biblical messages about violence and about God, and in the face of practical realities of human rivalry, is to accept Augustine’s "just war" theory.

The criteria for Just War is:

the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;

all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;

there must be serious prospects of success;

the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.

Hattem Mousa / AP

Now, if there is an attractive aspect of "just war" it’s this: If administrations agreed upon these criteria, almost all of the wars over the centuries could not have been justly waged.

But then, it makes one wonder if there has ever been a "just war" and wonder, even, if there can ever be one…especially considering the last condition. So even as a pacifist, "just war" in this strict sense, seems somewhat attractive.

Of course WWII and the Nazi Holocaust is always used as the lynch-pin to support "just war" and to dismiss pacifism out of hand. However, while entry into WWII might pass the "just war" test, the argument would be on much better footing without the two nuclear strikes upon Japan. But that’s what happens in war; that is the ’spirit’ of war. Restraint becomes impossible. Violence blinds us and war becomes it’s own reason. (This is one of the lessons in Chris Hedges’ book, "War is a Force that gives us Meaning.")

Jamal Saidi / Reuters

As well, there’s also the historical scholarship that says that if Germany wasn’t so demoralized by the Treaty of Versailles, Hitler would never have risen to power in the first place. That we help create Stalin’s Hitler’s, Hussein’s, Khomeini’s, and Bin Laden’s, through our exploitive policies and scapegoating violence, not to mention our inability to "wage just war," is evident enough. The Middle East is too clear an example.

I may be wrong but I don’t see Jesus endorsing "just war." I see Jesus as peace-giver. But I also see Jesus as angry at injustice, and as actively putting himself in the way of oppression, but always in a non-violent way. Jesus was a pacifist, but he was never passive.

Technorati Tags: Jesus, Just War, Nazi Holocaust WWII, Chris Hedges, Stalin, Bin Laden, Christianity, Peace, Violence