It’s usually said solemnly, as a cross of ash is placed on someone’s brow. The dusty ash often comes from the palm fronds of the previous year’s commemoration of the Palms and Passion.

But I wonder…
what if the ash came from somewhere else?

What if the ash came from a display of fireworks, bright and alive in a crisp, dark February night?

What if we gathered it together, strewn by the wind, into a cup, and darkened our foreheads with it?

Lent may be a time of penitence, but penitence doesn’t always require solemnity. Turning around – repenting – is an action that takes energy and life. Sometimes it takes tears and laughter – both in bright bursts and in sustained glow.

What would it say to us if, as that ash were placed on our skin, we felt the presence of the Holy Spirit flashing in the night – if we could feel our faith bursting forth in response?

Would that change how we say, “From dust you come, to dust you shall return?”

Would that change our, “Amen?”

We often don’t know who baked the bread.
We often don’t know who milled the grain,
kept the cows healthy,
gathered the salt,
or planted the seed.

But we know

this

the Divine Presence is in
the planting and the growing,
the harvest and the mix.

God’s love, God’s will,
God’s very Be-ing
permeates that loaf…
even as it fills you
and me.

And, with the bread,
as the bread,
in the bread,
of the Bread,
we are blessed.

Saved or consumed.

Broken or whole.

An ‘alleluia’ of life.

Even as an individual, we set guidelines and directions for ourselves. Lines we won’t cross. Values that are important to us.

When we put to people together, they set boundaries and rules, conventions that help them work and live together. Most of the time those are unwritten. Sometimes we put them down on paper (or on screen.)

A more formal structure becomes important when a group gets larger than can know one another well. Larger than, oh, a dozen, let’s say.

When those little groups become larger groups, and when those larger groups become groups separated by a number of variables – distance, culture, gender, language, theological understanding or economic realities might be a few – that structure is part of shared identity.

All of my life I have been part of the structure of one part of the Body of Christ – The United Church of Canada. In some ways, it’s part of not only my religious identity, it’s also part of my personal identity. I’ve been an interpreter of the rules; as a minister in congregation, as a parliamentarian, as an arbitrator and conflict resolution facilitator, as one who has chaired committees and Presbyteries and gatherings of a Conference.

I’ve seen the Spirit move in and with and around and through those rules (and the interpretation of them.) I believe that God works with the structures we have created to help us live out our covenant relationships.

There is a “but” here.

But I’ve also seen places where the values espoused by the structure of the church and the values espoused by part of its body are radically different. Institutional structures tend to favour stability. They tend to favour actions that maintian. They tend to look for ways of building conformity.

Sorry. We tend to favour stability. We tend to favour actions that maintain. We tend to look for ways of building conformity.

But, what do we do if the Spirit moves us (and with us) into a place that is not stable? Where maintainence means constant change. Where conformity means stasis, rather than safety?

What do we do with our rules when our rules were built around a different reality – when our structures are built around a certain way of living out those rules, and that way of living out doesn’t work for the reality we seem to be living?

*crunch*

I think we need to recognize that our structures are not immoveable objects and our ministries are not irresistable forces. The ability to change is built into both our structures and our selves.

If we don’t get entrenched in this or that being the only way. It may be the only way we can see. That’s ok. Each of us has our own blindspot. But we need to recognize that there are almost always possibilities we can’t see – possibilities that can be played with to speak to the concerns of structure and ministry.

I also think we need to recognize that neither our structures nor our ministries are perfectly understood. That whole, “through a mirror, dimly,” thing. We need to find the places where our core values mesh and the places where they don’t… and we need to find ways of trusting one another in the process of discussion and action.

We need to be ready to dive into each other’s vision – and to be overwhelmed by each other’s hope and each other’s pain.

But we also need to be ready to be changed, mightily, by that pain, hope and vision.

Our rules need to be tempered by prophetic challenge, at the same time that the prophet needs to be willing to see God’s presence moving and hear God’s voice speaking within the structure itself.

Life is change.

Abundant life is abundant change.

An entrance sign on a gray background with fencing and chain.

In some ways, I’m glad they’re gone. Many of them were not particularly beautiful, and some blogs were just covered in the things. As you can probably tell from this space, I’m somewhat of a minimalist. There’s something beautiful about a blank canvas. All of the possibilities, I guess.

One thing I did like about the badges is that it told me, at a glance, what people thought was important enough to share with the world. At a quick read, I could see what they wanted to share. For the most part, I just took it as a starting place. Reading what the writer wrote was actually the test of our connection. But the self-labeling had its uses.

I’m finding that I’m asked to self-label all the time. This week, I got asked if I would consider myself to be “progressive, liberal, or evangelical.” I’m afraid that my response wasn’t helpful. I said, “Yes! I also consider myself to be process and United.”

I really don’t think those perspectives are mutually exclusive, nor do I think they’re points on a spectrum. I think they’re places to start a conversation. Places to begin to understand one another.

In many ways I am progressive.
In others I’m liberal.
In others I’m rather conservative.
In some I’m quite evangelical.
In others I’m rather quiet.

But, really, in the end, I’m me.

Beloved child of God. Trying to understand what that means through being a disciple of Jesus of Nazareth, who many of us call, “Christ.” Taught by people of many faith traditions and of no faith traditions.

So. Who are you?

What badges do you wear that could be the starting place for us to get to know one another?

The ones that need to be answered first.

When debating the life of a congregational ministry the first question that must be answered is this, “Do we believe this ministry is God’s desire?” Not an easy question to answer. It’s one that many of us, especially those of us in the “mainstream” denominations, tend to shy away from. We don’t want to presume that we know what it is that God wants. And yet, I believe that, in a Christian faith community, uncovering and discovering what we understand God’s desire to be is central to any action we take. We need to presume.

There’s a second question: “Is it Gods desire for us?” God may want someone to be doing that work, but it may not be us. It may, simply, not be our ministry. It may be someone else’s. (“No, David, you aren’t going to build a temple for me. That’s going to be one of your kids’ jobs.”) The thing we have to be careful about with this question is making sure that we don’t turn away from difficult ministries that God is calling us to, because we think someone else can do them better. Someone else may very well be able to do them better. If this ministry is God’s desire for us, we had better connect with those that are already doing it, or could do it better – because we’re going to need them. We’re going to need their partnerships, their ideas, their resources, their goodwill, their help and their love. We’re going to need their disagreement and their challenge.

If God wants us to be doing this ministry, we’re going to need all the help we can find. Whatever that ministry might be.

I think the third question is, “Is it God’s desire for us to be living out this ministry right now?” Sometimes there are great ideas and great possibilities. And, sometimes, those great ideas and great possibilities are something that God is calling us toward. But we also need to realize the complexity of – well – everything. The people who are here, with their gifts. The wider community. The price of tea in China. Sometimes, the bits and pieces that are needed aren’t lined up to live out the ministry. Sometimes, the bits and pieces are things that we have no ability to get lined up. They’re out of our control. If we’ve answered “Yes” to questions one and two then all we can do in this case is to get lined up what we can line up, and watchfully wait as other pieces come into alignment.

If the answer to any one of these questions is “No,” then we need to seriously consider why it is we want to be doing this ministry. Perhaps it is the ministry of someone in the congregation, but not that congregation’s ministry. Perhaps it is someones’ Call, just not ours. We still have a task to do. We need to help that person, or that group, to live out their ministry. We need to support. We need to challenge. We need to love it into being.

We need to test. We need to be ready to say, “You know, we got this one wrong.” We also need to be ready to say, “Yes. Heard that one loud and clear, God.”

If, of course, we believe we should be aligning our work with God’s.

General Council Executive has decided to keep the General Council offices somewhere in the Greater Toronto Area, perhaps connected with one of our congregations. It will be interesting to see what happens with the way ministry is expressed (if anything), when the offices are more congregationally connected.

At St. Andrew’s, life goes on. We’re prepping for financial stewardship visits – using a “home group” style that we’ve not tried before. It will bring together small groups that will take a look at what our finances have been used for this year, what we’re planning on using them for next year, and to give people the chance to ask questions about our ministry in general. It should be interesting, especially with some people’s frustration around our movement away from passing the plate.

“Life goes on.” That’s quite the way to describe it. Pretty accurate, though.

Walking on Thin Ice (Richard Bott CC-by-nc-sa)

For the past 17 years they’ve been located in Etobicoke. Before that, they were at was 85 St. Clare Ave. – the heart of downtown Toronto. The question is, what’s going to happen next? Where will General Council Offices be?

The denomination’s magazine, The Observer, wrote an article about the location discussions at the General Council Executive meeting. A group from Winnipeg has designed a beautiful website, to help showcase their community as a possible place for the offices to be.

As I listen to the commentary, I hear things like, “Decentralize!” and “Why do we need General Council anyway?” From my perspective, if we are going to be a national church then we are going to need national organization of some size – large or small. Organization means people and people need space in which to do their work.

I recognize that there are many different variables that people are going to want to consider: our desire to keep/change current staff, many of whom would not choose to move away from the GTA; our rural/urban divide; stewardship of finances and other resources; stewardship of relationship; questions about ‘image’ and ‘empire’; geography and distance; relationship with other denominations and communities; wondering about the effect of architecture on mindset – and more that I’ve not thought about, I’m sure.

There are great reasons for moving the General Council offices – to Winnipeg or elsewhere. There are great reasons for keeping the General Council offices in the GTA. I’m not sure that a “balance of pros and cons” is going to help us make the decision. In fact, I think I can be even stronger by saying that I don’t believe that balancing pros and cons will help us make this decision.

Whatever the decision, there are going to be people who believe that the wrong one was made.
Whatever the decision, there are going to be people hurt by it and there are going to be people helped by it.
Whatever the decision, there will be a level of chaos, both for us as individuals and us corporately.

Recognizing that, how do we go about making a right decision – one that is just and loving and lives out Christ’s call? By making sure that the process is just and loving and lives out Christ’s call.

So – for me – that means speaking truthfully about what I’m seeing and hoping for, about the possibilities of being in Winnipeg, or Ottawa or Waterloo or Toronto. It means listening to my words and trying to hear them through the ears of someone who holds a different perspective, before I hit the enter key or open my mouth. It means being ready to accept whatever decision the people we have entrusted to make the decision make – even if it’s not the one I would have gone with.

And it means trusting that God works through all of us.

I wonder how we’ll do with this one?

Dark Sunset (Richard Bott CC-by/nc/sa 2.0)

I’m glad I’m not leading worship, because I know that there are people who want to commemorate that day.

I struggle because, as terrible as it was, and as horrendous the deaths of all those children, women and men and the grief that their families and friends live is… it is one drop in the ocean of death caused by humankind’s ability to hate those who are Other.

In my lifetime (1968 to now):
Between 1.5 and 3 million people were killed in the Cambodian Genocide.
Between 500,000 and 1 million people were killed in the Rwandan Genocide.
Between 176,000 and 400,000 people were killed in the Darfur conflict.
Massacres of Hutus by Tutsis and Tutsis by Hutus (approximately 150,000) in Burundi.
Between 26,000 and 3 million people in East Pakistan/Bangladesh.
Between 20,000 and 80,000 people in Equatorial Guinea.
Between 18,000 and 183,000 people in East Timor.
Between 9,000 and 30,000 people in Argentina.
Between 7,500 and 8,000 people in Srebrenica.
Between 2,000 and 70,000 people of the Falun Gong in China.

And how about the actual, declared wars, during my lifetime:
Second Congo War – between 3.8 and 5.4 million people killed.
Vietnam War – between 2.6 and 6.0 million people killed.
Second Sudanese Civil War – between 1 and 2 million people killed.
Iran-Iraq War – between 500,000 and 2 million people killed.

And let’s not forget…
the Iraq War – between 98,000 and 654,000 people killed;
the War in Afghanistan – approximately 25,000 people killed.

And, yeah, I know that getting numbers from Wikipedia doesn’t always work, but if the numbers are even one-tenth of what they show, they would boggle the mind.

This, of course, doesn’t include deaths caused by famine, by economic policies, by climate change.

Or by crime.

Will I remember take a moment a lift up a prayer for the children, the men and the women who died on 9/11/2001? Of course, I will.

But I’ll do it in it’s context of all death that is caused by our human inability to live with, to love, and to lift up our neighbour.

Take this path? (Richard Bott CC-by/nc/sa 2.0)

In some ways, it’s a fool’s game. What is, is. We can’t go back. There aren’t any “do overs.” Just the ever-present now. And yet…

Although there have been good and bad times in my life, times I would love to revisit (more as a tourist than a player), I really don’t think I’d want to lose who I am, and who is in my life now. My partner. Our daughter. Being in BC. All of the experiences of being a minister in The United Church of Canada, here, in St. Marys, in Iroquois Falls, in Kirkland Lake. The relationships and friendships.

Even more than revisiting some of those times, what I would truly love is the chance to meet the ‘me’s who would have grown out of other decisions. The Richards who chose to walk other roads.

I wish I could have the chance to listen to what they learned and to see how this choice made that difference.

In the last little while, I’ve been reconnecting with people from different times in my life. My highschool daze, my university years, my time as a newly forming minister. In the process of feeling out the possibilities of friendship again, I’ve found myself in conversations that call for remembrance and repentance, and – perhaps – for reconciliation.

Even if these moments of reconnection do not grow into renewed friendship, the ability to repent – and the ability to release both my own Self and the Other – is well worth looking back on the path I’ve taken.

I am deeply thankful for all of those things about him – and I am deeply thankful for his leadership.

There have been a number of commentators wondering about why there is such a public outpouring of grief over his death. It’s strange, but I’m not finding our collective grief surprising at all.

Jack Layton – in life and in death – embodies many values which Canadians hold dear. He was a likeable politician. He had a kind of “derring do” and a willingness to drop his visor and tilt at the monsters he saw in the world. He was a politician with chivalry and respect for his opponents. He was a team player who also valued leadership. He could be tough and nice and laugh at himself and try to change the world.

For many of us, he embodied what we like about being “Canadian.”

When I think about the communities in which I have lived, I realize that there have been people in each of them who are embodiments of our Canadian-ness. When some of these women and men have died, the community has grieved – not only the loss we have in their death, but the loss of the “embodiment.”

Jack Layton was one of those. And his community – Canada – grieves.