In our season of Christmas, one of the most popular readings isn’t the story of angels, stars, a manger and shepherds, but the poetic words of a long ago prophet and apostle. John’s gospel reads like art. It tells the story like no other gospel writer. Its opening words harkens the reader back to the words from Genesis where it all started – in the beginning. In the beginning, when time began, when God formed the earth and set the stars on their courses; when God formed humanity from clay; when God filled the seas and populated the land with animals and plants; when all of this was taking place, he was with God. Jesus was present in the creation. Jesus was the very word of God that was spoken across the universe. It’s a sort of heady thought – an ethereal, out there sort of thing. It’s not something that is easily grasped. It is the holy other; the holy other in a wholly other time.

This Christmas, contemplating the truth of the Word being made flesh, I found myself wandering, wandering away from the truth. Asking myself, so what? What does this really mean? Does the world even give one iota of caring about this anymore? Christmas seems to be more about tinsel, reindeer and shopping than about salvation, incarnation and meeting the needs of the poor. My cynicism was warranted, as far as I’m concerned. A friend of mine took his own life recently. In preparing for our celebrations, I was also preparing for his funeral. One morning as I was driving into the city, I ruminated on the words from John’s gospel and Christmas in light of my friend’s death. Jesus coming into the world as the world’s light. Jesus as the light of the world. I hollered out to God – really? Really God? The light of the world? Then why is it still so damn dark?

And then it was as if God struck me up side of my dense head with a proverbial 2 by 4. My mouth gapped open as the light was dawning in my brain and I let out an ‘oh shit.’ Of course. Life is dark. Life can be full of torture and torment for our bodies and our spirits. Life is messy and life is fragile. This is why – this is why Jesus left the comforts of heaven. We can’t get through the muck and mire of this life without a flesh and bone God. We can’t wrap our heads around tragedy without a God who has stood at the tomb of his dearest friend and wept. We need a God who has cried at that graveside. We need a God who has been tempted by the offerings of this world. We need a God whose anger has exploded at injustice. We need a God whose heart breaks for the blind and the oppressed. We need a God who lifts up the lame and calls out the lonely. We need a God who speaks the truth to the regimes and religious powers of this world with a fierce intensity. We need a God who knows the torment and torture of this life, and that God is Jesus. It all makes sense. An ethereal holy other kind of God just won’t cut it in this life. We need a flesh and bone God and we have got it in our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is something I have always known, but somehow now, it truly sunk into the depths of my heart.

The Word being made flesh and living among us does not take the sting out of my friend’s death, but knowing that this is why Jesus was so willing to come here in the first place, gives us comfort. Life is dark at times, but God’s light will and does break through.

My friend’s daughter, who is in grade 3, received a packet of cards made by her classmates. She was sharing them with me and her mom, and I noticed this one card where the whole front cover was plastered with black crayon and right in the centre was a ball of yellow, red and orange. I opened the card and in it, the young boy wrote: I know that your heart is both sad and mad. I am so sorry. And he drew another little picture of this same red, yellow and orange ball and beneath it he wrote: Light beats dark. Light beats dark. From the scrawled printing of an 8 year old child: light beats dark. What an amazing truth. I held the very gospel of our Lord in my hands at that moment. Light beats dark.

Mary Chapin Carpenter gives us the welcoming message of Christ for this world in “Come Darkness Come Light.” Her line about coming to see what love is all about hits the mark. Enjoy, and have a blessed, joy-filled and peaceful 2012.

For the second time this year I have watched Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those films that the more you watch it, the more you get out of it. The scene that stuck with me this time was the father’s confession. The character played by Brad Pitt, lived his life according to nature rather than grace. This is the major theme of the film – the choice of living by grace or by nature. Pitt’s character wonders if because he lived by nature, by his natural drive to succeed and appear happy and successful with all of the societal marks of success, how much glory did he miss. What glories have I missed?

That’s a really great question for those of us who walk with blinders on or with our eyes strained toward our navels. What glories have I missed? What have I not seen because my head was down or my eyes only veered forward? What did I miss?

It’s the season of Advent in the liturgical church – the time of year before Christmas that we put things on hold, even for just a moment in our day, and ponder the idea of God coming to be one of us – God born in poverty – God who left the glories of heaven to stand with us in the muck and manure of life. This is a good time to ask ourselves what glories we may have missed.

Just for fun, I have embedded a video from Gandalf Murphy. It’s a great take on an old Christmas favourite. Enjoy.

Most of us know of the Ten Commandments; we may even know of the two greatest: Love God with all your heart, soul and mind, and while you’re at it, love your neighbour too. These are really two parts of the same package. Loving the people of this world, God’s children, is loving God himself. The problem is, sometimes it’s really hard and then other times, it feels damn impossible.

The word in Matthew’s gospel that is translated in English as love is agapao. Agapao is defined as a moral and social love so it’s not that romantic, affectionate idea that we have for love. But even so, how do we obey this commandment when we stand face to face with evil? Can we look into the eye of a child molester and obey this law of love? How do we do that when every fibre of our being is being set on edge to want to torture and not to love? How can we love when our very heart is being hardened by hate at the idea of someone wanting to hurt your child and irreparably damage and distort their life?

Standing toe to toe with evil, Jesus’ commandment of loving our neighbour stands between us. When evil has been in your home and touched the hand of your child, you want to scourge their flesh with your nails but we are commanded to love. I’m then reminded that nails of another kind scourged flesh. And when Jesus so willingly had his flesh nailed to that cross, he did it out of love.

Love in the face of evil perhaps is not acting on our guttural instinct for revenge. Love in the face of evil is perhaps letting God be the judge. Love in the face of evil is perhaps seeking justice so that all of God’s children can flourish in this life, even the ones we want to condemn. Love in the face of evil is to protect our most vulnerable and to not harm any other.

We are called to a moral and social love. Hurting our children are neither of these.

I feel broken and sad, weighted down by these thoughts. The Wooden Sky are one of Canada’s greats and this song is just simply beautiful so I want to share it for no other reason than its beauty. We need more beauty.

We’ve seen the pictures and read the articles. The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement is spreading, and spreading fast – spreading beyond New York and spreading beyond the United States. The people are coming out in droves in support and out of curiosity. My sense is that this was a long time coming. The peaceful protest of the people against big business and the oppression by unchecked capitalism has caught global attention because we all have a stake in this.
In preparing for my Sunday sermon, I came across this idea of what is truly meant by the ‘wrath of God’ in the Old Testament: the wrath of God is not God’s anger that will lead to eternal torment and punishment, but God’s wrath is rather God’s displeasure that in turn allows us to experience in the present the negative consequences to our attitudes, behaviours and actions. So, when we neglect the poor and the oppressed, something that God clearly tells us not to do, it will lead to revolutionary upheaval. Sound familiar? Not only on Wall Street but think of the other areas of the world where the oppressed, marginalized and the poor have risen up in protest to demand justice and fairness. How about our newest Nobel Peace Prize winners? All women who have been instrumental in social change and sought justice.

But more than God’s displeasure with the instruments and people of oppression, I believe God is at work in each person who comes out to sit in solidarity to seek change. Whether the individual senses their passion as the work of God is irrelevant – God is at work here. God is at work drawing the attention of the world to capitalism run unchecked, without boundaries. This is a wake up call for our structures and a time for social change where the poorest people of the richest countries don’t go hungry, and where the concept of loving your neighbour reaches beyond borders and backyards. The greatest proportion of the world’s wealth is controlled by 1% of the world’s population. The gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is growing at an alarming rate and is currently wider now than it was before the crash of 1929. More wealth in fewer hands has resulted in the erosion of the middle class. Something has to change.

In Wilco’s Jesus,etc there is this great line: Our love is all of God’s money. Our love is God’s currency. God’s invested in us. God has invested in us to share God’s love. When we seek justice and yearn for a better world, we are sharing God’s love for God’s human creation. When we are willing to step beyond our comfort zones and risk our well being for the sake of the other, we love in the way that God has loved.

Is occupying Wall Street and other financial districts enough? Will it invoke the necessary changes? What do you think about this? Share your thoughts with me. Let’s talk about this. Here’s Wilco while you write your response.

When walking along a busy street of an urban centre, a young man encountered an aged man resting in a doorway with his dirty and battered plastic coffee cup in his hand waiting for loose change and a sign leaning against his outstretched legs. The sign reads “God is Good.” This simple truth was given to each passerby by someone the world may not give a second glance, if a first. God is good. Even in the midst of the dung that rains down on all of humanity and creation, God is good.

This aged man in the doorway speaks the truth. When many of us would deem his life to be anything but good, he holds onto a deep truth. His message is clear. God is good. Jesus’ message was clear too. God is good; God is faithful; God is merciful, and God is for all. But sometimes it’s just really, really hard to own that truth. When we find ourselves knee deep in the mire and muck of life, can we dig out long enough to find the strength to proclaim that God is good – that God is still good? When the newspapers and media cry out the suffering of the world: floods in Pakistan with thousands homeless; thousands more dying and starving in the Horn of Africa; corrupt regimes oppressing people and halting even a tolerable existence; politicians claiming that God makes judgement by bringing on hurricanes and natural disasters, inciting fear and confusion, and giving God a bad rap at the same time; young people taking their own lives in a downward spiral of hopelessness…the list goes on and on.

And yet, God is still good. God’s still small voice whispers in the will of the one who fights the hopelessness. God’s voice bellows in those who seek justice and strive for a better world. I find myself plodding along in life swaying side to side between seeing God’s goodness and weeping for the world’s victims – trying to see the goodness of God in the midst of the world’s deprivations. Perhaps we are all in the same boat together. We journey along unfinished – seeking, searching, uncovering and discovering the goodness of God. We try to make sense of what we see and experience. We hold it in balance as best we can without getting overwhelmed. God is good despite our human failings. God is still good despite our swaying, despite our unfinished selves and our incompleteness. God is still good.

Great Lake Swimmers are the melodic Canadian folk rock group centred around singer/songwriter Tony Dekker. In their song Still, this idea of being unfinished is explored. I’m still tuning myself to the great key….I’m still mining for light in the dark well…..I’m still searching for whispers in between yells…..I’m still a note that’s unplayed, ink in a well….I’m still tuned to an instrument of greater and unknown design…. God is still good. God is still sought. God is still present in the dung of the world and uses our unfinished selves, our unplayed notes, to show his goodness and bring light into the dark well.

Here’s Great Lake Swimmer’s Tony Dekker singing Still. Enjoy.

May we stay tuned to the instrument of greater and unknown design, and seek the goodness that still wills to be found.

I don’t know where to begin. It’s hard to make a confession. Anger is a powerful emotion. Is there such a thing as righteous anger? Or do we just use that to justify our actions when things get a little hairy.

It’s the fall and this time of year always seems like it is a new beginning. I guess its the school thing that gets pounded into our heads as kids every September: a new grade, a new teacher, a new school year. Anyway, this is the time of year that, as a priest and pastor, I like to talk to people about making a new start. Whether it’s a new ministry or a new beginning and fresh start in our journey, September always seems to bring something new. In a conversation with a woman about her journey with God, she mentioned a time in her life when she was angry with God. So angry in fact, that she decided that she needed to punish God, and she did.

I was curious about this so asked her to explain more. She said that she punished God by going to a Pentecostal church. I had to pick up my jaw from the floor. She went on to say that she was Roman Catholic and what better way to punish God. My mind swirled with a thousand different thoughts. All I could initially blurt out was the question if she believed that to be true and does she not think that God is present anywhere else other than the Roman Church? Is God not present elsewhere in the world? What about the rest of the Church? I then went on a rant about the human capacity to limit God and the self-centredness of humanity to think that we have it all figured out and know exactly where God is to be found and what God is up to. Who are we to determine where and when God reveals who God is? Is God not at work in all people, even those who do not confess a belief in God, as well as other churches and, dare I say, other faiths? I could feel my face getting hot and my teeth clenching. My mind continued to swirl in a cacophony of sounds and disjointed harmonies of judgement, pity, offence and the burning heat of anger.

She seemed oblivious to my seething, but more likely she was just being polite. The words in my head certainly were not polite and I am glad that the really horrible ones stayed there.

Where did this anger come from? It seemed to get churned up from my gut but why so much of it? Did she just catch me on a bad day? I’m still not sure. Can I justify it as righteous or was I just obnoxious and self-righteous in my own fleeting knowledge of who and where I think God is?

I shared the story with my prayer and bible study group when we were looking at Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians where he speaks about taking our thoughts prisoner and holding those thoughts that don’t work for the building up of God’s kingdom, to hold them captive in our minds. A rather God-timed subject to come up in our study. A dear, sweet, gentle woman let out a little laugh and turned to me and said, with a huge smile on her face, “You are absolved.”

I looked at her and laughed. In three little words and a shrug of her shoulders she made me realize that God is bigger than my anger. She reminded me of the vastness of God’s mercy and forgiveness. She reminded me of the capacity we have to forgive one another. God is in the midst of this – even in the midst of my own disappointment and discouragement that anger got the better of me. God is at work and God is way bigger than my anger. And God showed me more.

One early morning this week I decided to head out onto the street where my church is located and meet some of our neighbours – talk to the folks, introduce myself and just strike up conversations about faith. I met a young man who, after having introduced myself and said where I was from and what I was doing, he held up his hands in the air and said, ‘Praise God! I live in the building across from your church. I am a Muslim man but I am so happy that someone in our neighbourhood is willing to come out to talk about God. Whether you learn of that God from the Torah, the Koran or the Bible, it doesn’t matter. We just need to be talking more about God.’ God is bigger than my anger. God is greater than whatever I deem as great.

It was Aristotle who is known to have said that anyone can become angry – that becoming angry is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy. True and wise words.

Does the message ever get old? I don’t think so since the world hasn’t got the message yet. We need to be one. No one can do it alone. When will we learn that violence does not work? Will we ever get it? Will enough of us rise up and say, “Enough is enough: love is stronger than hate; peace is stronger than violence; courage is stronger than fear; hope is stronger than despair!” Can we bring the world into one community that coexists in love and peace? Will there ever be a time when the war to be won is only who can out do one another in showing compassion and generosity? I am a hopeless, or rather, hope-filled dreamer, but I don’t think I’m alone.

Today is the 10th anniversary of 9/11. I am deeply disturbed that the Fifth Estate has chosen to do an episode on the death of Osama bin Laden this evening. The death of this one man will not save the world. The death of this one man will not end terrorism. The Christian response to the death of this man is to grieve: grieve for the world, grieve for the unending violence, grieve for the brutality, grieve for the people involved. Today is not a day to commemorate that death, but instead a day to remember – to remember the solidarity of that day as much of the world came together in grief and then to move forward together and lean into a future that is shaped by hope and community.

I have been following Groundswell Movement on twitter (groundswell-movement.org). They are a multi-faith movement dedicated to bringing people together who share a common moral vision for a better world. They have been garnering support for a Ribbons of Hope campaign that saw thousands of brightly coloured ribbons posted at the World Trade Centre site in time for all that was happening there this day. What a glorious display of hope. What a generous depiction of oneness and communion. This evening they will be lighting lanterns and sending them down the Hudson River. I will be looking for a pic of that too.

In following their tweets and re-tweets today, I came across an idea that I hadn’t thought of before: this is the day for renewal. This morning I spoke in my church about forgiveness and commitment – re-committing ourselves to God and God’s people in a community that is shaped by forgiveness. I think renewal is better. We can reclaim 9/11 as a day of hope and renewal. We can be renewed. We can commit ourselves to our own renewal process. Love is stronger than hate, and peace is possible.

Spending a few days in a new city, your eyes and ears are open to all sorts of sights and sounds. Chicago is a beautiful city, remarkably clean and remarkably friendly. I have had more conversations with complete strangers here than I have in any other world-class city I have visited. And on four different occasions, I saw Jesus here in Chicago.

Upon leaving a bookstore, a black gentleman of medium build held the door open for us and our eyes met as I expressed gratitude for his kindness. He smiled, showing very few teeth, and then said, “Have you got a second? I need to tell you guys something.” He then joined us on the street, introduced himself as Kelsey and then said, “Ya know, I don’t care what colour you are – white, black or yellow, God is giving us all a wake up call. The call is this: if we don’t get our shit together and start working together, the world is only going to get worse. And that means all of us – working together to make things right – side by side, cause that’s what God wants.” Kelsey went on, using some very colourful language, to describe the demise of the country from “big corporations” and how these corporations “hurt people just trying to get by.” Kelsey offered God’s blessing as he bid us goodbye.

Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Matthew 4:4

The next time I saw Jesus in Chicago was in a young man wanting to engage in a conversation about human rights. He was blonde, blue-eyed and had a passion for all of God’s children. His name was Jarred. He and a couple of his colleagues were looking for signatures to support to a nation-wide petition started by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) out of Washington. Jarred went on to tell us that in most of the United States, it was legal to discriminate based upon sexual orientation. He told us that men and women could be fired for being gay. I told Jarred that coming from Canada, I found that appalling. He then hugged us and said, “You Canadians! You’ve got it so right. You’re awesome.” Jarred’s words breathed compassion and a strong conviction that all people should be treated equally and that justice should prevail for every human being regardless of sexual orientation or any other identity.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28

The third time I saw Jesus in Chicago, I didn’t engage in any conversation. While walking down a very busy street, I noticed the incredibly ornate building of the Archdiocese of Chicago. The building was breathtaking. On the steps of the building sat a man who was dishevelled, dressed in tattered and torn clothes and in his very dirty hands he held an equally tattered and torn Starbucks coffee cup out for change. Walking in front of me was a tall man, likely in his late thirties, wearing a crisp white dress shirt and dark pants. I watched him as he moved over to the steps and sat beside the man with the coffee cup and put his hand on his shoulder. I kept watching and it was like seeing a conversation between two friends, one clearly concerned for the other, but a mutual sharing of our humanity.

for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…..Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.
Matthew 25:35-36, 40

On our last night in Chicago, I last saw Jesus, or rather I saw and heard Jesus, in a young woman named Tamika Reid. On the opening night of the Chicago Jazz Festival, Ms. Reid debuted her first piece of composed music for a jazz orchestra. Playing with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the piece titled “Testimony of Faith” started out smooth and sombre with bits of trombone, flute, saxophone and percussion. She sent us on this spiritual journey that at times made you want to dance and at other times, weep. She told the story of faith through harmonies and tones – it was her way of testimony and telling her story of faith. It was the gospel written in the universal language of music. At the end, the humble Ms. Reid, simply exited stage right while the crowd stood in their seats and cheered. The emcee for the evening told us that she didn’t want to say anything because it wasn’t about her, it was only about the music.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. psalm 98:6

ZZ Top wrote Jesus Left Chicago in 1973. Jesus has not left Chicago but the song has a great bluesy track.

Guillermo del Toro loves to scare us. The Mexican filmmaker whose work includes Cronos (1993), The Devil’s Backbone (2001) and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is about to release his newest jaunt into the horror genre. It’s a remake of the made-for-TV movie Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. The draw for del Toro to remake this film was because it scared the daylights out of him as a kid. He was 9 when he first saw it and it left an indelible mark on his life, as did all of the horror films he was able to see at that age. He recalled in a recent interview how he literally peed his pants watching an episode of Rod Sterling’s Night Gallery about a possessed doll that came to haunt a family. In seeing Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark as a child, he relived the entire film over and over as he retold the story and frightening scenes to his friends and family. He discovered that he embellished what he saw as a kid and kept adding to the story, and hence, the rewrite had begun. In remaking Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, del Toro encountered some conflicting ideas as to how to up the ante for fright. Producers wanted the creatures explained, to know what rules they followed and to clarify as to how they did what they did and why. Del Toro responded “the minute you start explaining that, you’re killing them, you’re making the ride too safe. You need to keep the horror unexplained.” (Globe and Mail; 08/25/11; R3)

Del Toro likes to leave the horror unexplained in his films. For him, not explaining the horror is part of the draw, as well as our desire for our filmatic rides to be unsafe. Are we drawn to the mystery and the unexplained in these films because real evil is too easily explained? We can see incarnate evil in real life. Just pick up a newspaper or watch the evening news – pure evil in dictator-like regimes keeping people hungry, the staggering numbers involved in the trafficking of human beings and women being sold into the sex trade, extremists gunning down the innocent and governments who oppress the very people who they promised to serve. There is no end to the depth of human depravity. Horror is too real at times in every day life, so it’s a relief to watch some horror that is a little more unbelievable.

Is this the reason that this particular movie genre garners so many fans? What is it that draws people to these films? For that matter, what is that makes ‘darkness’ such a popular cultural phenomenon here in the West? Look at the draw for vampire flicks and novels, television shows like True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Supernatural and dramatic portrayals of real-life darkness in episodes of CSI or Criminal Minds. There seems to be a huge influx of ‘dark content’ in the entertainment biz. Are we drawn to the darkness in the hope that once we figure it out, it’s more easy to see the light? Is the darkness easier to name than the light? Maybe the darkness is just easier. Does it make us feel safer? Perhaps we think we can hide there.

Spending time in the darkness though, can make us hunger for the light – it enlarges the void. Our stomachs growl for sustenance. It’s not news to any of us who spend time thinking about these things that there is a real depth to the hunger in our culture – a yearning for truth, love and a sense of what it’s really all about. Listen to My Morning Jacket’s “First Light”:
Jesus wasn’t afraid of the dark. He challenged it. He challenged the powers and the regimes. He called out the principalities of the day to bring them to the light. Nothing can hide in the light and Jesus brought all that was hiding in the darkness out from beneath the shadows.

Regardless of where we spend most of our time, this is still God’s world. All that is in it is God’s. We are God’s and are embedded into this world that he created, both the light and the dark. I love this video of Joseph Arthur’s “This is Still My World”. There is a lightness in the faces of the many people. It seems to show a connectedness with all of the different people – it makes me smile. I will leave the final words to him.