Reflections of a Canadian Churchman

I miss dancing.  It may seem trite, or perhaps even insensitive to say this when so many people have lost so much more than I have lost during this pandemic. Sometimes, though, it is the small pleasures that we miss the most and grieve over when taken away.  As the world tentatively begins to lurch back to something akin to normality, I know that dancing won’t becoming back anytime soon, at least social dancing. Oh sure, we can still cut a few figures around the house or on the driveway, but it’s not quite the same as dressing up and going out to a big dance hall with a wonderful sprung floor and dancing the night away with friends. I wonder if we shall ever get back to this.  I expect that social dancing, at least as we know it, will be one of the last things to come back. We probably won’t be dancing again until we have a tested and safe vaccine for COVID-19.  Even then, will dancing be considered an acceptable social activity?  Given that we may never go back...

In a 1941 essay, Rudolf Bultmann wrote that belief in a three-tiered universe has become impossible in the age of electric lights and the wireless.   Of course, Bultmann was not speaking about wi-fi, but about radio transmissions. Nevertheless, in this new wireless era, his assertion remains the same, the old three-tiered understanding of the universe with a heaven above, hell beneath, and the world in between, has been swept away by the enlightenment of modernity.   What then, are we to do with stories of the ascension of our Lord, in which he blasts like a rocket into the sky to return to sit at the right hand of God? I suspect that if we gaze too long at this problem, we will find ourselves staring blankly into the heavens, like the disciples of Jesus, only to be jolted back to reality by voices that remind us not to stare into the heavens, but get about the work of the kingdom.   And herein, I think, is the message of the Ascension, namely that the Ascension of...

Chapter 6: Hope and Healing at the Grave For several years I visited Phyllis. My visits with her began after she began to live in a local nursing home.   She and her son Paul were faithful parishioners in the parish where I had served as assistant curate and later as associate priest.   I never really knew Phyllis before she began to experience dementia, but as I got to know her through my visits in which she and Paul and I shared the sacrament of Holy Communion, it became clear that her decline would be a slow one.   Phyllis’s entry into the nursing home came not too long after Paul lost his job.   Such an unexpected event always has a traumatic effect on one’s life, and here Paul was faced with a double loss – the sudden loss of his job and the gradual loss of his mother.   One thing I learned about Paul very early on, though, was that he truly believed that all things work together for good for those who love God.   While Paul deeply grieved both ...

Chapter Five: Marriage as a Sacrament of Hope and Healing “May their lives together be a sacrament of love in this broken world, so that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy overcome despair.” - The Marriage Litany ( Book of Alternative Services ) While physical illness is perhaps the kind of brokenness that most affects individuals and families, marital breakdown is perhaps a close second.   In our immediate and extended families, many of us have experienced the sadness and trauma caused by the break-up of a marriage.   Sometimes marriages fall apart and no one is surprised.   Sometimes a break-up can be welcomed with relief.   Some relationships are a bad fit from the start, while others are plagued by various forms of dehumanizing abuse. Some marriages come to an end when one partners comes to an awakening and awareness about their sexual orientation. In most cases, even when the marriage ought to end, a break up will be ...

Chapter Four: Salvation and Healing - Two Side of the Same Coin   The racy historical drama, The Tudors , chronicles the life and times of King Henry the Eighth and the Tudor court.   While the writers have taken liberties with the historical evidence, there are several aspects of English political and religious life that are faithfully represented.   In particular, Henry believes that God has punished him (and his kingdom) for taking his brother’s wife by not giving him a living male heir.   To this end Henry seeks to have his marriage to his pious Spanish wife Katherine of Aragon dissolved in order to pursue the much more vivacious and alluring Anne Boleyn.   Historians have argued as to whether Henry actually believed this doctrine of divine retribution, or whether he simply used it for political ends. Be this as it may, this religious idea was very much a part of the life and times of late-medieval and early modern people.   The thought that God ...