Today is the feast day of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the 16th century  Spanish solider turned founder of the Society of Jesus, more commonly know as the Jesuits.

Of course with the halls of sainthood becoming ever more crowded there are other saint’s whose feast days are celebrated on July 31 but when you share the day with Ignatius Loyola you tend to become a bit of a wallflower and hence Helen, Justin, Calimerlus, Democritus, Calimerius, Emmanuel, Fermus, Fabius, Nyot and Peter hang together in the shadows while Ignatius basks in the glow of the attention received.

I appreciate the tradition of the church as a whole and try to remember that the first 1100 she remained relatively unbroken until the schism between east and west around 1054 which led to the eastern Orthodox branches against the Roman Catholic faith. Than 500 years later the Reformation shattered her again and created perhaps the most divided body in human history with Protestantism.

Of course it is all far more nuanced than that as history always is but that’s it in a nutshell.

So despite my evangelical roots I find it important and worthwhile to remember that for more than 1,500 years we shared a common heritage with our Catholic brethren and as such it is worth paying attention to certain traditions such as canonization – the creation of capital ‘S’ Saints.

We are all saints and priests of course and while we hardly ever act that way or even realize it (such is the life of a member of Israel) it is a good thing to perhaps point out paragons of faith for our example as Christ is our example. I appreciate the lessons the lives of the saints offer be they apocryphal or historic fact.

The transition of Ignatius from warrior to a man of faith was done along a path that makes sense. The society he founded bears a fair resemblance to a militaristic order and the Jesuits have never been accused of being overly soft in their approach to evangelism hence the informal title of “God’s Marines”.

That’s it for this post…a slightly irrelevant post but fun to write.

6.93 billion – World Population
33.7 million – Canada
1.23 million – Manitoba
30,000+ – Morden/Winkler & Region

In the grand scheme of things nobody really wastes time obsessing about what any of us is up to. We are like books on the shelves of the New York City public library.

This is quite liberating. 🙂

So it is no secret I always loved preaching.

I was having a conversation about preaching over lunch with an old friend and pastor the other day and we were talking about how personal one should get when preaching. I always tried to marry personal experience with the Biblical narrative to add to the relevance in the lives of people who were listening.

Anyhow my friend said something very interesting which bothered me at first but as I have had time to ruminate on it I believe he is quite right. He said we should not presume to present people with our own pain without first receiving their permission. Another way to express it is to say we should not dump our crap on people, regardless of the reason, if they have not expressed a desire to bear it in the first place.

What bothered me about it initially is that I have, in the guise of trying to be vulnerable, allowed aspects of past pain to enter into my preaching. It had not occurred to me before that, while this may serve as a great way to appear as human as the rest of the congregation it is something of an abuse of the position behind the pulpit.

Case in point – a while back I heard a sermon series by Andy Stanley, the pastor of North Point Church in Atlanta. At a certain point Stanley talks about divorce. Interestingly, despite his parents going through a VERY public divorce (his father is celebrated pastor Charles Stanley) he never actually brings it up. I always wondered about that until this recent conversation with my friend.

Now while I am sure Stanley’s own personal experience with divorce no doubt informed his preaching he never presumed upon the congregation by allowing it to enter into the narrative.

I greatly appreciate this word of advice from my friend and I wonder if it applies to other areas of life as well. I wonder if when we enter into a friend’s life via any number of venues like over a meal, coffee, facebook, etc. we should not necessarily presume that said friend wants to bear the weight of our problems until they have offered to.

It really has been turning around in my mind a lot. I find the whole subject to be quite sharpening.

& it is this
this that I miss
most of all
the taste of hot iron
blood in the mouth
from the curled crushing
cold warning pain
there’s still so much
so much life
morethaneverIcouldspend
so when this sacred sarx
spills open
let it pour
into the eternal ever

wail
howl at the evil
stand forth
cry out at the beasts
the fools
stream tears
at the insanity that thinks
it can end lives
can end nations

when all death does
is make life shine the brighter
and throws itself into the abyss
while the Einherjar
cross the rainbow

In my reading today I came across two quotes from a phenomenal servant of God, Henri Nouwen. They spoke to me deeply.

Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the “Beloved”. Being the Beloved expresses the core truth of our existence.” 

“Ministry means the ongoing attempt to put one’s own search for God, with all the moments of pain and joy, despair and hope, at the disposal of those who want to join this search but do not know how.”

Itsy decided this evening that I would read from Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Published in 1932 it is the first in the series that ultimately make up the source material for the old television series Little House on the Prairie. The setting of the book is Wilder’s childhood in the family log cabin the woods of Pepin, Wisconsin with her parents, two sisters, dog and cat.

Caleb protested vigorously against the choice preferring a more adventurous book like Halo or something war-related but Wilder’s book won out and he grudgingly decided to listen anyhow.

The book is magical from the first word. I admit to being a fan of the television series as a child (along with Bonanza, The Waltons, Swiss Family Robinson and other family fare) however I have never read the books before. I bought the series for Itsy at Christmas and they have not really been cracked till now.

Wilder’s narrative is so captivating and innocent both Itsy and Caleb were fairly enthralled early on. At one point Wilder describes playing house in the attic with her older sister Mary.

“Mary was bigger than Laura, and she had a rag doll named Nettie. Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a handkerchief, but it was a good doll. It was named Susan. It wasn’t Susan’s fault that she was only a corncob. Sometimes Mary let Laura hold Nettie, but she only did it when Susan couldn’t see.” 

At this point in the reading Caleb bursts into laughter at the image of such a doll. I start laughing too. The very idea of it and how Wilder writes about it is brilliant and funny and I love it.

We have completed chapter one and Caleb is hooked now (while he would probably not admit it). I am too and I am old enough to be fine with admitting it.

This
i give to you,
this thing
(not really)
it is
YOURS
(mine)
to possess
with all your heart
(most of it)
take
and with it
all that implies
(ownership)
it is
a bond of love
(a bond indeed)
a bond in deed

the prelude never ends
that fractal chaos before the beginning
as dishes clang like cymbals
knives and forks and spoons
play percussion and brass
to laughing operatic voices
chattering, lilting  sing-song
lift small town talk to virtuoso heights
while the door plays chimes
in time with a jealous register
feet shuffle as brushes on the drums
beneath the woodwind woosh of air conditioner
all a blend with metronome keystrokes
soft under the radio’s keen direction
unseen conductor waving her FM baton
coaxing Pat Benatar to remind the orchestra
that “we are young – heartache to heartache”
and the coffee-fueled music never ends
though the players come and go
it is life – a free form jazz composition
beneath the spinning fans
bidding us to lend our voices
for a moment…

Where to begin?

I have watched a lot of television in my 43 years…and I mean A LOT. I have watched a lot of movies, read a lot of books, listened to a lot of music, read a lot of plays and poetry and feel somewhat informed about the act and art of creativity. So it is not without a certain amount of albeit amateur knowledge that I feel confident in saying the new British television series Sherlock may be the best television series ever made. I mean it…ever.

The premise is simply to take Arthur Conan Doyle’s incredible character Sherlock Holmes and bring him into modern day London. It is virtually identical to the original stories in every other way.

It is a brilliant combination of all that television/movies can be – the marriage of visual, written and musical art into one finely tuned masterpiece. The casting of the characters is flawless and the performances of the actors are very good – especially that of Benedict Cumberbatch (best name ever BTW) as Sherlock Holmes.

The writing is exceptional and maintains a high level of tension throughout while allowing for the humour of the relationship that is Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

It may be hard to believe but the cinematography and the film editing are good enough to almost be considered legitimate characters. One of the reasons the show works as well as it does is that it seems to be complete uncompromising for the sake of its art. For instance the series is only three episodes long…and each episode is 90 minutes. Nobody does that…nobody but the creators of Sherlock which suggests they did it because they had to in order to make it work. The chose to ignore some pretty standard conventions and this bodes well for the future as the BBC has confirmed its renewal.

All that to say you are only hurting yourself if you don’t watch it – it is that good.

I should also say that while I enjoyed the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law take on Holmes as an action hero its luster is significantly reduced by this brilliant new take on the detective.