(Written August 2015)

I wonder sometimes at what point in history does a country switch from being A country to OUR country?

With the increasing number of conflicts raging throughout the Middle East and North Africa there has been a HUGE increase in migration. Massive numbers of people have been leaving war torn regions and crossing land and sea to find hope in Europe and elsewhere.

By some estimates Europe will see more than 1 million migrants over the next year. Already tens of thousands have died at sea or in the back of cargo trucks as they pursue the simple dream of peace.

Of course this level of influx has inflamed rhetoric on both sides of the issue with a vocal group loudly complaining about migrants and with governments building long walls of coiled razor wire along borders while others are actually busing migrants straight to the border of the next country in the line.

These perspectives are in stark contrast to our own here in Winkler and Morden where, over the past decade and more we have welcomed many new residents from around the world encouraging them to make this place home while continuing to celebrate their own unique heritage, culture and language, as is the Canadian way.

In the south our American friends are being eroded by the hot gusts of bloated wind that come pouring forth from bigots like Donald Trump who propose building a wall along the US border with Mexico to keep out “illegal immigrants”.

All of which forces me to ask again – when did a country become our country? When did we decide enough is enough and no more are welcome in the privileged west?

In the 1930’s my great uncle decided to move to California to become a doctor and so do you know what he did? He simply moved there and is now retired and living comfortably.

In 1890 my great-grandparents left Ireland and came to Canada where another branch of my family had already settled in the 1850s.

It feels as if the people of Europe, the United States and to a lesser extent Canada said – ok – we have enough people…no more need come, shut the doors. The language of the conversation has become a language of “us” and “them” with people yelling “Go back where you came from!” oblivious to the irony.

Can you imagine what our ancestors would say if they could see how we treat the disenfranchised of the world today giving that they too, were likely displaced and looking for opportunity?

Perhaps it is time to stop thinking about how we live in a country and start realizing we live in a world and we need to share it.

In Canada our version of Ellis Island is Grosse Isle, Quebec. More than 500,000 Irish immigrants passed through the place and into Canada…5,000 of them died and are buried at Grosse Isle. The island is now known as the Irish Memorial National Historic site in recognition of the importance of immigrants, their contributions to Canada and the sacrifices made on the road to hope.

It is because of migrants who left hardship that we are who we are and the western world is as privileged as it is – our history removes from us the right to close our doors, or in fact, to build doors in the first place.

When I was younger I went on many a three-day canoe trip every summer with Boy Scouts. In the summer over a weekend we would marshal our canoes on the Saugeen River at Walkerton, Ontario and make our way to the port of Southampton and majestic Lake Huron.

This canoe trip went with the current and so, while hard work, we knew if we stopped paddling for a while we were still moving forward.

On occasion we would paddle against the current to head back upstream to visit with friends. On those occasions we could not stop paddling. We had to relentlessly work to move. If we stopped for a little to rest in a slow moving section of the river we would immediately lose ground and go backwards.

Life can be a lot like this…we are moving along this river at varying speeds but there is always a little resistance…a little current against which we must press. When we stop to rest we start sliding backwards.

At this point I will stop to say that there isn’t anything necessarily wrong with this. What is important however is to be aware of this phenomenon that happens with individuals, groups, families, faith communities, organizations, festivals, cities, etc.

As a person or a family drifting a bit with the current to see where it will take you can be a good exercise and open up new opportunity and insight – as a business or some other mission driven entity however drifting is never a good thing because there is nothing intentional about it and you can quickly lose sight of where you are and where you were going.

There are some who believe that once they have reached their goals they can simply maintain and allow their momentum to carry them along. The problem with this is that there is no such this as maintain. The second you stop intentionally moving forward and striving to achieve goals the current begins to pull you backward. This is why new goals must always be waiting in the hopper once the old ones have been achieved.

For organizations there are real consequences for putting things on auto-pilot: customers get bored; revenue/visitation starts to flat-line and eventually drop; and increase in complaints to name a few. Staff and volunteers begin to sense stagnation and become stagnant in-kind leading to increased turn-over and loss of people. Motivation drops and attention to detail, and service levels fall as well.

As people we call this state the rut. “He’s in a rut” we say. We call it a rut because it is difficult to get out of once we are in it. It takes much more effort/energy and resources to reverse backward momentum than to slowly and constantly continue to build it forward.

Back to canoeing – when we would arrive at our destination and the awesomeness of Lake Huron would unfold before us and stretch to the horizon, we would often drift a bit out into the lake and then make our way to shore, pack up our things, load the canoes onto the trailer and head home with thoughts of coming back next year.

We can do this as well – it’s called closing the business, shutting down the organization or festival, shuttering the facility etc. It is true sometimes things do need to die so that new things can be reborn in their place…but make no mistake, you cannot put your business or organization on pause and come back in a year expecting to find it in the same shape; you cannot sit back and assume your momentum will carry you, because if you do, before you know it, there won’t be anything there.

I was shocked to learn that ISIL/ISIS has an actual magazine they publish regularly. In fact they have published 11 volumes so far, the latest being 65 pages long.

It is well-laid out and designed clearly by people with mass media experience and a social media savviness (there are hashtags on page 3). The publication is in Arabic and translated into multiple languages including English.

The photographs are high-quality and there are 14 articles in the most recent edition including profiles of fighters, interviews, columns, video links and geo-political analysis. There are no authors’ names attached to the articles except when the article is lifted from another publication.

One thing I noticed is the surprising amount of eschatologically driven articles focused on interpreting ancient Islamic writings to justify the jihad against the west (known as the crusaders) and any of their allies. There is even a quote that defines the overall strategy of ISIS/ISIL:

Coming from a Christian perspective with evangelical roots and having experienced a variety of facets of this including charismatic and fundamentalist expressions I recognized immediately the kind of end times writing designed to justify certain types of actions and mobilize “warriors for God”.

This kind of approach is remarkably effective, especially with the disenfranchised. We have seen it work again and again within Christianity.

Indeed, as much as I have wished and prayed against this becoming a holy war the conflict is starting to bear all the hallmarks of a crusade between Christianity and Islam with leaders on both sides utilizing religious rhetoric to fire up their people and inflame their emotions.

In the United States one company has gone so far as to start engraving text from the Bible into weapons. Specifically they engrave a verse from Psalm 144 that says “Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,”.

The $1,400 high-powered rifle is called The Crusader and was created to prevent Muslim fighters from using it… or in the words of the company spokesperson:

“Off the cuff I said I’d like to have a gun that if a Muslim terrorist picked it up a bolt of lightning would hit and knock him dead,”.

They also sell a t-shirt sporting the ridiculous slogan – “Crusade beats Jihad”.

Clearly the extreme ends of our various global cultures are becoming more and more inflamed and it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain any kind of balanced perspective.

We live in frightening times.

some other word for gold
would best describe this,
this fleeting, falling light,
but I cannot think of one;

some other color perhaps
that captures this liquid spill
that slips to earth as molten
from our far off Autumn sun;

but only hay spun gold will do
as it soaks into the ever-willing ground
til night comes to bid the day adieu

through the holy anointing of oil
do the dead pass silently on
in the presence of the bread that gives life,
in the presence of the blood shed for it

grandma departs away from this home
to the next as one made royal,
though she came of blood and water
this new birth proclaims some new one,
one once servant, now reborn Queen

these, these hands, these lips and ears,
this nose and mouth and feet that receive
a priestly seal
did once receive a life lived
of children and grandchildren;
of good and bad and every broken thing;
of lovers and mother and father;
of cheese sandwich lunches
with mushroom soup to dip;
of ginger ale and offers of money
with words whispered against protest
“no take it, take it...”

these, these hands, these lips and ears,
this nose and mouth that have closed…
a mere blink and now reopened
to take in a different glory anew
never again to hear or need the words
“you are forgiven”
nor plead each day’s needs anew
but only gloria, gloria, gloria
ever healed, ever alive…

in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spirtus Sancti.

Amen.