Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Michael Massing's "Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind" - Review by Ron Dart

Review of Michael Massing, Fatal Discord: Erasmus, Luther, and the Fight for the Western Mind
(HarperCollins Publishers, 2018).                                      

It is a rare day and harvest moon indeed when a packed tome is published that probes to the beginnings of the modern ethos from within the 16^thcentury reformation.  There can be no doubt that Erasmus and Luther (theology, ecclesiology and exegesis aside) embody and reflect two different ways of seeing and being, interpreting and applying the Christian faith and tradition. These two approaches, once secularized, are very much with us in the culture wars that so fragment and divide many at so many levels these days. But, let us turn to the key in the ignition beginnings, then ponder their historic unfolding.

There could be no doubt that the Late Medieval Roman Catholic Church was in a state of disarray and desperately needed to be reformed—Erasmus and Luther (as were many others) agreed about this basic reality. There was, in short, concord, initially, between Erasmus and Luther on the obvious reality that things were out of joint. Fatal Discord makes it abundantly clear, in the beginnings, the best, brightest and most committed were aware of this not to be denied fact and were more than prepared to act on it.

Fatal Discord is divided into five meticulously researched Parts, and each Part is further parsed into smaller sections: 1) Early Struggles, 2) Discoveries, 3) Rumblings, 4) Agitation and 5) Rupture.  It is the early concord turned discord (and the implications of it) between Erasmus and Luther that holds Massing throughout this finely researched bounty of a book. Erasmus incarnated the best of the European humanist renaissance tradition, whereas Luther (and Calvin following him) were heralds of the reformation and evangelical way—such are the distinctions Massing makes in his dissecting of the two men and the traditions that were birthed by them. 

The phase, as mentioned above, of early struggles and even discoveries brought Erasmus and Luther momentarily together, Luther being younger and a fan of Erasmus’s criticisms of the church and his revised and annotated version of theNew Testament (excluding Revelation). Those who falsely assume that the Roman Catholic tradition was about Tradition and Luther brought to the fore the centrality of the Bible are, of course, quite mistaken. It was Erasmus, the loyal yet critical Roman Catholic, who front staged the Bible as a means to critique the aberrant Church and Luther followed him. The issue, and this must be highlighted many times, between Erasmus and Luther was not about the authority of the Bible—it was, essentially, about the interpretation and application of both the Bible and the Church Fathers—it was also about a view of the imperfect church. It was these issues that brought about the rumblings, agitations and rupture between Erasmus and Luther, and, equally significant, the rupture within western civilization and the western mind.

The underlying issue between Erasmus and Luther (content aside) was whether we could and should have various forms of absolute certainty on interpreting Biblical texts or whether there was legitimate place and space for dialogue and ambiguity of interpretations. And, equally important, given the Biblical commitment to the unity of the church in Christ, was it legitimate to fragment the church and initiate schism in the name of creating the purified and more perfect corpus Christi? Erasmus was very much the irenical dove who was committed to reading the Bible and Church Fathers (East and West) in a way that honoured and respected their Yes and No (Sic et Non) approaches and differences within the church that could be imperfectly reformed from within, whereas Luther had an overweening need for certainty and purity and he was more than willing to split and divide the church given such premises and commitments. Most religious and secular protestants today are children of Luther—ever critical but loyal to little other than being critical—fragment, fragment and fragment—such is the anarchist way.

There can be no doubt that Massing favours and sides with Erasmus rather than Luther in this beauty of a historic tour de force read of the 1^stgeneration of the Reformation. But, equally important for Massing (and those interested in intellectual and cultural history) is the way this fatal discord has shaped and moulded a more dogmatic western minds—in Voegelin’s sense, the modern “gnostic mind” (a mind ever in need of certainty, a mind and imagination that has difficulty with mystery, paradox, ambiguity and legitimate space for dialogue and differences).

Sadly so, the culture wars that so dominate the public square these days (both on the left and right) and often undermine basic civility are late day children of Luther. Those with Erasmian tendencies are often silenced or sidelined. Massing takes the position that it is the victory of Luther in the Reformation that has not only divided a more layered and complex western mind but, by extension, set the stage for the late modern and postmodern culture wars. This means that the underlying hope of Massing is that there will be a return of those whose heart, mind and imagination is more Erasmian. This does not mean that there are not moments and times in history when Luther should not be heard, but when Luther and Erasmus becomes enemies, such a fatal discord, tragically so, negates the more subtle and nuanced western mind—such a discord and the consequences of it are very much with us these days in all the agitations and ruptures that dominate much public discourse.

Fatal Discourse does offer a corrective and antidote to the divided religious, cultural and political minds on stage these days—we need more Erasmus at this Easter season and much dying to agendas and ideologies will be needed for a resurrection in which Erasmus and Luther can heal the breach in the western mind. I strongly recommend Fatal Discord as a must read for anyone interested in overcoming the tragic way of being and seeing (then and now) in the western mind. It is not, of course, an issue of Erasmus or Luther—it’s much more a fight for both Luther and Erasmus rather than them turning (in the past, present and future) ever on one another—such is the much more substantive irenical battle for concord within the western mind.  We have, the last 500 years, seen the where the path taken of discord leads---perhaps, we can know reknit the western mind in a way that celebrates substantive (certainly not) silly or superficial concord.

amor vincit omnia

Ron Dart          

 

Of Dirty Feet and the Divine Janitor - Kenneth Tanner

Humility is the source of all the energy in the cosmos.

When Jesus wraps a towel around his waist and washes the feet of his disciples he gives us a portrait of the unseen Father, who holds all things together—visible and invisible—as an unassuming, humble servant.

When we dare to mess around with the invisible structures by which God holds the visible world together—splitting atoms, for instance—we witness the awesome energy generated by the smallest (unwise) manipulation of his handiwork.

Yet this incalculable energy—even the smallest fraction of it leaves us in awe—is harnessed to an extreme humility.

What this moment at the last supper reveals, what this washing of feet shows us, is that the power of God has its origin not in what fallen human imagination supposes—not in great demonstrations of might, of subatomic or interstellar power—but in innumerable divine acts of indiscriminate, behind-the-scenes stewardship.

He literally cares for all things, great and small, from what may even seem useless to us—the things we would throw away—to things of such exquisite beauty we are left without words.

God is the great janitor, kneeling on the floor of the universe, towel in hand, ready to do the menial work that holds all things together, the work of a love that does not seek attention, does not boast, is not rude or jealous, that keeps no record of wrongs, that does not fail—the measure of the love with which Jesus loved us and with which he commands us to love each other.

Easter Song (Easter 2019) - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: While I do not get off on his style of worship, or his seeming smugness about “knowing Jesus” (seen in some other YouTube videos of his performances), Keith Green’s song [originally composed by Annie Herring, 2nd Chapter of Acts] here is top of the charts for me! Forty plus years ago, we used to listen to this innumerable times throughout the year, but especially at Easter! I’m happy to “resurrect” it this Easter Season.

Speaking of resurrection: there is a person of my acquaintance who used to love this song, once at least by his account pulling over on the road to deal with overwhelming joy in response to its sheer power, an exuberance that touched him emotionally to the core. There came the day, however, sadly long since, that it was all rejected, and his “Jesus” became so completely watered down that it is impossible to conjure up an understanding of why “Jesus” was viciously rejected and crucified — if one holds to his (un)belief.  As to then rising again, Dead men simply do not rise, his “scientific” mind asserts dogmatically like the best (or worst) of any religious fundamentalist I have known.

At least as hard or more so to imagine is why a whole rabble of Jesus followers joyfully joined the ranks of martyrdom in allegiance to that belief — then or since (a rather gargantuan throng of such in fact).

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE: https://waynenorthey.com/2018/04/01/easter-song-keith-green/

McCaslin & Porter's, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine - Review by Ron Dart

Review of Susan McCaslin & J.S. Porter, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance With The Feminine (Wood Lake Publishing, 2018).                             

"He footed it well—she answered the music handsomely"

John Bunyan

The publication in 2009 of Christopher Pramuk’s Sophia: The Hidden Christ of Thomas Merton footed well the turn to a more in-depth read of Merton and the historic Christian Sophianic tradition and ethos. The recent publication of Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine (2018)answers the music of Pramuk’s wise insights handsomely.  The American (Pramuk) and Canadian (McCaslin/Porter) Merton family have come together to offer yet a fuller read of Merton’s engagement with both the feminine and Divine Feminine.      

The dance of sorts between Susan McCaslin and J.S. Porter in Superabundantly Alive is well worth the watching as each, at times, do their own dance steps, footing it well, then they come together to answer the musical theme of Merton and the feminine handsomely.

Susan’s six essays cover a wide range of approaches to Merton and the feminine (some published previously and others new to this book): 1) A Dream of Thomas Merton, 2) Embodying Sophia, 3) A Grotto of Sophia Ikons, 4) Love and Solitude: A Cache of Love Letters for Tom and Margie, 5) Pivoting Toward Peace: The Transformative Poetry of Thomas Merton and Denise Levertov and 6) Sophia Awakening Merton, the Trees and Me. The titles of each essay highlight the breadth and depth that Susan is both traversing and probing in her reflections on her journey with Merton and the Sophianic tradition. J.S. Porter has only one essay in the collection but it is much longer than most of Susan’s articles. “The Unbroken Alphabet of Thomas Merton” is 66 pages in length and is worth many a meditative read, the metaphor of alphabet a most compelling way to understand the invitational welcome of Merton to a fuller life. The single article that Susan and John wrote together, “The Divine and Embodied Feminine: A Dialogue,” enhances and offers the reader a mature way of dancing out the intricate and nuanced steps of Merton and the feminine.

I found myself agreeing with Lynn Szabo in her “Introduction” that “the axis of this volume” is the timely and in some ways timeless essay by Susan/John, “The Divine and Embodied Feminine”. The affinities and meshing between eternity and time, Divine and history, incarnation of spirit and mind into matter and flesh walks the attentive reader into many a sacred place and site—such are the Celtic “thin places” 

If Pramuk’s Sophia was a research-laden and scholarly approach to Merton and the wisdom tradition, Susan and John bring together a thoughtful, poetic, creative and more personal engagement with Merton and Sophia. Many are the dance steps done between Susan and John in their literary dance and their round dance of sorts with Merton. Each article moves ever closer to the centre of the issue, then a stepping back again as the music and dance ever continue, each handsomely answering the other and Merton well and wisely.

The many endorsements of the book that greet the reader make it abundantly clear that this is a delight of a read not to miss. The “Foreword” by Lynn Szabo is a fine portal into both the larger issue of the feminine and her obvious respect for the creative dance steps of Susan and John as they engage Merton and the feminine. The “Afterword” by Jonathan Montaldo makes for a thoughtful bookend to the endorsements and “Foreword”. The Bibliography is an enticing pointer to a variety of significant and substantive books on the topic (both explicitly by/about Merton and a host of other writers) that massage the issue in a further and reflective manner. 

I found myself somewhat unsure about the title of the book (a sense of superheroes nagging my hesitations), but I was relieved and informed by both Robert Lax and Jonathan Montaldo’s comments. Lynn mentioned in her “Introduction” that in Lax’s article on Merton, “Harpo’s Progress: Notes Toward an Understanding of Merton’s Ways”, Lax called Merton “superabundantly alive”. Jonathan approached the site from another pathway, quoting from Merton in Seeds of Contemplation, in which Merton suggests contemplatives are “fully alive and awake”. Then, there is, of course, Irenaeus’ oft-quoted “the glory of God is a human being fully alive”. I rest my case—the title was perfectly chosen—Merton, McCaslin and Porter surely understand the role of the poet, essayist, contemplative, and dare I say, dancer, who handsomely answers those who, wisely, foot it well—they are, indeed, abundantly alive.

The fact that Susan and John have literary bents and see through poetic lens (as did Merton) means that they have a unique and uncanny way of approaching Merton’s dance with the feminine. There are various ways and means of living into and thinking from Merton and John and Susan, in Superabundantly Alive, have footed such an approach in a most evocative manner—it is our task and calling as readers, to answer the music of their genre most handsomely. This is surely a must-read collection of essays for those who are keen to trek yet further down the meandering trail of Merton and join him on his eternal dance with the feminine.

 

Ron Dart         

Jesus the Suffering Servant? Understanding the NT's use of Isaiah 53 - Philip Maikkula

In the Orthodox liturgical tradition, the third Old Testament reading during Vespers of Holy Friday is taken from Isaiah 52.13-54.1 – often called the fourth servant song of Isaiah.[1]On the same liturgical day, in the service of Matins of Holy Friday, typically served the night before, twelve different Gospel accounts of the passion of Jesus are read.[2]That the Orthodox liturgical tradition would draw an interpretive link between the death of Jesus and the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is not surprising.[3]Such a connection is to be expected in Christian circles. Interpreting the death of Jesus through the fourth servant song, or perhaps more accurately, interpreting the fourth servant song through the death of Jesus, has a rich Christian interpretative tradition dating back to the New Testament, as articulated in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Official (Acts 8:26-35). While the interpretive link is clear, the theological meaning is less so.[4]What meaning should be drawn from this connection? In the modern era, many interpreters have read Isaiah’s fourth servant song in order to explore the theological meaning of atonement or to expound a substitutionary understanding of the death of Jesus.[5]But is such a reading justified by the text?

To answer these questions, I propose we ask another: how did the New Testament authors receive and interpret the fourth servant song of Isaiah? In exploring this question, I will examine each of the instances of a direct quotation from Isaiah’s fourth servant song in the New Testament.[6]Through a close reading of each text in context, I will demonstrate that none of the New Testament authors quoted Isaiah’s fourth servant song to articulate a substitutionary theology of atonement. Rather each had different theological points to make that were dependent largely on their context.

CLICK HERE to continue Reading Philip Maikkula's "Jesus the Suffering Servant?"

[1]The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002), 614. The Orthodox tradition includes Isaiah 54.1 in with this reading which is not recognized by modern scholars as part of the fourth servant song. The term "servant songs" comes from Bernhard Duhm’s commentary on Isaiah, Das Buch Jesaja4th ed., (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1922), 311.

[2]For a complete list of the twelve readings see: The Lenten Triodion, 565-600.

[3]The same readings are used in the Roman Catholic lectionary and the revised common lectionary. Cf. “Liturgical Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States of America 2019,” United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Divine Worship, accessed April 2, 2019, http://www.usccb.org/about/divine-worship/liturgical-calendar/upload/2019cal.pdf; “The Revised Common Lectionary,” Vanderbilt Divinity School, accessed April 2, 2019, https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/lections.php?year=C&season=Holy%20Week.

[4]For a history of interpretation see, Isaiah: Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators, trans. and ed., Robert Louis Wilken with Angela Russel Christman and Michael J. Hollerich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007); Brevard Childs, The Struggle to Understand Isaiah as Christian Scripture, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004).

[5]Robert B. Chisholm Jr. “The Christological Fulfillment of Isaiah’s Servant Songs,” Bibliotheca Sacra 163 (October-December 2006): 387-404; Simon Gathercole, Defending Substitution: An Essay on Atonement in Paul(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2015); Peter J. Gentry, “The Atonement in Isaiah’s Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:13-53:12),” The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 11, no. 2 (Summer, 2007): 20-47; J.I. Packer, “What did the Cross Achieve?: The Logic of Penal Substitution,” Tyndale Bulletin 25 (1974): 3-45; Thomas D. Petter, “The Meaning of Substitutionary Righteousness in ISA 53:11: A Summary of the Evidence,” in Trinity Journal 32, no. 2 (Fall, 2011): 165-189. Particularly challenging for many people is the penal substitutionary atonement model in which it is assumed that God character means that he must punish someone for sins committed. In our place, Jesus takes upon himself the wrath of God that was stored up for us sinners.

[6]This methodology rests on a more sure footing than one which also considers allusions to Isaiah 53, because in the instances of direct quotation we know the biblical authors are drawing on the text in question.

--------------

Deacon Philip Maikkula is a deacon in the Orthodox Church in America and is assigned to St. John of the Ladder Orthodox Church in Greenville, SC. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Central Florida, a Master of Divinity from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, and is a currently working on a graduate certificate in religion, peace, and justice from the Institute for Religion, Peace, and Justice at St. Stephen’s University. Since 2017, Deacon Philip has been a volunteer for the Orthodox Peace Fellowship. He is passionate about issues of peace, justice, and violence, especially in the Scriptures.

 

"You Were God's Lover": Palm Sunday on the Mount of Olives - Mercy Aiken

It is the day after Palm Sunday, after a long weekend, and I am riding on a bus through Jerusalem, heading home. On Saturday I went to a wedding in Hebron. With my dear friend, the bride, and her closer friends, I danced in circles around the stage, trying to imitate the sparkling women around me. With my one of my hands, I twirled my fingers and with the other hand, I struggled to keep my hijab on my head, while smiling broadly at the rest of the group who sat watching us. I must have looked so ridiculous that a little old lady finally grabbed the hijab off of my head and twirled it around with her, laughing, as we danced. The audience laughed too, and I joined in.

I wish that my friends who hate and fear Muslims could be here, could experience this.

My American friends and I had walked through the city that afternoon before the wedding, enjoying little cups of Arabic coffee and kanafe and other gifts given by over-friendly shopkeepers. Our adventures included meeting a beautiful little girl who had two scars on her cheek from a glass bottle that her next door neighbor (an Israeli settler) had thrown through her open window one night and hit her in the face while she slept in her bed. Her younger sister had been hospitalized for 6 months from an injury to her head when a settler threw a stone at her. These things go practically unnoticed and certainly unreported in Hebron. The Israeli soldiers who patrol the settlement areas do little or nothing when these things happen. The little girl remembered me from last year and shyly gripped my hand, smiling up at me in a way that broke my heart. “She wants you to come and spend the night with us,” her father told me. “Please come. You are welcome!”

It is the day after Palm Sunday, after a long weekend, and I am riding on a bus through Jerusalem, heading home. On Saturday I went to a wedding in Hebron. With my dear friend, the bride, and her closer friends, I danced in circles around the stage, trying to imitate the sparkling women around me. With my one of my hands, I twirled my fingers and with the other hand, I struggled to keep my hijab on my head, while smiling broadly at the rest of the group who sat watching us. I must have looked so ridiculous that a little old lady finally grabbed the hijab off of my head and twirled it around with her, laughing, as we danced. The audience laughed too, and I joined in.

I wish that my friends who hate and fear Muslims could be here, could experience this.

My American friends and I had walked through the city that afternoon before the wedding, enjoying little cups of Arabic coffee and kanafe and other gifts given by over-friendly shopkeepers. Our adventures included meeting a beautiful little girl who had two scars on her cheek from a glass bottle that her next door neighbor (an Israeli settler) had thrown through her open window one night and hit her in the face while she slept in her bed. Her younger sister had been hospitalized for 6 months from an injury to her head when a settler threw a stone at her. These things go practically unnoticed and certainly unreported in Hebron. The Israeli soldiers who patrol the settlement areas do little or nothing when these things happen. The little girl remembered me from last year and shyly gripped my hand, smiling up at me in a way that broke my heart. “She wants you to come and spend the night with us,” her father told me. “Please come. You are welcome!”

The next day, on Sunday, a small group of us stood at the base of the Mount of Olives and watched the jubilant crowds descend the mountain, palm branches in their hands and songs on their lips—some joyful, some somber, some wild. Like so many others in Jerusalem of old and Jerusalem today, I’m trying to find Jesus in the crowd. I’m overstuffed with information, hard facts and hurtful realities. This is how I always feel over here—my mind and heart are on overdrive, a slow burn as I try to process everything. This unglossed reality sometimes draws me closer to Him, and just as often acts as a wedge between myself and God. The God in whose name so many cruelties are committed, some knowingly, some ignorantly.

We join the pressing crowd making its way past Gethsemane to the Lion’s Gate. Drums bang, bells ring, songs in various languages overlap with each other, sometimes harmoniously and sometimes not. French, Arabic, English, German, Hebrew, Finnish, Polish, Spanish, Tagalog, Chinese, Swahili.

Today, I need my King. Some say this is where Messiah will come (either the first or second time, depending on who you ask) and the Mount will split in two. From this spot, the resurrection will begin. In anticipation of this, tombs have become very expensive on the Mount of Olives, some people paying millions to be buried here.

I am utterly agnostic on that subject. I just want the hem of his garment, right here, right now.

We pass a large banner recognizing the 800 year anniversary of St. Francis meeting the Sultan of Egypt. While Crusaders marched to Jerusalem, armed with words and weapons of violence Francis had a different idea. Unarmed and poor, he crossed the Mediterranean, seeking dialogue, friendship, understanding, peace. His gentleness and intentional vulnerability impressed the Sultan and he was graciously received. He spent some months with the Sultan, enjoying his hospitality and returned to Europe with a smaller and truer word than the armored message that was carried by flags and banners and swords and spears.

I’m heading back from class at Hebrew University today. We’d been watching a video on the plight of the Negev Bedouins, most of who’ve been shuttled off against their will to massively overcrowded and impoverished “townships” while the others fight for their villages to be recognized, some of which have been leveled by Israeli bulldozers tens of times. “Why are they being so inhumane? Al Araqib existed here before Israel was a state! They can bulldoze us a hundred times and we will rebuild a hundred and one times!” cried an ancient mukhtar, his grey mustache curling over his mouth.

I must have been the only one in the class who gasped at the next scene: Rory Alec from God TV standing near the same village. “The Lord said to me, ‘Prepare the land for the return of my Son!’” he cried, gesturing to rows of trees that God TV has paid for, trees planted on village land, an upcoming forest in the barren landscape that will uproot the Bedouin and somehow hasten the return of the Lord.

"Sow a seed for God!" he said, adding, "I tell you Jesus is coming back soon!" And then he handed an oversized check to the Jewish National Fund, a group that plants forests in Israel, some of them built to disguise razed villages beneath them, yes, even razed Christian villages in the north.

Apparently, Jesus can’t return until all the Bedouin are swept out of the open country and into squalid cities where they can no longer ride their horses or keep sheep or plant gardens.

I have to spit the bitterness out of my mouth. Help me, Lord.

I open my kindle and continue a book I just started, called “Chasing Francis.” It is about a disillusioned Evangelical pastor who finds himself on a pilgrimage in Assisi. The pastor finds in Francis strange and yet compelling friend. In his journal, he writes a letter to him:

“I still don’t know if you were a genius or a lunatic or both. Kenny says you were God’s lover and that people who are in love should be forgiven for their excesses.”

“…You were God’s lover.”

Before I have time to absorb the sentence, tears are flowing out of my eyes and I am full-on sobbing on the bus. And once I start, I can’t stop. Embarrassed, I turn my face towards the window.

I see myself in my mind’s eye; the me of a few years ago, the me of decades past, me walking through grass, praying and singing. I remember how He lifted me from His quiver, fit me into His bow and released me through the air. How I straightened myself as I flew, knowing that His aim was true. “Hit the mark you desire, Lord!” I’d sung, feeling myself in His very windstream, the Arrow of the Lord. Oh, so many songs I’d sung, songs that flowed endlessly and made my heart feel so big that it encompassed all creation and I was suspended inside it; His heart.

And this moment I can feel it again, the wind whizzing above and beneath me.

“Am I still Your beloved? Am I off-course now? Am I still the one who sang to you in the wilderness? Can You still hit the mark with me - in spite of my anger? Tell me again--what do You want me to see here, to understand here, to know here, to do here?”

I’m wiping away my tears. Because I know I have failed here in so many ways. I’ve not kept the way of grace. The anger has hurt me, of that much I am certain. It makes me snap at innocent people who are ignorant of the reality here. It profoundly alienates me from that whole world that is projected by God TV, a world I once dwelt in, a world that is no longer and can never again be my home.

2000 years ago, you rode defenselessly into Jerusalem, your eyes freshly filled with the tears you’d shed over the city, your very body an eternal bridge across every chasm of alienation.

800 years ago, Francis, in imitation of you, crossed an ocean and built a small bridge between east and west, a bridge that we can still walk over. And how many others since then? Jewish sages, Christian mystics, Muslim lovers-of-you?

This land has a way of either fattening you in incense and oil and shrill creeds--or, like a scalpel, cutting your faith down to the barest bones.

That’s where I am now, whittled. Though I cannot deny that I love You still; maybe all the more in the midst of what You've made me see. Its hard for me to understand why You keep letting us mar your visage beyond all recognition and drag your name through the mud but I find that my heart still trusts that even over these bare bones, dead bones, dry bones within me and around me--this violent impatience, these unceasing tears, these brutal ideas of who You are and what You want--You will lovingly and patiently and faithfully wait.

Notre Dame: Creation Ordered in Space toward the Resurrection - Kenneth Tanner

Some commenting on today’s catastrophe [the Notre Dame inferno] seem not to understand the hallowing of the material realm that is the purchase of the cross.

Yes...the church is not buildings but it’s also not immaterial.

Where creation—stone, glass, wood, fabric, metal—has for a millennia been ordered in one space toward the resurrection, it is natural for the body of Christ to mourn this loss, to seek to restore this sacred house, to renew its standing as a sign (before its arrival) of the world that’s coming to this world.

Even as the church seeks by the Spirit to preserve our memory—to have the mind that is in Jesus Christ—that we might continue to tell the beautiful story of our God, of the God who makes the world in love, of the God who saves the world by offering all of God for all of the world, we do good to preserve the artifacts—the art, architecture, music and books—that emerge from centuries of shaping nature in the form of the cross.

When we understand with the first Christians that the salvation made possible by the cross extends to the cosmos—not just human souls but human bodies, not just ethnic groups but nations, not just ideals of things but their actualities—that the cross saves human ingenuity and creativity, what we make of the good world that can inherit the new creation—we remember to steward the whole of the natural order, to practice care of the creation, awaiting the transfiguration of this bright blue marble, terra firma, which is the inheritance of those who humbly lay down their lives with God for the life of the world.

Today and for a long time we mourn but not as those without hope, and not as those without an intergenerational task of restoration and redemption in front of us enabled by the Spirit that indwells the church.

Bearing the Messiah Who Bears Our Wounds - Kevin B. Cain

“…and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:20b NASB)

No one in Christendom will argue against Jesus’ ascension, but, as the Messiah offers the above Great Commission promise, neither should anyone deny Jesus’ presence among us.  From fifty days beyond the pre-crucifixion Passover, the Spirit of the Messiah has been with us.  Thus, I propose a new mindset:  Because Christ came to us and is still with us, let’s stop asking Christ to re-enter a world in which He already exists to smooth out our troubles and prohibit our deaths, and instead bring ourselves, our troubles, our circumstances, our sicknesses, our pains, our mortality to the Savior Who has already overcome all these things.  In Jesus’ beatings, humiliation, death, burial, and resurrection every sickness, death, and disease has been defeated, so each must remove his/her hands from the wounds the Messiah has already received and overcome.  We are only responsible for bearing the Messiah Who bears our wounds.

While we will always be in the throes of sickness, disease, hardship, and death, Messiah has provided an exit from the full force of their destructive effects.  As it pertains to sickness, disease, and hardship, Isaiah prophesies, saying, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4, 5 NASB)  And, as to death, Paul counsels Timothy, saying, “But now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, Who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.” (2 Timothy 1:10 NASB)

A Theology of Scripture and the Symbol of Faith - Vladika Lazar Puhal

SAILING IN THE WINTER SUN: JOURNAL OF AN OLD MAN AT THE END OF LIFE

A reliance on propositional falsehood is far more dangerous than propositional truth. Theology is, ultimately, a philosophy about one’s religion. All that is essential proceeds from the Symbol of Faith [the Nicene Creed] and all essential theology is an expansion on the elements of the Symbol of Faith. Alas, much theology is based on the social conventions and ideologies of a given era of time, with the reality tunnels that exist in every era.

Orthodoxy, from our point of view, does not mean reactionary, ultraconservative or right-wing: it means proper glorification, true worship, and sometimes that is not particularly conservative. The truth is not harmed by reality and reality is not the enemy of truth. Ossified minds are the enemy of truth and reality, and ultimately, the enemy of sincere faith. Honest faith in God, in Jesus Christ, does not consist in trying to preserve obsolete concepts of reality and the ideologies of former eras, but in the encounter with unfolding knowledge in a graceful and steadfast manner, without fear, with integrity and a sure faith that God is true and so is not in conflict with reality, however much our encounter with that reality and that knowledge that unfolds might unnerve us and shake our blind ideologies. If one stubbornly holds to late iron age ideologies as if they constituted the basis of one’s faith, then one is essentially an atheist and does not have a sincere faith, or perhaps has a faith in their ideologies but not in God Himself.

The reason that we need a theology about the Scripture Itself is because there are so many often radical differences in how it is understood. This is particularly true of the Old Testament. In the East, the Orthodox Churches use the version of the Old Testament that Christ Himself quoted from, whereas in the West they seem not to trust Christ and so they use a different version of the Old Testament than the one He himself was familiar with and quoted from, as if they thought that Christ Himself did not know which version was correct.

Secondly, some of the narratives simply do not make sense without the application of theology, the creation narrative being primary amongst them. We can see that there are radical differences in the understanding of the meaning of ransom and redemption and of the word Gehenna in the New Testament, and often interpreters do not relate Christ words about Gehenna back to the prophecies and times of Jeremy the prophet and the Babylonian invasion. Since neither the word nor the concept of “Hell” exists at all in the Old Testament, they have to be read into the text by people who have a pre-existing ideology about it – even though it is simply not there and there was not even the concept of it in the era of the Old Testament.

The metaphors “ransom” and “redemption” are also understood in various ways by various sects. Many of them have no relationship with the apostolic understanding at all. Some, perhaps most, of the sects in the West – and there are more than 4000 of them, understand these metaphors literally, even though metaphor contains an internal dissonance that warns us not to literalise; and the fact is, when we literalize a metaphor we automatically create an idolatry.

Much of the West believes in salvation by human sacrifice, even though it is only one human sacrifice, and believe that God was constrained by some immutable law of the cosmos over which He had no power, so that he had to have the human sacrifice of his own Son in order to overlook our transgressions – we cannot say “forgive” our sins, because if Christ was punished and took on some kind of “just death penalty” for us then it is impossible for us to be forgiven because punishment and forgiveness are mutually exclusive. If Christ was punished on our behalf then punishment has been had, vengeance has been fulfilled, and in that case there is no such thing as forgiveness, there is only the acceptance of the punishment of one for many – punishment and forgiveness are mutually exclusive: you cannot have both, you can only have one or the other. So this idea, the Western doctrine of atonement, is simply a legal fiction and nothing else – well it is something else, it is placing God Himself on the same level with Molech and Baal, both of whom required human sacrifice in order to assuage their vengeance and anger, and the doctrine of atonement places God on exactly the same level with these two pagan idolatries.

As far as the creation narrative goes, there is absolutely no possibility that it is a true story, but it is rather an allegory which needs a theological explanation, and we do have one. But since the earth is 3.5 billion years old, give or take a mere million, and since the female was the first to appear, and male appeared somewhat later, we require a theological explanation for this allegory.

We also need some explanation for the fact that, according to biblical chronology, Adam would have died during the reign of King Narmar of Egypt, and the so-called “flood of Noah” would have taken place a full 200 years after the building of the great pyramid of Giza, and the story of the Tower of Bab’El [nothing to do with the Hebrew word babbel] occurred will after the foundations of Tamil society, the fact that there was no “Ur of the Chaldees” and the time of Abraham – the Chaldees did not even exist as an organized tribe in Abraham’s time, and did not appear in Sumeria until about 900 BC. So theology is necessary in that sense, but it still remains that all truly essential theology flows from the Symbol of Faith and is an expansion upon it.

Humanity Alone is the Image of God - Kenneth Tanner

“Know to what extent the Creator has honored you above all the rest of Creation: the sky is not an image of God, nor is the moon, nor the sun, nor the beauty of the stars, nor anything of what can be seen in Creation. You alone have been made the image of the Reality that transcends all understanding, the likeness of Imperishable Beauty, the imprint of True Divinity, the recipient of Beatitude, the seal of the True Light. When you turn to Him you become that which He is Himself. Nothing in Creation can be compared with your greatness. God is able to measure the whole heaven with His span. The earth and the sea are enclosed in the hollow of His hand. And although He is so great and holds all Creation in the palm of His hand, you are able to hold Him. He dwells in you and moves within you without constraint, for He has said, ‘I will live and move among them.’”

—Gregory of Nyssa (335-394), from a homily on the Song of Songs

The creation (the cosmos) is not made in the image of God, only humanity is made in the image of God, and God does not become anything in creation but human.

God loves all that God makes and sustains in life, everything breathing creature, and the constellations in all their fiery elements are the work of his fingers, but in all of creation God only becomes human.

As Christians when we say that God becomes what God loves, we are saying that in Jesus Christ God takes on the one human nature common to the whole race of humans.

God does not wed the divine nature to anything else in the cosmos but human nature.

"Tfadalu!" Bus Ride to Bethlehem - Mercy Aiken

I am helping an American couple in Jerusalem get settled on the bus for Beit Jala. They have lots of questions and we settle down in seats next to each other to make conversation easier. I don't want to overwhelm them with information and so I take it "shway shway." (Slowly, slowly).

"How long will it take to get to Bethlehem?"

"About an hour or more" I reply. They look shocked. "But isn't it just a few miles away?" "Yes, but the traffic in Jerusalem is always horrible this time of day. And on top of that, we have to go around through the checkpoint and to another drop off point before going back to Beit Jala" I reply.

They have so many questions: What are the checkpoints about? Are there any Arab citizens of Israel? How many? Do they speak Hebrew? Do any Jews speak Arabic? How do these people communicate? What about the people in Bethlehem? Are they allowed to visit Israel? What exactly IS the West Bank?

I can tell they are kind of scared to be going to Bethlehem and I reassure them repeatedly that they will be safe and the people there are (mostly) really quite lovely.

A man in sunglasses and a cane sits down next to me and I greet him in Arabic. "Ah, your accent gives you away! You are an American, aren't you? I've been to America. Miami --the weather there is very different than ours. Also Chicago, New Jersey...."

I ask him what he thought of America. There is a long pause. "America is America," he finally replies. "Whatever you want to find in America, you will find it."

A student in a grey hijab taps me on the shoulder. She has three candies in her hand -- one for me and one each for the Americans sitting in front of me. I hand them the sweets and they look back to see her waving and grinning.

The blind man misses that, of course. A half hour into the trip, he also reaches into his pocket. "Tfadalu!" and he holds out his hands, filled with sweets.

"Ah, Bethlehem Bible College! I know Mr. Awad. He is my friend." (Everyone from Bethlehem tells me the same thing).

I think of his statement about America. I've said variations of that comment for years... If you don't carry Paris or Jerusalem in your heart, how will you find Paris or Jerusalem when you are in the city itself? And be careful how you see the world: that's the way it is.

And so on we go to Bethlehem, sucking candies together, lost in our own thoughts. The bus drives through the afternoon light shining on grassy terraces made all the more vivid from the rain. We drive under the towering separation wall and past wildflowers growing through asphalt and red signs warning us there that there is danger ahead. The bus stops and cement-dusted workers make their way down through the hills and olive groves; the land where prophets and saints once walked and where, by God, they are walking still.

That's what I carry in my heart, of course. That's what I want to see--and thus, my eyes do see. I hope my American friends on this bus with me can see the same.

As for the blind man sitting next to me, he's humming softly to himself, a small grin on his face.

The Killing Tree - Anna-Therese Pierlot

A Chankiri (or Killing) Tree at Cheoung Ek. Executioners beat small children against this tree before tossing them into the mass graves with their mothers. The brightly colored bracelet tributes in remembrance of children who lost their lives here.

Written during the author’s visit to Cambodia in 2017, this piece references the Khmer Rouge Genocide which took place during the 1970s throughout the country, and may contain difficult imagery.

            The tree itself is thick, too thick to hug properly, and stretches up in a slow arch, favouring the right from my vantage point. Under this arch runs a pathway, beside a small depression in the earth which is marked with a sign and a fence. The sign says simply "The Killing Tree". The bark of the tree is rough; dozens of jagged lines running from root to twig, with shallow crevices between each. Hundreds of colourful bracelets of cloth, yarn and twisted wire hang on every extruding knot, sometimes overlapping and wedging each other into cracks in the bark. Some knots have no room for more bracelets, so new additions are looped or tied to old bands, forming long chains that sway in the breeze and caress passerby. Some bracelets have fallen to the ground, and have begun to rot and turn brown. I find myself wondering whether these have been left to lie out of neglect or reverence. 

            The audio guide begins to explain the tree, and sitting under the shade of the crooked branches, staring at the empty patch of fenced earth, I can imagine more than I'd like to: crying mothers, dying in the now shallow pit while their infants are swung against the ragged trunk; bone and blood embedded in the bark, to be discovered by survivors; Khmer Rouge soldiers, mere teenagers, using this very tree as a weapon to save bullets. Scanning the branches, I wonder about every pale patch of fungus or moss, looking for whitened skull fragments. Other visitors stand or sit near me, along the raised wooden boardwalk, staring at the pit, or at the tree, or at nothing. I wonder if they're wondering the same things as I am.

            The headphones are making my ears itch. A fly tickles my leg again. Amazing, that under this tree of horror and death, a single insect can seem like such a trial. Even though it’s Cambodia’s cooler fall season, the heat of the day is beginning to get to me.  As a tiny gesture of solidarity, I resist wiping away the sweat above my eyebrows, as if the discomfort could open some minuscule door and connect me to the suffering of the past. I see other pits, other bracelets, even bones still half-buried in the ground, revealed by recent rains: the Killing Tree overshadows all these. Its shape follows me throughout the rest of the day, full of questions and confusion: it wants hate, it wants revenge, it wants anger or despair or both. What can I do with such haunting voices? How has this country lived with, grown through, this darkness? How do you get rid of a Killing Tree shadow? 

***

            Like the rest of the Choeung Ek memorial site, the Killing Tree and its adjacent grave have an untouched, unpolished feel.  Also called The Killing Fields, this site is one of over 20,000 like it, where over 1.3 million Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge.  In these memorial sites, the past is not packaged cleanly in the marble monuments so common to us in Canada: Clothing, bits of bone and other remnants of the past are part of the seasonal cycle of earth and water, churning, decaying, resurfacing. While some areas hold preserved relics of the Khmer Rouge atrocities, Choeung Ek as a whole reflects a difficult truth about tragedy: that grass grows over bones, trees of death keep living, and ants continue to gather food in the trenches. This memorial park has allowed the past to live, even when that means allowing it to change.

            Letting the past live in this way is messy, literally and metaphorically. A marble monument on a clean lawn can sometimes entomb the time it represents, severing all but a thread between ‘that’ past and ‘this’ present.  At Choeung Ek, however, the past and present are an unbroken weave, an ongoing tapestry where the Killing Tree is not merely represented, but met in person; where the bracelets hung on its bloodstained bark represent the participation of visitors in the ongoing narrative; where the past is not safely detached from the present. But where the Killing Tree lives, does not its shadow?

            Maybe marble monuments are an attempt to eliminate struggles like this: That was then, they say. Don’t forget, but don’t worry: the past is dead now. Except, it’s not. Severing tragic or violent moments from the story of a people or a place doesn’t kill those moments: it immortalizes them. They become an unchangeable, static, and potentially looming reality, instead of an interwoven narrative. But why would anyone want something like the Khmer Rouge genocide to remain part of the story? Why would anyone let the Killing Tree continue to stand?

            Maybe, because of the bracelets.

            Maybe, because of the ants.

            Maybe, because under the shade of the Killing Tree, thousands of people have been able to become part of the cycle of decay and new growth, contributing to a transformation only possible in an ongoing story.

            Leaving the park, I’m still not sure how the Khmer people have or will continue to survive a narrative where the Killing Tree continues to grow. The question rises again in my mind: How do you get rid of a Killing Tree shadow?

            Maybe you don’t. Maybe, you change it.

            Maybe, with bracelets and ants.

The "Universe" Does Not Love You - Kenneth Tanner

The universe is vast, mysterious, dark, and lovely (the images of the universe we are the first privileged humans to see blow my mind and provoke deep emotion in me).

The cosmos makes us ask questions of time and existence and meaning, some of which we cannot answer. Yet the ones we can answer inspire us to know and see and experience more.

The universe is intelligent and beautiful and is created good but it’s not personal and “the Universe” is not a good or a proper way to name God.

The “Universe” does not love you, the “Universe” will not raise you from death, the “Universe” is not patient or kind and it does not hate evil or rejoice in the good.

The “Universe” has not suffered for you, does not bear you up and give you a living hope, and—our science understands this—the “Universe” is impermanent, at least by the laws of physics absent resurrection.

So the “Universe” has not given you life or breath or family or friends or love or made a day special, nor can it grant you sunsets or rainbows or roses, or rescue you from death and meaninglessness without the personal force of Love who has a better name.

The “Universe” does not forgive.

Alfonso Cuaròn indeed showed us in “Gravity” how hostile and cold a wilderness the vast majority of the universe is to carbon-based, oxygen-necessary life, even as in its vastness was made to sustain life under what are rare and almost impossible circumstances in tiny isolated places like Earth.

God is love and this love is made known in a baby human born of a teenaged mother and this baby and this mother suffer—a sword piercing them both—so that the universe might be restored to the permanence the One who made it intends.

The cosmos is great and gorgeous and you might be tempted to deify it but it’s really dark and empty and meaningless without the tri-personal God whom John called Love and whom Mary named Jesus.

Christ is all. Christ holds all things—all microcosms and galaxies—together.

Christ is light and life and in his flesh and in his suffering all things are made new and all things are sustained forever.

The “Universe” is his beloved creation but when you seek to honor or praise or name its maker and keeper—the one who holds you together and gives you all things and excites joy in the deepest places of your heart—use the name above all names.

PS My apologies for offending any of my dear friends...I understand many of you who are questing and seeking for the truth that is out there though you can’t quite name it...but I finally had to take this on, head on. I heard the “Universe” invoked by Christians in praise just one too many times. I wrote this—trust me—in all charity.

Existentially Speaking, by Azure McMillan

Attending St. Stephen’s University is nothing like I expected it to be. I knew it had a small student body and a history grounded in Christian values which, while I didn’t consider myself religious, I figured I could handle. What I’ve discovered since the beginning of my first year is that this university is an absolute treasure; I’ve met some incredible people, been educated by high standards in captivating ways, and most importantly, discovered myself like never before. The stable and loving communal environment here has created the space I needed to best explore myself in depth, and beginning a few months into my first semester, I began to do just that.

            In the midst of a crumbling relationship, piles of procrastinatory-induced homework, and my inevitable adolescent angst, I experienced what I can only think now to call my very own existential crisis. At this time, I questioned everything. I had no idea what to make of the life I’d been living, along with the critical thoughts and emotions I had swirling around in my head at the time: a perfect storm of sorts. Finally, one night I sat alone in the main room on campus, picked up a guitar, and with the help of my phone’s virtual notepad, wrote this song in one sitting:

 

“With Great Power”: the Existentialist Spider-Man in Into the Spider-Verse -- Kellyn Anderson

“With Great Power”: the Existentialist Spider-Man in Into the Spider-Verse

Writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s newest release, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an action-packed, deliciously aesthetic addition to the Marvel film canon. More than just a piece of visual art, the film offers many existentialist themes hidden within its playful presentation. Among the most obvious in a film that is based upon the classic Marvel line “With great power comes great responsibility” is the existentialist theme of radical freedom and the situated nature of that freedom—the responsibility and commitment that power necessitates. Particular to this film, however, are even more distinctly existentialist topics—the acceptance of reality as it is, and the consequent need to respond agentially, the Kierkegaardian leap of faith, and the notion that “anyone could wear the mask” (SV): that is, everyone has an amazing power, as well as the responsibility to wield it in a free, situated commitment (“Existentialism” 9).  

Spider-Verse is a classic bildungsroman that follows the journey of Miles Morales, a charismatic kid from Brooklyn. He has an inner “spark,” of which his father says later in the movie, “It’s yours. Whatever you choose to do with it, you will be great” (SV emphasis added). Morales is plagued with the fear of the power he receives from the radioactive spider-bite, and deals with feelings of inadequacy and a culturally conditioned distaste for abnormality, seeking to follow the herd. “Am I the weird kid, now?” he questions in panic, as people start noticing his strange behaviour at school (SV). He chooses to leave his shoes untied as a certain act of defiance against mediocrity, clearly seeking to develop some type of unique identity. Yet, when he is presented with just such an opportunity to become truly great—to become an ubermensch— Morales is hesitant, as he tries to dismiss his weird, radioactive bodily changes, insisting, “It’s just puberty. I’m a normal kid!” (SV emphasis added). Soon he meets the other Spider-people from alternate dimensions, making a Spidey squad of seven web-slingers. In learning from this new community, as well as being confronted with the seemingly insurmountable task to stop a supervillain, he realizes the absurdity of his reality and the responsibility given him with these new powers. However, he is still paralyzed by fear and a feeling of inadequacy: “I’m just tired of letting everyone down” he bemoans halfway through the film (SV). In this can be seen the problem of a man presented with his own potential for greatness—for will to power—being thwarted by a socially impressed feeling of fear: he experiences the crushing weight of commitment before fully embracing the power and freedom offered him as Spider-Man.

Reis Thebault's, "GOP legislator prays to Jesus for forgiveness before state’s first Muslim woman swears in" - reflections by Wayne Northey

 

Photo: Pennsylvania state Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, a Democrat from Philadelphia, is the first Muslim woman to serve in the legislature. (Pennsylvania State House)

Wayne Northey: The story highlighted below tells of a “christian” doing a kind of stand-in unbeknownst for the spirit of Anti-Christ.  Please watch (as much as you can):

Taking God’s name in vain

“She doesn’t need to apologize,” [Franklin] Graham wrote on Facebook. “We don’t change who we are or what we believe because someone who is present may believe differently than we believe. I know [name withheld] would appreciate your prayers and encouragement. I always appreciate anyone who has the guts to stand up for Jesus.”

If the prayer truly represents “Jesus” — evoked by her 13 times in 100 seconds, one seemingly dripping with “christian” arrogance — then I either join Atheists Anonymous or become a Muslim…

CLICK HERE to continue reading

"The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver's North Shore" - Review by Ron Dart

The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore: A Peakbagger’s Guide

by David Crerar, Harry Crerar, and Bill Maurer 

Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2018

$40.00  /  9781771602419

Reviewed by Ron Dart

We have been in desperate need on the West Coast for a definitive and comprehensive guide to many of the peaks on the North Shore.

There have been thinner books that point to trails worth the taking and a few summits worth the bagging, but none can match for breadth and depth the recently published The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore. I have been fortunate in the last forty years to have rambled and sat on many of the summits on the North Shore peaks, so I was more than charmed and delighted to walk the pages of this page-turner of a tome (indeed, the new go-to book on peaks on the North Shore).

The Glorious Mountains is organized well and wisely – seven areas are described in necessary detail for the curious and eager: 1) Howe Sound Islands (nine peaks), 2) Britannia Range (twenty-three peaks), 3) Grouse Mountain Area (nine peaks), 4) Hanes Valley Peaks (three peaks), 5) Lynn Peaks (five peaks), 6) Cathedral peaks (four peaks) and 7) Fannin Range (fourteen peaks). Each of the unique sections covered in this attractive tome has their own colour designation which makes for a quick and hasty turn to the pages needed for the best and most up to date information on a trip planned. The book is replete with superb colour photographs and ample topographic maps to make any trek as simple and as attractive as possible. The lengthy and informative “Introduction” is worthy of many a reread for those keen on taking to the mountains in a regular and safe manner. Many are the needful points covered to inwardly digest before taking to the inevitable challenges that mountain trekking brings to one and all. Some of the nostalgic photos and history do a superb job of putting West Coast mountaineering in a thoughtful and engaged historic context. The nod to the North Shore Rescue and Lions Bay Search and Rescue as an entrée to The Glorious Mountains was fit and apt as was the detailed and in-depth “Endnotes” and “Index”

It is virtually impossible, given the directions in this book to trailheads and routes up mountainsides, to miss the means to bag the diverse peaks (some, obviously, more challenging than others). The fact that various routes are aptly articulated up diverse pathways to summits means many a pleasurable trip can be taken up the same mountain many times. The equally important fact that round trip distances and elevation gain are front-staged means that those planning such trips, weather being fine and fair, can plan trips with some predictability (weather being more moody, time more elastic). I might add that the text is matched by well-placed photographs that highlight both paths taken to summits worth the sitting on and views worth the seeing from such peaks. The contour maps of sorts that introduce each section offer the attentive reader an aerial overview of sorts of the broader terrain from within which their hike will be taken. But, there is more than mountain terrain exhibited in the multiplicity of photographs—flowers, flora and fauna, trees, forests and waterways, alpine tarns and lakes are in abundance.  

The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore is the must-buy sacred text for those keen to cut their mountaineering teeth on the North Shore Mountains -- a sort of rite of passage into the more demanding climbs. I was also impressed by the way the authors gave a rightful nod to the mountaineering elders who came before them: Glenn Woodsworth and Dick Culbert. A couple of lines will say it all: “We also here acknowledge that the legendary Dick Culbert (1940 Winnipeg -2017 Gibsons) died just before publication of this book. All devotees of British Columbia mountains are in his debt.” I might add that Glenn Woodsworth, Karl Ricker and Arnold Shives are, in many ways, living elders of such a mountaineering tribe, but many are the mountain pioneers on the West Coast such as Don/Phyllis Munday that need hats tipped their heroic ways, also.     

The publication in 1965 of Dick’s classic, A Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Ranges of Ranges of British Columbia pioneered and birthed guides to peak bagging in British Columbia, and The Glorious Mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore is very much a child of such a line and lineage --  but such a mature child describes treks that Dick Culvert never did describe in such intricate and poignant detail. There is both beauty and bounty in this mountaineering classic of Vancouver’s North Shore mountains, and I’m sure the solid research done will stand the test of time and provide much guidance for those keen to bag many a peak.

 

Ron Dart

Kraft Paper vs Kevlar: I and Thou after the Christchurch Massacre - Fran Francis

Everything has changed since my last blog. I have started writing this at least sixteen times as new thoughts, experiences and reflections arise. This won’t be the most coherent thing I’ve ever written but there is no blueprint for a blog post prompted by an atrocity.

We are a small country (4.794 million minus 50). We are all affected. You’ve heard of six degrees of separation? Here - it’s two. No joke. We all know someone who knows someone directly connected with the horror.

As I sit at a cafe writing  (attempt 17) this I overhear a pakeha (NZ of Euro descent) man discussing with the Korean barista the number of operations the youngest surviving victim (4yrs) has endured. That would be 8. “It’s very, very sad,” I hear him say.  They both go quiet. And I choke up. This is happening a lot recently. To all of us.  

I hope the response of the Muslim community here has reached your shores. It isn’t only Jacinda who has been an exemplar of beautiful humanity. Our Muslim sisters and brothers have humbled us with their expressions of forgiveness, their fortitude in loss, their courage in speaking up about their experiences of racism and their fears; their appreciation of the support they are receiving; their hospitality - often expressed in the offer of a cup or bottle of water. An ordinary polystyrene cup is now laden with meaning.

We went to our local Islamic center on Friday night. I received a little hand-written scroll. It read, We feel safe because you are here. Grateful. Your Muslim neighbour. We gave them a scroll with the handprints of every person in our church  - hands to bless, support, wave hello, upturned in questioning, extended in friendship.  These simple, mutual acts are holding all of us together. Crayons and kraft paper against hate speech and military-style weapons. It appears to be working.

Children from the mosque clustered around a young police officer like flies 'round a honey pot. Patting his kevlar vest, swamping him with questions – “what’s this?” “My gun.” “Is it real?” “It is, yes.” “Why are you here?” Oh, how do you answer that? He was delightful with them and hilarious too. I’m not sure any briefing would have prepared him for that experience. He just was himself. Our children are not used to seeing guns. May they never be.

I came out of the mosque with a new phone number in my contacts. Nahila. She met me at the door to the prayer hall, held my hand and wouldn’t let it go. We stood there, we hugged and we kissed each other on both cheeks. We had that “spark of recognition”  John O’Donohue describes in Anam Cara. Our souls recognised each other. Eye to eye, face to face, heart to heart. Something happened. I’ve experienced it before – a connection that transcends culture, and language and distance. That intense moment can be lost if not acted upon so I said, “let’s meet for tea”  and we shared contacts on our phones.

Upstairs in the women’s area, my friend and I were the only non-Muslims there. I recognise these spaces from frequent trips to India and minority Christian communities there. There is something warm and wonderful in women’s spaces. A cluster of lovely hijab-wearing high schoolers from across the Muslim world embraced us and over and over we heard, “Thank you, thank you for coming.” We laughed heartily at how irritating this must be for the perpetrator; we were gleeful together at the subversion of love and how funny it is when the one Muslim girl in her “friend group” was getting stressy texts from her Christian friend on how to wrap a headscarf! We thanked them for bravely inviting us and we savoured the feel of the carpet under our feet, received more cups of water and gazed with wonder and affection into the brown eyes of other mothers’ daughters while in the corner a woman quietly cried and was comforted and a waiata (Maori song) floated up from the gathering of dignitaries outside.

I know Christian people who think people like me are wishy-washy. Compromisers. Funnily enough, in our very non-religious society, the people pouring into the streets, buying up the flowers and standing subdued with arms around strangers, are not church-goers but they understand, deep down, what true religion is. It is that which binds us, which re-ligaments or puts us back together individually and corporately. It is to love the stranger and alien, to care for the widow and orphan; to bind up the wounds and be with the broken-hearted; to speak truth to power where power is not exercised in love. We can do all kinds of things but if we have not love we are are nothing but noise.

Love is winning here. Love has silenced military-style weapons in our country. Love is silencing hate-speech on social media.  Love is inviting us into spaces we never thought we’d be. Love is like that.

Final Resting Place (poem) - Renate Gritter

I have reached my final resting place.

I’m not sure I can take the grace.

I’ve seen golden boats and shooting stars.

I’ve burned myself with others’ scars.

I want the world’s sorrow on my heart.

Are these flames enough for rebirth to start?

I’ve drank my full of empty grief.

Is there a fault in my belief?

You turn me away from pain unspoken, 

and whisper: “you’re already broken.”

“I see your light, through cracks so wide,”

“as their pain’s always inside.”

“There will be enough time to cry,”

“but you’ll see light every time you try.”

“People are light, and so is death.”

“So, look for relief running through our breath.”

“Embrace the sunset, and the breeze.”

“Encounter our heart in the trees.”

“Rest, my child, for there will be pain,”

“but you won’t find it if you strain.”

“You’ll find it looking for the life,”

“for you can’t grow using a knife.”

“So, put out the fire, for now, and sing,”

“and find the fire in everything.”

“And, one day, when you are worn,”

“you’ll burn for other hearts, reborn.”

 

P.S. BONUS: Listen to this beautiful Ola Gjeilo composition (one of my favourite songs of all time and secret trip anthem, crank it baby), the motifs and themes harmonize really well.

"Earth's crammed with heaven" - Kenneth Tanner

Moses and the bush that burns without being consumed is one of the great moments in Sacred Scripture, a moment suffused with the gospel, and the start of the Exodus, an event that for the first Christians interprets the entire human story as a deliverance from death enacted by the faithfulness of God.

It is a great poverty that contemporary Christians do not read these Old Testament texts as stories that reveal Jesus Christ.

Often in the Old Testament the “angel of the Lord” or “the angel of God” appears to humans, this time in the midst of the flames that engulf but do not burn the blackberry bush.

This is not Gabriel, not a Messenger. And as we listen to the words of the angel it becomes clear that here is Someone within God speaking not only for God but as God.

The prince of Egypt turned Bedouin shepherd is told to take his sandals off because he’s standing on holy ground.

The voice of the angel declares: “‘I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.’

“Moses,” we are told, “hid his face, afraid to look at God.”

Where else do we hear God speak these exact words?

We hear them in Mark and Luke’s gospels, in Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees. They have asked Jesus a complicated question about a woman who marries seven brothers, wanting to know whose wife she will be in the resurrection (that they don’t believe in).

We do obsess about marriage and often when we read this exchange we focus on Jesus’ explanation that we are no longer married in the world that’s coming to this world.

What we miss is Jesus’ much stronger rebuke of the Sadducees for assuming that the seven brothers and their wife are dead. They are not dead.

Jesus brings up Moses and the bush that burns without being consumed and says that “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living, not the dead.”

Jesus does not mince words: “You are badly mistaken!”

God tells Moses from the flaming bush that he has seen the affliction of his people, that he has heard their cries, that he knows their pain. And indeed he does—from the inside, in the human flesh of Jesus.

He tells Moses he is sending him to deliver them from death (Egypt): “I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of death (Egypt), get them out of that country... .”

“Why me, Lord?” It’s not just Moses’ question. It’s every human’s question. But this story is first not about Moses and it’s not first about us. It’s about God.

God is terse with Moses and with us: “I’ll be with you,” echoing the words of Jesus to his disciples at his Ascension, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

God is with us. This is the important thing.

Moses wants to know the name of the God who is sending him, again forgetting that his credentials are unimportant. What’s important is the saving activity of God.

The angel of the Lord tells Moses, “I-AM-WHO-I-AM.”

Who else describes himself with the words “I am...”?

John’s gospel records seven of these “I am...” statements spoken out into the world by our savior:

“I am the bread of life.”

“I am the light of the world.”

“I am the door.” (my favorite)

“I am the good shepherd.”

“I am the resurrection and the life.”

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

“I am the vine.”

So, as you may be catching on, I’m reading this story of the beginning of Passover as a gospel story.

And the first Christians did not pull this way of reading Exodus out of thin air. Paul taught them to read it this way:

“Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Sea. They went through the waters, in a baptism like ours, as Moses led them from enslaving death to salvation life. They all ate and drank identical food and drink, meals provided daily by God. They drank from the Rock, God’s fountain for them that stayed with them wherever they were. And the Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor 10:1-4)

I am inspired by the Last Supper analogy Paul draws here, steeped as he was by the worship of the New Testament church in the Eucharistic mystery (1 Corinthians 10:15-18, 11:23-26).

And here, finally, is a great beauty and a great mystery: God tells Moses that he has always been and will always be known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God decides to identify himself with the human story, with our story, and to name himself using our names.

What we finally must understand is that this story of a bush and God and Moses is by the Spirit our story, is the story of the church as nothing less than the whole human family, is every human’s story.

God has acted, is acting, and will act to rescue us from death. And, like Moses, he allows us to participate in his work to remove the billowing, dark pall of death that hangs over the nations.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wants us to see this:

“Earth's crammed with heaven/And every common bush afire with God/But only he who sees takes off his shoes.”

There are burning bushes all around us if we have eyes to see, and from this holy fire God is calling us to *his* unfailing work to save the cosmos.

Let’s take our sandals off this Lent, enter the silence of the wilderness, and hear what God has to say to us about the end of death. He has invited us into his story of redemption.

It’s not about us, it’s about God with us, until the end of the world.