“He’ll be transferred soon through the Mirkle,” he noted.

His sight had not returned … yet. His senses – the ones that ebbed back – were in shock, blaringly so! He still wasn’t sure what had lifted him from the water’s edge, but it was … what was the word?

Feathery?
Metallically soft?
Was it a lift that held him aloft?
A helicopter’s skid pad?
Arms?

He just couldn‘t tell or process the memory. He had to admit – begrudgingly – that all was not really well in this shell he called his body. The word hypothermia kept bouncing around in his head – he couldn’t quite recall what that meant, but it fit …

“They’re gonna expend that much energy … for him?” He was aware of a note of incredulity.

“Apparently so – something about the Walk causing too much friction if the Project is going to be implemented on this side,” was the reply.

He tried to move – to respond … was there a pause in the conversation? Were they looking at him? Had he been able to indicate he was aware of them? Further pause and then the air changed. Went … tight? Like a seal being closed, he thought?

The voices were gone.
He was … alone?
He felt his body … healing?

Recovery was going to take time and too many questions began to flood … threatening to overwhelm. Of course, he initially kept getting stuck in the loop of where the phone was, but on the third or fourth round of “where’s the bloody phone” he caught himself. Allowed himself to let go of the fact that it was likely under the water in the granular stuff … which he realised on the final repetition was snow! Snow: what had he been doing in the snow? That memory still eluded him, but letting go of the phone paradox allowed him to start asking some questions that were really not all that comfortable. And – more disturbing – was a dawning revelation that did nothing to ease the mounting … fear?

Of course the first one was, where was he?
The next – logically by extension he thought – was who had him?
Why?

Whoever had him certainly did not seem connected with those opposed to the Walk. Or, if they were, he couldn’t place the connexion. And though he knew he wasn’t firing with all cylinders in the old brainpan area, the mounting fear was certainly trying to address the growing awareness … which he so did not want to confront …

The voices … he knew he had not ‘heard’ them. He could tell, with growing concern, that hearing was not one of the quick rebounding senses that was recovering well after his ordeal in the snow on the water’s edge … what he was resisting, as he drew a deep breath and sat up with shooting agony, was that he not ‘heard’ the words with his ears, he had understood them in his head and that … well that wasn’t possible …

A Deacon’s Musing blog

Stories – that’s what we do. Whenever we describe ourselves, our environment, our families, we’re telling a story. When we share our ups, downs and all-rounds, we’re weaving words together in order to create a connexion – a narrative – that makes sense not only to ourselves, but to those with whom we are in conversation!

Christianity – as theological expression, as a journey of a people, reflecting the confidence, doubts & hopes of men and women – is a story. One of the most powerful images of that story – or metaphors – for me has been Paul’s description of Christianity as reflected as the Body of Christ. Though Paul uses the image more than once, for me the following from Corinthians has been powerful both as image and that to which to aspire:

As I have journeyed in my own deepening of faith and relationship with the ministry to which I think Jesus calls, I have experienced that the metaphor has been further enriched by Quantum Physics. Not to misrepresent the science which underpins the mechanics of the quantum, I have come to deeply appreciate that it demonstrates that at the fundamental level that unifies reality everything is – in fact – one. As I have wrestled with this revelation – if you will – then the Body of Christ takes on both the aspect of metaphor and the metaphysical. The mystical idea of the union with God, for me, seems poetically articulated through the actuality of the Quantum.

Recently, I have found that my appreciation of the metaphor has moved, been amplified, augmented as well by a recent article from National Geographic on microbes, which falls into a Newtonian model of physics. The Body of Christ is a metaphor of the Christian story. As a Brother in the faith has recently reminded me, as he seeks to complement his Divinity training by returning to university to further explore science, our faith and reason must not be compartmentalised. In fact, as he has shared his own challenges for post-modern Christianity, we lose the breadth of how our species’ rational deductions– we might use the word epiphany or revelation – help to refine, sharpen and/or clarify our theology in an age when we can weigh and measure that which is found at the Plank scale of reality. To be clear, both intellect and faith must be appreciated as complementary to one another, in order for new insights into our relationship with the Holy to be further understood.

Okay – back to microbes – I admit this further appreciation of the image of the Body of Christ is not fully formulated, so this blog is simply a place to begin to try to share what feels profound. In this article, in one of the shiny diagrams that only NG can do, it states that only 1 in 10 cells of the human body is human! The rest? Yep – you got it: microbes!

What’s a microbe? I did a little informal facebook query and I had a range of comments from the mirthful small mic(rophone) that might be on my robe during worship to fungus, a living organism and disease. All of which, ultimately, likely are/have microbes on them! And here’s the mind-blowing part with which I will leave you and about which I would love to hear your thoughts: they’re everywhere! Without them – no original oxygen production to allow for larger celled life, no snowflakes in fact – would exist! In fact, apparently you, me, my great-grandmother, the boy in the streets of Calcutta, the girl in the fields in Uzbekistan, to the Prime Minister of Canada are primarily microbes – say 90% at a cellular level!

Paul’s image of the Body of Christ just got a whole lot more interesting – for me – and only reinforces that how I treat myself, how I treat you, how I treat a snowflake has consequences much beyond the simply inner monologue that sometimes distracts me to think I’m an isolated leaf on the wind with no one else about … so, as I wrestle with another universal moment of unexpected humbling, what do you think?

A Deacon’s Musing blog

The catalyst for this blog has been a recent article from HuffPost entitled, Metropolitan Community Churches: Do Gays Need A Church Of Their Own Anymore?  First of all, it feels important to acknowledge that I am a heterosexual male and I am blessed to be in a monogamous relationship. I know I cannot answer that question for any of my GLBTTQ Brothers & Sisters. I do know, however, that homophobia is just one of the particularities that remains entrenched in our psyche. And that reality or generality, I believe, allows me to speak with some authority.

As a Christian community, which has been journeying for millennia, discerning God’s call to us through the lens of an itinerant Rabbi known as Jesus has not always been easy. In fact, it’s been a tension for almost as long as we’ve endeavoured to be faithful! This tension has always – to varying degrees – fallen into whether we are pure enough or whether we are inclusive enough. In the Hebrew Scriptures, Leviticus, in particular, illustrates a belief that our purity depended on particular practices. Some of which, though certainly not limited to, were a prohibition against eating shellfish, that a Priest had to have two good eyes, there was to be no association with women during the menstrual cycle and certain sexual relations, such as same gender, was not permitted.

It is certainly not my intention to judge those who have come before us and it is also important to understand that those particular aspects that defined purity of the faith occurred in a context that was pre-scientific method, pre-Enlightenment and – most certainly – pre-Postmodernity. That’s a lot of syllables, but here’s the point: Applying particular historical external practices to our contemporary context no longer encourages purity of faith, but a theology of chauvinism and judgement.

It has been my experience and – I offer this as a general historical gloss – that since the Enlightenment, Christianity (through fits and starts) has been moving toward an expression of faith grounded in inclusivity, which must confront previous particularities that lead to a generality that dehumanises. Whether it’s been slavery, women’s suffrage, the idea of divorce and women’s rights to property, racism and Right Relations with our Indigenous friends, and Brothers & Sisters, we have had to confront historical ideas of purity. When historical Purity Laws are considered normative outside of their context, they devolve into intellectual excuses to demean, judge, dehumanise and – by extension – maim, harm and even kill another human being.

When people experience a particularity, which might range from stereotyping to physical violence, the question of creating safe space should be central. To respond to a question about safety requires that relationships be grounded in mutuality and hoped-for-solidarity. Regardless of the answer, however, it is incumbent on Christian communities, which endeavour to live into being inclusive of diversity, to confront particularities.

In the 21^st century, I believe that the practice of purity is no longer one that can be grounded, primarily, in external practices. Rather, I believe that purity of faith – from a Christian perspective – needs to pay close attention to the egalitarian nature that Jesus modelled. That ethos or discipline – for us, I believe – demands that we pay attention to those who suffer and who are excluded. The reality is that those who confront external expectations of purity are most often the marginalised and represent the bodies upon whom the privileged stand.

There is no denying that the reality of homophobia continues to be challenged in a manner that would have seemed impossible even fifteen years ago and that is most certainly hopeful! But as the video below, from It Gets Better Project, illustrates from members of Surrey RCMP Detachment, as long as any child needs to be supported, nurtured and protected to realise that the bullying they experience is not only inappropriate, but dehumanising, then I think, as Christians, we need to continue to always ask:

We need to ask:

And – just as important – we must realise that one kind of oppression is – in reality – a constant reminder of our tendency to create systems based on a generality of exclusion. And this awareness, I truly believe, speaks to the core of what it means to a Christian community that endeavours to live into the Kingdom to Come now …

A Deacon’s Musing blog