EfM Quiet Day

Yesterday was a Quiet Day at St. Dunstan, Aldergrove, for Education for Ministry students from the lower mainland. What a wonderfully powerful prayer experience.

At my home parish, St. George, in Maple Ridge, we are blessed with a rector who tries out many different services throughout the year. Our central service at 10AM on Sunday is the communion service from the BAS. Every Thursday and at 8:30 AM on Sundays we have communion from the old Book of Common Prayer. Once a month we have an evening Taize style service. Two or three times a year we have an Ionian style service. At least a couple of times a year we have a Stations of the Cross service. Then there is Evensong, The Blessing of Pets, Maundy Thursday and a host of other Occasional Services. All of these I have at times treasured, but the impact of the Quiet Day and the service that framed it was on a different level from what I have grown to think of as regular worship.

Perhaps this was because, as EfM has been drawing to a close, I have felt some, for me, portents of a change of direction in my faith journey rearing up beneath my daily rituals.

I am not certain. What I am certain of is the deep impact of the silent experience of that day. Such a wonderful reward for attending!

Why is Canada in Afghanistan?

With the 117th Canadian now dead in Afghanistan it is past due time to ask, what are we doing there.

Most of us know that the Taliban government of Afghanistan gave aid and support to Al Queda and that this support was instrumental in allowing Osama bin Laden to plan and carry out the attacks against the United States on September 11.

The punishment for that support was an all-out assault on the Taliban, led by the United States, and the removal of the Taliban as the governing authority. Unfortunately no one thought to follow up on that victory by building hospitals, schools and the other civil projects that might have won over the hearts and minds of the people of Afghanistan.

That being said, the Taliban is no longer in power in Afghanistan. They have been replaced by a consortium of folks who appear to be uniformly corrupt and whose leadership of the nation would likely qualify it as a failed state were it not for the economic and military presence of Nato on the ground.

The current government of Afghanistan seems to share few of the values of those nations that prop it up and without them showing some movement towards those values we have fallen into the unfortunate circumstance of supporting the lesser of two evils.

The question that I ask myself is, why.

Afghanistan is currently in the midst of a civil war. The Taliban is attempting to overthrow by force a government that owes it's existence to the overthrow of the Taliban government by force. It appears from media reports that Al Queda, in Afghanistan, is pretty much irrelevant.

Why are we taking sides?

Today a group of women who were peacefully protesting the proposal to implement Sharia law in Afghanistan were stoned by militant counter protesters who think women should be under the absolute control of their fathers or husbands. Not all that long ago a woman in Afghanistan who was raped multiple times was charged with a number of crimes that resulted either from her allowing herself to be raped, or being so provocative that the men were forced to rape her or....well, who knows what she did wrong.

Canada should not wait until 2010 or 2011 to leave Afghanistan. We should just leave. Now.

We are not on the side of the good guys in this conflict. We are enabling despots and misogynists and in doing so we are participants in their crimes against their own people. It is time to let these folks sort out their own problems. If the winner of their ongoing dispute is willing to meet certain international standards of conduct we should support them as we are able. If they are not wiling to meet those standards, we should do everything possible to wall them off from the benefits of membership in the international community.

For now, right now, Canada should withdraw her troops from Afghanistan. The country is not worthy of our soldiers blood.

Good Friday

Good Friday, 2009.

Today Anglicans join Christians around the world in remembering the death of Jesus. As Holy Week draws to a close with the Great Vigil tomorrow and as the mystery of resurrection Sunday is celebrated we start anew the annual cycle of worship that is the framework through which we mark the Christian seasons.

The importance for me of Good Friday is that it serves as remembrance that we, all of us, throughout all of the ages of humankind, have taken part in crucifying Jesus. Every time we have turned away from hope, turned away from neighbour, turned away from those we deem to be other, we have again taken up the hammer and driven in the nails. Remembering this, and through remembering doing some small penance offers the hope of redemption, of change.

Easter itself is not to me a promise of eternal life in the kingdom of God, nor is it a promise of reward if I believe, nor is it a memorial that Jesus came back to life and walked from his tomb and did recorded things within his community.

Easter is captured so sublimely in the lyric of Jim Manley that concludes his hymn, The First Gleam of Christmas:

The light that first shone forth from God, like star-fire on the Earth

became a baby long ago, reborn with each new birth.

Peace in the heart, the home, the world, it dims but never dies

and the first faint gleam of Christmas still is wonder to our eyes.

And the first gleam of Christmas, the first hint of cheer,

lights the days of winter in the dawning of the year.

God Bless

life

Six hours today putting Casaron on the neighbours vines. What a day!! The forecast was for fourteen degrees, but the high haze seemed to concentrate the sun and it felt like about eighteen. Of course I have managed to get a bit of a sunburn, not having thought to bring sunscreen. Oh well.

Running the spreader up the north end of field two I came across a dead coyote. It was a hell of a thing. The little critter, he looked to be not much more than a year old, had stuck his head down a length of four inch Big-O, probably trying to get at a mouse or mole, and gotten stuck. He must have pushed pretty hard, because a full twelve inches of it was encasing him from shoulders to nose. We don't leave pipe scraps laying about, so, near as I can figure, he must have thrashed about until this piece came out of the ground. In any event he was dead and it must have been a pretty harrowing passing. Poor little bugger.

Tomorrow the temperature is supposed to get up around twenty on the Pitt Polder and I am looking forward to taking the new canoe out on the Allouette River for a couple of hours. Spring is sprung.