Happy days

A happy day, indeed. Today I drove seven hundred and fifty klicks round trip to swap my Clipper Tripper canoe for a Wenonah Advantage. I hate to see the Clipper go but it was just too big to single hand and have fun with at the same time. I believe there were a dozen or more times last year when I wanted to get out on the water and didn't because of the hassle of going solo in a boat not designed for one.

The fellow who traded with me was looking for a canoe that he could get out in with his family and his solo didn't fill the bill. We both came out ahead, though given the relative values of the two boats, if bought new, I likely got the better deal. I can hardly wait for spring and being able to get out on the lake!

I've spent a good bit of time this week reflecting on gratitude.

When I started taking the Education for Ministry program, offered through our church, three and a half years ago I was quite intimidated by the strength of faith that most of the participants displayed. In comparison to them I felt that my faith, especially the ways it displayed itself outwardly, was shallow and ill formed. A fairly ego based view of me/them.

I have been blessed recently with the realization that recognition of the Holy Spirit working through others has little to do with those others and much to do with the Spirit. This realization has allowed me to see the organic nature of the Spirit working in and through all of us in our group and to appreciate how singular a force it is.

My feelings of gratitude at being a part of this small manifestation of God at work is quite overwhelming. There are no small blessings.

Today is St.Valentine's Day. It is pretty much a Hallmark day, but today I enjoyed, during my drive, thinking of all those whom I have been privileged to love or be loved by. I especially think of Jessie and Alley, who, notwithstanding having me as their primary role model, are mostly vibrant and mostly joyous and largely lacking of fear. To be loved by such as them is indeed a blessing.

kedging off

Well, last night at St. George we finished a five session, five week study of chapter one of the Gospel of Mark.

I don't know how many times over the years I have read this book of the bible, more than a dozen, for sure, yet in all those readings I have never appreciated how artfully structured and how full of the good news that first chapter is.

I guess that this is at the heart of learning: new realizations, new understandings, new pathways into the future.

Mark remains my favorite New Testament book and I am happy to be able to say that I read it with more pleasure now than I did when it was my favorite six weeks ago.

The farm is teaching me new lessons also. The joy of filling holes and low spots in the fields over the past month has changed to a daily struggle to get material from the dirt stockpile to the field without bogging down the gator, and then divesting myself of equanimity and dignity in my struggles with slick sloppy mud as I, all to frequently, practice my retrieval techniques.

That would be OK if it were the extent of my mud troubles. It is remarkable just how much of a mess I was able to make while digging an excavator out of a field that I knew going into I shouldn't. When I used to sail we called the technique, kedging. Dig a hole then bury the anchor (with an excavator, the bucket) and laboriously drag yourself out. Big disturbances of the field, the dike and the serenity that is most often my companion in my work. That would be something of a metaphor for life, I guess...

Enough of this, its time to go and fall into a good book.

opening doors

What a glorious week at the farm! Temperatures up to twelve degrees and sunny skies. How good does it get during February? I'd have to say just about this good.

Pruning of the vines is well underway at the farm. Once they are done I'll finish filling holes and leveling some of the dips in the fields prior to infill planting. It is starting to get busy...

EfM tonight is a continuation of our study of twentieth century theologians. I appreciate the call that these scholars feel to study God, but find their efforts quite beyond me. I suspect that this is mostly because of their writings being the fruit of many years, even decades, of education and deep thinking, all of which is then synthesised into a ten or twelve page presentation in the course material.

I listen to a preacher called Chuck Swindoll on the local Christian radio station at 1:30 most days and find his translation of the message of the New Testament into our world most refreshing. One of these days I'll probably go to his web site and find that he embraces within his faith many positions that I don't agree with, but for now I am enjoying his ministry.

This is an interesting point, being drawn to those with whom we agree and turning away from those with whom we don't.

On the weekend I found myself in conversation with a person who thought that same-sex marriage was wrong. My mental reaction was immediate and the argumentative neurons were firing pretty quickly. Fortunately I put the brakes on my tongue and thought about how my companion had phrased the position I was about to react to. Having thought it out for a few moments I came to the conclusion that, though I didn't agree with this position, I wasn't offended by the way in which it was offered and, having already made my position clear, I didn't have to argue further. Interestingly I have replayed the conversation since and it may be shaping some parts of my position. Now, if only I can repeat this in other conversational areas, I may just enter that realm where civil discourse is the norm.

Well, the timer has run and that's the call to dinner. Later.

Eighteen days of fog at the farm. Fog accompanied by sub-zero nights and quite cool days. Fog that precipitates onto the vine uprights and then freezes, building up thin layer upon thin layer. Fog that seems cool and damp until one rides around the farm in the Gator and the dampness slicks the face and chaps the lips and sucks all moisture out of any exposed skin. Yuk!

We are repairing bird damage in our to be planted areas. When the bogs are flooded at harvest time ducks and geese and sometimes swans dally in the water and feed on any weeds growing from the fields. These birds dip and grasp the plant firmly and shake their heads until the plant, root and all, comes free from the soil. You might think this is a good way to rid a field of weeds, root and all. Not so, the shaking of the plant disturbs the soil sufficient that that soil is displaced in the water. The net effect is that we have holes in the fields that range from a half foot across to five or six feet in diameter and that are up to ten inches deep. This week alone I have moved about forty yards of dirt into the fields by wagon and shoveled same into the damaged areas. And there is at least the as much to be done over the coming week. On the up side, the head cold that I have is getting the tough love treatment in the great outdoors, the musculature of my arms and shoulders is in fine tone and I am sleeping really well.

EfM this week has seen us delving into the murky world of existentialism. Lordy, lordy, but the practitioners of this arcane element of the philosophical arts do spend a lot of their effort inspecting their navels and engaging in apparently self indulgent moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth. Thank God I'm not intelligent enough to devote my mental efforts to such pursuits.

Well, enough of this for now...

Praying in the harvest

Today at St. George we saw off Zoe Fetherstonhaugh. Zoe was a faithful member of our community whose time with us came to an end due to misadventure.

From the turnout at the funereal service she was much loved and will be sorely missed.

I don't remember when I first met Zoe, but it was shorty after I started to attend St. George. She was a woman who spoke in a straightforward manner, listened well, easily invited one into her space and who radiated the assurance of her faith. Zoe, perhaps without realizing she was doing so, helped me in my journey along my faith path. I will miss her but doubt she will ever be far from my thoughts and in that sense the missing will be a blessing.

What is the real crime?

So, the Government of BC has finally approved the filing of charges of polygamy against Winston Blackmore and James Oler who lead a group of fundamentalist Mormons in Southeastern BC. Whatever could they be thinking? They being the Attorney General of BC and his bureaucrats.

The law respecting polygamy in Canada is largely untested as it relates to the Canadian Bill of Rights and in this case will probably not survive appeals to the Supreme Court if indeed lower courts convict these men.

Polygamy is quite common in Canada if one looks at it from the point of view of the government which says that if a man is in a live-in relationship with a woman for one year, then they enjoy a common-law marriage relationship and she is protected by property and other considerations as though she was married to that man. This notwithstanding the reality that that man may still be legally married to another woman. Then there are those cases where a man and more than one woman or a woman and more than one man co-habit with all of the circumstances of marriage applying in their lives, though no formal ceremony has so recognized the relationship.

Speaking as one who has been married three times, admittedly sequentially rather than concurrently, I am amazed that folks can maintain relationships with multiple partners.

It seems to me that the heart of the Blackmore case, from a community point of view, is not the question of polygamy as much as the question of the extent to which fundamental decisions about a girl/woman's life are made by men who make those decisions from the authoritarian position that they hold within the structure of the church community.

Raising a girl to be a woman within a religious tradition where the very formation of her reasoning process is so controlled by the patriarchal/authoritarian worldview of men who believe they are carrying out the work of God in making their decisions is hardly a practice of the development of free will in that girl.

And then there are what I think of as the icky parts of this sect's practices. The marrying of teen aged girls to men in their forties and fifties and sixties. The senior wife, junior wife structuring of the family units. The apparent imperative to validate the new marriages by means of the young wife producing offspring as quickly as possible. The absolute lack of choice given to these young women in the decisions of these old men. Very icky.

So, what do I think that society should do to deal with such cases?

First and foremost, apply the law in Canada that delivers special sanctions against persons in positions of perceived authority who exploit younger people sexually. Usually this is applied in cases of teachers who engage in sexual conduct with teenagers, but it certainly would apply to religious leaders who do such or who facilitate marriages between older men and younger women. Secondly, communities should make known to organizations that engage in the domination and exploitation of youth that this is not appropriate conduct. Whether the avenue by which this might be done would be to cut off social and business relationships, or to campaign for education of potential victims of such behavior, or to set up organizations that provide a meaningful route of escape from the sect and support in leaving it, I don't know.

I am pretty certain that the answer is not to try to beat the problem with laws against polygamy.

I wonder how many of Mr. Blackmore's and his male co-adherents of his beliefs, wives have any meaningful concept of the Canadian view that women are equal to men, that choice is a right supposedly enjoyed by all in this country, that leaving the polygamous community will not result in damnation or social ostracizing in the real world or that the single greatest support that they can call on in the world outside their small community is that they are loved and valued as human beings rather than as objects representative of a mans supposed vigour or stature or holiness.

Waiting

Snow time is waiting time at the farm. There are always lots of little make-work jobs to fill out the hours with during snow season, but as each day passes the desire to be doing the big things that lead one into spring grows. Re-building dikes, moving the pruner over and servicing it, flagging the areas of the fields to be mowed, these are all big jobs that I prefer to see done before winter begins to break in March.

Waiting seems to be a fairly central feature of my Christian faith. Before Jesus we were waiting for the coming of the messiah and since he left we are waiting for his return. My experience is that waiting is a nice way of describing the act of procrastination.

I often find myself waiting for Sunday so that I can relax into a spiritual moment, I can be counted on, at least monthly, to suffer irritation while waiting for my girls to do things that are their jobs rather than letting go of my frustration and just doing them myself, I have been waiting for over twenty-five years to win the lottery. On the latter, I think that if I'd taken to throwing a hundred bucks a week into a savings account way back when, I would probably have the equivalent of a lottery win in my account. Oh well, I am human, do procrastinate and prefer to think of doing that as meaningful waiting.

I wonder what the world would be like if we Christians gave up waiting for God to answer our prayers and started to take daily responsibility for all of those things that we ask for? We' probably stop being Christians and become Christ's.