When a Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan, or any where else they are serving in the world, the Legion branch I belong to lowers their flag to half staff. The usual protocol for a period of mourning is 10 days or the day of the funeral, which ever comes first. On this blog and one fo my other blogs, Out of the Shadows, I post a memorial entry which stays at the top of the blog for the same period.

The month of May has been a bit difficult to get that flag back to the top of the pole. In fact, we haven’t succeeded yet. We’ve had four Canadians killed in Afghanistan, which for my American readers is a very small number, spaced out so that 10 days has not passed without a death.

As some American friends have noted, if the Americans lowered their flags like we do, they would never fly at full staff. As much as I wait and pray for the day when the flag can be returned to the top of the pole, it flying at half staff reminds me that Canadians are putting their life on the line for me every single day.

Each of those ten days of flag flying at half staff means that I’ll be making a trip to the bridge to honour our fallen Canadian. As the motorcade makes its way from CFB Trenton to the coroner’s office in Toronto along the Highway of Heroes, I’m among the hundreds of Canadians who turn out to show the families, Canadians care.

The waves and acknowledgement from the military escorts mean a lot to those on the bridges but it is when the hands of the family waving as they pass by that we know, at least for this part of their journey, they know they are not alone.

Join me in prayer that the flag reaches the top of the pole and no more families will have to make that long journey.

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Praying to Get the Flag Up the Pole

As I sat in church this past Easter Sunday my eyes roamed across the stain-glass windows beginning with the one in the sanctuary which the bright morning sun was setting aglow as it streamed through it.

As I moved from window to window I was struck how they depicted the community around Christ as being up close and personal. In all of Christ’s ministry he moved amongst the people. He didn’t set himself apart. He was a part of the community which formed around him.

That’s one of the aspects of this church community I’ve always enjoyed. When I joined it some fifteen years ago there were about fifty people attending regularly. It wasn’t a close community of people who came together each week but it was a warm group.

Members of the congregation read the readings, the lay reader read the gospel. The congregation was either too small for a deacon or no priest felt the need to put one in place. Over the years the congregation has dwindled, through death, clashes with clergy or people just wandering away from church life.

A priest we had a few years ago opened up the gospel to any member of the congregation willing and able to read. He relaxed the need for the communion assistant (server) to be robed and seated in the sanctuary. The server would come up out of the congregation just after the peace was passed.

Being a small group of about twenty each week at that point, this seemed like good changes. The congregation was more like what those windows surrounding us depicted. A community of believers led by its priest coming together each week to worship.

Some where along the line a drift apart within the congregation had started. This increased sharing of the liturgy seemed to help to arrest that drift. People came back together, became more aware of each other as members of the community.

At one point we went eighteen months without benefit of an incumbent. Retired clergy were enlisted to provide Sunday services for us and the community looked out for each other. Some of those clergy were impressed at the involvement of the congregation in the services, the congregation had taken on more confidence in our future.

A new priest took over. The first year she didn’t make any substantive changes. Then she announced to the wardens that in the ‘traditional Anglican way” the server would robe and remain in the sanctuary throughout the service. At that point only two members of the congregation were assisting at communion.

One was eager to robe and remain in the sanctuary the other would not. He was more than happy to assist but wanted to continue coming up out of the congregation. She would not bend, the parishioner left the congregation. We ended up with one server, a member of the community now separated by distance from the congregation.

Now, a year later, she has announced to the wardens that no longer will the lay people read the gospel. She as priest will be the only one as is “Anglican tradition”, notwithstanding that the longstanding tradition of this congregation is lay people reading the gospel.

In the early church the priest was the educated class, the reading of the gospel fell to him as the only person able to read. As education became more widespread the practise of licensing lay readers started. The license indicated the person was educated and literate enough to be able to read.

In the 21st century most people are able to read yet our current priest is now sending the message that those she is charged to lead are not worthy of reading the gospel. Wonder when she’s going to decide the congregation is no longer worthy of reading any of the readings?

I’m not against traditions, they are a part of what binds our present to our past. I uphold many traditions in carrying out my duties as Legion President. Sometimes though, I have had to balance tradition against barriers that tradition creates and make choices or alterations based on current needs. Sometimes tradition has to evolve.

In her drive to be a ‘traditional Anglican’ I wonder how far she is going to push? Will she impose the antiquated language of the Book of Common Prayer? Will she revoke her own priestly orders in order to follow the tradition which denied her access to the priesthood?

Time will tell.

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But It’s Tradition!

Through a friend on Twitter, @gailhyatt I’ve been exposed to some Orthodox Christian podcasts. They are interesting to listen to, they provide perspectives I wouldn’t always encounter from an Anglican viewpoint. Everyone needs perspective.

One of the podcasts I listen to is by a Father Thomas Hopko, it is called “Speaking the Truth in Love”. A week or so ago Fr. Tom read an email he had received from a listener which caught my attention. She wanted to know why God played favourites.

The lady indicated in her email she had grown up in an alcoholic home, which at minimum meant she had experienced emotional abuse. I didn’t grow up in an alcoholic home but I experienced abuse.

The lady wrote that she believed some children are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, they are holy from birth and have all of the advantages. Others never get the chance to become saints because they are used and abused and never have a choice. She asks why some go sailing up the mountain to be saints while others stumble around at the foot of the mountain, never able to trust God enough to make it up the mountain.

She hasn’t been able to trust people let alone a God who doesn’t talk to her. A God she doesn’t believe she’d have a chance of having prayers answered for really important things in her life. She has tried for 15 years and hasn’t been able to form a relationship with God. She concludes by asking: “Is God too busy with ones he really likes to even bother with the ones at the foot of the mountain?”

Fr. Tom answered as the theologian he is, I have some thoughts as a lay person and a fellow survivor.

Twenty years ago, I could have been the lady writing that email, except I hadn’t spent 15 years trying to form a relationship with God. I had spent 15 years rejecting the whole concept of God though.

I had been raised in a nominally Christian home. I say nominally in that my parents taught Sunday School classes, faithfully took us to Sunday school and church. I was always bothered by the seeming disconnect between Sunday and the rest of the week. I rarely remembered any mention of what I learned at church and what happened in our lives being remotely connected. No wonder that by 15 I was anxious to rid myself of church.

The relationship with God came after I learned to trust some people in my life. After I learned that there are people who can and should earn trust. I’m still slow to trust but once it is earned, I find much strength in being able to. It was one of those people I slowly learned to trust who started my awakening to giving a relationship with God a second look.

At some level I caught on that God speaks to me in His way, and it’s my challenge to recognise the ways. I rarely discern his hand in my life until later, it takes listening, watching and thought on my part. If I waited for God to just respond to my prayers like a person does to my comments, I’d never believe God was anywhere in my life.

I’ve learned along the way I can’t control how the relationship with God develops. As much as I really want to, I have to let it develop as I seek deeper understanding of what that relationship means.

For some reason, I don’t find myself feeling less in God’s eyes because I experienced abuse. I’ve learned to accept that I can stumble around at times. I can even fall flat on my face. When I stand upright again He’s just as much present as he was when I was stumbling or falling.

I’ve managed to reconnect with the instincts which help to guide me in how I respond to people through learning to trust in He who I can’t see. I think I’d be inclined to suggest to this lady that instead of waiting on faith, she needs to pursue her faith. She may discover the question isn’t so much why is God ignoring her as it is, why is she ignoring Him?

What was your experience with coming to faith? Did God pursue you or you Him?

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Does God Play Favourites?

I remember one of those rare times my dad told me a story about his wartime experiences, about his unit’s Chaplain and his unshakable faith. After a long day out on patrol near enemy lines in Italy his unit had found a deserted home to spend the night in. After they ate dad noticed the Chaplain seated by the window catching the last of the daylight, reading. Dad approached him and asked him “Padre, don’t you think you are taking an awful risk sitting there by the window?”. The answer he got was a calm, “son, if the good Lord is ready for me today, it wont matter where I’m sitting” and he returned to his book.

My mind went back to that story many times as I read Walsh’s book. He, who possessed that unquestioned trust in the one to whose hands he had entrusted his life. Walsh recounts her struggles to learn to take the leap of faith that let her trust as he had. She didn’t emerge from the battlefields of war ravaged Italy, she emerged instead from the war within that clinical depression engages us in.

That trust and the peace that comes with it didn’t come to her in a flash of almighty insight. It came to her one small piece and step at a time as she learned Christ doesn’t take us out of the pain that life brings us, he comes to hold us as we go through it together. She takes the reader through her own journey, not back to where she was before depression crumpled her but forward to where her growing trust in the Father was leading her, a step at a time.

For anyone who has been down the path of struggling with depression, Walsh’s writing is oh too real. I found myself brought to tears, something almost unheard of for me, as I saw flashes of myself in her story. I haven’t moved to her level of trust in the hands of the Father as she has or the openness about the journey.

As I read, she guided me through her commentary on ten stories from the bible which illustrated the depth and importance of trust. The book gave me much to consider, much to pray on and much to inspire myself to. Well worth the read.

NOTICE: I received this book from Nelson Thomas to read and review. You want to get some books to read and review you can find them at www.booksneeze.com

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Beautiful Things Happen When a Woman Trusts God by Sheila Walsh

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the holy season of Lent. Lent is the fourty days leading up to Holy Week, a period of thought and reflection before we celebrate the risen Lord on Easter Sunday.

I’m providing you today with a link to a set of Stations of the Cross which I wrote a few years ago.

Central to our belief is that Christ walked amongst us, tried to reach out to us as one of us and became the sacrificial lamb for all of our sins through the crucifixion and resurrection.

The stations are used as focal points for prayer, mediation and reflection on the journey Christ took in the hours leading up to and during his crucifixion. I’ve put them online for those who wish to explore.

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Stations of the Cross

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year, it was also the first official day of winter. We’ve been pretty fortunate so far, we’ve had very little snow so far this season. For the first time in 160 years there was zero snow in November.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really dislike winter. I do love the beauty of a winter snowfall, even the beauty of ice clinging to trees after freezing rain. I don’t enjoy the treacherous roads the weather brings. I deal with them by refusing to budge from the house when a storm is underway or imminent.

The start of winter also brings us very close to Christmas Day, just three days away as I write this entry. I’m going to be spending a quiet day at home on Christmas Day. Depending on the weather on Christmas Eve, I will be going to church and then will settle in for a couple of days of quiet time. I’m looking forward to that time. I have some reading I want to do and some writing.

Christmas is a reminder of the roots of my Christian faith as it celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God in human form. I saw a quote on Twitter the other day “There is one, who was born, who gives life to our living.”, it was tweeted by @AllisonAllen and retweeted by @GailHyatt who I picked it up from.

Christ’s birth, life and ministry largely shapes my life. I often fail but continually strive to be Christlike in my approach to life and the people in my life. I draw insight and learning from others around me, from scriptures, those who share the scriptures and then try to translate that learning into my life.

I am a Saint — I am one because I am a believer not because I am perfect. I’m human, I’m imperfect.

What shapes your life?

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Winter Officially Begins; Christmas Isn't Far Behind

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink”.  As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” — Jn 7:37-38

Water is what sustains us in life. In these days of global warming one of the great fears is that water, particularly clean water, will become a scarce resource. Predictions have been made that some where in the future wars will be fought over access to water.

There are different kinds of thirst. There is the thirst that we slack with water or some other beverage. Some days it takes more beverage than others to quench that thirst. It is thirst from within that can drive us on quests of a lifetime. The thirst to know and understand is the thirst that drives us through our lives.

My inner thirst at times seems to come and go but it never really ends. There is much I want to know and to understand but nothing so great as looking ever deeper into this faith which I have chosen to embrace.

Following a Christian life is not just about following the ten commandments or living by the golden rule. Like a clear flowing river, the depths and volume of the waters of faith are never ending. So why do I continue to look?

Without my faith, that light that comes from within lacks a source and a guide. The rivers of my life would meander with little to guide them through their course. It is in the quest to satisfy my thirst that I find that direction for my rivers to flow.

Where does your waters of life take you?

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What Are Your Waters of Life?

This post isn’t about me, it is about two people who are very dear to me. These two people, Scott & Kim, haven’t been in my life for a whole bunch of years but in the short time they have lived in this community, I’ve come to care for them very much.

Kim is the 1st Vice-President at the local Legion Branch, she agreed to take that position when I asked her to become part of the Executive team who would either be the last executive that branch ever had or we’d be the start of a revitalization of a branch on the edge of closure. I had to absolutely guarantee that I would not make her chair a meeting in my absence and that I absolutely would not die and make her become President while she held that position. So far, I’ve not let her down on that.

Scott, joined the Executive this year and was appointed Poppy Chair. After a year of helping Kim as he could, doing what he could and experiencing the frustration that spouses often experience when a spouse is deeply involved in volunteer work — Scott joined us. Scott also frets over the lady in his life and not without some cause. He’s a designer by trade and a musician for fun. He’s proud of the Midlander Drum Corp that he was in as a younger guy, not that he’s very old now.

You see, Kim through her deep faith and determination that she is not going to let lupus take her down, manages to live a pretty full and active life. Lupus is not her only health issue either but I’m not going to go into detail. Scott worries that Kim will push herself too hard and he may lose her.

As often happens though, life has a way of dealing you some nasty cards along the way. Right now, Scott has been dealt a real nasty one — he’s been diagnosed with lung cancer and it is not early on. He’s never had to face a serious health issue for himself, he’s always been able to focus on his family and most importantly, Kim. They have an appointment at the cancer centre in London on Wednesday October 22nd which will determine where things go from here.

There isn’t a lot we can do right now except offer our caring and support. If you’ve read this far, I’m asking you as a visitor to this blog to do something for Scott & Kim right now. I’m asking you to keep them in your prayers, that this nasty disease can be driven from his body and he can be restored to health — that Kim will have the strength she will need to cope with all that is coming without her own health being battered.

Please post a comment with your thoughts and prayers to them.

It is my hope that as they travel down the next weeks and months that this post will be a place they can draw strength and support from as well as from their family and friends. For believers, we know the power of prayer, the peace that can be experienced in being surrounded by the caring and prayers of everyone — family, friends and strangers.

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A Time For Prayer