Addendum to "Painful Words"

On a surprisingly positive note, in addition to telling my parents about ordination, I told them that I'm seeing Jennifer, who isn't a Christian.

Of course they were disappointed, but they were respectful, and asked questions rather than casting judgment. I found that refreshingly encouraging.

I know that they are praying for me, that God would give me wisdom to act in accordance to His image that I carry. My hope is that they don't stop there, though. My hope is that they pray for Jennifer's salvation, something she neither sees necessary nor has interest in.

Lord have Mercy.
Christ have Mercy.
Lord have Mercy.

Painful Words

I sometimes dread going to family events, not because I hate them - I actually love them - but because I get hurt at them. That proved to be true Christmas Day this year, when I told my parents that it's becoming more and more difficult, even inescapable, to avoid my calling towards ordination in the Anglican Church.

My mother's response was something like this: "Oh, now we have that to add to our list of worries." I told her she should be rejoicing, but that didn't happen.

I know where that comes from. On the surface it's a dislike for the Anglican Church, but digging deeper, it's fear, and a lack of humility: fear of the unfamiliar and unknown, and pride of of self, and having all the answers.

While this was a hurtful statement, I've come to realize that if this is the way it's going to be, then so be it. I'm finally coming to grips with my identity as a child of God's. I'm becoming "truly human", as some Christian theologians would say. It's about time. I value and love my parents, and I always will. But nothing, neither their affirmations nor their objections, neither their approvals nor their rejections, can separate me from the love of God. For this, I'm thankful.

The challenge, it seems to me, if I indeed go down this road, will be not to harbour anger and resentment towards them. That will only happen by the grace of God. This challenge will need to be addressed daily in my prayers, in my confessions. God will need to bestow additional doses of grace and mercy upon me. I have full confidence that He will do it, as He always does. He is, after all, the author of my calling.

Prie Dieux

I'm buying two (rather expensive) Christmas presents for myself this year. Here's the first one. It arrived on Christmas Eve.

The Incarnation

Tonight it happened. What a stunning testament to the faithful character of God, for Him to enter this broken world. The Incarnation: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." (John 1:14, 16).

Therefore, let no one say God is distant.

He came into the world. He is in the world. He will be with the world.
He was with us. He is with us. He will be with us.
He saved the world. He is saving the world. He will save the world.

There is no better response than the great Orthodox hymn, "O Come let us worship":

Amen!
O come, let us worship God our King.
O come, let us worship and fall down before Christ,
our King and our God
O come, let us worship and fall down before Christ himself,
our King and our God.
O come, let us worship and fall down before Him.

Karla @ Jen's

This evening we continued to celebrate Karla's return from Australia. We met at Jen's place and had some food: pizza, dumplings, chocolate, and tandoori chicken. Juan and Jen also made some kick-ass drinks: "Glühwein" and coffee with orange liqueur.

After a good while of food and conversation, a game of Cranium broke out. Thankfully, I was spared, and didn't have to play. I don't like that game.

Here are some pics from the evening:

Church, Jennifer, And .. Snow

This morning I went to church, as usual, to the early morning liturgy. Thank you Lord for meeting me in Word and Sacrament.

For lunch I went to Al Watan with Jennifer. Mmmmmmmmmm. Thank you Lord for the gift of food, and friends to enjoy it with.

Oh yeah, it snowed again, another 10 cm. We must have close to half a meter of snow in the city now. Thank you Lord for each snowflake that proclaims your glory. May we as your people join in with creation in singing your praises.

Colder Still

It just keeps getting colder and colder. It was -15 this afternoon.

Believe it or not, we had planned to still play soccer as we usually do. But when push came to shove, people - including me - jammed out. The field was covered in snow, and the temp was just too chilly.

So instead of playing soccer I went to the Regent College bookstore and did some Christmas shopping. I bought a few books for James (For the Life of the World and The Way of a Pilgrim), and I also bought a book for Jen (Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith). Not sure she'll be interested, but I hope she is. Kathleen Norris is a great author who writes in a very accessible style. In fact, I bought a copy of it for myself also, as I think she says some important things about the use of language in the Christian tradition.

In the evening I went to a party to celebrate Karla's return from Australia. We met at a pub on MacDonald/4th Avenue. It was great to celebrate her again. She is dearly missed by our futbol gang. Hopefully we'll be able to see her again before she goes home to Mexico for Christmas before returning to Sidney.

Doppelbock....Errrrr..... Jolly Abbot Night

The tradition of "Dopplebock" night with the boys continued tonight, except instead of drinking Doppelbock, we drank Jolly Abbot beer. The reason for the switch in beer was simple: GI Brewing did not make the Doppelbock this year, but instead, they made the Jolly Abbot.

Our group has grown: 11 of us gathered at Heinz' place on 13th Ave. It was a cooooold night, about -10ish.

Not gonna say too much about the evening except that it was a good one. Heinz bbq'd some wicked chicken, and proved to be a very good host. There was a nice spread of finger-food, from cookies to spring rolls.

Conversation was good too. Had a chance to catch up with Eric, Paul, Mike, and Rudy. I invited them to my NYE party at the end of the month.

Oh and about the beer, the Jolly Abbot's better than the Doppelbock. Hopefully next year we'll have another "Jolly Abbot" night with the boys.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Ever since last week Saturday when it began to snow during the Messiah, temperatures have been rather frigid.

The temperatures have been in the negatives: -5, -10, even minus -15! That happens very rarely here in Raincouver.

What more, I've been working outside too. Today, in fact, I worked outside for about an hour. The first 20 minutes I was frozen stiff. Then, as I got warmer from the physical work, I actually started to sweat. It was fantastic. Sweating in "minus" weather was a new experience for me, and it was great.

So far, it's snowed about 30cm, and apparently it's going to snow some more in the coming days. I say bring it on..........

Handel's Messiah

One of the reasons I love Christmas is because of the yearly performance of Handel's Messiah at the Orpheum. This year saw guest conductor Bernard Labadie lead the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Vancouver Cantata Singers, and the Vancouver Chamber Orchestra.

The performance this time around was exceptionally good, probably because of Labadie's passionate approach, but as always, it's the message of the Messiah that soothes and lifts the soul, and the message is simple and powerful: our salvation through God in Christ. Handel brilliantly weaves texts from the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, conveying to the listener the history of God and the world, God and Israel, Christ and the Church. It's a glorious work with an even more glorious message.

My favourite piece, if that is even possible, is the ending, taken from Revelation 5:9, 12-13: Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing and honour, glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and into the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.

On our way out (I went with Ted and Karin), we were pleasantly surprised: it was snowing! It reminded me of the German Christmas carol: Leise Rieselt der Schnee (Softly falls the snow). A magical ending to a great evening.

More Important Fires II

Some more thoughts on the church and poverty.

I've also heard it said that not all churches are located in places conducive to helping the needy. Not all churches are in neighbourhoods where the homeless and addicts hang out, and sex workers make their living, so they can't do the work as effectively as those located on "ground zero". Fair enough, a church can't be all things to all people, but still, does that absolve us of responsibility?

We're encouraged to donate time, energy, and money to charities, or send a cheque to the Salvation Army or Union Gospel Mission, as a "token of our concern for the poor and love for Christ." But, does sending a cheque by mail show concern? Yes, on one level I suppose it does. And does it show love? Not a chance. Love gets down low, real low, to the dirty corners of life where dust gathers. Love is hard. Love sweats. Love suffers.

I think this prevalent policy of keeping an armslength distance from the poor is in effect a "clean hands" policy, and it is so in two ways.

On the one hand, we do it to clear our conscience. Then we can say to God "Look God, clean (innocent) hands. I gave money to the Salvation Army. I volunteered at the Union Gospel Mission this week." And once we've dealt with God in this way, we can resume our wonderful lives of consumption - I need a new iPod to download sermons off the internet - for at least another week, when our conscience begins to weigh heavily on our shoulders again.

On the other hand, the "armslength" approach keeps our hands clean, literally. Others - charity and church staff - do the dirty work "for us." We get to continue our nice, busy lives of appointments, schedules, and meetings, while others do the work "on our behalf", as it were. We think it's a win-win-win situation: the poor are taken care of, it gives church and charity staff something to do, and we, well, we get to continue our nice and busy lives of going from one place to another "accomplishing" things and being "productive."

The problem is that transformation, becoming more like God, happens when we spend time in the dirty, mucky place called "world", not in the sanitized environment of Pleasantville. It's not easy to get our hands dirty, that's for sure. And I'm not exactly a modern version of Saint Francis! But mustn't we at least try? Ought we not at least put efforts towards this?

Christ was born into poverty. Christ gave status to the destitute. Christ is with us today in the form of the beggar on the street. Sending a cheque in the mail doesn't cut it. We must get our hands dirty.

More Important Fires

I'm always amused at the following fact: beggars today line up in front of liquor stores, not churches. I came up with a few practical reasons why this is the case. Liquor stores are open at least 6 days a week, whereas churches are only open 1 day a week. Hours of operation at a liquor store are a least 8 hours a day, compared to church hours of operation of 4 per week

However, this has not always been the case. There was a time churches were open most, if not all day, on most, if not all days of the week.

So what has changed? Why did we shut our doors? Have we become desensitized towards poverty, in the same way society in general has become desensitized towards violence and sex? Have we disconnected the spiritual from the material, focusing on preaching the gospel and forgettting to live the gospel? Are we greedy, stingy? Or are we just too damn practical?

I'm sure the answer is not a simple "yes" or "no" to any of these questions, but as always, convoluted, complicated, and intertwined. And I'm sure there are many other reasons I didn't think of. Someone ought to do research about this, maybe write a thesis on it.

But I think the following quote I heard over lunch today from a Christian friend (not Josh) summarizes perfectly what many Christians in wealthy contexts think about the matter. Of course, we don't express these thoughts explicitly, but they are implicit in the way we live. Here it is: "The Church has more important fires to deal with."

Pardon? Excuse me? More important fires? More important fires than protecting and proclaiming the image of God in men and women?

Futbol & A Birthday Party

Haven't played much futbol lately. In fact, since August, I think I've only gone to about half of the "soccer saturdays" I've become so accustomed to attending. The result is that I felt a tremendous excitement today when I put on my "Copa Mundial" boots. I felt like a little boy who's just found out he's earned a "cucurucho" of ice cream (dulce de leche flavour, please). after doing a good deed. Playing today was grand, and the rain and mud just added to the thrill. And yes, thrill is the right word.

In the evening Jennifer and I went to Eric's birthday party at the Libra Room on Commercial Drive. Eric turned 40 earlier this week (Dec. 2), and this was the party he threw for himself. It was a nice soire, about 16 people came. The Libra Room's a nice venue , we had the lounge at the back all to ourselves. The music alternated between a live performance and lounge music. I prefer the lounge music over the live act primarily because the lounge music wasn't so loud. I didn't know everyone at the party, but Paul and Amanda were there, as well as Mike B and a few others I knew. I think Jen enjoyed herself too, and that's important.

Tomorrow's church, and later on I want to go for lunch at Al Watan with Josh.

Except for last weekend's retreat at the monastery I haven't had much time for prayer in my day, and that's a concern. Actually, it's not that I haven't had much time (aren't 24 hours enough?!?!), the problem is that I haven't made time for prayer. That's gotta change.

How Can This Be?

On this first week of Advent, it’s very appropriate that we be reminded of God’s love for the world: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16-17). These are comforting words for us as followers of Jesus, because it means that we can live in joyful expectation at the second Advent of Christ.

Our gospel reading of today is about the gradual self-revelation of Jesus to a man named Nicodemus. Jesus reveals himself not only as a teacher, but as the One whom God sent to deal with all that is wrong with the world.

But much to Nicodemus’ surprise, the problems of the world do not begin with others, but with ourselves. The problems of the world start with the human heart. And to realize and accept this, to realize and accept that Jesus is God’s final word, God’s salvation for the cosmos, that is what it means to be born again.

The story is found in the first half of chapter 3 of Saint John’s gospel, verses 1-21. Nicodemus, a “teacher of Israel”, as Jesus calls him (3:9), decides to pay Jesus a visit. He’s impressed by the supernatural signs Jesus was performing: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him” (3:2).

Jesus responds, but his response is not as expected. Nicodemus expects a warm and affirming response, but what he gets is “sharper than a two-edged sword” (Heb 4:12): “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (3:3). Jesus undercut any sense of self-satisfaction implicit in the question posed to him.

To enter God’s reign, to enter God’s kingdom, neither pedigree nor piety matter. For neither race, nor family name, nor financial income, nor gender, nor association, nor fame, nor religious observance can erase the sin in our hearts, the sin we inherited from Adam.

This is absurd, thinks Nicodemus. “How can a man be born when he is old”? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb? (3:4). “How can this be?” (3:10).

But what Nicodemus didn’t take into consideration, was that the supernatural birth Jesus was speaking of was not physical, but spiritual. As a teacher and student of Scripture, Nicodemus should have known that God promised to give men and women new hearts, he promised to renew their spirits (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

Those who are born again spiritually, those who are in Christ, cannot limit God’s movement to the physical realm only, because based on experience, they can confidently say along with Jesus: “Truly, truly, I say to you we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen...” (3:11).

And what do we know? What do we bear witness to? What have we seen? That God came down and dwelt among us; he became subject to the death to which all of us are subject. But his death was uniquely significant: he hung on a cross, he was lifted up like a condemned criminal, and this, not by chance, for it was God’s way of revealing his love for sinners; it was God's way of revealing his love for all of us.

And therefore, “...all who look in faith to Him ‘whose blessed feet were nailed for our advantage to the bitter cross’ will never be subject to the death that is sin’s penalty, but enjoy eternal life.”1

This is what it means to be born again. It means to receive ungrudgingly God’s gift of salvation in Christ; it implies reckless self-abandonment and reliance on God; it involves giving up all attempts to earn righteousness on our own, and receive it freely as a gift of grace.

Such reorientation is an experience that can indeed be likened to a physical birth: it is an emergence from darkness to light, “when the restricted and constrained is at last set free.”2

Thanks be to God.

Amen ✠

-----

1 R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel according to Saint John. An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 69.

2 R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel according to Saint John. An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 69.

Personal Retreat: Day 3

Today was my final day of prayer and discernment at the Abbey. Here was my schedule:

5:35am - Lauds
6:40am - Spiritual Readings
7:10am - Breakfast
8am - Spiritual Readings
8:45am - Vocational Discernment
9:20am - Prayer
10am - Sung Mass





















12:05pm - Lunch
1pm - Prepare for Departure
1:30pm - Walk in the Woods














































2:20pm - Depart for home

Shortly before going on a walk this afternoon, I met Brother Alban. He's the Oblate Director at the monastery. I had a nice conversation with him. It seems to me that becoming a Benedictine Oblate is a completely realistic next step for me, as I seek to live out the Rule of Life I'm adopting. It makes me accountable to a specific community, while living out the Benedictine way of life in a non-monastic context.

The values are as follows: stability/fidelity, moderation, continuous conversion, and obedience. The process of becoming an Oblate is simple: application via email, 1 year novitiate, and finally, full vows. There are no costs involved, and there are regular meetings, discussions, and/or conferences. Attendance to these is encouraged but not enforced.

I'm thankful for my time here this past weekend. Peace was what I came for, and Peace is what I'm walking away with. In the Rule of Saint Benedict, he wrote: "Let Peace be your quest and aim." Mission accomplished.

Thank you Lord.