Canary in the coal mine

The clock punctures with

cruel precision

While the unoccupied silence drains 

cold and steady into morning- too quick to take hold

The sun does not rise but

collides- freight train like-

with the force of the day’s demands.

Theirs, of course,

always Theirs.

But also…somewhere

quiet and sure as a single bird on the ledge at dawn

Somewhere also mine. 

She sings 

in the background, this little bird

chirping from the laundry baskets

pecking about between the pages

of the bedtime stories.

Keeping me awake in the wee hours

I hear her through the meals and the squabbles

-equal parts drudgery and Magic-

Sometimes I resent her.

“Stop that racket!” 

I want to scream.

Because it would be simpler (or so I believe)

to live a singular life.

If only I could be content with the vast country of motherhood,

all the oceans and mountains

I could never exhaust 

in my entire life.

But she sings on

Whistling steadily, 

teaching me

now patiently, 

now urgently

the song I already know

that I’ve known all my life

And it dawns on me slowly, as the caffeine nudges my brain awake

that for all her incessant squawking

I need her

my noisy, needy, greedy creative m/other self

She is my canary in the coal mine

When she grows quiet

I die

So I guess 

we’d better make friends.  

Even if I’m not there to see it

Of all the things I am going to miss about our current home, it’s the garden that catches me off guard, surprising me with pangs of sad longing.

Here’s the backstory: recently my family and I found ourselves living out a script that is all too familiar these days. A story that embodies what is meant by vague and general terms like “housing insecurity” and  “the housing crisis.”  The particular heartbreak of these stories is as unique as the people and families in them, but the salient points are the same. Variations on a theme that goes something like this: we were happy renters living within our means. We had built a home and a life in a community until our landlords decided to sell. 

We had lived in our home for 5.5 years, and our older sons attended the school across the street while our baby went to daycare at the home of a neighbour one street over. We enjoyed the proximity to family (grandparents within walking distance), the short commutes (a 15 min drive for me and the option to bike to work for Dave) and the sense of rootedness that comes when you spend more than a decade shopping at the same grocery stores, playing at the same parks and waving to the same neighbours. 

When we learned that we would have to move, it was devastating. In the beginning, we had 3 small children to care for and nowhere to go. 

Fortunately for us, family and friends showed up for us in superhuman ways. Through the generosity of our parents, the help of our rock-star realtor/sister-in-law and the prayers of what felt like every single person we knew…we were able to purchase a house. This is incredible and also nearly miraculous. We don’t take it for granted for a single second!

But/and, the thing about our new house is…it’s just really far away. 

Dave’s bikeable commute has become a 35-minute car ride. My 15 min drive has become 50. Grandparent visits will need to be scheduled now, and playdates with friends (at least our current friends) will be a rare occurrence.

So we’re happy/excited/grateful… but we are also sad.

You’d think all my time as a pastor would mean that I should have been able to quickly identify what was happening to me and my family. But I confess it took a while for the word to appear.

But finally, ah yes, I know this feeling: it’s grief. 

To be a human is to grieve in different ways and at different times. None of us escape it. You would think I’d know this, in my line of work. Or even just as a human with 35 years of experience. 

And yes of course, grief has unpredictable triggers. I know this. People tell me all the time. I sit and listen and hold the hands of people in the throes of all sorts of grief and this is what they say, “I was just listening to the radio…I was just walking to the store…I was just looking out the window and then I was sad.” 

Yes, friend. That’s how grief is. Love weaves itself into every corner of life, and the loss of it leaves spaces and gaps everywhere. We step through the holes in the floor because the loss is everywhere we habitually walk. Of course, you didn’t see it. Of course, you were surprised. This ground used to be solid, but now it’s not. 

And weirdly for me (or not) grief washes over me when I look out at my current garden. 

I would never call myself a “gardener.” I shunned all my mother’s invitations to help her in the garden when I was growing up. I never understood why some folks identified as “plant people,” or how much shade was necessary for a fern to thrive. 

But when we moved here, our landlords said we could plant a garden, so we decided to give it a try. The backyard of this home is full-sun and produces more tomatoes than we ever know what to do with. Over the years, I have watched closely how the light moves and how the plants respond. I have enjoyed watering flowers and vegetables from our rain barrel as I meditate on the idea that with God, nothing is wasted. 

Last summer, during the hard lock-downs of spring 2021, the garden became a refuge. A bastion of life and flourishing when my house was full of children and the world was full of chaos. 

I planted a blueberry bush and a lilac tree out back last summer. The patch of black-eyed susans is well established at the foot of the Mullberry tree we named “Sully” (after the big hairy monster from Monster’s Inc). The Annabelle hydrangea from my mom to mark my installation as Highview’s pastor is thriving now. The leaves have just come out and I can hardly bear the thought that I won’t be there to watch the lacy white blossoms arrive in late July.

It’s just a small garden. No real loss when one considers that our new home has a huge lot and many much larger beds than these. Yet for me, our dislocation and its accompanying grief are summed up by the budding of things I planted but won’t be here to see blossom or bear fruit. 

And all of this is causing me to think differently about love and relational investment.

I am not at all a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of person. Left to my own devices, I prefer to keep my heart under lock and key and well guarded at all times. I did a 3-month international exchange in high school and intentionally did not make friends, because I knew that the whole thing would be short-lived. Why sign up for heartbreak?

But now, as a thirty-something adult, I’ve begun to learn the value of love, for love’s own sake. Of love because love is beautiful. Of love because, as John says, “love comes from God” (1 John 4:7). 

But to love is to have our hearts broken. 

We all know this on some level, I think. This is why so many of us are afraid. I was afraid. I still am afraid more days than I would like to admit. If my heart is a ripe peach, then love is like handing that perfect peach to a toddler and asking him to be careful. Love opens the door to grief, and I’m just not sure she and I can ever be friends. 

But there’s also this. The lilac tree I planted out back and the hydrangeas by the porch, they will bloom this summer in June and July respectively. I know that. 

In all the dislocation of a move we did not ask for and do not want, there is goodness in knowing that there will be blossoms and fruit, whether I’m there to see it or not. 

Love bears fruit, it just does.

And maybe that’s where faith and hope come in. Love always bears fruit, but it takes faith to believe this, and hope to bear the losses and know that it was not wasted. Because love always bears fruit, even if I’m not there to see it. 

Butterfly Soup

Our oldest son (8) is a voracious reader of anything he can get his hands on. Seriously, anything. He’s been caught sneaking my novels and our toddler’s board books with equal enthusiasm. 

Ever since his grandparents purchased him a subscription to National Geographic for Kids he’ll often come to breakfast with fascinating scientific facts to share with the family. 

Recently he told me that when a Monarch caterpillar is in its chrysalis, during its transformation from a worm to a butterfly, there comes a point where, if one was to peer inside or even to cut open the cocoon, what would spill out would be an incomplete, gooey mess. Essentially, butterfly soup.

This got me thinking.

Christians believe that we are always in the process of metamorphosis, ever putting off our old ways and being invited to transformation. Paul says it well.

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Romans 12:2

22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Ephesians 4:22-24

At our church right now we are studying Romans together, and we are learning about the invitation of the gospel to set aside worldly divisions and become new people, to be transformed. But transformation is messy. 

As we emerge from this Pandemic that never seems to want to end, even the most optimistic of us have to admit that we are doing so in varying states of disarray. 

The lockdowns, the strained relationships, the anxiety that comes from constant “checking” of the latest bad news in the never-ending bad news feed, have done a number on us. Different flavours and consistencies of “butterfly soup,” but still a sticky mess. 

We do not have the luxury of the Monarch’s cocoon and so as we head back to the office or back to school or back to church. And what many of us are finding is that we are just as unfinished as ever were, and probably a little worse for the wear.

But here’s the thing: it’s ok. 

Unlike the Monarch who gets to go hide away to transform (lucky!) we humans have to/get to transform in community.

Not gonna lie, I kind of hate this. I’m a private person naturally and being a leader, even in such an understated context as our own small church, has often meant that my life is a lot more “public” than I would like it to be. 

What I really want, is to “emerge” from some secret place and be “done.” Be all the way like Christ, to be less petty and selfish, less hurt by what other people think of my leadership or my parenting or of me, but it doesn’t work like that. My “butterfly soup” is on display whether I like it or not.

But there is this. 

I am slowly learning to embrace the mess as a necessary part of the process rather than an indication that the process is not working. Because while we do not get a chrysalis, there is a secret cocoon that holds our deepest selves before, during and after our transformation to be more and more like Jesus. And the cocoon is the love of Christ. 

Again, it’s Paul to the rescue.

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

Sometimes my unfinished self is in a terrible state and my transformation is a lot “soupier” than I’d like it to be. But when who I am is held by God, then perhaps I am less afraid to be unfinished before the eyes of others. When who I am is held by God, then I can rest, and help others rest even as we all stumble along towards transformation, however imperfectly. 

We are all at varying stages of readiness for whatever comes next in this Pandemic thing. But can we move forward with kindness, patience and maybe even a little bit of good humour? Can we follow the guidelines and respect public health advice and the comfort levels of friends and at the same time find some common ground to laugh together? Can we be butterfly soup in the confident hope that something better is on the way, both in the world and in our own souls? 

2 steps forward, 1 step back is still forward motion, after all. And butterfly soup isn’t finished cooking yet.

Transformation is messy and hard, friends, but more than worth it. So I’m in. 

Come with me?

February

The light returns first

and it wakes you

gently,

but then with more persistence

like rain

that starts so softly

but drenches you all the same.

The light returns first

But you

roll back over

in your bed

to block out what now illuminates

no

newly white blossom

nor

the blessed canopy of foliage

-all that dappled light!-

but only winter’s leftovers

freezer-burned,

half warmed over-

unpalatable!

And yet

even you,

who feign sleep with half-shut eyes

cannot deny

the long blue shadows reach for

something

beyond February’s afternoon

And you dare not speak it

though

your heart betrays you

in dreams

of green resurrection

Doing Nothing on Purpose| Sabbath in a Pandemic

I’m not some kind of super-spiritual person, I swear.

It’s true that I work as the Pastor of a small congregation and I’ve come to realize that people have certain perceptions of what that means. (ex, I’ve noticed is that people often apologize when they say a curse word in my presence, something I find highly amusing.)

And while I do have what I hope is a vibrant and sustaining Christian faith, I never want people to think that my brain isn’t full of the same stuff that fills the brains of most women in my life stage, during a global pandemic:

What’s for dinner? When was the last time the kids had a shower? How many snacks to they need, for crying out loud?! When is that bill due? Are my kids getting too much screen time? What can we even do besides screen time? Which car needs an oil change? Do we need oil changes when we don’t go anywhere? What about online learning? What about my pelvic floor? What about date night or climate change or Canada’s economic recovery!?!

You know. Same old.

So when I write one of my very sporatic blog posts and I use a fancy Hebrew word like Sabbath (Shabbat, I believe it is in Hebrew,) I’d really hate for you to get the wrong idea about me.

I didn’t decide to try out a new spiritual discipline during a global pandemic because I’m “spiritual.”

I did it to save my life.

This year, I did something I’d never done before. I took our two young sons, ages 6 and 4 on a vacation without my spouse. We went away to a cottage with friends for March Break. The boys did great, and the whole experience was lovely and full of friends and nature and Lego time.

But from the time we stopped at a nearby gas station to fill up our Santa FE before making the 5 hours journey home, everything changed. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that from the minute my I had cell reception and internet access again, the changes that had already happened in the world while I had been away began to catch up with me.

From that first gas station, my phone (blessedly silent for 5 days) was pinging and buzzing with all the energy of a toddler on a sugar high. Emails, conversation threads, questions that needed answers. As I drove along the highway I spoke (hands-free, of course) with a member of our board about all that was happening, and what we were going to do about it.

After I pulled in the driveway on Friday March 20, 2020, I kissed my husband and hurried off to the computer to write and read important emails to and from the dear folks in our congregation who, very appropriately, needed to know how our church was responding to this global emergency, and what supports and connections were in place for them during this time. How Sunday would look now? How anything would look now? We didn’t know.

All of the sudden school was closed. Daycare was closed. My spouse was laid off and I was “working from home,” as we both tried to navigate these new realities.

During my first week home, in the midst of all of these adjustments, we also found out that I was pregnant with our third child.

Now let me say that I know how much easier we had things than many people. We are not working “on the front lines,” we have each other to share the parenting, I am able to concentrate at work thanks to my husband’s good care of our boys during the day. We have things far easier than many people. I know that, and I’m grateful.

But even so, it was just… a lot.

From the time my boys and I pulled into that gas station and I turned on my mobile data, I felt “at work” all the time (not to be confused with being productive all the time).

My phone was always going off. Someone always had a question or a need. All of the sudden we were being forced into new areas of ministry and technology and the learning curve was steep. There always seemed to be a glitch with the tech or a gap in the communication, some people needed help to use these new online ways of staying connected, which after all the extra effort and patience required were destined to be better than nothing, but still nowhere near as good as the face-to-face we had lost. It was exhausting for all of us.

Over the past year, before the pandemic, I had been slowly learning what it means to pay attention to my own mental health, something I had mostly ignored for most of my life. Spiritual disciplines had been an important part of that journey for me, but Sabbath, the cessation of all work for one 24 hour period, was one I had not yet tried.

At first I thought it just wasn’t possible.

What young parent can have a whole day where they don’t do laundry or household chores or try to catch up on the work emails that didn’t get sent during the week because of having our kids at home with us all the time?! Isn’t that what we do? Isn’t that just the way of it? You go to “work” for 5 days (Sunday-Thursday for me) then you do all your domestic work on the other two days: paid work, unpaid work. It’s the North American Way.

But as the COVID-19 Pandemic took hold, and we all settled uneasily into “the new normal,” I realized that without some serious changes to my life, I wasn’t going to make it.

I was exhausted always, overwhelmed often, and intimidated by the need to be “a non-anxious presence” for my congregation. I wasn’t non-anxious. At least, not most of the time.

I was spending more time on screens than I was used to, and more time on social media which, for me, is a minefield of comparison. Some of us are tempted to compare whether we’re as good looking as others, some of us compare parenting, Me? I tend to compare blog posts, sermons, church websites and how “spiritual” I am compared with all the pastors from all corners of the internet.

Yes, I hear how ridiculous that all sounds. Yes. I hear the words of my own sermons coming back to haunt me. But when things are not ok in my head, comparison is the well-worn path my thoughts tend to tread.

Sabbath was a bit of a last ditch effort, a Hail Mary.

What would happen if for 24 hours, I gave myself permission to stop?

What would happen?

What’s the worst that could happen if I tried it?

What’s the worst that could happen if I didn’t?

I had been working my way through a helpful book at the cottage which had been gifted to me by a friend, The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero. In this book the author, himself a pastor, speaks candidly about how he learned to care for his own mental and emotional health, and nurture his own marriage and family while at the same time leading others. This is a tall order, and although he already knew it would require significant sacrifice, he admits to being wrong about who and what he should sacrifice- and the answers surprised him. And the answers are surprising me too.

One of the things he discusses about his own recovery is how his need to stop, rest and play was something he ignored for a long, long time. There was always more work to do, there was always a need to be addressed, an email to send. And besides, this was God’s work, right? How could he justify something as selfish as stopping, not just to recover enough strength to do it all over again, but stopping for the fun of it, to stop for delight?!

It was that word, I think, more than anything, that caught my attention, “delight.”

I’ve always been a serious person. It is not easy for me to relax or to play. ‘Ain’t nobody got time for that! There is always so much to do!

Every morning, when I open my eyes (and often before) the day comes roaring at me like a freight train of demands. Things my family needs, things our church needs, things that have been on the back burner in either of those arenas that we really should get to. As I write it out now, I guess we could call this “worry,” though I never thought of it this way. I just thought that’s how everybody’s days always started. I was always baffled by people who could “turn off” long enough for a nap, or to really enjoy themselves. I’ve been known to get annoyed at my husband for taking a nap on a Saturday.

But delight…the word drew me like a magnet. Delight, for its own sake, every single week!?! Delight that was not just permissible, but commanded by God!?!

⁸ Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

⁹ Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

¹⁰ But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Ex 20:8-11

I was intrigued. And I was very, very tired (hellooooo 1st trimester!)

So, after a few good conversations with my husband and a rearrangement of when we would get the household chores done…I decided to try it. 24 hours, no work. No laundry. No banking. No bills. No Grocery Shopping. No cleaning. No news or social media and all cell phone notifications turned off

(I should say that parenting is something I do not take a break from. If my kids spill something, I help them clean it up. When they need lunch, I make it, just so you’re not worried)

All the literature I had read about Shabbat indicated that more than being about the things you can’t or don’t do, it was mostly about not doing those things to make room for other things. For rest, for celebration, for play, for prayer.

Over the past 4 years, my family has learned a lot about this principle from the process of learning to keep to a budget. We budget not to restrict ourselves, but to create space and freedom for things that matter. So we eat out less (this was before the pandemic, of course) SO THAT we don’t have do deal with debt, so that car repairs don’t stress us anymore, so that we can give more money away to causes and charities doing work that matters to us.

It took some getting used to, but it wasn’t long at all before what initially seemed restrictive turned out to be FREEDOM! A $600.00 car repair bill I can pay for in cash with a shrug? Freedom! The flexibility to help out an overseas charity buy a new computer, because they’re affected by the pandemic too? Freedom!

And Sabbath, has proven the same.

For me, the most obvious difference is 24 hours where I give myself permission not to worry. Yes, there are things we need to address for the church, yes there are rooms in our house that need our attention. Yes, there is no shortage of work to be done, and all the news getting coverage still appears to be bad news, but on the Sabbath, I am allowed, even commanded by God, to just.stop.worrying.

You’d think (certainly I did) that after so long of worrying and fretting and “checking” on everything all the time, I might not even be capable of this kind of stopping anymore. But to my own surprise, I can do this. And I love to do it.

One thing I’ve been learning in my journey toward mental health, is to listen to my body.

While my brain and my words are so busy all the time convincing myself and others that it’s all good, my body calls my bluff every single time. When I lie awake in the night “planning,” when I wake up with a sore jaw from clenching tightly all night long. When I can’t exhale, can’t sleep, can’t sit down or stop thinking….that’s my body’s way of telling me that all is not well. The check engine light is on.

So while my mind fretted about this whole sabbath thing and whether or not it was ok, my body embraced it wholeheartedly, even without my brain’s permission! Like when you breathe in after a long time holding your breath. Like your first drink of water after a long, hot walk.

Yes. Yes. This is what we need. This is what we have been waiting for.

I love my work, and am grateful for it. It is an honour to serve our congregation and to learn from them. (caveat: many people in my congregation are way better at the whole mental health thing than me. I’m forunate to be able to learn from them)

But on my Sabbath, I don’t worry about being anyone’s Pastor. On the Sabbath, I’m just Erin. I’m a child of God.

On the Sabbath, when my 4 year old asks if I want to play Lego with him, I can say yes, without thinking about all the other things I “should” do instead. When our six year old wants to teach me how to play Minecraft, I can say yes. I have no plans. No agenda. No laundry.

When my husband kisses me on the Sabbath, I kiss him back in the uncomplicated way that is not so easy for me on other days.

On the Sabbath, I paint if I feel like it. Or I go for an unhurried walk. I soak up the sun on our back deck or spend time staring at flowers and trees just because they are beautiful.

On the Sabbath I remember the prayer I pray quietly to myself every morning:

“You are God, and I am not.”

But on the Sabbath I find I can more easily believe it.

One thing Sczarro says in The Emotionally Healthy Leader, is that practicing the sabbath is the single most important thing he does for his leadership.

I’m not sure yet whether this will hold true for me. But I know it’s the single most important thing I have done for my own mental and spiritual health, for my marriage and my relationships with my children and most importantly, for my relationship with God since the pandemic began. It is the single most important thing I’ve found that keeps me sane and helps me hold on to the truth that God, not me, keeps the world spinning on its axis day in, day out.

So no, I am not a super spiritual woman by my own standards. Nor am I super-human.

I’m human. And God is God. And that’s ok with me.

Held by an Unseen Love

The seminary where I studied some years back was and is, like most seminaries, connected with a particular denomination of churches here in Canada. 

While the student and faculty community was delightfully diverse, representing staff and students from many different parts of the Christian church, the denominational ties of the school lent a particular “flavour” to the teaching we received, and our overall experience. And sometimes, there were surprising perks of this connection too. 

Here’s one of my favourites.

The year I graduated, every single female graduate from my program received a beautiful homemade quilt pieced together by women from the denomination’s churches. The heart behind this lovely practice was women supporting women in ministry. 

The quilt graces my bed right now, warming my husband and I on these chilly April nights. In the corner, is a tiny patch cross-stitched with the name of the Church whose women made it for me: Highland Baptist, Kitchener Ontario: not 10 minutes’ drive from the church where I serve.

I have never had the opportunity to thank or even meet these women, yet each night I am warmed and held by their unseen love.

And in these strange, disorienting pandemic days, it’s making me wonder: who else’s love is holding me up, even now? 

If this pandemic has taught me anything so far it’s that we need one another more than we (or at least, more than I) ever dreamed.

We are connected to each other in deep and vital ways. We are connected to each other in ways we can’t always see, but that are literally life and death. The actions of others, hold us up. (Front line workers, we can’t say it enough, but THANK YOU!)

Whose love or prayers are holding you today? Who sent that text that encouraged you at just the right moment? Who volunteered to pray for you, then really did? Who asked how you were doing or dropped off groceries or left homemade cupcakes on your doorstep? 

Might you reach out and let them know it mattered?

And on the other side of it, who might you warm and hold with your love today this week, this month, even if they’ll never know? A text? An email? A phone call or video chat? Some homemade treats or a driveby birthday party, a monetary donation?

The Bible emphasizes a clear link between loving God, and loving others. Jesus said that of all the commandments, those two were paramount: Love God with all that you are, and in a similar way, love your neighbour as yourself.

While it might be possible to love other people without loving God, it is impossible to love God, without loving others.

God’s love gives, warms, holds. God’s love sacrifices for others without a glance at the cost.

10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

1 John 4:10

God’s love has nothing to do with what feels good for God. God’s love makes the first move, and acts on behalf of others who mostly won’t appreciate it. God’s love holds us up, whether we know it or not. 

Crises always simultaneously bring out our worst and our best. And like all crises that came before and all the ones that will come after, COVID-19 provides unique opportunities for love, and especially for love in those small, unseen, unappreciated ways. Phone a friend, send a text, write hope on the sidewalk or donate a little money. If you’re a frontline worker, keep on digging up the courage to go to work while the world is on pause.

If you’re like me, perhaps you wonder if the small acts of love amount to very much, in the end. 

But they do. They do. 

11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:11-12

Though what we ourselves do might be only one small stitch, it combines with the actions of others to bring warmth and comfort. And along with being a stitch in the quilt that keeps someone warm, who knows? Your small acts of kindness might end up revealing something of the kindness of God, the Ultimate Unseen Love who holds us all. 

We are isolated, but not alone. We are held by an Unseen Love.

Keep the Light On

Like many others, our kids (6 and 4), are sometimes a little bit afraid of the dark. And who can blame them?

In the dark, we can’t see very well.

In the dark, even things that are non-threatening or neutral during the day can become suddenly unfamiliar and strange. In the dark, we’re no longer sure of what we thought we knew just a few hours ago. Is that really just an old, dirty sweatshirt crumpled up in the corner, or is it a Monster? A vampire? A ghost?

And it’s not like it’s just kids who get scared of the dark. Was that noise really just the creaking house beams… or something worse? Was that the furnace clicking on, or maybe a break and enter?

In the daytime, no one makes these sorts of errors of judgement, but night is a whole other story.

But in our house, bedtime is a non-negotiable, so our kids suggested an easy and straightforward strategy: “Can you leave the hall light on?”

We still have bedtime, and their room is still plenty dark enough for sleep. But the little bit of extra light that sneaks in through the crack of their partially open bedroom always ends up being enough to chase away the nighttime worries.

With just a little light, it’s obvious that the sweatshirt in the corner is just laundry, that your dresser is where you left it, and that the thing that moved was a fly, or the wind or a precariously perched sock from your drawer.

When we leave the light on, it’s easier to remember that was was true during the daytime is still true at night.

Never in my life did I think I would live to see a Pandemic (none of us did). Sometimes I wake up, watch the news and feel like I’m living in the kind of scary movie my parents never let me to watch. “Pandemic” sounds surreal, but also terrifying- I keep picturing Will Smith “shopping” in a deserted grocery store in I am Legend.

Our schools, our work, our churches our relationships, none of it is business as usual. Our lives have been upended by something most of us never saw coming.

It’s dark out there.

But this is our world, and this is really happening, and we need to find a way to not to lose our grip. We need to find a way to remember what was true in the daytime is still true now, when everything looks dark and way forward seems unsure.

What does it look like to leave the light on in these uncertain times? What helps us remember what was and is still true?

I’m a visual person, so I find it helpful to surround myself with visual reminders about the ultimate realities of my life: that God is still God, and that God is still good. I do this with photographs of my friends and family, with art, with hanging verses of Scripture in places where I will see them. With houseplants that help me open to light and life.

Ancient Israel did this too, surrounded themselves with reminders of what was true and who they were.

Joshua had this to say to the people of Israel when they crossed over the Jordan into the promised land. It was a bright, sunny day for the God’s people, but Joshua must have known that eventually, night would fall, and when it did, the people would need a way to remember – so he left the light on:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NIV

How can we leave the light on for ourselves and for others in this strange time of social distance and self-isolation? How can we ground ourselves in what is still true about God, and about us, even now?

There are lots of great ideas out there. Here are a few of mine:

Phone a friend: hearing a friendly voice, even from the other side of a screen or a phone can go a long way help us remember. Ah yes, I might be isolated, but I’m not really alone.

Read & write the Scriptures: The COVID-19 situation changes daily, but God’s promises don’t. Read them, write them, hang them on your doorposts, if you like, or share them digitally with friends. God is still God, even in the dark.

Go for a walk: Practicing social distancing, of course. But if you are healthy, keep your distance from others, but go and get some sun! It helps. The sun still exists, even at night. Even now.

Know when social media helps…and when it doesn’t: There’s lots of good stuff on there, folks encouraging each other, churches and pastors live-streaming their sermons and services. Online can be a source of hope sometimes. But it can also be a source of anxiety, overwhelm and too much information. Know when it’s time to put down the phone and pick up a book.

Love your Neighbour: So many excellent ways to do this right now. Porch grocery drop-offs, window signs, texts and messages. Get creative. Reach out. Find ways to be together, even when you can’t.

Things look pretty dark out there, but the deep realities of God and love are still just as true as ever. Let’s find ways to leave the light on, for ourselves and for others.

The sun still exists

While I’m no regular to air travel, I have had the opportunity to fly on a plane a handful of times. I’ve flown often enough that I know what to expect, but not so often that the novelty has worn off. The experience of take-off always catches me off guard in the best possible way, and it’s always my favourite part.

A few times I’ve had the opportunity to travel somewhere warm with my extended family during the month of November and those take-offs are the most memorable.

November in Ontario always comes rolling out across the sky like a thick, grey blanket. Not a cozy blanket that keeps you warm, but a wet, heavy blanket that suffocates and that you can’t throw off. Our days are getting ever shorter, and yet that oppressive blanket of cloud makes what precious daylight we do have feel heavy, thick and thoroughly uninspiring. It’s no small wonder everybody always seems to be in a bad mood this time of year.

While I’ve always been a wait-until-Advent kind of girl when it comes to my Christmas decorations, I can see why people start putting their trees and lights up on November 12. November is heavy, dull and hard and we’re all looking for a way to ease the psychological burden of that. After a while, as Canadian winter sets in, you start wondering if the sun is even still up there under that thick, wet blanket…maybe we just made it up?

How I feel in November reminds me a little of one of the lesser known stories from C.S. Lewis’ beloved Chronicles of Narnia series, The Silver Chair.

In this book, Prince Rillian, the rightful heir to the throne of Narina, is taken captive by an evil witch to be her servant in an underground kingdom. Rillian’s captivity, is both physical and psychological, is maintained by means of a sliver chair. The sliver chair ensnares his mind, causing him to forget the truth about world of the surface and of his rightful place in it.

Rillian’s rescue is brought about by two children, Jill and Scrubb, who come to help him break free of his enchantment and see his situation for what it really is.

At one particularly dramatic moment in the story, the Prince is having a rare moment of clarity. With the help of the children, he has begun to remember. Yet, the prince’s lucidity is fragile thanks to his long service to the evil queen and his lengthy stay in the underworld. The children encourage him to destroy the silver chair and thus free his mind while the witch does all in her power to prevent this from happening.

One of the witch’s favourite tactics is confusion. Causing the Prince to doubt what he has seen, felt and remembered during his few moments of clarity: “it’s all been a dream,” is her refrain, “You saw the lamps burning and imagined something called a sun. There is no sun.”

But there is a sun, of course.

And it is Jill and Scrubb’s job to help Rillian hold on to this truth until they can take him to see the sun with his own eyes. The sun has been up there that whole time, that’s never been the problem. The problem is in Rillian’s perception. Rillian needs faith that will sustain him until he can break to the surface where he will (of course) see and experience the warmth and light of the sun for himself.

When it’s winter and that oppressive wet-blanket feeling threatens to undo me, I find it helpful to recall Prince Rillian’s experience of awakening and my own experiences of take-off. It’s so helpful for me to remember what it feels like to leave a dull runway under the thick, wet blanket to finally break free of the cloud cover and see, ah yes, the sun has really been here this whole time.

The sun still exists. The sun comes up every day, whether I can see it or not. The sun is the highest and most permanent level of reality. It’s the clouds that are temporary and don’t tell the whole story.

Rillian’s escape to freedom and my own attempt to cope with Canadian winter by calling to mind a sun I can’t see at the moment, all of that is a lot like the hope of Christian faith.

As a Christian, I believe that God’s Love is the creative energy behind the world, and the highest level of reality. That love is more permanent and more powerful than this present darkness, whatever that darkness looks like for me or others at any given time.

Today it’s the second Monday of Advent, and it’s another dull, oppressive winter day.

Today, like so many, I feel that wet blanket oppression of winter and the longing for light and goodness to break through. And even though it’s forecasted to rain all day, and even though I know it will get darker even before I’ve left work for the day, today… today I choose to hold on to this helpful physical and spiritual truth:

The sun still exits. Whether I can see it at this moment or not.

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1:1-5

“But How Can I be Sure?” Zechariah’s Story

The following is an edited version of the sermon I was set to preach on the first Sunday of Advent, Dec 1 2019. The service was cancelled due to an ice storm that blew across southwestern Ontario that morning. The text below has been modified slightly to accommodate a the medium of a blog post. Zechariah’s story moved me in the writing of this sermon. Perhaps it will move you in the reading as well. -Erin

………

Sometimes it’s funny how things end up working out, and it makes me wonder if maybe God had something to do with it.

One of my favourite parts about being a pastor is the research and the writing. Putting together the teaching plan for the year, along with the elders, is something I consider a sacred honour, and I really enjoy doing it. But like any major project in any job, it is a lot of work.

It was January or February when I was pulling together the teaching proposal for this season, including who would teach on all the Sundays from September to June. When I got to Advent, I remember thinking, “Hey, an Advent series on the minor characters of the Christmas Story might be fun and interesting.

That’s how I ended up writing a sermon on Zechariah. Nothing magical about it, really. I didn’t have any particular interest in him or affinity towards his story, he was John the Baptist’s dad, so that’s cool I guess.

Then I sat down to do the reading.

As I really dug into Zechariah’s story I began to catch a glimpse of a person who was more like me that I would have guessed.

I saw in Zechariah a law-abiding cynic, like me. Someone who wants to please God, and does all the right things to please God, but can’t quite bring himself to open his heart to God. Although he prays regularly, he can’t quite bring himself to believe that God would really answer his prayers.

Zechariah is the cynic of the Christmas story. He’s a lot like me. And maybe he’s a lot like you too.

Zechariah’s story begins like this:

5 In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah,who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah; his wife Elizabeth was also a descendant of Aaron.
Luke 1:5

In this verse, Luke is setting the stage for his telling of the Jesus story, and what we can see even in this first sentence, is that things haven’t gone according to plan for the people of God.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

The Israelites understood themselves as occupying a special place in the heart of God. They longed to be an independent nation, with a land of their own, self-governing and independent according to the promises God had made to their ancestor Abraham.

But here, in the early years of the 1st century, they’re not. They’ve been exiled and scattered. Herod is king, and his understanding of what that means is certainly not “under God” in the way the Jews were hoping for.

The construction of the Temple was a great moment for the nation of Israel during its golden age, built by King Solomon, the son of the much beloved King David and a powerful symbol that God really was among them in an intimate and permanent way.

But the temple Luke is describing here is not that temple. It’s the second temple.

Solomon’s temple, the first one, was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC and many of the Israelites were taken into exile as well. This was a time of disillusionment and disorientation for the people of Israel. Had God abandoned them? What about God’s promise to Abraham, or to David?

When the exile was over, many Israelites returned to the land that had once been theirs. A group of these returning exiles constructed a fairly modest temple structure in Jerusalem intended to replace the one that had been destroyed. But it was Herod the Great, the Roman king of Judea who poured the money into the massive undertaking of restoring the temple to a version of its former glory.

Just try to think about the absurdity and insult of it: a pegan king constructing a holy place for God! And building project intended to bolster his own reputation rather than to give glory to the God he himself did not worship.

And this is exactly where our story begins.

Luke is carefully setting up the power structures of this moment in history. The cultural backdrop into which God’s Messiah would be born. And the power does not lie with Jewish people or in the Jewish laws and customs, but with Rome “In the time of Herod the king there was a priest named Zechariah.”

Yet even in the face of so much disappointment, there are some who have remained faithful to YHWH, and Zechariah is one of them.

6 Both [Zechariah and Elizabeth] were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly. 7 But they were childless because Elizabeth was not able to conceive, and they were both very old.

Luke 1:6-7

R.T. France points out that we often have this picture of Judaism as being corrupt in the time of Jesus, but here Luke is showing us two ordinary people who are seeking to honour God in their daily lives and observing their traditional customs.

Zechariah is a priest of God and both he and Elizabeth are living, in line with God’s instructions to his people, to the best of their abilities.
But there is sorrow in their lives because they have no children.

By pointing out the moral uprightness of both Zechariah and Elizabeth as well as their submission to the Law of Moses, Luke is showing us that contrary to popular Jewish thought at the time, this couple’s childless situation is not the result of disobedience or sin.

Zechariah (and Elizabeth too) was living a carefully constructed, righteous life, choosing to remain faithful to God in spite of the long years of infertility they had experienced.

But long seasons of suffering wear on us after a while, don’t they? They might even change the way we pray. After a long season of getting a “no” from God, maybe we stop expecting a “yes,” or expecting any answer at all.
Prolonged suffering certainly has that effect on me.

When prayers go unanswered, I am tempted to stop praying, or at the very least to stop meaning prayers I don’t really expect God to answer. I guess we could say I emotionally disengage. I keep God at arms length.

I heard a Spiritual Director speak this week and she said that sometimes it’s easier to pray “Your will be done, God,” than to pray for what you really want. I find that, definitely. Expressing the yearning and deep desires of my heart feels just too vulnerable so instead I don’t hope for much, and I pray “Your will be done.” Maybe that was Zechariah’s story too?

But still.  Zechariah is a faithful priest of God and if he was feeling discouraged, he doesn’t let those feelings get in the way of his work. My kind of guy. Then one day, Zechariah gets the opportunity of a lifetime:

8 Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, 9 he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. 10 And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside.
Luke 1:8-10 

Here’s how that worked:

Judaism in the 1st century had thousands of priests, and those priests were divided into 24 divisions. Each division had only 2 weeks of temple duty per year. And when a certain division was on duty, lots would be cast (a practice similar to rolling a dice) to decide who would have the special honor of entering the holy place to offer incense before God. A priest would only be eligible to offer incense once in his lifetime.

This was Zechariah’s big moment. Probably from his perspective, as good was likely to get.

But Zechariah’s big moment is turned upside down.

11 Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. 12 When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear. 13 But the angel said to him: “Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John.

14 He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.

16 He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. 17 And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Luke 1:11-16

How do you handle it, if the thing you’ve been praying for, for a long, long time actually happens?

I’m not talking about what I’m going to call “regular” prayers. Like, praying for a positive outcome from a test or a job interview, praying that a cold or stomach flu will be short-lived. Not like that. I mean the desperate, 3 o’clock in the morning, completely impossible except for the intervention of God, sort of prayer.

I think these are the kinds of prayers that even people who say they don’t believe in God, find themselves praying, almost against their will. These kinds of prayers make us human.

But these sorts of prayers can also wear us down. They hurt so much that we might try to insulate ourselves from the disappointment having that desperate 3 am prayer remain unanswered. We try to stop hoping, and often we succeed. Zechariah does.

Imagine the scene with me. Here’s Zechariah having the most important day of his life, a chance to offer incense at the temple, completely disrupted by an angel- so real and so terrifying that he has to say the thing angles always always have to say in the Bible, “Don’t be afraid,” the assumed next part of that sentence being, “Don’t worry, you’re not going to die.”

So the angel shows up right there in the temple. And you’d think that the physical presence of a terrifying celestial being would have been enough to convince Zechariah that whatever that angel said must be the truth, but not so!

18 Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”
Luke 1:18

Even though Zechariah obviously thinks the angel real enough to be terrified of him, he still kind of treats the heavenly messenger like he’s a scam artist interrupting dinner.

Ok. So I’ve won an all-expenses paid trip to Honolulu…riiiight.

I have so much sympathy for Zechariah here. His response to the angel is the kind of thing you say after a long time protecting your own heart from the disappointment of getting your hopes up.

“A baby!? Now!?! When we’re both so old and we stopped “trying” or even hoping a long time ago?” And even more than that, “Elijah? The one who will usher in a new age of salvation for my people? Now!?! When I’m standing in a temple built by a pagan king?” Ha!

But the angel has reached the end of his patience.

19 The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. 20 And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.”
Luke 1:19-20

Zechariah is the cynic of the Christmas story, and here’s what I love about him. First, he’s a cynic, but he’s nothing like Ebenezer Scrooge. He’s a man of faith. He lives a righteous life before God, as does his wife Elizabeth. Luke tells us so. What I love about Zechariah, the cynic of the Christmas story, is that he’s in the Christmas story.

God’s faithfulness, turns out to be bigger than Zechariah’s cynicism. The angel tells Zechariah that his words will come true in spite of how slow the old, jaded priest is to accept them. And they do.

Now Zechariah’s disbelief does have some consequences. He is struck mute from the time of this announcement until after the child the angel had promised has been born. One author I read in preparation for this sermon suggests that maybe Zechariah’s inability to speak was as much a gift as it was a punishment, providing him with the opportunity to watch this miraculous thing unfold before his eyes, without his own commentary to get in the way.

What I love about Zechariah’s place in the story of Christmas is that the goodness of God and the faithfulness of God wins the day over against human cynicism.

And I don’t know if this is true of all cynics, but it’s certainly true of me: I want the goodness and faithfulness of God to win. I long to encounter a God who is bigger than my own self-protection. Whose Great Rescue Plan is more wonderful than any hopes I’ve tried to insulate myself from having. And here’s where Zechariah deserves some credit, and where maybe the cynics among us can take a lesson or two. Zechariah is willing to be wrong.

We can only imagine what was going on in Zechariah’s head over the next 9 months. As he watched Elizabeth’s belly grow, month by month. What went on his mind as this was happening? We can only guess. How did he interpret the news of his young, unmarried relative, Mary and her own miraculous pregnancy? We don’t know.

But while something miraculous was happening in Elizabeth’s womb, something miraculous was also happening in Zechariah’s heart.

Later in Luke we hear how Zechariah names his son John in obedience to what the angel had told him, and this act of obedience, of willingness to be proved wrong by the goodness of God, is what restores his ability to speak.

And the first thing Zechariah says out loud is a song of praise to God:

64 Immediately [Zechariah’s] mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
Luke 1:64

68“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
69 He has raised up a horn[c] of salvation for us
in the house of his servant David…

76 And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the knowledge of salvation
through the forgiveness of their sins,
78 because of the tender mercy of our God,
by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
79 to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Luke 1:68-79

Zechariah’s part in the Christmas story is good news for those of us who are plagued by cynicism. If we find it hard to believe, like Zechariah did, that God could possibly be as good as hope, or as good as we dare not hope, then this old new dad can offer us some reassurance. There’s room for us in the story, and God’s goodness really is more powerful than our ability to doubt it.

But for the cynics among us, Zechariah also offers some guidance: be willing to be wrong. Come with your doubts, but hold them loosely. Be willing to admit it, if and when your doubts are (inevitably) outdone by the Mercy of God.

September

The world stands just a little

taller

this late in the year. The

gold dust of light and leaf straightens

her back as she moves

now

with a dignified grace

that only comes by

suffering.

Only comes by the deep rooted

hope

of having survived

survived

survived- both

winter’s death and

spring’s resurrection.

She knows the frost will

bow her lovely head- but not yet.

Today

maple, ash and sumac smile,

knowingly

September: the crown of a life

well-lived