Nov 22 | Cover Wednesday!

Hey y’all! Sorry this week’s Resistance Lectionary post is late. You get a video instead!

Nov 19 | Resistance Lectionary Part 21: Turn, turn, turn

Today’s Citation: Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, 3:1-8

The Book of Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth in Hebrew) is one we don’t normally get to hear from in the course of the regular lectionary years, although there is definitely a generation who cannot hear the latter set of verses without also hearing the musical setting penned by the Byrds in 1965. This book, which is otherwise relatively unknown among the general population, had a profound impact on Western literature, with its praises being sung by the American novelist Thomas Wolfe as “the greatest single piece of writing” he had ever known.

Ecclesiastes is a grouchy yet refreshingly honest text in which the constant refrain is “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.” Far from encouraging the believer to deny herself in order to secure a place in heaven, the teacher claims that satisfaction and joy is to be found in the everyday triumphs and struggles of life. God gives us the gift of happiness today, and while happiness will never be constant and unchanging in this life, that is part of the cycle of life as we have received it.

Not a bad message in a world that has been almost constantly afire with end-times prophecy and obsession with what will come after. Christianity is a particularly egregious offender, always concerned with the return of Christ and the smug self-righteous certainty of those who are convinced they will be carried up like poor Lazarus rather than left behind like rich Dives.

There is another rather profound message in this particular passage, one which assures us that all things occur in their own time. Our culture is quite preoccupied with stability and stasis, claiming that happiness, wealth, personal convictions, and traditions must be held onto by any means necessary in an ever-changing world. To allow oneself to change one’s mind, to choose less for one’s own health, and to throw out that which is no longer life-giving is so often seen as “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” or “flip-flopping.” Ecclesiastes might not go so far as to say, “Adapt or die,” but does remind us that we don’t need to invite change, but should prepare for its arrival. This message seems particularly timely in an era where we are called to decide how we are going to respond to fascists, the violent, and the hateful.

Is there truly a time to kill? Literally, who knows? But figuratively, we do know that there are times of reaping and culling in our lives, and that only when we manage to pick up our scythes and plowshares will we be able to encourage new growth.

Nov 15 | Beautiful Broken World, Part 3 (Letters from the Coast)

This is the final entry in a three-part series about my feelings on medical assistance in dying. For Part 1, click here. For Part 2, click here.

PART III: EMBRACING OUR WOUNDS

I think again of Mary, who has already endured so much hardship in her life and is now watching older and sicker people die around her and feels nothing but envy.

Her tears are heartbreaking, and yet I would love to tell her that life is still worth living in a wheelchair, still worth living when you can’t speak, still worth living even when you need help to do the things you once did with ease.

I can’t do that. I can’t name her experience, can’t push her to accept something that for me is entirely theoretical, rather than lived. I can’t know her pain because I’ve never experienced it.

My life belongs to God, but I choose that. And yet how do I know I would be able to still hold onto that choice when I have never experienced that kind of significant illness, when I’ve never even broken a damn bone?

And then again I think of indigenous gatherings I’ve attended where it is simply expected, without question, that the young and able-bodied should step back to allow the elders to sit, should allow them to come closer so they can see what’s going on, should move them to the front of lines, should listen to the things they say even if it takes a long time to get the words out.

I think of cultures where offering a person with grey hair a seat on the bus never causes a flicker of irritation to pass across their faces. I think of cultures where the word “elder” is not a dirty word, where you can refer to someone as an elder and not have them take it personally, like white people (and especially white women) almost invariably do, because Western culture despises the old and the old know it – again, especially women, who become invisible when they are old.

Dignity is different for everyone, and yet I think too often we allow the narrative to be driven by those who are always in charge of the narrative.

Ultimately only the ill and the disabled should be leading this conversation.

For me, a temporarily (it’s always only temporary) able-bodied young person, the conversation is far too murky. There are too many things about which I am ignorant.

Oddly enough, I found the passing of the legislation to be a blessing.

The conversation is closed. It’s legal, and it’s unlikely to be rolled back. I’m under no illusions that the church in Canada (and particularly in BC) will be able to change the government’s mind.

Frankly, even if I was certain that I thought it was a sin, I’d still think allowing people to choose their time of death under a set of strict guidelines would be one of the lesser sins we allow as a country.

My job is now only to walk alongside those who may choose the option. Colleagues have already shared with me that they’ve not only been asked to discuss it with parishioners, but asked to be present when death occurs.

In my heart, I dread that possibility, because while I feel deeply uncomfortable with the whole thing, I don’t know that I would be able to refuse such a request.

Maybe that tells me all I need to know about where my heart lies.

Nov 12 | Resistance Lectionary Part 20: Letters from Prison

Today’s Citation: Philippians 1:12-20

I first began to question the carceral system a few years ago reading The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America by Mark Lewis Taylor. In this timely book, Taylor examines the shifting of society into a mass carceral state, and questions the support for capital punishment held by many Fundamentalist and Evangelical Christians.

His was the first piece to introduce me to prison abolition, and at first I was shocked by the idea. Of course I thought prisons were overstuffed, but if there aren’t any prisons at all what kind of a society would that be?

Over time, I learned more about the efficacy of prisons as they currently exist in North America, and my mind has changed.

I won’t get into the politics of abolition here, but one thing that has become clear to me is that prisons are less tools for the safety of the people and more tools for the state to exercise its will.

In April of 1963, the Rev’d Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”:

“I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. …I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Over many years the story of Dr. King has been domesticated until it became unclear what he could have said that would ever have spurred someone to murder him. We forget that while he was alive, the white majority was at best deeply ambivalent about his message and methods, and more often than not derided him for being a hostile “agitator.”

No-one gets thrown into prison for saying things little kids are taught in kindergarten (Be nice, share your things, etc.)

In this way, both Dr. King and Paul remind us that while prison is a tool of the oppressor, it can also be a sort of blessing, in that it reminds everyone that the Gospel of God’s radical boundary-breaking love must not be domesticated. Empire will always push back against a God that mocks the rule of violent law, and those who proclaim that God will be punished for not falling in line.

Christians are called to question everything that is a tool of the Empire, for Empire is most concerned about the gathering and maintenance of power, which will always in the end lead to idolatry.

We’ll end today’s reflection with one of the Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s prison poems:

Christians and Pagans[1]

People turn to God when they’re in need,
plead for help, contentment, and for bread,
for rescue from their sickness, guilt, and death.
They all do so, both Christian and pagan.

People turn to God in God’s own need,
and find God poor, degraded, without roof or bread,
see God devoured by sin, weakness, and death.
Christians stand with God to share God’s pain.

God turns to all people in their need,
nourishes body and soul with God’s own bread,
takes up the cross for Christians and pagans, both,
and in forgiving both, is slain.

[1] Translated in A Testament to Freedom: The Essential Writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (eds GB Kelly and FB Nelson (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1990), p. 549.

Nov 08 | Beautiful Broken World, Part 2 (Letters from the Coast)

This is the second in a three-part series about my feelings on medical assistance in dying. For Part 1, click here.

PART II: DIGNITY

Over the last two years, I’ve heard dear friends tell precious stories of the relief and peace that permeated the room when a beloved was finally helped across the threshold.

Strong and brave people suffering from the terrible thievery of diseases like MS have spoken out demanding the right to take ownership of their own lives, their own narrative, their own struggle.

And yet I am always drawn back to Rose, who is in so many ways utterly dependent on the people around her, and does not wear that as though it is shameful.

I am always drawn back to the terrible history of institutionalization, forced sterilization, and daily struggles of those who are disabled less by their conditions than by society’s reaction to those conditions.

I am always drawn back to the deeply problematic portrayals of the disabled in media, always drawn back to the fetishistic way that many children with disabilities are talked about by society or even their own parents, always drawn back to anti-vaxxers who would rather have a kid dead of measles than a living kid with autism, always drawn back to the horrific sympathy present in society when a parent murders a disabled child to “spare them from suffering.”

We are robbed of that child’s voice, that child’s story. Instead they become an object, a problem, rather than a person.

The word that gets thrown around most often (in my experience most often by able-bodied hale and hearty Baby Boomers considering a long decline in a deathphobic and ageist elder-hating culture of capitalistic slavery) is “dignity.”

But what does dignity look like?

Is dignity about taking charge of your own life, about making a choice to bypass the horrors of a disease that steals, that burns, that swallows you up until you can’t eat, or breathe, or be remembered as you once were?

Is it about sparing others exhaustion and the endless erosion of anticipatory grief?

Is it about refusing pain as though it were unnatural, about pulling the plug before you are forced to come to terms with your own frailty and dependence, forced to confront a sick society where the old and infirm, having been milked dry during their working years, are now spat out to make way for fresh young things to chew up and spit out in turn?

Is it about ending things before you can’t wipe your own ass? That specific situation comes up so often in these conversations.

Rose needs bathroom help, and always has. She can’t walk or feed herself.

Does she not have dignity?

Nov 05 | Resistance Lectionary Part 19: Her Fair Share

Today’s citation: Numbers 27:1-8

Despite what so many folks believe (or are led to believe), Christianity has always had a complicated relationship with women, and this is specifically due to the odd relationship the Bible has with women. While self-proclaimed guardians of culture love to argue that “the Bible is very clear,” this is rarely the case, and never more so than with this “issue” (as if concerns relevant to half the human population are “issues”).

The Hebrew Bible itself has plenty of examples of wise, crafty women who are rewarded for their craftiness, some of whom we’ve learned about in this lectionary. It also, in some places, has some pretty problematic portrayals and stories about women, many of which, it should be noted, do not feature God at all, for what it’s worth. Surprisingly enough, however, the Gospels in our canon have a far less complicated view of women, either seeming unconcerned with them or featuring them as beloved, healed and saved, or even first Apostles in their own right, like the women at the tomb. It is only when we get into the epistles that behaviour codes are imposed upon women, and that’s a whole other entry.

Source: Wikipedia

Here, we are given a gloriously unequivocal moment of support from God. After a census of those survivors from Egypt, Moses is able to decide on inheritance procedures for the next generation. As he is beginning this work, the brave daughters of Zelophehad come before the entire assembly, surely no easy feat, and demand their rights. Moses, rather than laughing them off, takes them seriously – so seriously, in fact, that he takes the case before God rather than a court or group of elders. God easily affirms their petition, and instructs Moses to enshrine this into law.

This will be the new law of the land for the People of God, freed from slavery and living into their new identity.

Our prayer is that all of us should take the petitions of the oppressed as seriously as Moses, and should respond as quickly and wholeheartedly as God.

Nov 01 | Beautiful Broken World, Part 1 (Letters from the Coast)

This is another multi-part entry, this time on a murkier topic: MAID, or medical assistance in dying.

I’ve found that as I deepened in my faith, my trust in absolutes became more tenuous, and I was shocked to find my attitudes about both abortion and MAID became more complicated than they were before.

Disclaimer: I consider myself pro-choice, would never support an overturning of the right to abortion, and wholeheartedly support the offering and government subsidization of sexual education and contraception.

I am also not doing any political or religious advocacy to overturn the decision on MAID, and I absolutely do not believe that God punishes those who make that choice. I also believe in offering non-judgemental pastoral care to those who choose it.

But still, I struggle with the question of who owns life, when it begins, and who has the right to choose it or refuse it.

PART I: IN GOD’S IMAGE

The first time I met Rose (not her real name), I was mostly just impressed with my colleague’s easy way with her. Like a lot of folks I had not yet fully considered that a nonverbal person in a wheelchair could have an easily discernible character.

I was so wrong, about everything.

For one thing, Rose wasn’t ever really nonverbal. She laughed – a loud, high, delightful sound of pure joy. And she could say “Yeah,” and, most poignantly, “Amen.” She could also speak through a special computer system which she controlled through Morse code, tapping at sensors set up on either side of her head. She used it fairly rarely however, because it was easier for people to give her a hug when it wasn’t attached to her chair.

She also emailed me sometimes, and those emails revealed a person who was incredibly devout and kind. She worked hard to be an advocate for people with disabilities. She had many challenges, and many health issues that came up regularly, but that’s why she loved what she called “church family,” and all of them loved her.

Years later, I met Mary (also not her real name). Mary also moved with the help of a wheelchair, but had been able-bodied before. She had other health issues related to aging, the last few thorns of a bramble-choked life of pain and sorrow. She was beginning to find life unbearable, but was still young and healthy enough that she could see herself becoming weaker. Feelings and desires were rising up for her that she had never before experienced, and she didn’t know how to handle them in these last few twilight hours of her life. She talked to me extensively, through angry, despairing tears, about her difficult relationship with God, whom she felt was laughing at her.

In 2016 it became legal in Canada to seek Medical Assistance in Dying, which meant it became possible, under a set of strict rules, to ask for and receive help from a physician to die.

The Anglican Church of Canada wrote a paper called “In Sure and Certain Hope: Resources to assist pastoral and theological approaches to Physician Assisted Dying” which explored the issue extensively. At a Diocesan Clergy Day during that year we all talked about it and explored the document. I was proud to witness so much diversity of opinion among my colleagues. Many of us had very complicated feelings.

What moved me most, though, were the stories of death, and in a room full of clergy, there are always many. We all spoke with gravitas and gratitude about our experiences being invited into families’ private stories of grief. We mused that we saw things, sacred moments that many folks do not get to witness in their daily lives. I myself had only just witnessed someone die a few weeks before. A few of us pledged to work toward a coordinated effort to support each other as professionals who are so often privy to these beautiful but heavily weighted moments.

The year before, the parish where I did my curacy hosted a panel discussion for the neighbourhood on Medical Assistance in Dying (which at that point was still being referred to as “Physician-assisted suicide”). We had religious and medical professionals talk about the ethics and the pastoral and spiritual implications. When we opened up the mic to the crowd, a veterinarian in the audience shared, with great dignity, that she and her colleagues were waiting to be consulted by people on the matter, as they had been trafficking in this gentle ferrying of souls from bodies for decades.

There were no patients or candidates for the procedure on the panel.

There were no disabled people either.

Nov 01 | Happy Halloween! (Part 2)

Nov 01 | Happy Halloween! (Part 1)

Oct 29 | Resistance Lectionary Part 18: Rest in Power

Today’s citation: Wisdom 3:1-8

Over the last few years as the police executions of black people have gained more media attention, the phrase “Rest in power” has risen in prominence as well.

Exploring the genesis of this phrase is tricky, but most sources I found claimed that it was becoming widely used in the hip hop scene of the ‘80s. It is most obviously a challenge to the phrase “Rest in peace,” which implies that the souls of the departed attain peace in the afterlife, resting from their labours on earth. This notion is supported by the passage we read today, as Christians prepare for the feasts of All Saints and All Souls.

“Rest in power” can most often be found in the unjust and untimely deaths of marginalized groups and/or activists who perish due to violence directed at them for their status or positions. It has been used in reference to Trayvon Martin, Malcolm X, Leelah Alcorn, and Heather Heyer. Several of the sources I explored suggested that it was an “ultra-left” phrase that implied that such deaths were “in power” because they continued to exert influence through the social movements surrounding them.

Naming this phrase as “ultra-left” seems short-sighted. The idea that the dead can still influence the living is an ancient belief that cannot be labeled politically as such. Our earliest forebears practiced ancestor worship, and many cultures continue to do so. One could even make an argument that veneration of the saints is a form of ancestor worship, and the parallels are made pretty clear in syncretistic faiths like Santería. Looking at this phrase through the lens of the saints proves to us that whether we believe in the worship of ancestors or not, it is foolish to suggest that a dead person has no ability to influence the living. To say “Rest in power” is one way to pray for this influence to continue.

“Rest in power” is also a way to name the circumstances in which the person died. It can imply that there will be no peace for the dead until the injustice which led to the death is rectified. This, too, is a powerful type of prayer, a prayer that in a way reflects the image of souls “running like sparks through the stubble” of our world.

This All Saints’ Day, we pray for both peace and power, for love and justice, for the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant, knowing that each one of us will one day enter into the loving arms of God.