FEAST ONE: Spent the morning listening to Mike Frost [no relation] at an event sponsored by Parish Collective and Forge Canada. Good food for the soul talking about a theology of place. My favorite metaphor: a community of people who are followers of Jesus are a movie trailer for the Kingdom. We create places of love and justice as a foretaste of the kingdom. Based on the movie trailers we create, would people want to go see the movie? Favorite snippet: Maybe the church confuses friendliness for friends.
FEAST TWO: This was an actual feast, in Surrey, of all places. Went to a great brew pub after the day's events. This is the only picture I have, (That's Dwight Freisen and Cam Roxburgh) I was kind of in the moment enjoying my stout and not documenting. Had a good chat with Mark Votava, Mike Frost, Tim Soerens and his wife Maria-Jose. There were 13 of us in all, so pretty spread out. You know how it is Paul. Next time brother, we will talk Ellul.
FEAST FOUR: Rev. Mary Fontaine of Hummingbird Ministries was our guest at Mosaic. She and two friends sang songs and conducted a sharing circle with us. We all felt such a connection to these sisters and their heart for reconcilliation and peace.
Ruth, the woman closest to the camera in the picture above, is from the local Musqeam band. For thousands of years, the Musqeam people lived and flourished on the land that is now the city of Vancouver. To open our evening Ruth sang a song of welcome on behalf of the Musqeam people, welcoming us to this land and inviting us into their circle of friendship. This welcome song had a profound and equally unexpected impact on me. I am the very picture of dominant hegemony; white, middle class, male. Despite being demographically at the centre of our culture's attention, I am affected by a rootlessness that many urban dwellers experience. I have no tangible connection to my mish-mash of national ties a couple of generations back. There is much to love in the shiny garden of Vancouver, but for many of us our roots aren't deep. These women from the margins—women at the very edge of our culture's attention who have experienced all kinds of ugly and systemic discrimination—have rediscovered a deep connection to the narrative of this place. And what is their response to discovering their rootedness, their narrative, their community, their place? They invite me into that narrative with them. Tears well up thinking about it now. For this somewhat rootless soul it was such a warm embrace. A little piece of me felt "I've been welcomed, I really belong here now." and that was way more important than I ever would have thought it was.
Here's some liturgy for you all. I recorded it on my iPhone, so the sound quality isn't great, but the quality of spirit is awesome:
Rowan sang the Woman Warrior song to our sisters, thanking them for coming and visiting us.
Our sisters sang Amazing Grace in Cree for us and then we all joined in in English. Mary talked about how special it was to sing this song in her native language of Cree. Not too long ago her language was forbidden, outlawed. What an amazing gift that this language, this way of seeing the world, this way of understanding the Creator, the Father, Son and Spirit hasn't been lost. What a testament to courage that faithful ones have persevered and retained this piece of our common humanity.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment