Still Rising

I thought that I would never see
another cake with candles three.
That year my Mummy never guessed
that I would rise before she dressed,
before the sun announced the day
when I got out of bed to play.

I think that life remains quite fair
without my early rising flair.
I still can walk without a cane,
and intimately live with ...
  acetaminophen.
Such poems are made by fools like me
who still arise at eighty-three.

Eclipse Day

 The dawn before eclipse day, I was anticipating a miracle. The eclipse is both predictable and amazing, a spectacle for both the scientist and the poet.

The prelude to this note was one of those nights when Broca's area and Wernicke's area of the cerebral cortex had a party while the rest of the brain was busy cleaning up the mess in there. For some reason the restless mind dredged up a strange word and ruminated on it until morning. By the time breakfast was over I had almost forgotten it. Let's see; was it thu... or maybe thau...? I didn't know the rest. Maybe it was thunbergia, which is Black Eyed Susan Vine. I knew that from my time working at the greenhouse. That didn't feel right, so I Googled thau, and while I was typing, thaumaturgy popped up as a suggestion. Right. Thaumaturgy. That was it! I recognized the sound of it but had no idea what it meant. Wikipedia helped out with the answer; thaumaturgy is about magic, wonders, miracles.

The rational, analytical mind is aware that the world does things a certain way. It doesn't disobey its own rules. Even it's unpredictability is predictable. In Lotto 649, for example, your chance of winning the jackpot is one in 13,983,816 (that's mathematics) but it seems like you have better luck if the number you play is your lover's birthday. That's thaumaturgy. If you buy a ticket, the chance of losing $3 is 100% regardless of how you choose the number. If you don't play the lottery, you have saved almost enough for bus fare to get to the dentist. You'll have to shell out another $3.25 to get home again. That's mathematics, and it isn't as much fun as playing the lottery with a magic number. That's why we prefer thaumaturgy.

So let's play the lottery. In 2023-24, the Ontario lottery and gaming commission OLG will earn a projected net profit for the year of $2.6 billion. Gambling is actually a tax on thaumaturgy, and as long as the money keeps coming in, the government isn't going to explain what they're up to. The premier couldn't pronounce thaumaturgy anyway.

Thaumaturgy is incredibly popular even though most people have never heard of it. Ask Google "how to get a miracle". It will return ten links followed by a button labelled [More Results] which gets another ten, and so on until you get tired of more results. If you click one of those links, you will get a lot of inspirational advice followed by the [Donate] button. The urge to donate is thaumaturgy. Spoiler: there is nobody handing out miracles to those who pay up.

That scam goes back thousands of years. Way back when, because nobody knew how things worked or how to fix them, a miracle was the only hope of getting an advantage over unpleasant circumstances. As a result, there were itinerant thaumaturgists living off people who were looking for miracles. Since then, we have science. Thaumaturgy has morphed into the last hope for those who don't trust science. Believers in nonscience (there are many) will pay pet psychics to tell them why Rover is off his kibble. If Rover gets his appetite back, the psychic gets the credit. If not, Rover's owner gets the blame. Either way the psychic gets rich.

I confess, I've been poking fun at magic and miracles. I suspect there are good reasons for thaumaturgy, since the mind takes to it so readily. Einstein explained our options: “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert's cerebral cortex was more interesting than mine. He was aware that the world does things a certain way, and thought of that as a miracle. "Everything is a miracle" says it all.

The sky was cloudy until the moon took its first bite of the sun right on schedule. In a few minutes the clouds moved on and we got to see it all. It was a miracle, no thaumaturgy required. What are the odds of that?

*************
Understanding how things work
is a miracle.
Knowing there is something more to be understood
is a miracle.
We poet-scientists are unlikely winners
of countless improbable lotteries
in the long story of being and becoming.
Enjoy the miracle.

**************
Pet psychics and the eclipse: CBC News

Bogus DNA Paternity Tests (Thaumaturgy dressed up as science): Jorge Barrera and Rachel Houlihan, CBC News

Kite Tales

I took a good look at the walnut tree in the park yesterday. The kite was still there. We saw it get stuck there a few days ago when we were out for a walk. I was thinking 'that kite is too close to that tree', and soon there was a little person sobbing because the kite was stuck. This tale has a moral: have fun, but avoid trouble when you can.

I have learned my own lessons from kites over the past 83 years. At my fourth birthday party, a bunch of us went across the road from Gram's place to fly my new kite in a vacant lot. The wind was weak that day. We got the kite launched, but when it came down snagging the string in the long grass, I was in despair. My birthday was ruined. Fortunately, I was with a bunch of older kids who wanted me to stop crying. They untangled the string and we got the kite up again. Moral: life is predictably unpredictable, and things go better when you are with competent friends who care about you.

I grew up but never grew out of flying kites. One day some neighbourhood kids got in on the fun, taking turns with my kite. A little girl had hold of the string when a gust of wind drove the kite into the ground breaking a strut. No worries, no tears. I had learned to keep spare hardwood dowel in the shed for repairs. Moral: things will break; be prepared to fix them.

When Dad was ill, dying of cancer, I had no idea what to get for his birthday so I gave him a kite to remind him of carefree days gone by. Of course, he never flew it. After he passed, Mum returned the kite to me. Many days I held the string looking up into the infinite blue thinking of Dad. One day the string broke and the kite departed alone. There is probably a moral there about good things coming to an end or something equally difficult to contemplate.

The replacement kite is once again waiting for spring in the garage. Made to look like a hawk flapping its wings, it is small and light, so it won't break the string. It has flexible, synthetic struts that have survived many crashes. The grandkids are impressed.

Maybe great-grandkids someday. Moral: leave the kids a world in which they can fly a kite.

I could weave these tales into a metaphor for other things we enjoy and how we manage the trouble that comes with them making improvements when we can, but this note is already over 400 words, so I leave that task to you.

********************

Europe is Cooking At Double Speed: Just Have a Think

Energy Wars: EnergyPost

China's Clean Tech Boom: CBC News, What on Earth

Losing the Amazon Rain Forest: CBC News, Susan Ormiston

Two Billion Trees: CBC News, Christian Paas-Lang

Carbon Pricing: David Suzuki Foundation

I Have Seen The Lord

The Easter message
presented by Marion Smith
in Guelph.

A few years ago I recall standing right here and guessing that many of you – maybe most of you-- had had some event that reckoned how you thought of your own life story. I was talking about those things that separate your life into two parts: stuff that happened Before and stuff that happened After. And that thing that happened finds its way into all our stories on some level. When we tell our stories we pin them in time to that big event. Our memories start to figure out its meaning.

I don't need to “guess” any more. I am certain that we have some enromous shared experiences that will – for sure! – shape our mutual life stories, our congregation's story, going forward. But I think we can still find some lessons in the way these stories work. And as Christians we will take a look at our founding story – the Easter story.

Our milestone stories have markers in them like these: It was before we had kids. It was just after I met your mother. Before we lived in this house. After the war. Before we sold the church.

Maybe the big event was just yours alone. You had a baby or experienced a big accident, or retired or won the big prize or went bankrupt.

Or maybe it's a family event; something you all talk about when you get together for birthdays, or Christmas. Or maybe it's really huge and touches the whole community, or the whole nation or everybody in the world hears about – like a World War or 9-11. We're barely remote enough just yet but there is no doubt we're in a Post-Pandemic era. Who remembers the “before”?

Some of our events are good news, but sadly, those tragic ones start to pile up in our inventory of life changes, don't they? Oh yes, we recall the Royal Weddings, the moon landings, the gold medals. But the disasters have a tendency to push the good news stories to one side and hog all our attention. What do the news people say? If it bleeds, it leads.

Some of those events really are big enough to change whole nations, even for generations. In the middle of time, something so amazing did happen to change everything. The whole world, even those who never heard the story, count time according to that event. The event Christians celebrate today, the Resurrection.

It is also true though, that some have never heard the story. Hard to believe isn't it? But think about your own family stories.

Maybe your ancestors were starving in the Irish potato famine and your great great great grandparents brought you all to Canada to begin life in a new country. Who could forget a story like that? And yet, some of the grandchildren forgot, and then some of the great-grandchildren. If you were lucky, one of them decided they'd better write it down or it might be forgotten altogether. So they asked the elders for their memories and along with the memories came the meaning. It's how our brains work; we're always looking for the meaning!

Let's listen to those who first told the Easter story.

**** 

Readers read scripture passages from Mark ( four women, stone rolled away, a young man, the women were afraid and told no one) Matthew, (now an angel, two women, fearful, but ran to tell the disciples) John (1)the other disciple who entered after Simon Peter, but believed immediately (2) Mary Magdalene, alone, mistakes Jesus for the gardener and then runs to tell the disciples “I have seen the Lord!”

One of John's grandchildren didn't want us to forget that he believed immediately-- as soon as he saw the evidence of the empty tomb. Maybe it was Mary Magdelene's great granddaughter who'd heard that story about the gardener around the Passover table and lobbied to put her in. That was easy-- they all remembered her. Some of the other old ladies persuaded the writers to list all their names, but all but Mark forgot Salome. Simon Peter's name is shifting. Was that when he started to use the new name?

I can imagine how all those differences got into the Scripture stories. After all. It was 70 or 75 or even a hundred years before anyone actually wrote them down. Nobody was writing things down when it happened. They were so excited. They were too busy changing. They were all new. Life was different now. Things they did last week, last year, yesterday no longer had the same meaning.

No more hiding, no more anxiety about Roman soldiers or temple rulers. It was time to start living a new life, a resurrection life. They needed to remember his words. What did he say about the poor? About living together? About sharing and healing?

As a storyteller I know it's not the differences that make their stories important. It's the timeless truth that lives in the middle of ALL the stories. Something big and important and truly life-changing happened that week. They thought it was going to be the crucifixion. They all remembered where they were when that happened. The details of that part of the story are vivid and we still remember the crown of thorns, the cross, the nails the darkness. The horror.

But the real Easter story is harder to pin down. The details are vague-- they depend on who's telling the story. Scholars and historians and theologians struggle to find one clear account of what actually happened that morning. It was Sunday, the Lord's Day for sure. That changed forever. Followers of Jesus set aside the old Sabbath and lifted up the new Lord's Day.

But then the details get muddled. Because the story gets personal.

Was it really Mary Magdalene who said it first? “I have seen the Lord.” Maybe, maybe not. But there is the meaning.

There it is: the Timeless Truth of the Easter story. A group of frightened, cowardly, oppressed people, confused and hiding behind locked doors were changed forever into a new community. Within days, weeks, months, we really don't know. It depends whose story you hear. They became a people who now knew that the one they had followed and thought to be dead was alive. They told each other their very personal stories. The time they saw him in the midst of their own lives.

They started calling themselves Followers of the Way. The tomb could not hold him. The timeless Truth was that he lives and that he still lives. Those who have seen the Living Christ can't keep the story to themselves. They remember his words, but more important than the words is the life. They try to live as he lived in love. Joy, peace, hope. The order of the words gets changed. It all depends who's telling the story. They see him everywhere.

If you have heard the story, if you have felt its timeless truth, then you too become a story teller. And somewhere inside that story is that Easter message: I have seen the Lord.

Once you have seen the Lord your life changes. Once we truly acknowledge and recognize ourselves as resurrection people we have to realize that nothing can alter that identity as people who see his divine presence all around us. We share his mission to create and build up sacred communities, to build up loving relationships wherever we find ourselves.

This is the message of Easter.

It's not our job to prove, to convince, to convert, or even to reconcile the differences in the details. It is just to share the relationship we have with that living divine presence you find as you try to live the Way. As you come out of your locked places and create communities of joy, hope, love and peace.

No change is so daunting that it can defeat true Resurrection People. The future awaits us.

*****************

Marion Smith, 2024.

quoted here with her permission.