BEING AWARE OF THE PRESENCE OF GOD

         

Two mornings this past week I was invited into the K to grade 8 classrooms. What an enjoyable morning. I asked the kids: “Where is God?”

 

Immediately they pointed to “up there.” 

 

From that response I lead them to see that God is everywhere: outside, in their classroom, within their own home. Is God within you? I tried to point out that God filled their heart and their mind. Then, to underline he point more firmly, I pointed out that God was in their big toe! “Tonight, when you go to bed, look at your big toe. God is in your big toe!”

 

I know they will remember that instruction.

 

We have a strong need to alert out people to the presence and the working of God. Too many adults locate God into the church building or into the hospital waiting room, but have a very absent sense of God’s presence in their ordinary working day.

 

Our religion wants to lead us to an awareness of the daily presence of God. The entire earth shakes and is moved by the daily presence of God. We need some reminders to look and see how God is moving around us. This exercise is so much like your mother instructing you when you were looking for your gym socks as a kid. “They are right in front of your nose.” If you do not look for it, you will not see it.

 

If you are not looking for God, you will miss God’s presence every time!

 

Go for a walk in nature. Observe every leaf that moves in the breeze, every Canada Goose that flies over and every blade of grass. This is all created by God. Take a leaf in your hand. Examine it very carefully. This simple leaf is known by the Creator God. This leaf is loved and cherished by God. Hopefully there will arise in you a sense of wonder at how great creation actually is. 

 

If you have an opportunity on a very dark night to look up at all the stars, and the Milky Way, and be awed at how great creation actually is. God has not finished with creation. The vastness and the brilliance of all the stars will make your heart shake with appreciation. How could all this exist? Your mouth drops in awe.

 

And then you come to humanity. We have been entrusted by the Creator God to care for the earth: all the water, the soils, the plants, all the birds and animals, and all the bacteria in the soil. Look how God believes and trusts humanity with creation. 

 

This is where we need to take people: to daily sense the presence and working of God everywhere. It is not that God is absent from us. God is absent from us because we are not looking for the presence of God in the autumn winds, the migration of the geese and the laughter of children. 

 

God is so close. God is everywhere.

 

Our daily task is to pay attention. God is right in front of your nose.

 

 

GRIEVING IS A STRONG HUMAN NEED

  

Many people were so surprised at the outpouring of public grief that followed Queen Elizabeth’s death. She was a very public figure, nationally and internationally, and the consequent grief was very public.

 

At this point in our Canadian history we need to give some reflection about grieving. Are we doing well with the loss of our loved ones, or are we trying to shield ourselves by denying that we are suffering any pain?

 

Whenever we lose a person in our life through death there is always a part of our own life that dies. You lose your spouse through cancer. This is just like having your right arm torn off. You hurt. You are confused. Life seems to be crashing into a brick wall.

 

As a human being, you can never grieve alone. The only way to handle grief is with others, with trusted family and friends. There are no boundaries when the grief will end. This is personal journey that each person must go through. Tears and anger are part of this process.

 

There are many people who clearly direct “no funeral.” We have learnt from long experience that this is a very unhealthy plan. 

 

First, the funeral is not first of all for the person who has died. Funerals are for the living. We need a process (i.e., a ritual) to help us deal with the pain, the loss and the memories. Funerals can take many forms: religious or simply secular, organized or very casual, simple or lasting several hours. What is at issue here is that we have space to support each other and carry each other’s loss. 

 

People can be so disconnected from a faith tradition or from a living community. That they do not know what to do when their loved one dies. 

 

I experienced the value of a simple funeral some years ago. The old man who died has been the grounds keeper at one of the local golf courses. We gathered at 7:00 pm in the parish hall. His niece gave a brief but meaningful eulogy. We had some Scripture readings and prayer. Then the grandson handed each participant a little bag of grass seed (connection with his many years looking after the golf course). We had juice, coffee and cookies. It was very simple but provided everyone space to share their memories and appreciation of the man. His wife was very pleased.  In all its simplicity it was a wonderful farewell.

 

It fulfilled our need to show our appreciation of the man’s  life and to support his wife and children.

 

We need to educate people on the importance of gathering together to remember, support and give meaning and recognition to the life of the person who died. 

 

The funeral time is meant to be a letting go and a time to re-embrace our lives. As one wise writer put it so well: “The funeral is to put the departed where they need to be ,and send the living to where they need to go.”

 

 

 

HOW DO YOU REACT TO MASS MURDER?

 

It has been almost two weeks since we heard that terrible alert over our phones that a violent person was moving somewhere in Saskatchewan. We heard shortly that there was a murder of ten persons on the James Smith First Nation. Then there were four tense days that we followed the police as they tried to locate and arrest the perpetrator.

 

Every adult must try to process this unbelievable carnage. What does our Christian faith offer us as tools to process such evil?

 

At the roots of our faith is our God who comes precisely in the mess of humanity. God is not distant, tut-tuting us for the killings and robbery that we do to each other. The spirit of God is moving among us. The spirit of God is moving among the terrible suffering of these crime scenes.

 

Stand with two feet on the ground. Evil is very real. We often turn away from a frank and blunt discussion about the reality of evil but it happens; and happens right around us. What is more difficult for most human beings is to be honest enough with themselves to recognize that they are capable of evil. This is the black side of our personality. We too could inflict evil on another human being. 

 

This is not written in the Bible but we have always believed and interpreted that whenever one human being does evil or caused destruction towards another human being, there the suffering of Jesus on the cross happens all over again. Christ suffers among us. Christ suffers the evil that one human being inflicts on another. Christ is moving among the soldiers involved in the war in the Ukraine. Christ is in the killing fields!

 

We have not given this enough attention in the past decades but we, not only must not divorce Christ from human evil, but we must locate it where Christ wants to be. Christ is among us in these evil episodes.

 

Our response in Saskatchewan has been one of compassion toward the victims, the family and all those injured by knife wounds. We also want to be understanding towards the police personnel, all the medical people and government people who were involved in this evil storm. 

 

What our Christian faith supports us with is the closeness of Christ to the victims and all the compassionate people who lament such evil. In faith, we are trusting that Christ walks with us in these tough times. We may never understand why this carnage happened but we trust that Christ is with us in all this suffering. 

 

This is not cheap Pollyanna stuff but is motivated by a strong conviction that Christ is with us and Christ will support us through this time of trial. 

 

We do not buckle under the weight of evil. We need to be very truthful about the reality of evil but recognize that our Christian faith moves us towards life and goodness.

 

It is not written in the Scriptures but it empowers us to change evil into life-giving forces. “Better to light one candle than to ever curse the darkness!”

IS THIIS THE LONELY FUTURE WE FACE?

 

This past week I had witnessed social loneliness. I was offered to have lunch in one of our institutions. I picked up my tray, picked up a turkey sandwich and looked for a place to sit down. There were eight employees in the room, each socially distanced because of health regulations (two per table). But for a Philippine lady two tables over there was complete silence in the room. This older lady made some conversation with her co-worker at the other end of the table. The six other people in the room had their lunch bags in front of them, ate in silence but all the while they were completely taken up with their phones.

 

No one spoke! There was no eye contact between persons. The only direction the eyes went was toward the screen on their phones. 

 

I ate my lunch in complete silence. What a lonely experience!  Is this where modern life is taking us? Holding your phone with one hand, eating your lunch with the other: is this the sign of a healthy, vibrant life? What a chilling question.

 

In North American society we have been moving during the past three generations toward a society that is more and more individualistic. ‘I do not belong to any group/community/family and I do not feel any responsibility to contribute towards others.’ 

 

Each person in that room could have been in a little room with no other human being, eating their lunch and working their phone. Nothing more is needed to live when life has become so lonely!

 

Loneliness is when no one cares about you and you do not care about others. Loneliness is having nothing to share and receive from the others. Loneliness is just trying to survive all on your own.  You can be in a room full of people (their physical bodies) and yet be so alone.

 

That is how I felt. That is the message I received. You will walk out of this room and your existence does not matter one single bit! 

 

Oh, how I wished there were children in that room. They would want attention and I would certainly want to interact with them and their parents. Oh, how I wish there was an elderly grandparent in that room. They would have moved over to make conversation.  Children and grandparents will break the loneliness.

 

We all fear growing old, needing care in a seniors care home, where we might spend most of our day, alone, in our room with no one to share our concerns and joys with, and no one to ease the loneliness of this part of our life. 

 

Is this the life that awaits us in the upcoming decades? Will we sit there munching our lunch but only be as significant to the next person at the end of our table as the paper napkin we are using?

 

This was certainly not a pleasant lunch hour. 

 

What are we to do?