Pilgrims' Tales: Lent 2

Like Chaucer's travellers to Canterbury, a company of folks are heading to Jerusalem with Jesus in the 40 day pilgrimage Christians call Lent. Each week during Sunday worship, Crescent Fort Rouge United will meet one of that company in a monologue. This Sunday, we hear from the Pharisee who saw Jesus weep over Jerusalem.
                                                                                                                                                      

It’s odd that tears make for clearer vision. You’d think with all that water and salt coming out of your eyes, your vision would be blurred.

I am a scholar. I value deep debate, the struggle to understand what God requires of us, the tension between our rich tradition and the new spirit that calls for change.

And the tensions of living a life of faith in these bewildering, bedeviled times.

These struggles call for a sharp intellect.

And yet…and yet…

I am beginning to realize that it’s when I see through my tears that I see most clearly.

When I sat in the hospital room, holding my grandmother’s tiny hand, no longer pretending to be brave – there are my tears.

When I watch that Tim Horton’s commercial, where the man goes to the airport to meet the plane from his homeland, to at last be reunited with his children and his wife, and he says “Welcome to Canada” – there are my tears.

When I see the desperate people in Haiti – so many family members dead, so many missing people, not being able to feed your children, to protect your daughters – there are my tears.

Or the Winnipeg woman who died in a bus shelter, died of exposure, died of poverty, died of neglect – there are my tears.

Or when I held our new baby for the first time, that little miracle of bright eyes and fingers and toes and baby-smell, that gift, that blessed, blessed gift – there are my tears.

Tears make for clearer vision.

Salt opens the icy road, that long, long road between my head and my heart.

And I see.

I see what matters, through my tears.

Pilgrims' Tales: Lent 1

Like Chaucer's travellers to Canterbury, a company of folks are heading to Jerusalem with Jesus in the 40 day pilgrimage Christians call Lent. Each week during Sunday worship, Crescent Fort Rouge United will meet one of that company in a monologue.

Lent 1: The Devil

You don’t know it, but I’ve got you already.


And the beauty is, you don’t know it because you don’t believe I exist.

Not that I mind. It makes things so much easier for me.

See, I know you.

I know you gave up long ago.

I know you look at the time you were passionate about your faith – remember that time, so long ago? – I know you look at the time you were passionate about your faith with a certain smirking paternalism, the same way you remember your youthful idealism when you got swept up in Trudeau-mania or the Young Communist Party or Greenpeace.

Your faith is like the rusty protest button in the bottom of your sock drawer.

I know you gave up long ago.

You decided there was no contradiction between being faithful and being comfortable.

See, I do know you.

Used to be, it was easy for me to pick out the Christians in the crowd – they were the ones visiting the sick, welcoming the stranger, working on the underground railroad, scouring pots in the soup kitchen, walking the picket line, going to jail.

Time was, the Christians not only went to jail.

They went to the lions.

They were known by their love for everyone, even their enemies. They recognized no distinctions of class or gender or race, and that made them stand out. Which made it easy for me to pick them out.

Which was not the same thing as making it easy for me to do my job.

But now? Piece of cake.

You have confused peace with not making waves.

You’ve become devoted to what makes you feel good instead of what mends the world.

You blend in with everybody else.

You’ve decided to be nice instead of to be faithful.

You are already mine.