wishing on a star

i thought it would be a snap, one of those simple tasks you can scratch off your To Do list while you're doing eight other things. But finding a star for this year's Christmas pageant sent me on a bit of a journey. i'm not talking Mary & Joseph here, i'm not speaking metaphorical star but literal: we needed a star ornament to hang from a large stick that someone will carry in during the Christmas Eve pageant.

My childhood Christmas trees were topped with a star, first one made of cardboard covered with tinfoil that my Dad made, then, in later years, one that had a tree light inside it. Over the millenia, we've so conflated the Christmas stories of Luke and Matthew, that many people think the shepherds followed a star to the manger, as some of our beloved carols have it. On most of the religious Christmas cards i receive, the star is, well, the star. What else so symbolises Christmas?
So, while grocery shopping at Superstore, i nipped over to the Seasonal section to pick out a star for our pageant. There were snowmen and beany-baby puppies in tuques. No stars. On to the repository of all manner of stuff, the Dollar Store, where i could have bought matching antlers for the dog and i, but no star. On to the greeting card shop, where there was a huge rack of penguins, each with a name on its rotund belly. They also had Elvis decorations, but not the kind of star i had in mind. i was beginning to think i would have to resort to my father's early craft with cardboard and tin foil, but one of those gift shops that only seems to exist in December yielded up the right stuff.
A frustrating pilgrimage it was, searching for a spiritual symbol in this highly secularized, commercialized Christmas culture. Don't misunderstand, i love giving presents (okay, and receiving them, too!), and A Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life and The Grinch are all part of my celebrations. The line between sacred and secular is pretty fluid for me...but why was it so darn hard to find a star, for heaven's sake?
One of my ministry pals likes to say the Bible is a book for jailbirds, written by people on the lam from the powers of their day. It's a book (or, more accurately, a library) for those who don't fit in, for the overlooked, the shunned, the stepped on. So maybe now that Christianity has lost its pride of place, we who try to follow the Way may be closer in spirit than our grandparents were to that jailbird experience. We are mocked, scorned, deemed to be simple-minded, deemed to be responsible for great evil in the world, sometimes tolerated, sometimes called upon to conduct a rite of passage like a wedding or funeral, mostly ignored.
My own hunt for a star made me wonder about the Magi's quest. Perhaps it wasn't like the Christmas card stars, a blazing comet actively leading the way to the dirt floored stable where another child was born to the poor. Perhaps the wonder and wisdom about the Magi's quest is they looked hard into the heavens and saw something nobody else did. Not only saw it, but acted on it. Even though that acting put them on a collision course with King Herod, and necessitated evasive action. They went home another way, not by the same rut in the road.
May all of us look hard into the heavens and into the heaven we call Earth. If we are blessed, we may even see something nobody else did. If we have courage, we may even act on it, we may take another way and get out of our rut. Look hard into the heavens, and into the heaven we call Earth.

getting to yes

YES MEN. On the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal chemical disaster, a member of the Yes Men appeared on the BBC, posing as a Dow Chemical spokesperson and offering an unconditional apology and billions in compensation for victims of the Bhopal chemical plant's environmental apocalypse in 1984 (18,000 people were killed; unnumbered suffered terrible injuries and continue to due to the poisoning of the environment). Dow stocks plummeted by $2 billion US before the story was revealed as a hoax. Some say the actions of the Yes Men are sophmoric. Yes, there is an irrepressible frat-boy prank-ness about what they do. But, in the best tradition of religious imagination, the Yes Men also behave as if what we say we believe is actually true. By acting as if the goal has been reached, we reach the goal. Think about how the Woolworths lunch counter became a place of racial integration.

At the Copenhagen convention on climate change, the Yes Men struck forcefully at Canada's expense. i only wish their fake press release (on a very real looking Environment Canada website) was even half-way true. Setting out Canada's "Agenda 2020" goal of a 40% reduction in emmissions (a vast improvement from our current goal of a piddly 3%), the online statement also pledged a fabulously generous $13 billion in 2010 to help developing nations deal with climate change. In the fake release, Canada's environment minister Jim Prentice was made to say: "Nobody benefits from a world in peril. Contributing to the development of other nations and taking full responsibilities for our emissions is simple Canadian good sense." If only. When revealed as a hoax, another hoax took place; this time, Prentice was made to say, "It is the height of cruelty, hypocrisy, and immorality to infuse with false hopes the spirit of people who are already, and will additionally, bear the brunt of climate change's terrible human effects. Canada deplores this moral misfire."

Well, a girl can dream! Let's say yes to the Yes Men's bold agenda for Canada. Let's say yes to the Yes Men's visionary tactics. Let's allow ourselves to take into our hearts the late Tommy Douglas' words: "Courage, my friends! It's not too late to build a better world!" Let's behave as if the better world has already arrived, and we are living in it - choosing wisely the vehicles we drive (or better yet, taking the People's Taxi, also known as Public Transit), the packaging of the goods we buy, the food we eat, the ways we work, the composting and recycling we do. Our Jewish friends might call this Tikkun Olam (mending the world). We christians might call this living as if the kin-dom of God is already real. The planet we live on might call it sanity, and breathe a tiny sigh of relief.

extreme make-over

Like watching a train wreck, those make-over "reality" shows like the Dog Whisperer.

i don't know if Cesar Milan uses the term anthropomorphism, but he sure warns against calling your dog your baby and then wondering why Baby chews up the sofa and dislocates your shoulder when on the leash. The Dog Whisperer has ways of correcting these behaviours, and the ways have not so much to do with the dog and a great deal to do with correcting the people. Which prompted me to think about rampant anthropotheism. You know who you are, you folks who believe God is in favour of war in the Middle East (yahoo, Armeggedon's coming!), ditto climate change (ditto the yahoo), that 9/11 was God's punishment for granting human rights to gays and allowing women to procure abortions, or even that God is more desperately worried about the state of individual souls than AIDS orphans, say...or war in the Middle East, Iraq and the viciousness of the Taliban.

So, here's a pitch for a new "reality" show: let's have the God Whisperer, one who will fire us up to act on the things God lies awake worrying about. The God Whisperer, like Cesar, could do a great job of pointing out to Richard Dawkins & Co that the answer to bad religion isn't no religion; the answer to bad religion is good religion. Sort of like the answer to bad nutrition isn't to stop eating. The God Whisperer can point out that God isn't the problem here...as a colleague of mine has been heard to pray, "O God, protect me from your followers."

The God Whisperer could remind us about the things that weigh heavy on the heart of God.

Those things like climate change (ought to be a real worry to Canadians, given we have one of the world's longest coastlines), Darfur, torture (go Colvin!), our failure to end child poverty, homelessness, refugees, consumption (not the medical kind, the illness that Rev. Billy & the Church of Stop Shopping is trying to heal).

Perhaps, in this Advent time when we are a tad more attuned to listening for angel voices, those God whisperers might speak to us of the wounds of the world, and our high calling to mend the world.

If we heed the God whisperers, and set about our tasks, maybe then the dove of peace can remove her flack jacket and fly freely to where she is most needed.

Creed for our Advent Pilgrimage

I believe in the promise of Christmas

and the importance of celebrating it in the church.

I believe in the God at the centre of Christmas,

whose hope for the world was imagined by prophets.

I believe in Mary,

who sang of turning the world upside down

and who allowed her life to be disrupted by God.

I believe in Joseph,

whose broken heart broke the rules

to do the right thing.

I believe in the smell of the stable –

I believe there is no place where God will not go.

I believe in the shepherds,

those simple ones open to hear the angels’ song.

I believe in the Magi,

the ones outside the faith, outside the community

who searched out the Holy.

I believe in Jesus,

born in poverty,

soon a refugee,

raised in faith,

lived seeking justice,

died speaking forgiveness,

rose with a love that could not be stopped.

I commit to use this season

to seek out the Holy

both in God among us,

and in God beyond us.

I open myself to an Advent journey of great joy

that will change my life.

(based on A Christmas Creed by Walter Russell Bowie)

One of the best kept secrets of the 2009 Oscars is the winner of best "foreign" (non-USA) flick, the Japanese film Departures. In recovery from a long church meeting in Toronto, i strolled down to the Carleton cineplex and entered another country, and another world.

A cello player named Daigo loses his calling when the orchestra disbands due to low audience numbers (sound like church?). Daigo takes a new job in his old home town, where he and his spouse have moved due to financial pressures. He sees a newspaper ad looking for help with departures and applies, assuming it is in the travel business. Which it is, in a way. He is hired for a death ritual known as encoffinment - the body of the deceased is ceremonially washed and dressed, then placed in its coffin - all in the presence of grieving family members.

i don't know how it plays in Japanese, but the pun in the title struck me on several levels: first, the obvious departures of the dear departed and all the leave-takings that implies. But there are also the departures of old resentments and wounds at these ceremonies, opening the bereaved to reconciliation. Daigo himself undergoes several departures: he leaves the career in music that he dedicated his life to (talk about an identity crisis); his wife, disgusted at his new job, leaves him; he leaves/overcomes his culture's taboos about death and embraces the care of the corpse as the care of the living. He departed the urban, urbane city for the hick town with its old bath house, and soon finds himself embracing the bath house as a place of healing and community.

Death, of course, is a funny business. There isn't a minister or funeral director alive who doesn't have a hilarious funeral story (mine involves a skunk). And the humour of Departures struck me as the honest encounter of the living with the dead - body, bawdy, profound.

Perhaps because i had just been in a meeting wrestling about future directions for the United Church of Canada, i found myself resonating with Daigo. What is our calling as a denomination right now? (The cello-playing glory days are over.) Like Daigo, do we think we have signed up for one thing and find ourselves doing something else altogether? Like Daigo, might we reconnect with ancient ritual and find there comfort, hope and meaning - not just for the dead, but for the living, too? And might we let go of our past glory days and embrace the gentle, respectful work we are called to do?

Like many churches, ours is struggling with money. Wish i could say we have so much of it we don't know what to do...but the reality is the opposite. We had a couple of unexpected Big Ticket items this spring that have put me in mind of a sign i once saw in a rural General Store: "We are a non-profit organization. We don't intend to be. It just works out that way."

Of course, as a church, we ARE a non-profit outfit. Our job is ministry, not amassing great wealth. Or in our case, any wealth whatsoever. If we break even by the end of the year, we're happy.

As our church moves through Stewardship month with all its challenges, i was prepping for a meeting our denomination's executive body, and in the Financial Accountability report (which, by the way, is not a spread sheet but an inspirational tract), i came across this. i found it helpful and challenging, and think with some minor re-writing, it could become useful for congregations. This is from Don Hunter, chair of the Permanent Committee on Finance. Here, he's speaking to members of the denomination's executive.

Expected Roles in Revenue Generation for the Church
1. Make an annual gift commensurate with means to support the church's Mission and Service Fund through yoru congregation or through Pre-Authorized Remittance (PAR).
2. Ensure that issues related to revenue generation (including an update on Mission and Service Fund giving) is on the agenda of every meeting of the General Council and its Executive.
3. Be a well-informed ambassador for the church, comfortable and confident in talking about its work and its mission.
4. Be a well-informed ambassador for the ways and means of supporting th United Church - through local congregations, through the Mission and Service Fund, through estate and major giving, through special or designated giving, and throug the United Church of Canada Foundation.
5. Support the church's revenue generation plan and fundraising efforts.
6. Accept revenue gneration tasks for the church up to one's individual level of comfort and abilities.

What say you to these responsibilities of church belonging?