week.end. re.cap.

Last weekend, she was a busy one. Multiple Masson birthdays were celebrated at the CN tower with an absurdly nice dinner. My Dad popped into town, enjoyed our softball game (*undefeated*), tasty dim sum and a relaxing evening complete with sets of cribbage, a bolognaise lesson, wine for some, tea for others (yeah for self discipline) and finished with an intense round of BLOKUS!.The week that followed was nonstopnonstopnonstop and I am hanging in this pause with neighbourhood life… we should know if we get access to an incredible office space any day now but we’re still waiting for the landlord to agree to our lease terms. Oh. The. Bated. Breath.

I am working on some thoughts around living according to a set of values… now that I have started maybe actually doing that. I have been looking around and I have mid-20s and 30 somethings all around me, living for the moment, for how much fun they can have and how much they can ponder, question, play, not commit and continue to live like teenagers. It’s starting to look disturbing. (How’s that for sounding one hundred percent judgmental? bahhh… I will try and tailor to my own experience lest I become preachy. No one wants to read that. Flicked Photos! Now complete with Sunday morning style lectures!!)

And now… Week.end. Re.cap.

Amuse your Bouche.

Two Massons.

Two Girls.

Cooking Lesson with Stu.

Post dinner BLOKUS!

Trying to Win.

Winning! (Shameless.)

And finally… Cat in a leaf nest. (*I have this thing for weird animal behaviour. I can’t explain it. I find it … beyond intriguing.)

shift uneasily in that pew

Indulge me for a moment as I revisit a few moments of this past week.

***

In the neighbourhood where I spend most of my waking hours, a group of local church representatives meet on a monthly basis. Technically I don’t work for a formal “church” so I’m an exception to this “Ecumenical Coalition” group but have been permitted to join regardless. We talk about community programming, church calendars and ministry opportunities. The most interesting parts of the meetings for me have been when I get to observe crazy church dynamics and denominational differences. (Who will the nominal Catholic community gatekeeper offend next? How will the Anglicans respond? Will the Presbyterians solve the problem by proposing another meeting? How much money will the United church put on the table?)

But this week, something switched. The group turned the corner and united on a common issue. One of the member churches asked for space on the agenda. The church rep is the likable wife of a local prominent politician. She has been a strong volunteer in my women’s Community Kitchen program, and I know her quite well. As she shared with a quiet voice what a difficult position the church was in, it occurred to me that the burden she put forward is the future of the established Caucasian church in Toronto. She voiced that she’d been a member of the evaporating congregation for over 40 years and in all that time, the church with over 20,000 broken, hurting people at their doorstep has never focused on “outreach.” What they have focused on is a massive gorgeous overhaul to their facility. This has allowed the wealthy from the community to the north to worship comfortably for 3 hours a week. Their congregation is dying. They have no money. They face being closed by their diocese. They are grasping at being relevant to the sea of faces all around them.

As my aging friend spoke, the Coalition nodded collectively, and for the first time in the 18 months I have been with them, came alive. All struggling with the same thing, all united in concern, all struggling to speak over top of each other with common stories. The remaining hope I’d placed in establishments vanished with the realization that they have failed to see the truth of living the story of the Gospel. So many have missed it. “How do we become a spiritual home to the community?” my volunteering friend pleaded.

***

I sat in my office with a woman who made the trip down to the Mission from Ajax. Bold, Egyptian Christine has been in Canada for 11 successful years. She gave up a strong career as a Financial Controller, called by God to serve the population of Arab women all around her. Working for no one and receiving no income, connecting with local pastors in the GTA, she is leading a movement. Passion and fire shone in her eyes as shared seemingly limitless stories of women from the Middle East living in Toronto, falling in love with the Gospel, finally seeing for the first time the truth of unconditional love… she couldn’t tell them fast enough and they spilled from her like living water washing over the whole room. This is the church of the future.

When I offered to pray for Christine, especially around her fundraising, she paused. “I know that my good father will provide, he always has and always will. But it breaks my heart when I see a brother or sister waste his kingdom money on a lottery ticket. Please pray for our big family to be obedient.”

***

A Tamil youth who I know very well has recently started to share with me about his home life. His mother is Christian and his father a Hindu father. My young friend struggles with concepts of prayer, the relevance of the gospel and whether or not suffering means God can exist in the world. We are walking together, engaging our souls, encouraging each other to read, pray and pursue answers to questions. The time I spend with him makes me feel alive. There’s no question that I am in the presence of greatness with him and he will be a significant Christian leader in this city as he grows older.

***

So will the white, wealthy, dying church get on board? There are enough financial resources. There is a wealth of spiritual power and passion. There is undoubtedly enough sacred longing and need. Who will facilitate the conversation and cross the cultural divide? I am convinced that life for the church in Toronto lies with the newcomers to the city. I am praying tonight for a shift and for the established of the city to start getting very uncomfortable in their comfortable, easy pews.

the cost of honesty

shadow kate.

The theological reflection I wrote for class this week is so bad that I can’t even share it. It’s aimless. Rambling. Covers too many concepts. It’s based on a visit to the office of a woman named Anna in the manse of Our Lady of Lourdes – a Jesuit arm of the Catholic Church in the neighbourhood where I work. I have been attending mass most days during the week and I felt compelled to call and ask to speak to someone about participating in Eucharist. Partly because I wanted to be a shit disturber and see what would happen. And partly because I genuinely want to receive communion daily and my local Anglican church only does it once a week. The reflection focused on assumptions, judgment, Islam, blahblahblah… the story isn’t the point. The reality is – I chose to write about something that wasn’t all that honest. It’s not that the story was dis-honest but I ignored the truth on fire in my heart that I was called to share with that group. In all my mask wearing… I took the easy road and wrote crap.

True honesty costs something. Honesty would have been writing that the scriptural truths that I heard in Cincinnati broke my heart in repentance and melted the impenetrable, stiff, solid rock of a spiritual heart I have been carrying. How could I have shared that I was woken up at 3am on October 17th and the scripture in Haggai 2 that was preached several days later refers to October 17th and spoke to ME about temple rebuilding… How could I have shared that with any sense of credibility without seeming crazy? How was I to write that after several years of railing against the call, after months of mocking those who abstain, that I have submitted to the Voice calling me to live alcohol free for a year … without admitting that I might have a problem? The cost of sharing these vulnerable truths isn’t the obvious one of getting a bit red in the face or having to leap over the deep gully of pride standing between the world and I…. the real cost is having to suppress and contain the utter joy that I feel in every nerve of my skin. And it’s not worth it.

I am free. So very very free. Finally able to rest well and deeply. Free to wake early and finally understand once again (how long has it been?) what joy there is in sitting with God alone in the dark, experiencing His incredible and undeserved love for me. And I am loving well… and I laugh as I write that because it is what I have been made to do and I am so good at it! How could I have forgotten? Honesty is one of those beautiful, intriguing and altogether magical mysteries of our walks… I am in awe of an Author who has given me such freedom just as I was at the breaking point – literally feeling like I might never be able to be put it all back together again. 1 Samuel 15 speaks of Samuel hearing that the Lord is sad that he made Saul a leader… When I heard all of that, especially v. 17 (“although you are small in your own eyes (or although you think little of yourself), were you not called by the King to be a leader?”)… I was over the edge. I am once again stepping back into who I am.

I turn 29 tomorrow. It’s a year that will be lived by grace (once you see it for real, how can you put it into words?) and one spent “getting my beautiful wild garden in order” according to one friend. This is the adventure I have been waiting for.

Anna never agreed to let me take communion (I won’t be allowed to I’m sure.. I’m Protestant after all and the roots are deep),  but that’s not the end goal. I carry Christ and receive Him in the middle of the night at 3am and no liturgy or ringing bells are required. Here’s to a year of living in honesty, getting over the cost and reaping the freedom it gains. Shadows hold no more appeal for me.

riding in idaho