Monday, June 18, 2012

Life is for things that matter.


Twenty-eight years ago yesterday, on a Sunday, on Fathers Day, Suzanne’s mom and dad were at their cabin at Alberta Beach when Ernie started experiencing pain that he thought was probably a kidney stone. He was a Doctor and, though obviously not infallible, had successfully diagnosed these sorts of things many times, so he decided to go back to Edmonton and get checked out the following day. By late Sunday afternoon he was beginning to fail in a way that indicated it was something more serious, so Suzanne’s mom, Margaret, called one of his partners to come over and check on him. The partner called an ambulance immediately and he was rushed to the General Hospital for surgery. He had an aortic aneurysm.

We got a call about 9pm that evening at our home in Calgary. We were told that Ernie was in surgery, his condition was serious, and we should come immediately. Our four children ranged in age from 10 to 3, so we got a neighbour to watch them and headed off to Edmonton. We had to connect with one of Suzanne's sisters so it was about 11pm before we left town.

We arrived at the hospital in Edmonton just after 2am Monday morning, and were told Ernie had made it through surgery, and the situation was guarded but hopeful. Very quickly, however, we began to get less encouraging news. Things were looking bad and then worse. Eventually we were invited to go in and see him in recovery. He was unconscious, on a respirator. And, shortly after that, he died.

The sudden, unexpected death of someone you love is a shocking event, and I'm sure my recollections vary in detail from those of others, but all would agree that the impact was devastating. Ernie was the unrivaled patriarch of an all girl family. Don't misunderstand; his wife and six daughters were and are strong women, but Ernie was Papa of all he surveyed, and left a gaping hole in everyone's life that night.

He was only 61 (about one month younger than Suzanne is now), and, when you die so young, regardless what you've accomplished, you leave some important things undone. Though he was “Papa” to our kids and Maureen’s kids, he missed lots of grandchildren. He missed weddings too, and was sorely missed. He was a great husband, father, grandfather, doctor, and much more. His youngest daughter, Margo, was only 21, so if, as the Bible says, “there’s a time to die”, this wasn’t it. Ernie left a remarkable family, and that’s a great accomplishment at any age, but I often think of what more he would have given us if we’d had him for the past 28 years.

Now, at age 64, as I look back on Ernie, I think about how precious and fleeting life is. I too could get sick today and die tomorrow. I never worry about it, but I think about it often. And it helps me focus when I remember that I don't have unlimited life at my disposal. It's one of the reasons I'm in North Bay pouring out my life on my grandchildren. I'm a channel of life to those around me, rather like a garden hose attached to a cistern with no shut-off valve. I don't know how long my limited portion of life will last but, if I can’t quite control it, I can direct it. As it pours out every minute of every day, what am I pouring it on?

In Mark 14, the story is told of a woman who brought a jar of precious perfume and poured it on Jesus. Some of those present objected, "Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." But Jesus commended her for having done a beautiful thing.

In the end, every life is completely poured out. The trick is to pour it on things that matter. When I look at Margaret, Maureen, Pat, Marianne, Kate and Margo; and consider the husbands, children and grandchildren; and especially think about Suzanne and our own kids and grandchildren, I see that Ernie poured out his life on things that mattered. And, 28 years after I’m gone, I want people to be able to say the same about me.

Ernie, Pat, Marianne, Margo, Margaret

Suzanne, Kate, Maureen


Friday, June 15, 2012

The Man Who Quit Money


Last weekend I read a very interesting book, The Man Who Quit Money. It’s the story of Daniel Suelo, who, in the year 2000, took all the money he had ($30), placed it in a phone booth, and walked away. Since that time he has lived completely money free. He accepts no welfare or government handouts, earns no income, pays no taxes. He lives in the wilderness (caves in the Utah desert), forages wild and discarded food, and receives from others only what is freely given. He doesn’t barter (this work for those chickens) but he is active and does volunteer, receiving the natural benefits that flow from the work (transport on a fishing vessel, being fed with the other workers, etc.). Suelo is not a bum or a hermit. He is very engaged in society with many friends. He simply will not be paid in money and, when he can’t graciously avoid receiving it, he gives it away. He is popular in the nearby city of Moab as a house sitter and maintains a blog about his moneyless experience.

People like Suelo are very interesting and a blessing to the rest of us. They challenge our notions of what is possible and open our minds to new things. When I was I new teenager, a mere fifty years ago, I was quite involved in track and field. At that time it was obvious to most people that only very exceptional human beings could run marathons, and widely believed that women could not safely run races longer than 200 meters. Today, thanks to the efforts of countless, Suelo-like non-believers, we shake our heads at these notions.

One particularly interesting point made by his biographer, Mark Sundeen, is that Suelo comes from a Fundamentalist background, specifically Plymouth Brethren. These are the folks who gave us Dispensationalism (the notion that world history is divided into seven periods “dispensations” and God deals differently with the world in each of these periods) and the Rapture (the belief that those who are saved will be spirited away just before the final tribulation). Sundeen’s point is not that Suelo is a fundamentalist – Suelo has left all that behind – but that coming from a background among marginalized people gives Suelo the freedom to be radically different, and the latitude to think thoughts that are profoundly unconventional.

As I read this book I was reminded that my mother was raised Plymouth Brethren, and that, as a teenaged girl, she was deeply involved in the Social Credit movement in Alberta. This was part of the counter-cultural, anti-establishment challenge to the money system that arose as a response to the Great Depression; the Occupy Movement of her day. William Aberhart, the founder of the Social Credit Party in Alberta, was also a fundamentalist and a dispensationalist.

I am neither a fundamentalist nor a dispensationalist, but I do think these sorts of people make a great contribution to our world. They’re the folks who challenge conventional thinking. Whether or not they have the answers, they raise a lot of questions. Questions drive the quest, and change the world.


Thursday, June 7, 2012

ALL ABOUT DYING AND LIVING


The movie The Way was not my introduction to the Camino. In 2006 I read Walk in a Relaxed Manner, by Joyce Rupp, and found it oddly compelling. My response to the pilgrimage she described: foot sores, crowded accommodations, bad weather, strange food, stranger company, and hours of walking day after day, were anything but attractive to an introvert like me. But, when taken as a whole, what she described drew me like a magnet. Climbing Everest has never been a possibility for me (fear of heights), and my marathon dreams are a thing of the past, but this is something I could do. Perhaps I should get busy and do it before I can’t.

In the modern world (Western, North American and Canadian at least), the idea of pilgrimage is profoundly counter cultural. First, you walk for weeks, and cover a distance you could drive in a day, or fly in an hour and a half. We have a thing about getting where we're going. We say "getting there is half the fun", but it's definitely the smaller half. We jet halfway around the world to sit on a beach, race through high school to get to university, rush through child-rearing to get back to a career. We're a people in a hurry, scrambling to gather up as much life as possible before it runs out.

A pilgrimage, on the other hand, sets its own pace and, though it has a destination, the destination is not the point. We need to slow down, and that's part of what pilgrimage is about. Can anyone see more than a trillionth of what there is to see in a lifetime anyway? What can we possibly gain by dashing through life in pursuit of two trillionths?

Second, you set out for a destination that has no “practical” significance. Who really needs to go to the traditional burial place of Saint James, particularly when no one even knows for sure that this is the spot? And most of the Camino pilgrims are non religious. A pilgrimage, it seems, is about itself. It’s like so much in life; not what you do in it, but what it does in you. People say they are changed by the Camino and it’s intriguing to see how many people want to change.

Thirdly, a pilgrimage takes a significant chunk of time out of our “normal” life. It’s a bit like the notion of Sabbath I suppose, when each week you simply resign what you’re doing for a day, and let God run your little piece of the world without you.

It’s humbling to admit that the world doesn’t really need us. And it’s odd that we can pretend to ourselves that we’re so vitally necessary, when we know perfectly well that the day is coming when we’ll die and everything, and everyone, will carry on, just like they do when others die. A pilgrimage, then, is a bit like dying for a while. I suppose this is one of the reasons it’s hard to do, and, perhaps, why many of us should do it.

Fourthly, going on a pilgrimage is like choosing to live a life. Imagine God, a year before your birth, offering you the opportunity to be conceived. He will tell you nothing but the time and place of your beginning point. You might be male or female, rich or poor, healthy or sick. You might live a hundred years and become a great composer, or die within the first few weeks and never be born at all. All you can know for sure is that, if all goes well, you will have trials and triumphs, joys and sorrows, pains and pleasures. You will meet others on the journey, know acceptance and rejection, and share the experience. You will sin against others and need forgiveness, be sinned against and need to forgive. And, in the end, you will die, and your life will be what you and countless others have made it.

In other words, you are being offered a chance to go on pilgrimage. So, are we ready to embrace the challenge? If not, perhaps we should get ready, because our life-pilgrimages are well under way. Pilgrimage, it seems to me, is all about choosing life.

THE PILGRIM PRAYER

(Composed by Joyce Rupp and Tom Pfeffer, and recited as each day began.)

Guardian of my soul,
guide me on my way this day.
Keep me safe from harm.
Deepen my relationship with you,
your Earth, and all your family.
Strengthen your love within me
that I may be a presence of your peace
in our world.

Amen

Not a bad prayer at any time.



Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The Way

Watched an interesting movie last night called The Way. It stars Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez, a father/son team. Until I saw them side by side, I had no idea they were related. And, when I mentioned to my lovely wife how much the guy playing Sheen’s son looked like Sheen, she clued me in. And she pointed out that Charlie Sheen (who’s not in this movie) is also Martin Sheen’s son. I had known Chuck and Marty were related (the common sir name I suppose) but I always thought Charlie was Martin’s little brother. O well, that’s what I get for marrying above my IQ, or what she gets for marrying below hers. I’m told everyone else in the world already knew these things about the Sheens and Estevezes. Being unique was nice while it lasted.

Turns out Martin Sheen was born Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez. He changed it when he started acting because he didn’t want to be confused with all the other famous Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévezes. Confusing eh? Perhaps you can see why I don’t really pay close attention to these sorts of things. Yet somehow I do know that Judy Garland’s original name was Frances Gumm? William Wrigley Jr. made her change it because he didn’t want her confused with a new product he was launching in France that he was planning to call “France’s Gum”. I just made that up, but it sounds almost true, in a Hollywood sort of way. You know, based on an actual incident that happened, or might have happened. I wonder if Wrigley had an original name. I wonder if this is how urban legends get started.

Anyway, about the movie. Daniel Avery (Emilio Estevez), dies as he is beginning to walk the Camino Trail. His father, Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen), who is a very conservative ophthalmologist from California, flies to France to bring Daniel’s body home and spontaneously decides to complete his son’s journey. The story is about the people he picks up with along the way, the changes he and they undergo in the course of their respective pilgrimages, and the deep questions a pilgrimage raises about life and meaning and all that.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela, known in English as The Way of St James, is a network of pilgrimage routes that lead to the Cathedral of Santiago (Saint James’ traditional burial place) in north-western Spain. The most popular route is the Camino Francés which stretches 780 km, beginning in the north of France. During the Middle Ages, from the 9th to the 16th century, up to two million people a year (about 5,000 a day) walked the trails on pilgrimage.

Today there is a resurgence of interest in making this journey. Tens of thousands make the pilgrimage every year. I suppose it has to do with the malaise of modernity, the search for spiritual meaning, or the need to meet a big challenge before we die. And, come to think of it, these may have always been the reasons people did it.

Next post I’ll share why I’d like to do something like this. But what do you think? Why do people do this? Would you like to do it? Why or why not?