Something happened. Something wonderful, totally unexpected, disturbing – yet wonderful – happened that first Easter. That is the witness of those first women and men – friends and followers of Jesus – who came expecting death and found Life. "He is not here – he is risen!"

For them it was like a second Big Bang opening up a new universe of understanding and possibility. Something new had entered existence changing their whole view of reality. A new day 1.

The resurrection is central for Christians. It is either a stumbling block or a passage into New Life and a new realm.

Recently many of our United Churches have been studying our statements of faith. To encapsulate the tenor of each statement I turned to what it said – or did not say – about the resurrection. It is always the litmus test it seems to me. (The fine line in any statement on the resurrection is saying too much – the Gospels are very clear on this – or saying too little (perhaps a fault in United Church Statements of Faith).

Whatever is said is best said, as Emily Dickinson puts it – Slant.

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies;

Too bright for mind's infirm intent,

The Truth's superb surprise.

As Lightning to the Children eased,

With explanation kind;

The Truth must dazzle gradually,

Or every man be blind.

I love the mystery of the resurrection. It speaks to me of God. It speaks to me of not knowing, not controlling, sitting on the brink of the edge of another dimension and catching a glimpse of another universe which shines its light into ours and illuminating everything with beauty and love. Perhaps better, not another universe, but another dimension of an expanded universe.

It amazes me that in a universe that is expanding with new scientific discoveries and mysteries we continue to try to reduce the mysteries of our faith into a 17^th century Newtonian worldview. When scientists estimate that the cosmos is 70% dark energy, 25% dark matter and everything we see amounts to only 5% of what exists – surely the overwhelming reality is that our existence is nothing short of a miracle set in the midst of a deep mystery.

The Christian witness of faith is that throbbing at the heart of this mystery is a Love that we call God that holds all creation in the most profound love imaginable.

I love the way that Cynthia Bourgeault describes how God unveils the mystery of the resurrection in different ways to different people.

 “Jesus is present in physical density only insofar as is necessary to match the density of doubt that is blocking the view. Mary Magdalene needs only to see him in order to be reassured, and so Jesus appears to her as a vision. Thomas’s doubt is deeply visceral, so he receives a fully visceral resurrection appearance.  And some who are particularly advanced on the path, such as John, the beloved disciple, never seem to require a private visitation at all; they already grasp the whole picture in their inner insight. Jesus is corporeally present only to the degree that people cannot yet see with the eye of the heart.  As the eye of the heart opens, there is more and more freedom to release the physical traces and simply allow the naked immediacy of love to meet heart to heart.” Cynthia Bourgeault in The Wisdom Jesus

The Way may be narrow, as Jesus said, but the dimensions are multiple. The mystery is not far away but pressing in upon us. Life in all fullness and joy is not far away – we're in the midst of it. I pray that the world would be open to that over-flooding mystery of love and Life slanting into the dark places of our world. That all would feel it – that all would share it.

I have just returned from a two-week pilgrimage that my wife and I led to Jordan and Israel. We did many of the things that you would expect from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We drank in the geography that shaped the Bible and its peoples, walked the land where Jesus walked and went to pilgrim sites that helped us remember particular parts of Jesus’ life and ministry.

We also engaged, in a small way, the current political/social/cultural/religious realities of this troubled part of the world – especially the plight of the Palestinians of the West Bank through the gracious and generous spirit of our Palestinian guide.

But of course, for any pilgrim, there is another journey – an inner journey. And for me that other journey was difficult. It was a Lenten journey. It was a journey in the way of the cross.

Let me trace a little of that journey for you.

I suppose the breaking open happened well before I left as I have engaged the new scholarship around the context of Jesus’ life and times and ministry – the socio-political and religious reality in which his call and ministry took shape. It was not the "Sabbath rest by Galilee" that the old Victorian hymn spoke about. It was not the flower-child hippie Jesus of the Franco Zeffirelli movie.

The scholar John Dominic Crossan describes a troubled and explosive society in his book God and Empire. At the time of Jesus’ birth the region had exploded with rebellion after the death of Herod the Great. The regional capital of Sepphoris – a mere 6 km from Nazareth – was surrounded by Roman legions from Syria and the town was razed, the inhabitants killed or enslaved and the whole region taught a brutal lesson that you don't mess with Rome. (It was a lesson that the inhabitants of that city learned well because when another major revolt broke out in the region in 67 A.D. they swore their loyalty to Rome and stayed out of the rebellion.)

Crossan, I think correctly, speculated that Jesus would have grown up hearing about "the year the Romans came". And then throughout his 30 years in Nazareth he would have watched and maybe even found work in the rebuilding of Sepphoris as a Roman city complete with pagan temples, baths, amphitheater and sports facilities. A Roman city was not just a place to live in, it was a statement about Roman culture, politics and religion. It would be equivalent in our time to the invasion of Western secular consumerism with malls and expressways and popular culture which is changing and challenging traditional cultures and the shape of cities around the world. Jesus was in middle of the tumultuous conversation, resistance and action of fellow Jews as they struggled to know how to respond, where God was and what it meant to be faithful.

N.T. Wright in his new book Simply Jesus, describes brilliantly I think the challenge presented by Jesus ministry in his social context as he proclaimed that "God reigns" and showed what that reality looked like in his life and ministry.

How could I have gone through all those years of seminary and years of preaching from the Bible each week and missed the context of Jesus’ ministry and why his message spoke so powerfully to the hopes and fears of the people of his time? I too looked down from the heights of Nazareth to the ruins of Sepphoris and realized that Jesus must have done the same – it was staring him in the face. Jesus’ faith and ministry must have been shaped in a tumultuous crucible rather than dropped down from heaven in some holy bubble.

As we journey I also read – not just the Bible – but history. I found Karen Armstrong's book, Jerusalem, particularly helpful as she, like an archaeologist, explored the many layers and dimensions of this holy/unholy city. What a terrible history – too much history!  Here is a brief example from the Crusades:

For three days the Crusaders systematically slaughtered about thirty thousand of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. “They killed all the Saracens and the Turks they found,” said the author of the Gesta Francorum approvingly, “they killed everyone, whether male or female.” Ten thousand Muslims who had sought sanctuary on the roof of the Aqsā were brutally massacred, and Jews were rounded up into their synagogue and put to the sword. There were scarcely any survivors. . . . The streets literally ran with blood.  . . . Provençal eyewitness Raymond of Aguiles . . .felt that the massacre was a sign of the triumph of Christianity: “If I tell the truth it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and the Porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies.” . . .Eventually there was no one left to kill. The Crusaders washed and processed to the Anastasis, singing hymns with tears of joy rolling down their faces. Standing around the tomb of Christ, they sang the Office of the Resurrection.

The whole sorry history reminded me of the quote from Walter Benjamin on the Angel of History with “His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage . . .”.

And I walked around with the words of Poet Gerald Manley Hopkins:

                Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;    

                And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil . . .

 . . . and we could add with blood as well.  Lots of blood.

As I read I realized that the holy places that we visited had been (and continue to be battlegrounds) between Jew, Christian and Muslim as well as battlegrounds between warring factions within Christendom. (We got a small taste of this as a group when some of our group were pushed aside, blocked and even pushed over in the Church of the Nativity. So much for Christian love and patience at the birthplace of the Prince of Peace!)

While happy to be part of this wonderful group – I found myself in my spirit more and more depressed. The vision of compassion, justice and love that lies at the heart of all of these three great monotheistic faiths – Jewish, Christian, Islam – seemed to me completely eclipsed. Was the only future something resembling the security wall that now walled off the West Bank from Israel? Maybe John Lennon was right in imagining a world "with no religion too".

But then I return – always return, to the one who called me into the Way of love even if in the midst of the pain of the cross. The one who walked that Way with love and humility to the very end. And our Faith . .  that somehow, in totally surprising and beyond-human-understanding ways – the light shines in the darkness and the terror, sadness, violence and darkness of the cross and tomb cannot extinguish it or put it out.

And so I sit – trying to be faithful like the women who stayed by Jesus that final week even when all others had fled – waiting. Faithful to the Way. Faithful to the feelings. Faithful and hopeful to their witness that First Easter.

I preached this morning at Trinity United Church, Elmira on a passage that I love but which I think is very important and often misused and misunderstood. Here it is below . . .

 Genesis 3:1-13 Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden

3Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ ²The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.” ’ ⁴But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; ⁵for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. ⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ ¹⁰He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ ¹¹He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ ¹²The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ ¹³Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’

These are profound stories. Perhaps because they're familiar to us, we miss how significant and true they are. These stories were pulled together in their present form by the Hebrew people as they lived in exile "by the waters of Babylon". This little mountain tribal people with their strange belief in one God, that had brought them out of Egypt to the promised land, had witnessed a catastrophe, their capital city Jerusalem and the holy Temple which was the center of their religion – destroyed by the mighty forces of the Babylonian Empire. And they had been shipped off to Babylon – and there, as the psalmist recalls, "by the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept” when they remembered Jerusalem and the holy Temple.

In Babylon they encountered a very different religion – a religion of many gods. They wondered if their God had abandoned them – if God was back in the ruined temple. Where was their God now? They remembered their old stories about how the world was made. What did it mean that their God was the maker of heaven and earth when they ran across very different creation stories in Babylon? The Babylonians believed that the earth was formed from the dead carcass of one of the gods that had died in the battle of the gods.

And there, in that most unlikely place, by the waters of Babylon, they came to an awareness that their God had not abandoned them. And this God was not simply dwelling in Jerusalem – this God was the Creator of heaven and earth. And so we have the wonderful story in the first chapter of Genesis of God creating the world out of nothing and calling it good. (What a different story than the violent story of the Babylonians!) And they also took their old stories as well – their old tribal stories – and put them into this new frame. And that's what we have with the story of Adam and Eve. This is the story of how the creation – including us – that God called good – became . . . not so good . . . at least in some things.

The story feels a bit like a setup, doesn't it? It's like bringing kids into a wonderful play room that is full of wonderful toys and placing a jar of chocolate chip cookies in the middle of it and saying, "Hey kids, all these wonderful toys are for you to play with. Enjoy! But you see these cookies in a jar. You can't eat those."

How successful would that strategy be? Now some of you might recall some stories around kids and cookies. At an early stage, when these kids were still really innocent, you might find that they had been in the cookie jar – there was chocolate all over their face – and when you asked, "Did you eat the cookies that I asked you not to eat?" They would answer quite innocently, "Yes! And they were good!" Give it a few months or a few years and you might have a different response. Still with telltale chocolate on their face they would point at a sister or brother and say – "Well they took one first!" Or it might even get to the point that when you got into the room you find the cookie jar is empty and the culprits are hiding – because they know they've done what they shouldn't have done. They not only ate the cookies . . . they have also bitten the apple.  Adam, Eve  . . . where are you?

Now some Christians point to this story and say – "That's where it all went wrong!" That has been the dominant story in western Christianity since St. Augustine. That's where our relationship with God was broken and God has been working on fixing the mistake ever since. That's the "original sin" thing that you hear about. Humans are fallen . . . bad creatures. Many, including myself, see it a little bit differently.

I see this story of Adam and Eve as a story of growing up – and God loving us all the way through. We will all remember the times when our kids got out of the tub and ran around naked absolutely happy. And they would have run outside if we hadn't caught them. And you will also remember there came a day when they got to an age where they became self-conscious – and knew they were naked. They ate the apple we all have eaten. It's a normal part of growing up. And as we keep growing up we realize that there are bad things in the world. And sometimes willfully and sometimes unwittingly we hurt others. And sometimes willfully and sometimes unwittingly we destroy and dis-spoil God's good creation. Or to adapt a phase by poet William Blake, good and evil are woven fine in this life.  

But as parents if we would have the choice that our kids would always stay innocence or grow up – which would we choose.  Grow up of course because otherwise we would have only a stunted relationship with them. We long for that relationship that grows and deepens over the years, the love that deepens as we navigate together all those other twists and turns that make life so rich. It seems to me that God would want to see us grow up and deepen in our life and love. Perhaps we should put it the other way around, we want that for our children because God wants that for us.

So what we have is not so much a Big Mistake in the story of Adam and Eve that requires a Big Fix. But rather what we have is a Big Love Story of a God who won’t let us go. A long dance of love. God's desire for deeper and deeper relationship with us. How deep? On this Lenten journey we will see how deep . . . so deep that it will go all the way to cross. That's how deep.

Now I would like to explore a little what all this might mean in our broken relationship with Creation – because there is so much misunderstanding around a fallen creation. We have many Christians for example who believe that this world is evil, fallen, and the sooner that we get out of it to be brought to heaven the better. They are waiting for the “rapture” when the elect will be beamed up to heaven and the earth will become a hell on earth. But I can say absolutely that that is not biblical. God created this world as good. And nothing human beings can do can take away from the goodness. This original blessing is a blessing that God showers upon the good and evil, the just and the unjust.  It is the showering of God's incredible love for all creatures and for all people.

But that doesn't mean that there is not brokenness and separation. We have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil – and unlike any other creature that we know, we are aware of what we do. Tigers kill and eat because that's what tigers do. They don't reflect on what they're doing. When Eve reaches for the Apple and takes a bite and shares it with Adam she's not just reaching out her hand because she is hungry and wants something to eat. She wants something more than what fills her stomach. She wants knowledge and power. She wants to take from creation something for her benefit that goes beyond simply the meeting of physical needs. Adam and Eve want to use the world and shape the world for their own benefit. They have separated themselves from nature . . . nature becomes and object for exploitation and selfish use.

At one time when the story of Adam and Eve was written, and for most of human history, humans couldn't imagine that they could destroy this world. We now see that this objective exploiting of nature and using it for our narrow human purposes is destroying the planet. The time of innocence is passed. We've taken a new bite of the Big Apple. We now see a bigger story of God's love song with this cosmos that we had never seen before. A 4.5 billion year history that has created this jewel of Earth – this watery blue-green planet of unspeakable intricate beauty. And for the first time in human history we have been given a God’s eye view of this beautiful garden home that God has placed us in to care and protect.

And we're discovering as Christians – indeed all human beings are discovering this, people of all religious persuasions – that we need to learn to love this planet and care for it.

I'd like to leave you with some reflections that I think we can take from this wonderful story.

First we are called to delight in creation – to see it with God's eyes as good and beautiful and precious. To see this garden that we have been placed in as an indescribable treasure that we are called to protect and to treasure and to love. “We only protect what we love.” That is the way the ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau puts it. And if we don’t know it up close and personal  . . . taking time to delight and learn, chances are we will not even know what we are destroying or damaging. A daily walk outside, gardening, caring for animals, outdoor photography, paint, environmental clean-up can all open us to fall in love with God’s good creation.

Second we are to pray for healing of our eyes and heart. I will give you an example . . . and a confession. Sometime when I see a magnificent tree I sometimes see lumber. Because I like woodworking. I don't think of the thing itself – but what the thing will be if I take it. I literally don't see the tree itself because I am only seeing what it will do for me in fulfilling my desires. This objectifying of creation is killing the planet as we only see the world as “resources” for “development”. We have healing work to do and it must begin with us.

Third. If you read on in this chapter you will come across a strange little detail that God did just before God booted Adam and Eve out of the garden. God made clothes for them out of animal skins. It was God who sacrificed the first animals for the sake of humans. And in the Hebrew understanding the sacrifice of animals was central to their understanding of the worship of God. Perhaps it feels very strange and odd to us. But sacrifice literally means – to make holy. Killing another creature is a sacred act. There is a line from Leonard Cohen that I like – "We read from pleasant Bibles that are bound in blood and skin". We have so distanced ourselves from the killing of animals that we've lost the sense of the sacredness of all creation – and hence the need to be careful stewards and protect all creation. Certainly here our First Nations brothers and sisters can teach us much.

All this says that one way or another we sacrifice, and we have the consciousness to know what we are doing.  Here is the way writer and farmer Wendell Berry puts it, “To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.” 

There is always sacrifice. The question is who is sacrificed. We have the finger-pointing right from the very beginning. “The woman you gave me – she gave me the fruit!” “The serpent – he made me do it!” We're willing to sacrifice everyone but ourselves. In fact I think we could argue that we are now sacrificing our children – indeed the whole of creation – to keep our lifestyle going the way we have grown accustomed. And as Christians we are reminded in this Lenten season that Jesus would not have anyone sacrificed  . . . no one but himself. What are we willing to sacrifice in our lives for the life of this world and the life of our children and children yet unborn?

And finally we have God. Always God . . . God walking in the cool of the garden. God in the call of the loon while camping. God caressing our cheek with a gentle breeze. God leading us into green pastures and beside still waters – restoring our souls. God who is lonely for us when we hide. God looking for us. God waiting for us to come on outside to play!

I have been thinking about how I am being shaped and reshaped by relationships – of all sorts – close to home.

The first is our chickens in our backyard. (Yes, in Guelph having a backyard chicken coop is legal!) Our 4 chickens are quite wonderful – each with their own personality. And I receive such enjoyment watching them enjoy themselves having a dust bath, basking in the sun. But they are not pets. They have got to produce – and they do – three or four eggs a day. (My son has a small egg business to deal with the surplus production.)

Getting to know our chickens close-up has now awakened me to how I know the vast majority hens live and how our eggs are produced. Chickens, 2 to a tiny cage, spending their whole life in that tiny prison – in a living warehouse along with thousands of others in the same condition. I find myself less compromised and more whole knowing I am less a part of our industrial agriculture system. These birds are challenging all my views of all of the food I eat.

Relationships close to home are changing my global perspective.

Another new reality close to home are the new solar panels on our roof. Amazing. Each panel produces up to 230 Watts. Multiply that by 34 panels and it's a lot of power. It is my rough calculation, that over the course of the year, we will produce as much electricity as we consume in this household. (One surprising discovery is that these panels work better in cold weather than in hot weather and will produce probably the best in March, April and May when there is more sun and still cool temperatures.)

Now I am looking at all the roofs of my neighbours. I'm thinking about all the greenhouse gases that would not be produced, all the employment that could be offered if we as a society made a commitment for green sustainable energy. These panels will produce power for over 50 years – long after I'm gone. A gift to the future rather than a toxic legacy.

A new relationship with technology that also generates hope – close to home.

One last relationship – this one not so happy. I joined other neighbours this past week in opposing a severance application that will create two building lots in the forest you see above. The creation of these building sites will mean the partial destruction of this small urban forest in our neighbourhood. The applicant won – and our neighborhood lost a small forest and a wonderful wild wooded area.

Was it the global loss of the cutting of the Amazon rain forest or the loss of huge swaths of boreal forest in the north of Canada? No. Just a small patch of nature close to home. But it is this death by a thousand nibbles and cuts that are relentlessly reshaping the whole and diminishing the planet. Something in me this week has felt diminished.

Local neighbourhood choices are part of a global mindset that only sees trees and forests – and nature itself – as something ready for exploitation or "resource extraction" or ready to be made useful for "development".

The only gain has been a neighbourhood solidarity where I can see that I am not alone in my feelings and an arising collective desire to preserve and protect. And a prayer arising as well – for seeing and treasuring and protecting places close to home.

And this treasuring and protecting close to home can transform my/our perspective of the world – a healing of my eyes and heart to see all creation as sacred.

It has been a rich week. Rich spiritual food. Twice – at Ignatius Jesuit Center and then at the Organic Conference at the University of Guelph – I heard Sister Miriam MacGillis speak. It was remarkable – and transformative for me.

Miriam is one of the founders of Genesis Farm in New Jersey – a pioneer in the modern organic movement and biodynamic agriculture. She's also deeply aware of how this living with/in creation is part of the great unfolding of the Universe Story and the wonderful flowering of life in all its diversity here on earth.

Let me briefly describe what moved me.

She began (at Ignatius) asking the 50 or so of us to be still after our busy day. And then gently she invited us to speak out of something that we were thinking/carrying/struggling with as we came to the topic, Embracing Earth, that evening. To speak our reality into the group. No comment, no debate – just speaking to the group the truth/struggle that each of us brought to this time and topic.

Amazing wisdom shared. Amazing resonance experienced. Amazing unveiling of a shared heart and the building of community before she even began to speak and engage us. Remarkable! It was as if she was demonstrating an unveiling in our midst that speaks of the planet’s and humanity’s new evolutionary consciousness.

The second thing I took away from both evenings – but was best summed up by the question of a young woman at the University – was this. This young woman said that she didn't come out of any particular faith tradition or spiritual background. But she felt deeply the need to connect with the Earth/environment in a sacred way but, she said, "I don't know where to look or find a spiritual language or roots. Where do I begin?"

 Sister Miriam was so profound in response. She gently suggested that she not begin in any "religious" tradition but with the mystery and wonder of the unfolding universe story itself. To sink into that and let it enter her deepest consciousness. And only after that, perhaps, explore a particular religious tradition within that overarching story. She suggested a visit to someplace like the Rose Center at the Museum of Natural History in New York City as a good beginning. Something that laid out the Big Story.

That got me remembering one of the most moving spiritual experiences of my somewhat recent past. It was a visit to the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta. There, captured in stone, was the most exquisite fossil record of the unfolding history of life on this planet. I was literally walking through millions and millions of years of the unfolding flowering of life on this planet. I was overwhelmed. It was as if my life and imagination had expanded and I saw myself as part of a great unfolding wonder and mystery. It made me feel incredibly small. But it only underlined for me the miracle that I was consciousness reflecting on itself. I was literally transported for hours and found it hard to break away and leave. Oneness. The goal of so many religious quests and mystical experiences. I felt it that afternoon.

And all this musing and memory has led me still further back. I remembered when the Jewish people were exiled "by the waters of Babylon". It was there where this tribal religion was thrown into the cosmopolitan pot of competing creation stories. (In the primary Babylonian creation myth Marduk murders and dis-members  Tiamat the "mother of them all" and from her cadaver the world is formed. Creation is an act of violence. This must have led to deep reflection and prayer by the Jewish people who believed in one God.)  It was in this swirl of competing creation stories where this tribal religion opened itself up to the big story of one God who was creator of heaven and earth. It was there that creation stories of Hebrew Scripture – indeed much of the Old Testament as we know it – took shape. The old tribal creation stories were brought together in a new cosmic form. It was in that unlikely place of exile and dislocation that they were given a new vision of their particular stories within a greater and expanded cosmology.

It seems to me like the task for today. How do we take our precious stories of our ancestors and bring them into a cosmic consciousness – like the expanding universe that we see in the heavens and on earth.

 Sister Miriam was suggesting – drawing on the wisdom of her mentor Thomas Berry – that religious wonder in this particular time of planetary consciousness must begin with that primary sense of wonder in the universe story. To discover a consciousness within us and all the created order that is part of this deep unfolding reality that we share with our spiritual ancestors whose DNA we also share along with the air and the water and the elements that have been theirs and are now part of us. A fulfilling of our destiny as being creatures "a little lower than the angels" (Psalm 8) and privileged to be part of its consciousness and unfolding Blessing.

I have just come off the most amazing retreat that has "restored my soul" and revived my courage and strengthened my feet in this ministry.

The retreat happened at St. John the Divine Convent in Toronto with Bishop Mark MacDonald – the first National Indigenous Bishop for the Anglican Church of Canada. Mark himself is aboriginal, has most of his formation and ministry in native communities and was wonderful in sharing his experience and traditions in ways that enlarged and enriched ours. It was a rich weekend in all respects – spiritually, intellectually and imaginatively. My heart was warmed and my synapses were firing.

Thoughts and feelings are still swirling in me but one thing stands out in helping me in this journey of exploration of Rising Spirit Ministry.

It was a simple Scripture verse that Mark MacDonald says has transformed and empowered native ministry across Canada. Matthew 18:20 – "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them." Jesus’ words and promise.

For 150 years many native ministries have been judged and found wanting. In many native church services across this country on Sundays there are a handful of people. (I remember it well in the church where I myself joined the United Church of Canada in Skidegate in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands). Many Sundays there was only a handful of people – and that with a wonderful Minister that was loved and respected and regarded as an elder in the community – Rev. Bob Henderson.)

Mark MacDonald spoke about that continual cloud of failure that has hung over native ministry and church and First Nations Christians. But is "church attendance" on Sunday the mark of a true church? Or is that a cultural legacy from European Christianity that may or may not work in other cultural contexts?

Clearly we've been measuring the wrong way in native communities. And now these communities are feeling the freedom and authority of Scripture in ways that they have never experienced before when they realize the church is fully present where two or three gather together around the kitchen table reading the Bible – truly an indigenous Christianity! (See the resource – Gospel Based Discipleship)

 Why this excites me so much in my ministry is that I often feel like a failure for not gathering many folks together to form a “church” – even though many of the folks I talk to claim that that's what they're looking for. But any church I've imagined looks too much like the European inherited church – just it’s not on Sunday or in a church setting.

 But with two or three gathered together in Christ’s name – that has happened – a lot! Lots of sacred conversations. Further Mark MacDonald suggested that many postmodern young people in particular have an aboriginal sense of spirituality and orientation. Conversations in circles. Dialogue. Sharing. Listening. Simple. And most important – open to the One who makes the circle sacred and joins us through the Spirit in the midst of it all.

“To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation. When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament. When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration. In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want.” Wendell Berry

Moderator of the United Church, Mardi Tindal, is attending the UN climate change negotiations in Durban, South Africa and blogging about her experience there. It has been wonderful to get reports on what is happening since we are getting so little reporting in the mainstream media.

I was moved by what I think was Mardi's strongest and clearest statement a couple days ago. In the blog she also referred to a Globe and Mail article on the effects of climate change in Africa. Again, it was thoughtful reporting and I was heartened to see it in "Canada's national newspaper". I read it online and then scrolled to the bottom to view the comments. This is when I became really depressed.

The comments were of a general type which can be easily summed up by saying that all Africa can go screw itself – Canada has no responsibility for its CO2 emissions and Africa is looking for yet another handout at the Durban talks.

What most disturbed me was the angry tone of practically all of these comments. (I'm not exactly sure what kind of people spend a lot of time writing comments – I'm sure that's a study in itself. But I would wager that most of them were men in this case.) It was the hardness of heart over the plight of other human beings that cut me to the quick and I've been carrying that sense of heart-ache ever since.

It's made me wonder. I have found that many of the angriest people are some of the richest people, the most privileged people. I remember during the federal election when I was running for the Green Party I noticed the same phenomenon – and actually tweeted about it. It was one of those tweets that got a lot of response and made some of my campaign folks very nervous. But the more I see the more I stand by what I said.

Will we sacrifice anything of our privilege and lifestyle for the sake of saving the planet? Do we have such a little sense of the whole of creation and such a self-centered narcissism to think that we will somehow not share the same fate of all the rest of the creatures on earth?

As a Christian it makes me think about sacrifice. Let it not be said that many privileged people in the West do not think about sacrifice. They will sacrifice alright.  They will sacrifice everyone else – even the whole world – everyone but themselves.

At the heart of the Christian message is sacrificial love – God's sacrifice, our sacrifice for the health and healing and wholeness of other people and the whole of creation. That is the Christmas story – God "emptying” of Godself to become one with us. Downward mobility. Love come down at Christmas.

 And by the way . . . I too pray that I don’t fall into the trap of anger . . . some of this above has that edge. It is Love that came down at Christmas.  I pray for the Grace to receive and have that love transform any anger and all anger into love.

I had the honour of spending some hours with Philip Berrigan some years ago. I will never forget his passion and challenge.  It challenges me still.

I love this poem by his brother, Daniel too. It strengthens my faith when I sometimes have my faith shaken.  A Good Message for Advent.

Daniel Berrigan (born 1921)

Advent Credo

It is not true that creation and the human family are doomed to destruction and loss—
This is true: For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life;

It is not true that we must accept inhumanity and discrimination, hunger and poverty, death and destruction—
This is true: I have come that they may have life, and that abundantly.

It is not true that violence and hatred should have the last word, and that war and destruction rule forever—
This is true: Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, his name shall be called wonderful councilor, mighty God, the Everlasting, the Prince of peace.

It is not true that we are simply victims of the powers of evil who seek to rule the world—
This is true: To me is given authority in heaven and on earth, and lo I am with you, even until the end of the world.

It is not true that we have to wait for those who are specially gifted, who are the prophets of the Church before we can be peacemakers—
This is true: I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions and your old men shall have dreams.

It is not true that our hopes for liberation of humankind, of justice, of human dignity of peace are not meant for this earth and for this history—
This is true: The hour comes, and it is now, that the true worshipers shall worship God in spirit and in truth.

So let us enter Advent in hope, even hope against hope. Let us see visions of love and peace and justice. Let us affirm with humility, with joy, with faith, with courage: Jesus Christ—the life of the world.

From Testimony: The Word Made Flesh, by Daniel Berrigan, S.J. Orbis Books, 2004.

"The hopes and fears of all the years . . ." (Christmas Carol – O Little Town of Bethlehem)

I am aware of absence these last few days. The absence of any news on the climate change talks in Durban, South Africa in the mainstream media of Canada. Perhaps that is good. Perhaps behind closed doors and out of the glare of the media there is a dawning sanity among the nations of the world. Perhaps there is a collective pulling together to lower CO2 and get serious about saving our planet that we all share as our only home. That is my hope. But my fear is that there is a deep denial and forgetting that has descended upon the public and governments, especially in the affluent West, denial of the truth that is just too inconvenient.

I am struck at this season how small makes all the difference – for good or ill.

Who would ever have imagined back in the 1970s when those aerosol cans became ubiquitous that the propellant in those cans would rise in the atmosphere and gobble up ozone. Who had ever heard of ozone? And yet ozone we discovered was the sunscreen of life on this planet. (The good news was that the Montréal Protocol banned CFCs and the Earth – mother Gaia – began to heal.)

Or who would imagine that parts per million (ppm) of CO2 would make such a difference.  To get a sense of the size it is equivalent to one drop of water diluted into 50 liters (roughly the fuel tank capacity of a compact car), or about 32 seconds out of a year.

• 275 ppm – preindustrial CO2
• 350 ppm – the best guess for long-range climate stability
• 389 ppm – present level in 2011 and climbing a 2 ppm each year
• 450 ppm – coming soon the anticipated tipping point and recipe for a baking planet

 In some ways it is hard to believe that such a tiny amount can make such a difference – and bring such catastrophe. And we seem to have little will as a species to change our incredibly destructive ways. So there’s my dark fear in this dark time of year – and in this dark season for mother Earth.

 But the hope of this season is likewise that small change can bring good – and likewise change everything for the better.

Jesus spoke about it, in fact it is the centerpiece of his message.

• A tiny amount of yeast which leavens the whole lump of dough.
• A tiny amount of salt that gives flavor to the whole.
• A tiny light in the night that can guide to a new future.
• Faith the size of a mustard seed that can literally move a mountain.

 Imagine we being part of those ppm of good and good action in this world that would change everything – for the good. That seems to me what the Christmas story of a child born in a backyard stable is all about. Small, missed by all, but destined to change everything – to be a Blessing for the whole world.

 Is that what faith looks like today? To trust living and working in small ways – and trusting great results – to incarnate and bring God's healing ways to this Earth God so loves.

The weather is getting colder and I have been thinking of homeless people today. And our First Nations brothers and sisters in Attawapiskat.  Here is a poem that speaks to me.

Women in a shoe - by Marge Piercy

 There was an old woman who lived

in a shoe, her own two shoes,

men's they were, brown and worn.

They flapped when she hobbled along.

There was an old woman who lived

in a refrigerator box, under

the expressway, with her cat.

January, they died curled together.

There was an old woman who lived

in a room under the roof. It

got hot, but she was scared

to open the window. It got hotter.

Too hot, too cold, too poor,

too old. Invisible unless

she annoys you, invisible

unless she gets in your way.

In fairy tales if you are kind

to an old woman, she gives you

the thing you desperately need:

an unconquerable sword, a purse

bottomless and always filled,

a magical ring. We don’t believe

that anymore. Such tales were

made up by old women scared

to be thrust from the hearth,

shoved into the street to starve.

Who fears an old woman pushing

a grocery cart? She is talking

to God as she shuffles along,

her life in her pockets. You

are the true child of her heart

and you see living garbage.