jesus – As Far As The Eye Can See

The Path of My Thoughts

I have been thinking about something that I am going to guess my Mom and Dad taught us when we were teenagers. It would make sense that they taught it to me and us, my siblings and I, but I don’t have a memory of them sitting down to discuss it with us. I actually have few memories of explicit conversations where they worked hard to put wisdom into us. I think most of the wisdom we gleaned from them came through osmosis, the reality where you learn things and become things simply by being close enough to an influence for long enough. One of the things I am most grateful for in my life is my parents. I often think about how my Dad was a friend to underdogs, I think about how my Mom let herself be moved. When I say that I mean she was available emotionally, intellectually and spiritually to the people and experiences that crossed her path. In all I took from these two quite wonderful yet fragile human beings, I came to understand wisdom that put into words might have sounded like this, “be careful Kathy, your reputation matters, who you hang around with will affect you and others will make judgments about you when they see who you are near, stay close to those who match your cares.” It is the saying “you are known by the company you keep.”

I got a little obsessed by this thought over the last few days and I did a tiny bit of research. I learned there is Scriptural references that reflect this wisdom. In the writing of Paul to the church at Corinth he says, “do not be misled; bad company corrupts good character, come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God – I say this to your shame.” That would have been written about 1,965 years ago, it is a notion that has some history to it and sacredness attached to it.

It was interesting to type into my search engine, “is the saying, “you are known by the company you keep” ever not true?” There were instances where that was so but they were quite specific, like when your employment forces you to spend time with people that don’t reflect your values.

It seems pretty widely accepted that where you have a choice as to who you spend time with you are proclaiming something about yourself by the choices that you make.

It feels like the wisdom in the saying is reliable.

Why am I obsessing about this?

Because I am looking for some guidance in the midst of turbulent times.

I have been mostly off of facebook for the last week, ever since I switched phones and didn’t load the app on my new phone. I just see it when I am on my laptop now. However, I have been privy to the hot and heavy debate about Charlie Kirk. Some that I hold dear are insistent that he is a faithful Christian and his death equates to a great loss for the Christian community. Others hold a very opposite position. When research is done to see what the story is, to try and come to my own conclusion, there is confusion to be found. There are clips of him voicing things that are really unsettling. He says things that I hope I would never be found saying. Those who defend him say that those clips are taken out of context and when the context is given his words make sense. I did a little looking around for the context when he said he hated empathy. What I read did not lead me to have confidence one way or another about who this man was and what he offered the world. I found myself thinking about what is expected of us leaders. I say “us leaders” because Charlie Kirk and I have the shared experience of standing in front of crowds and speaking and hoping that our words made a difference. As a speaker I know that role comes with some accountability. I have an oath to God to constantly seek to be faithful in my words and I rely on the movement of the Holy Spirit for guidance and the courage to say what needs to be said. I am sure that when I speak I regularly leave some confusion in my wake. As a preacher it would be unusual to have all people follow all the time, but that confusion is different than speaking in such a way that people get offended by what I say. I am certain that has happened too, especially at funerals where people of different faith perpsectives gather. I don’t think I have ever said something from the pulpit that gave a completely different message than I intended. If I did and there was social media commentary on it it would give me the chance to clarify what I meant. I did an internet search looking for examples of times that Kirk took the chance to clarify what he meant. I didn’t find any reference to that. I didn’t look for a long time but tried a few different search questions to unearth what I was looking for but nothing came up. So there was nothing to answer to my hope that as a leader with impact he would correct and clarify the messages people were taking away from his comments that seem to reinforce the oppression of black people, women and many others. Perhaps there are lots of examples of him trying to clarify his words so that he more closely lines up with the way of Jesus. If they are there I could not find them.

In the context of pastoral care I have said things that I needed to apologize for, once when I was a student and I was flustered and a little bit stupid and I told a woman “I had come to visit to bring God to her.” She informed me quite clearly that she didn’t need me to bring
God to her, that God was already there….. of course she was right. I apologized. In another case I made assumptions that led me to say things that hurt some people and I was most definitely called to account for that. Difficult conversations ensued. I was not given a free pass because I hold the role I do. I was expected to answer for what I said, and how what I said didn’t meet the moment. These experiences inform me. They make accountability normal to me and I am also a bit resentful, if I with my puny circle of influence must be accountable how can it be okay for another Christian leader with influence too broad to track be given a pass when, for example, he names four successful and high profile black women and insists they are affirmative action picks. If he didn’t mean to imply that they actually could not possibly be capable enough for the roles they fill, because of the color of their skin, despite the advanced degrees and volume of life and work experience they held, if he didn’t mean to imply that, he should have chosen his words more carefully and tried to state what he actually meant when he realized he had been misunderstood.

So I am struggling. I am resenting double standards. I am confused by the information I have access to. I also wonder why this even matters to me. Let it go Kathy. Maybe what I am really working through is the question “what makes for a strong witness for Jesus Christ in the world?” There is a folk song we used to sing a lot that includes the line, “and they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Somehow that lyric is inspiring but not exactly helpful, it’s a bit vague, the definition of love could be debated enough to make that criteria just another thing to fight over. So I am winding my way back to those moments with my parents when the wisdom “you are known by the company you keep” somehow founds its place in my head. Charlie Kirk and Donald Trump were tight. Donald Trump and Jeffry Epstein were tight. Jeffrey Epstein was notorious, he was tried and convicted for running a sex trafficking ring involving underage girls. Even if Donald Trump was not part of the abuse of that, he was part of Epsteins circle of close friends, he presented himself as being comfortable with who Epstein was. That is the man that Charlie Kirk stood by. At the time of his assassination he had a pile of hats beside him with the number 47 on them, this was a very vivid moment where he demonstrated his eager willingness to be associated with Donald Trump. That is too much for me, because of what it says about his character. I grieve Mr. Kirk’s death and what it means for his family, I grieve what his assassination means for our shared culture, I am sad for him that his life was cut short, but that is as far as I can go. I cannot give him hero status or elevate his status as a Christian. This is where my journey has taken me. I don’t want to be at odds with people I love and I will not tell them how to feel or criticize for what they feel, but for me, in the shifting sand of our life together in North America, it feels like some things hold true and maybe we can agree that love heals, hate divides and you are known by the company you keep.

My Lifejacket

A month ago I made a post outlining my concern with Trump. I concluded it by stating my strategy that I was going to get tighter with Jesus and stay that way. In the comments I was moved to get specific about what that might look like. I put into writing what I figured I needed to do. I committed to read a chapter of the gospels every day, until I had them memorized or the turmoil south of us had passed, which ever came first. I have mostly made good on that promise to myself, I have missed days but I am working at it. Its funny what you notice when you read with different eyes. For instance I knew that Jesus and his Mom and Dad had to flee to Egypt when he was very small, to avoid being found and killed by Herod the ruler of the day. However something never really hit me until I read it while also pondering what was happening to immigrants in the USA. It hit me, “Jesus was a refugee!” He was received by Egyptians as a human fleeing threat to his life. We say that having been human Jesus knows what humanity faces, this story adds texture to that and adds strength to the Christian mandate to treat the refugee, the immigrant with dignity. There is a lot percolating in me as a result of my reading.

This morning I grabbed coffee and found myself thinking as I picked up my Bible, “why am I doing this?” The notion that came to me was “because this is putting on your lifejacket.” That makes sense for me. I am finding the daily onslaught of developments dizzying. I don’t know enough to make good replies to what I see on social media, I don’t know how I can make a difference. Things seem so significant, with so much potential for harm near and far, it feels imperative to attempt to make a positive difference, and certainly I need to not drown in it all. I pondered then that my readings serve as a lifejacket for me when they help me stay clear eyed about what matters, what is true and right. Staying clear about that, speaking from that, will keep me from starting to go under. Here is an example of how that worked one morning recently. I read the part of Matthew where Jesus says “it is easier for a camel to go throught the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” I have preached on this passage many times. There is much that could be said, but in the context of getting the wisdom that is going to keep me afloat, there was a clear message. It goes something like this, “Kathy, first of all, you are a privileged white person, you see things through that lens, don’t think otherwise. And….. Be careful. Be wise. Be unselfish. Secondly, do not trust anything that creates harm for some so that others can be rich. Do not trust it. It is not of God.”

That” lifejacket” tells me I am right to be concerned when the richest men in the world sit closest to the incoming president at his inauguration, and when I hear that their wealth has increased immeasurably since the election, I am right to be suspicious, and when I refuse to give my allegiance to a way of life that blesses all this, I can feel justified. Holy shit, why do these thoughts feel so radical to say out loud?

Hello Wednesday

I am continuing on my weeklong writing experiment. The title of the blog has little to do with the contents, its just a way of organizing this week’s posts.

I made a supper last night that turned out really well. Its best by request right now. We are preparing to have Gina leave for Toronto later this week and I am cooking up some of her favorites. At the end of the meal, out of the blue, Russell brought me a glass of red wine. I am not sure what to say to explain the timing of that delivery, not sure what was in his head, however I received it and thought, “hmmm, I guess this will be my dessert.” The thing is that I usually eat things I love in pairs. Toast and coffee. Cookies and coffee. Chips and beer or Cheezies and Bubly water. Wine…..what pairs with it for dessert? Cheese maybe, but there was a loaf of bread on the table and I decided to have a piece of buttered bread with my glass of wine.

After presiding at the sacrament of communion so many times in my life I was not able to experience this combo of bread and wine without doing exactly what the communion story invites us to do. When Jesus communed with his disciples with bread and wine in hand he told them that as often as they break bread and drink wine together they should remember him. With that in mind I posed a question at the table. “What do you remember about Jesus?” Russell was the first and only to answer because his answer took us in a new direction. He said, “I remember him in a nightclub.” This was such a meaningful answer. I had seen a post that my friend made earlier in the day, I had a heartfelt reaction to it, I immediately shared it with Jill. Gina saw the same poem shared elsewhere and put it in our family Whatsapp chat. It was a poem posted in response to the mass shooting in an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs on the weekend. Russell was offering his experience of that poem as the answer to my question.

Here is the poem.

In the spring of ’21 Jill had something to share with us. It was that she is bisexual. She gave me permission to name that here. She also gave me permission to share a few pictures.

Jill created this cake for dessert that night in April of 21. We discovered the very inside was a bit hollowed out and was filled with home-made sprinkles and a note.

We were photographing this moment because something was up. Despite the colors in the cake I had no clue what was coming. In fact, this is a momentous time we captured.

This was the note, with a bi-sexual character from one of our favorite shows (Brooklyn ’99) as illustration.

I think these images illumine the incredible vulnerability of a person coming out. It helps to illumine why we value poems like the one shared here and in our family chat. That poem speaks of things I want my children to know. It creates an image I want my kids to have in their head. It’s an image I need to have in my head as I consider my child encountering a world where she will at times be rejected and at times risk violence against herself just for being who she is.

“Remember me” he said at the table. I will, with gratitude. It turns out that a glass of red wine was a fine dessert and it was good for my heart.

A Bakery is Born

Most of the people that read this blog are also facebook friends and will have seen some of this info in recent facebook posts. Not everyone is with me on facebook though and there is more to the story than I can say on facebook without being overwhelming. So the bakery story is coming to the blog.

The bottomline: I started a bakery this week. Its very simple, very limited, very manageable, but very powerful in my heart.

When the discovery of bodies at Canadian Residential School sites began I pondered how I could respond in a meaningful way. What I came to is that I wanted to bake a bun for every child whose remains were found. At first that was 215, a full day of baking for sure. Numbers rose and the plan had to change. Now I am having scheduled baking sessions, joined by people that want to help, want to share stories with me, or just talk over thoughts and feelings about these horrifying discoveries. I am then delivering buns to local people who have pre-ordered via facebook and they are giving me a donation in exchange for the buns, a donation being forwarded to something called “The Healing Fund.” This fund was established by the United Church of Canada in 1994 in an effort to begin making things right. The monies raised support the plans of indigenous people to do what will bring healing to individuals and communities. The response in my local area has been great.

The name of my bakery is “Broken Bread Bakery”, it just came to me one morning. I was thinking about Bible stories where Jesus gathered with others at tables as equals and meals were shared. Then at the point where Jesus’ death was being plotted he told his followers to continue to break bread together and in doing that remember him. The Sacrament of Communion was begun. In my first thoughts on this, through the lens of those discoveries of human remains, I was really aware that Jesus called us to break bread and not bodies. When I talked to the family about this it was noted that although it is true that we are dealing with bodies the ongoing issue is the legacy of the attempts made to break spirits. I think that the way Jesus treated all as equally worthy of God’s love, his example of humility and the respect he showed for the uniqueness of others was in those moments something that made peoples spirits more whole. The residential school agenda was not that. I am quite a fan of how Jesus used bread to invite us, by his example, to do better and to be better. So…… “Broken Bread Bakery” was born. Maybe the brokenness within me and others who connect with this project in any way can be touched. Maybe, by God’s grace, we can all find ourselves a little more whole as bread shared draws us together.

I have had opportunities come from this already. To be with people who I don’t know that well, bake, form buns, be at home in my own space but treading new space in relationship and learning is good for me. I like the familiarity of my own home at this point in my journey. A very cool set of moments happened yesterday. I was joined by someone who attended residential school, her Mom did and her grandmother. She had much I needed to hear. We got a batch of buns started, the water, yeast, sugar, oil and part of the flour blended, then stories began to emerge and it was best to just turn off the mixer, sit and listen. What was in the mixer bowl did its thing, it rose and rose while the stories emerged. Finally as the ingredients started to creep out over the top of the bowl we returned to our work, got salt and the rest of the flour added, and got it mixing, we talked through the noise of that and then got to forming the buns. My guest was a beginner at making buns, so for the 2nd time this week I got to teach someone how to make buns. The very cool thing about yesterday is that my friend brought the ingredients to make bannock. Once we got the buns rising she taught me how to make bannock. I loved the give and take of this and it was truly a treat to sit in my own kitchen and observe someone else at work. We got some oil hot and she cooked up that beautiful and delicious bannock. I was excited to call the kids up for a snack that I knew was pretty darn special. They loved it.

Buns rising and bannock being prepared and also enjoyed all in the same picture. That’s a good moment!

I can count on one hand the number of times we have deep fried at our house. That made this moment extra tasty and exciting.

While the kids settled in Russell happened to come in, we got to have a family snack with our new friend. I had cause to run into town not long after the buns came out of the oven and was able to make a couple of deliveries of warm, fresh buns where again, generous donations were given in reply. Also, yesterday I was given 2 20 lb bags of flour. I am set for buns for a while!

So there is a little bit more of the story of the bakery that was born in my kitchen this week!