Return to the Carob Tree

“Now What?”

It’s Saturday afternoon, November 19^th, and I’m sitting watching a sappy Christmas movie and I’m weeping yet again. The movie is about caring, love, respect, inclusion, acceptance, joy – and the true Spirit of community. Why am I weeping? Because of what it feels like we’ve lost, and are yet to lose.

Since the election in the US almost two weeks ago, I’ve been going around feeling punched in the solar plexus.  I’ve realised something in the aftermath of the election, particularly watching the reactions of my white friends south of the border, and the total shock they are dealing with, and the intense grief. Something they thought was an intrinsic part of the US turned out not to be quite true. Part of me empathises.

But the other part of me thinks “Didn’t you realise this? It’s always been here.” I realised this week that as a result of marriage, I am now both white and non-white. Forty-six years ago I married a Japanese, a person of colour, and in those forty-six years have seen a fair bit of the racism and bigotry which has always lived in North America.  I was twenty-five when I married him, and entered into an inter-racial marriage and another culture and language altogether.  My life is divided between the two – both in Japan and here. In the years of our marriage, we’ve become acculturated – he to my culture, and me to his. And I think it’s the ‘me to his’ part which comes into play here. I am now just as Japanese as I am Canadian, maybe more.

My husband watched the election just about every minute of the day. He has been devastated by the result. But his devastation is different  - travel to, even through the US, is no longer an option. He has a target painted on him just because of colour. So do our children and grandchildren. Oh it won’t be tomorrow or next week, but already it’s beginning. Problem is, it’s been emboldened here in Canada as well, as we are seeing. And it’s coming out of the shadows in other parts of the world as well.

And I realise that my white friends can’t enter into this experience.  I’m in between.  I’m them and I’m not. White and not white. I think that’s the part that hurts the most – there’s this gulf. But they can take this seriously. Now more than ever.

Yesterday, outside the church, even as the leaves on the trees have gone and the flowers in the church garden are brown, I took this picture. Tiny blooms in the still-green grass. I’m not feeling all that hopeful at the moment; but maybe this is a sign.

That Moment When

Ministry is one of the strangest and  most varied callings in the world. There are those days (had a couple this week) when we wonder why on earth we are really doing this. What were we thinking when we went for ordination? Working with congregations is usually a lot like herding cats – and as much as I am a cat person, it really isn’t quite what one hopes for in an occupation.  Individually every person is a good person – and we come to love them even with their foibles and even if they drive us nuts. And we remember that we have our foibles too, and sometimes we drive them squirrelly. We know there are the parking lot meetings, the people who can’t let go of whatever, the resisters and the ones who get excited by changes. They think we don’t know, but pssst! Yeah we do. It’s a sixth sense clergy develop over the years. Remember how we thought our mothers had eyes in the backs of their head? Clergy do too, and ears. 

Part of getting old in ministry – and maybe just part of getting old – is that some things cease to be issues any more, and other things become more important. As we get older, we think about these things more, too.

Back in about 2007, I was minister in a Scarborough church whose musician finally had to give up playing –  illness and age finally caught up. In the process of searching for a new musician, a young man came to us almost fresh out of his Masters degree in music. One Sunday he arrived with his girlfriend, who turned out to be an incredibly talented soprano. When they got married, they asked me to do the ceremony. At the wedding were two other young people, best friends of the wedding couple, who were also musicians.  Several years later, when they got married, they also asked me to do their wedding.

We haven’t seen each other a lot, but have kept in touch and followed each other on Facebook. Tonight they came to the congregation to present an evening of music. Everything from serious opera to ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’, to ‘Les Miserables’, operetta and comic opera –and for an encore “Three Little Maids from School”, from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado”. 

I was close to tears a couple of times. Telling myself it was the music – like ”Bring Him Home”, the prayer of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables. Always makes me cry. The truth? Much more than that.  Had I not been in in ministry in that church at that time, I would not have met any of them. It’s called serendipity. And it’s that moment when the lightbulb flashes on again, and we know why we do what we do. Because we are privileged to meet, know, work with and form lasting relationships with so many people in so many ways. The maudlin bit? That I am so incredibly grateful to whatever forces in the universe, that I have lived long enough to meet such talented people, and hear such wonderful voices, that it literally makes me cry. And to be able to say “I know them.”

"But We All Speak the Same Language"

Years ago, when my kids were in school in East Lansing, I sent a letter to the school asking the principal for some input regarding a project the class wanted to do. The principal sent my letter back, with corrections in red pen. Apparently, according to her, I had spelled certain words wrong. This necessitated a trip to the school to explain that American spellings are somewhat of an anomaly in a sea of other English-speaking countries, and that my spelling was perfectly correct. She had not realised there was a difference between the US and the rest of the English-speaking world. British, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Australian, New Zealand, parts of the Caribbean, Bermuda, South Africa, and the US all “speak English”, but there is a wide variety of difference in each as well.

There was a time when there was little standardisation of English. In the 1700’s Samuel Johnson developed some rules for standard English, which became the basis of standard English throughout the British colonies and territories. In the 20^th century Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press contributed to the standardisation used in academic treatises and essays. American English was taught using Webster’s rules (Noah Webster, author of Webster’s Dictionary). With a large influx of immigration from non-English-speaking countries, American English became more phonetic, and spellings were changed to reflect that.

Language is a funny thing. Even as it may change (as in American English becoming more phonetic) in some ways it does not develop as quickly or in the same direction as the parent countries. Language in new countries tends to ‘ossify’ while language in the home country changes and evolves much more quickly. My husband has now been out of Japan for almost forty years, and has been told there that his language is quite “quaint” –that is, he speaks the language of his youth in post-war Japan. As a linguist, he has found it necessary when he is back in Japan to try to bring his own language use up-to-date, or at least to be able to see where the language has changed, compared to here in Canada. Most of the first-generation Japanese-Canadians speak and even more “archaic” form of Japanese.

How we use a language depends on so many factors. Where we were born, when we were born, where we went to school, how educated our parents were, how important education was for us, who our teachers were, how well we learned to read and how much we learned to read, whether or not we got advanced degrees in education, what the local dialects were, cultural and regional overlays, whether or not we are speaking a second language. Language involves absorbed and inherent understandings from within our family and social groups; nuances and local idioms are brought to bear. We can each use the same word, but depending on all those other accumulated factors we will understand it differently and use it differently. Every single one of us understands and uses the same words differently. It isn’t possible to say “this is what this word *means*”, because each of us brings to bear all of the sum of who we are including our life experience to the words we use, and what they mean to us. 

A friend of mine, a Presbyterian minister, was once called to a Portuguese-speaking Presbyterian church. The logic of the Presbyterian national church was that since Portuguese was a common language to the people from those countries, it made sense to have them all in one congregation. They did not realise that the Portuguese spoken in Mozambique, Brasil, Macao,  Angola, Goa, East Timor, Canada  and of course Portugal – are all different. Even if the words are the same, the usage changes, the accent changes and they become incomprehensible to each other, even though they are both speaking Portuguese.

As a preacher, there are times when I am floored by what someone got out of my sermon – what they heard, and what I was pretty sure I had said, were two completely different things. So when we who speak English fall into thinking we should be able to understand each other because “we all speak the same language”, remember that isn’t quite true.Understanding each other takes work, and a willingness to suspend our beliefs that we are right in order to hear the other.

New Beginnings...

"Under the Carob Tree" is a renamed blog. Formerly "Letters from Corner Brook", a chronicle of my time in Newfoundland, it's become an ongoing reflection place, separate from the sermons in the blog "Fran's Musings" (frannyharp.blogspot.com)

Norio and I travel a lot these days. We are at that stage where we do have the time and the finances. One of the places we go every year is the village of Moncarapacho in Portugal, just outside Olhao, and close to the sea. We rent a beautiful villa, and do a lot of strenuous resting beside the pool. A favourite spot of mine is a corner beside the bar, in the shade under the huge carob tree. I sat there almost every day for two weeks this year, reading books and starting to get serious about blogging.

So here we go - reflections on travel, life, work, theology - whatever comes to mind. Hopefully from time to time there might be something which speaks to you.

Fran

The End of the Second Year

It's been so long for this blog I decided to not try to upload all the photos within the last year - but instead start from now, and be more regular again about posting.

As of November 14th I have been here in Corner Brook for two years. It has been quite a year, too. By August it was clear that there were some agitators, as there are in every congregation, but the agitation resulted in an episode of bullying which was neither helpful nor called for - as it involved questioning my honesty about time off. I almost gave notice then. However, Norio was here, and after calming down and taking about a month to just think about the best way to deal with the issue, I decided to stay on. Since then, the feel of the church has changed, for the better, and it seems as if some kind of log-jam has moved. Norio thinks I should stay at least a full year longer. It will depend, of course, on how things go in the next six months....

In August one of my two colleagues took a call in Grand Falls-Windsor. I was sorry to see her leave as she was a lifeline sometimes, but she did need a congregation which would appreciate the many talents she has. I now travel to Grand Falls, which is 250 km away, every so often sometimes for meetings, and sometimes just for a break. My other colleague was asked to leave the congregation. The result was that I became the only active United Church minister in Corner Brook. The hospital chaplain has had to resign due to health issues, so we are left now with one full-time clergy (me), one part-time intentional interim, and one retired minister. Two of my colleagues - one in Stephenville, 45 minutes away - and one in Port-au-Basques - two and a half hours away - are taking time off, and I am backup.

I remember many years ago the United Church did a survey about people in isolated ministry - and most of the cases they cited were not what I considered isolated. Plus, there are different kinds of isolation. While there are other clergy here, I am essentially the only United Church face in the ministerial. It's a feeling of being very exposed....and in many senses a psychological isolation.

Well, of course there have been lots of good things....in April Linnea Good came to Humber, and did an evening concert and a Sunday service. Our spring meeting was held in Bay Roberts, almost to the East District border - seven hours across the province, and it was just a fantastic time. As it was also a conference meeting, we were lucky to have Linnea providing music. Cruise ships abounded in September and October, including my favourite ship, Brilliance of the Seas. Here is a shot from Benoit's Cove, as Brilliance departed. Photo is courtesy of a friend.

Our fall District meeting in October, was held in Twillingate; I travelled first to Fogo Island to visit a parishioner in her summer home, and then back on the ferry to drive to Twillingate. Some Newfoundland trivia: "Fogo" is the pronounciation which has evolved from the Portuguese "fuego"....fire. "Twillingate" is the pronounciation which has evolved from the French Basque "Toulinguet". Then there is Moreton's Harbour, and you have the circle...and a mini-history of the settlement of Newfoundland, and how fisheries evolved. Above are two photos from Fogo Island trip - my parishioner and a friend, as we climbed Brimstone Head in Fogo; and a view from the top of Brimstone Head.  In November Humber hosted Ray McGinnis, as guest preacher, and a workshop on writing Psalms. It was also excellent.

This Christmas has been busier than ever, with an incredible round of services and parties and dinners. On Christmas Eve we celebrated with a full church - wonderful to see every seat taken. We had a pageant and communion, the children and youth played instruments, and our two music students performed. It went incredibly well. The plan was to have a Christmas Day service - but a huge snowstorm beat us out. It wasn't worth risking seniors being hurt, so by 8:30, we had decided to cancel. However, I cooked a turkey and by later afternoon was able to move the car and join friends for dinner.

The closing photo for this blog was taken last night, as I drove past the Pepsi Centre Sports complex - the moon was coming up over the hills, and I just had to grab the cell phone camera. Newfoundland is indeed a breathtaking place, and worth every moment of being here.

My New Year's resolution (only one) is to keep up this blog on a more regular basis. Happy New Year, and a great 2013 to all.

 

Trip to L'Anse aux Meadows

These are photos of icebergs in St. Anthony and L'Anse aux Meadows area....starting with a Vinland Martini (bakeapple and partridgeberry - with a piece of iceberg ice...).