Our Saturday lecture with Katherine Hayhoe had been modified. Katherine had tested positive for Covid so will not be able to to give the lecture in person. She will do the lecture via Zoom. If you registered you would have received a Zoom link. You can still register by going to the link in the above post. Do not show up at Swallowfied for the lecture. Our hope is that we might be able to host Katherine Hayhoe in the future.
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EMPOWERING CLIMATE CONVERSATIONS: FROM ANXIETY AND MISINFORMATION TO INSPIRED ACTIONKatharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist whose research focuses on understanding what climate change means for people and the places where we live. She is the Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a Horn Distinguished Professor and Endowed Professor of Public Policy and Public Law in the Dept. of Political Science at Texas Tech University. Her book, Saving Us: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, was released in 2021 and she also hosts the PBS digital series Global Weirding, currently in its fifth season. Katharine has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, the United Nations Champion of the Environment, and the World Evangelical Alliance’s Climate Ambassador, and is a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation. More: katharinehayhoe.com.
Sign up here https://csca.ca/events/event/van-hay-23/ We were listening to a wonderful Advent sermon by friend J, and he quoted Frederick Buechner’s sermon “Waiting” from his book Secrets in the Dark, where Buechner writes with his typical brilliance, “So to wait for Christ to come in his fullness is not just a passive thing, a pious, prayerful, churchly thing. On the contrary, to wait for Christ to come in his fullness is above all else to act in Christ's stead as fully as we know how. To wait for Christ is as best we can to be Christ to those who need us to be Christ to them most and to bring them the most we have of Christ's healing and hope because unless we bring it, it may never be brought at all.” Porter’s Gate Worship Project has a beautiful rendition of the St. Teresa of Avila’s words, Christ Has No Body Now But Yours , which resonate with the words of Buechner. Christ has no body now but yours No hands, no feet on earth but yours Yours are the eyes with which He sees Yours are the feet with which He walks Yours are the hands with which He blesses all the world Yours are the hands Somehow this Advent, those words take on a greater urgency than in years past. The pressing needs of the world press in on me. I need to remind myself that I have two hands, two feet, two eyes. I need to remind myself that I have only two hands, two feet, two eyes. Our few days in Lebanon shed some new light and urgency to the global refugee crisis. Visiting with a family that left Syria early on in the war to the safety of Lebanon with two of their young daughters having been born stateless in the borders of Lebanon highlighted the reality for us. The family is financially dependent on family members who have been able to leave for Germany, Norway, Holland and Canada. Today there are more than 6 million Syrians living outside of their country and with increasing pressure from host countries for them to return 'home.' When K recommended, we see 'The Swimmers' we eagerly logged into Netflix to watch. This amazing true story follows the journey of sisters Yusra and Sara who decide to flee the bombs falling on Damascus to Turkey, Greece and then on to Germany. The girls are swimmers, training with their father for a shot at the Olympics in Rio. The journey begins with the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean from Turkey to the island of Lesbos and then onward. The girl's strength as swimmers is put to the ultimate test in the broken-down and overcrowded 'life' raft. This is a story of heartbreak, devotion, desperation and sisterly love and care. Just yesterday the CBC ran this story of two large scale rescues of migrants in life rafts attempting this dangerous crossing. The choices that people feel forced to make is beyond imagination. After you read the news story or before you watch the film also listen to this amazing song by Sara Bareilles about the plight of refugees in the world. A Safe Place to Land. There are 30 million refugees in the world. I can't wrap my head around that number. But I can contemplate how we might help one mom and dad and their four children. When I was growing up, older folks who knew my mom and dad often said of me that I looked like a Kingma, my mother's side of the family. Same was true of my siblings. "Oh, you're a real deGroot, or you look like your mom or your dad. My aunts or uncles could speak it even more emphatically and might even comment on our character or personality in relation to one side or another. I couldn't quite see how I looked like my mom or like a Kingma, but I chalked it up to their adult insights into these kinds of things. However, of late I think much more about what parts of their characters or personalities I did inherit. Who am I more like? My mom or my dad? I would like to think that I got the best of both of their characters but somehow this is unlikely to be the case. We read this piece by Frederick Buechner the other day and it had such the ring of truth about it. As you get older you try to see the patterns in family, the similarities and differences as to how our lives have come to be what they are thus far. And without a doubt at least some of what played into that are those traits we inherited from our parents, for better and worse. “It is so easy to sum up other people's lives, . . . and necessary too, of course, especially our parents' lives. It is a way of reducing their giant figures to a size we can manage, I suppose, a way of getting even maybe, of getting on, of saying goodbye. The day will come when somebody tries to sum you up the same way and also me. Tell me about old Buechner then. What was he really like? What made him tick? How did his story go? Well, you see, this happened and then that happened, and then that, and that is why he became thus and so, and why when all is said and done it is not so hard to understand why things turned out for him as they finally did. Is there any truth at all in the patterns we think we see, the explanations and insights that fall so readily from our tongues? Who knows. The main thing that leads me to believe that what I've said about my mother has at least a kind of partial truth is that I know at first hand that it is true of the mother who lives on in me and will always be part of who I am.” We went to see the Arts Club Theatre's production of Roger's and Hammerstein's, The Sound of Music, on Tuesday evening. For me it was a nostalgic trip back more than 50 years to my first year at Winston Churchill High School in grade 10. I'm not quite sure how I gathered up the courage to audition and I’m also guessing that I did not tell my mom and dad when I landed the role of Rolf, the 17-year-old Nazi youth brigade, who is in love with the eldest Von Trapp girl, 16-year-old Liesl. In fact, I first got the part as understudy for the role and fortunate for me, A was more into football than musical theatre and didn't show up for rehearsals. I was handed the role. I think it was also my first kiss, albeit a 'stage' kiss. I was quite in awe of P who was a whole grade older than I, so in awe that on opening night I forgot my first line until she whispered it to me. Rolf is not the most likeable character in the story, though he does somewhat redeem himself at the last moment. Sitting in our seats at the Arts Club carried me back all those years. I could have sung along, almost word for word. Many of the songs have a soaring feeling about them. Climb Every Mountain or Edelweiss. I was most alive in those productions with large casts and orchestra, set crews, makeup and costumes, all come to life, on Lethbridge's then, new, Yeats Theatre stage. I loved every minute of high school, especially theatre and musical theatre in particular. I went on to play roles in The King and I and Oklahoma, then theatre in college and directing musical theatre as a high school teacher. Way back in grade 10, I couldn’t have imagined what that first audition would lead to. Apart from the music, The Sound of Music is a good story; the transformation of a military drill sergeant father and his neglected family under the loving care of Maria, the 'failed" postulant-nanny sent to the VonTrapp family to take control of the ‘unruly’ children. On one of our days in Lebanon we went through a small town and stopped at little Lebanese 'Pizza' shop for some lunch. The Lebanese version of pizza is called man’oushe, a flat bread topped with za’atar plus toppings like meat, labneh or cheese. This little shop, a father and sons operation, reminded me of my own bakery experience with my dad so many years ago. A little drama was being played out as we came in and ordered. An exchange in Arabic about what we wanted and then the two sons went into action under the watchful eyes of a proud father. They were using a molding machine pretty much the same as we had in our bakery for rolling out bread dough before panning it. Dangerous if you get your fingers caught in the rolling stainless wheels. They were flattening out the pizzas, getting them ready for the toppings and then into the oven. We could feel the pride of this dad for his boys as they expertly carried out the order. I can’t remember that he ever said it to us straight up, but my dad was proud of his sons and daughters working in his bakery with him. Especially at this time of year, he asked a lot of us. I well remember working around the clock the day before one Christmas. Endless ovens of bread and buns and then all the special Christmas orders that took a lot of care and time and for which he didn’t charge enough. He too would be dog tired by the time New Year’s Day rolled around. But I loved that time and treasure now, the memories of working alongside my dad, standing at the wooden tables, scrubbing dishes at the sink or sweating at the oven doors. How I wish I might have lived more fully into those moments and cherished them. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion. I have long been enamored by the poetic sound of Beqaa. When Arab speaking friends say the word it becomes almost magical. We never thought that one day we would be in that valley, mountains on all sides, 30 or so kilometers wide and 120 long. Not unlike the Fraser Valley, stretching from Hope to Richmond, fertile and fed by mountain streams. The feeling presented in Psalm 84 is one of longing. The Hebrew word is related to our word weep. The pilgrims are passing through and it is as if their tears water the ground and bring it to life. There has been much of tears in this valley of late. For the duration of the Syrian conflict, refugees have been pouring out of its borders, and more than a million are in Lebanon with the majority being in the Beqaa Valley where the UNHCR has services to provide for some of them. For ten years ending in 2008 Syrian troops occupied Lebanon to maintain some uneasy peace. The refugees that are here now have not been warmly welcomed by the Lebanese people. We were in the Beqaa Valley to visit ARocha Lebanon's current site of rehabilitation. It is indeed a place that can bring tears. The team . has planted 7 acres of trees and almost all have died in the first year. Apparently this was a parking lot for Syrian military vehicles during the years of occupation. The soil has been seriously contaminated. The small volunteer team under the direction Damien and Philip are somewhat overwhelmed by the task ahead and would love to have partners to join them in this work. Visit their website ARocha Lebanon to learn more and possibly contribute to the work. The team needs some soil scientists to do some analysis and look to solutions However, this team is not without hope. They too are going from strength to strength believing that all things can be made new, that those tears of the refugees might in fact be the very cleanser needed for the soil of this beautiful valley. I don’t know that I will ever be able to fully describe this feeling of arrival. The sun is setting in the hills outside of Beirut and we are winding our way eastward through the narrow roads, one little village and town after another. We have a google ping and a vague idea.
A couple of years ago Jenny and I were asked to lead an evaluation process for the mission agency of our denomination in Egypt where we have a team of inspired workers, doing amazing things out of a deep sense of calling. How could we refuse, especially since it would allow us the possibility of returning to Egypt, five years after our first visit. As post Covid travel became possible, the trip was back on the agenda, and we began to plan for our time in the Middle East. We wanted to stretch beyond Egypt and our hosts suggested Lebanon, and with some help, those plans also began to take shape. Once Lebanon became a destination, we knew we wanted to connect to the experience of our some of our newcomer Syrian families. When we told them of our plans, their initial response was a resounding, “No! It’s not safe for you to travel there.” As we explained how we would be accompanied by an experienced travelling companion, their concerns eased. If at all possible, we were going to make an effort to meet the sister and brother-in-law and family of one of our recent refugee arrivals. A had a sister who lived some 90 minutes from Beirut. We got phone info and made some arrangements for a driver and on the Saturday afternoon set out for the town of H. It turned out to be a bit trickier than we expected and the sun was setting as we arrived in the town and located the family. They had been waiting for some time and had all but given up on these Canadian guests. How to describe the emotions we all felt upon arriving? There was A’s lovely sister R, the husband J, best friend to A and their two lovely boys and two sweet girls and J’s elderly mother and father. They quickly ushered us into their now home. There were carpets on the floors of the high-ceilinged room and in the centre, a small wood burning stove, glowing with all the pent-up hospitality of our hosts, the centuries old traditions of welcome, warmth and shared food and conversation. The room ached with longing for a homeland, the grief for all that has been lost, family spread across the world’s time zones. The children having lost so much learning time, so much connection. The old folks missing their grandchildren. A father and mother wanting so much to provide for a family, to make for them a real home, as once it was. Gregory Boyle in his book Barking to the Choir: the Power of Radical Kinship writes, “The ground beneath our feet is the Kingdom of God, the Pure Land. It’s not around the corner, it is the corner. Kinship is not a reward bestowed at the end. It’s here, it’s now, it’s at hand and within our reach. And this moment is the only one available to us. “In Advent time, we are reminded over and over again: “Stay awake.” This is not a warning that death is coming but a reminder that life is happening. Now… is the day of salvation, We see as God sees: amplitude, wideness and mercy. The only moment left to us to participate in this larger love, this limitless, all-accepting love, is in the present moment.” Of course, in that moment we were experiencing kinship in the here and now. This was no ordinary home with a cozy fire at all but rather a room that echoed with memories of another family’s long journey from home, exiled by those bent on destruction, eyes and ears closed to the suffering. How is it that the good word deliver has become so banal? Our mail gets delivered. Hospitals have delivery rooms. Amazon delivers our stuff. But what about the power behind, “deliver us from evil?” It seems that much earlier uses of the word did in fact do exactly that. In the 13th Century, deliver meant to save or rescue. In the Latin de, meaning away and liberare, to free. Also setting free from bondage or the action of handing over to another. When Jesus disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he said, “Our Father….” He wasn’t saying, “pray something like this”, he said, say this. It came to me recently that there is an urgency in the cry, “deliver us from evil. “Deliver us from the terrible things that are happening. This is a prayer that we ought to be praying more often. Pray, "deliver us from evil." Deliver A. from this brain cancer. Deliver the people of Ukraine from the evil of Putin’s war. Deliver the people of Myanmar from the brutal military regime. Deliver the millions of refugees in the world from their homelessness Deliver the women of Iran from the power of the Ayatollah’s. Deliver the people of Haiti from the feelings of hopelessness. Deliver from loneliness those who are so alone. Deliver us from our carelessness of this good earth. Deliver us from our blindness to the deep needs of the world. Deliver us from evil. |
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