The Eucharist is a real test of grace for those who can't tolerate the elements.

Six years ago, eating out got a lot more complicated for me. I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and learned that eating even a crumb of gluten (the protein found in wheat) makes me violently ill. This meant no more regular pizza, cookies, bread—and communion wafers. Among many other adjustments, I’ve had to learn the complicated choreography of taking gluten-free communion.

Celiac Disease is a relatively easy affliction to have. Once you discover that gluten makes you sick, you just stop eating it and you feel better. Of course there’s the constant label-reading, the never-ending hunt for the gluten that lurks in spices, soya sauce, and even the glue you lick to seal envelopes. But considering that many diseases must be kept in check by drugs or physiotherapy, this constant vigilance isn’t bad.

One thing I did resent about being a Celiac was my new public pickiness. I had prided myself on being, as one friend put it, a “culinary cowgirl.” I was adventurous and had a big appetite. Now, when eating out, I have to ask lots of nitpicky questions—for instance, “Do you cook your fries and chicken fingers in the same oil?”

I sometimes feel obnoxious.

Some servers are gracious, but others have been hostile or confused. I handed one waiter an information card on Celiac Disease and he handed it back. He thought I was proselytizing.

Improv at the rail
Of course, taking the Eucharist is the trickiest—and most important—“eating out” to navigate. Shortly after being diagnosed I moved to Kingston, Ont., and started attending my first Anglican church on a regular basis. Already the weekly procession to the communion rail and the prolonged kneeling made me feel conspicuous. I laid low for the first couple of weeks, wondering how to get what I needed gracefully.

Finally, I worked up the courage to approach the rector, and we made arrangements. He would put a rice cracker in a special silver box—a pyx—and I would signal for it at the communion rail. What kind of signal, I wondered? I’d seen genuflecting for the first time and wondered if I could just poke myself an extra time, on the mouth, and act like it was all part of the holy moment.

The next Sunday, we gave it a try. I processed, knelt, and whispered hoarsely “Rice cracker!” when the minister approached. Success! I thought, receiving the pyx. But when I returned to my pew, a neighbour asked, “What’s with the box? Are you getting an extra special body of Christ?”

I tried to tone it down. The Sunday afterwards I decided not to say anything, but just catch the rector’s eye. Instead, another minister came by, all too quickly, and thrust a regular wafer into my outstretched hands. Then, just as quickly, she snatched it back. The people beside me stared in shock.

“Don’t worry!” she assured them in a loud voice. “It’s not as if this woman has sinned more than any of you. She just has, um, food issues.” I bowed my head lower.

Options and grace
At least as a Protestant I could take a rice cracker, even if it sometimes led to embarrassing situations. Roman Catholics have had a harder time satisfying the Vatican’s requirements that all hosts have some wheat. In response, some Benedictine sisters have mixed up their own low-gluten wafers, still safe for Celiacs. Me, I can experiment endlessly with weird flours like amaranth, sorghum, or quinoa.

That is, if I choose to make my own wafer. Now that more people are being diagnosed with Celiac Disease (an estimated 1% of Canadians have it), there are lots of recipes and advice out there for how to be creative with communion choreography—everything from bringing your own wafers to convincing the whole church to go gluten-free.

Celiacs are not alone. Alcoholics, the physically challenged, and people with food allergies must also be cared for in a special way. Thankfully church leaders are becoming more aware and more flexible in accommodating different needs in the Eucharist.

Take, for example, the saints who work here at Church House. We celebrate a weekly Eucharist and the worship committee has ordered gluten-free wafers for me. They will place one out for me, even if I’m late, and they’ll often send along a Ziploc bag of wafers to off-site meetings.

My colleagues say, “It’s not a problem!” but I’m deeply moved by their actions. God’s grace seems to be present in a special way whenever “picky eaters” are included in the Eucharist. We want to blend in, but we are singled out and loved in sometimes awkward, but very real, ways. We also get to put food and drink in our mouths. We also remember Christ’s death for us.

I’ll always remember one time when I was visiting a church and tried to disappear during communion. The minister noticed me, learned of my condition, and came to find me after the service, holding the chalice and paten. I stood with him in the aisle, holding my coat and watching as people left the church.

“I don’t want to be a trouble,” I said.

“No, no, please come,” he said, handing me a rice cracker. “Ali, this is the body of Christ, broken for you.”

A rare look heavenward from a busy workspace. Photo by {link:http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/241843728/}Striatic{/link} available under a Creative Commons license.

In this busy online world of text, quick emotional hits are easy. With a few clicks you can get a hit of intelligence (news headlines), amusement (web comics), or schadenfreude (celebrity gossip). But the bigger fish to catch is the deep satisfaction that comes after reading something challenging, informative, and in-depth—that spiritual refreshment you get after an evening curled up with a good book or magazine.

It’s not a matter of lacking good things to read. There are tons of materials out there.

Instead, our reading posture is part of the problem. We hunch over laptops. We poke and stroke our BlackBerries. We are frozen in these poses for work and even fun. When we curl up on the couch, we have in hand our hard-edged device that whirrs, overheats, or runs out of battery power.

Then, of course, there are the visual distractions. Any text we read on our computers, even in word processors, is bordered by buttons saying we can be somewhere else, checking out a new feature, or buying a product. Web writers fight to keep you reading with bold words, hyperlinks, and •bullets. It all gets rather noisy.

But it’s part of experiencing what some call “a second Gutenberg moment.” The ways we produce and consume the printed word are shifting radically. While technology is getting slicker and some people have already adjusted with ease (like you folks skimming this and The Brothers Karamazov on your iPhone), for most of us, concentrated online reading is still awkward.

Screens and spirituality

As with other content, quick Christian hits are easy to find, like the YouTube video on God’s omnipotence, or the passion play tweeted on Twitter. These have their place as experiments, but their sum amounts to a thin spirituality.

Christians shouldn’t let the reductive nature of the Internet prevent them from angling for that big fish of reading satisfaction, because this is what propels much of the spiritual life. Especially for ministry leaders, long stretches of attentive reading are essential, whether they contemplate the Psalms or wrestle with N. T. Wright.  It’s not about abandoning book culture (long may it live!) but rather about finding ways to cultivate similar experiences in this new world of screen-staring.

One obvious starting point is to ensure that the text we post on the Internet is of good quality. We should be in but not of the online world—communicating well, but not diluting the richness of the gospel.

We can also reflect on how online reading evolved from an ancient activity. Back in the fourth century, St. Augustine was amazed to see his mentor St. Ambrose reading silently to himself. This showed him a new, interior way of digesting text beyond the read-aloud culture he was used to. Reading online is yet another shift: it’s still interior, but with a new tool that links our thinking brains to our typing fingers.

A friend of mine once said, “I can see the state of my soul when I try to concentrate on reading a novel.” With online reading, we see the states of our souls all too vividly. Not only do we tune in to our usual internal static, but we can act on these thoughts and impulses right away—thanks to the intimacy of the screen and the proximity of the keyboard.

These screen-and-keyboard selves can be nimble and productive, but they can also be easily distracted, prone to nasty comments, and self-indulgent. That news spoof site is always just two clicks away from your budget spreadsheet.

So maybe while we wait for comfier devices, we can work on these unique self-struggles of online reading. This, at least, is in the familiar Christian territory of spiritual discipline. We might just feel better reading online, get more done, and unlock the huge potential of this exciting new medium.

As for this mag

This here MinistryMatters, one of our most popular print resources, has joined the busy online world of text. After our last print edition one keen woman sent us a photo of her husband reading a (rather soggy) copy in the hot tub. “We’re glad that you’re in print,” she wrote. “We don’t like to read online!”

We understand. But we also hope that there are some pieces here that you consider worth your online reading discipline. And we also hope that you’re disciplined enough not to curl up and read this online magazine in the hot tub. Maybe someday.

Being connected to the battle against poverty involves touching, smelling, being closer. Photo: Reuters/Kamal Kishore

“Never tire of doing what is right,” urges Paul in 2 Thessalonians, but how can we not tire of battling the enormous, amorphous, problem of global poverty?

I know I was most energized to battle poverty when I saw, touched, and smelled it in Dinajpur, Bangladesh. I was sent alone on this trip-one flight and a good day’s drive from my office in the capital-to visit a community suffering from seasonal food shortages. I stepped out of my air-conditioned van and immediately, a crowd of about 40 men and women surrounded me. You could count the children’s ribs. The men were dark and bent from years in the fields. The women’s saris were torn and dirty. “Can you give us food?” they asked. “What will you do to help us?”

Two years have passed since that raw encounter, and whenever I hear about “global poverty” I crane my mind to see this moment again, on the muggy afternoon of May 8, 2006, when I felt connected to the men and women of that village. I glimpsed the depths of their suffering and wanted to help. This sense of connectedness was foreign, horrible, powerful.

We are over halfway to the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and we continue to struggle not only toward the eight specific targets, but against the deadening abstraction of “global poverty” that’s slowing down the rich from helping the poor. It’s built-up blasé from child sponsorship commercials, disaster relief drives, and a thousand distractions in our own backyards. Even those of us with motivating memories-of AIDS victims, street children, prisoners-find this fuel used up too soon.

Of course there are many practical ways to keep energized when doing good work: pick a cause (or MDG) to focus on, keep informed, and stay spiritually and physically healthy. But it’s impossible to go very far without needing some connected community to sustain you.

Many MDG campaigns have worked to create this kind of community, through strategies like “Make Poverty History” wristbands and rock concerts like Live 8. In the heat of these cultural moments, we feel connected with a worldwide family.

Anglicans have a unique resource for a motivating connectedness, and it’s our currently broken and bruised Anglican Communion. On its best days, this family ties us in solidarity to the joys and sorrows of people far away. It’s our own globalized web, one not dictated by corporations’ interests or aid obligations, but hopefully, in this postcolonial era, one sustained by our shared faith and tradition.

If we look up just slightly from the busyness of our local ministries, we see the richness of these global Anglican connections: companion diocese programs, theological student interns, study grants, longstanding development partnerships, international commis-sions and conferences.

At one of these recent conferences, Towards Effective Anglican Mission in South Africa, Professor Steve de Gruchy noted that our connection through globalization and the global church are irrefutable facts. Christians, however, should be working to transform both connections into something more life-giving.

There are a million ways that global Anglican ties are and can be life-giving. For one, they help us move past deadening abstraction. Uganda isn’t just another part of an AIDS-ravaged continent. Our churches pray for each other through the Anglican Cycle of Prayer, and a Canadian Anglican volunteer, Dr. Carolyn Langford, is teaching animal health in Kabwohe. And Taiwan isn’t just a name on a shirt label, but a diocese in a lively partnership with the Diocese of New Westminster.

How else can we use this gift of community to “do what is right” in the world? Can our connectedness in the Anglican Communion motivate us to achieve the MDGs out of solidarity? Can it give us a broader perspective, one that presents the MDGs as one step in our larger, more holistic mission to share the liberating gospel? And what can we do through the partnerships already in place?

I hope this relaunched MinistryMatters inspires you along these lines. Many of the articles speak to the richness of our global connectedness: Keith Knight writes about the longstanding work of The Primate’s Relief and Development Fund; Maylanne Maybee reflects on the theme of “mission” in two Communion conferences; and Archbishop Fred Hiltz, the Primate, shares his thoughts on recent MDGs marches, in Canada and England.

Any professional Western resource about the MDGs can often seem inadequate, since it’s removed from that powerful face-to-face contact with poverty. But we send this publication out knowing that after our words go so far, it is God who breathes life into dry bones, gives fuel to the burnt out, and ties us closer into life-giving, connected community.

People join hands outside the UN building in Bangkok, Thailand, on October 17, 2007, to commemorate the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The event was part of a global “Stand Up and Speak Out” campaign against poverty, one part of the Millennium Development Goals campaign. Photo: Reuters/Sukree Sukplang

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, all 189 member states committed themselves to improving the lives of the world’s most impoverished people before 2015. It was a compact between rich and poor countries: wealthy countries, including Canada, promised to deliver more, and more effective, aid, faster and deeper debt relief, and fairer trade rules. Less wealthy countries would work to reform policies, improve governance, and to channel resources to social development. Eight specific goals emerged:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Develop a global partnership for development.

These goals are broken down into 18 specific targets, and 48 indicators. The United Nations monitors action toward these goals, and their MDG Monitor website is a quick way to check up on the world’s progress.

Where we are now

We are now more than halfway to the 2015 target, and while some progress has been made in all developing countries (especially in growing countries such as China), overall movement toward the MDGs has been too slow (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa).

Developed countries, including those in the European Union and the G8, have made a commitment to bring their Official Development Assistance (ODA) closer to 0.7% of their Gross National Income (GNI), a target that has long been held up as viable and effective. So far, only a few countries have reached this target, and Canada’s ODA contribution remains at around 0.3% of GNI.

Many meetings have been held to strengthen the push toward these goals. The most recent was on September 25, 2008, when the UN hosted a high-level meeting in New York City to identify gaps and accelerate progress toward the MDGs.

Where do we fit in as a church?

The ongoing work of Partnerships and The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF) contributes in various ways toward the MDGs. In addition to this work, General Synod has taken specific action.

June 2005: The Ecojustice Committee of the General Synod sends a letter to the Canadian prime minister, urging that the ODA be increased.

March 2007: A seven-person delegation from the Anglican Church of Canada, including  PWRDF, attends the Towards Effective Anglican Mission (TEAM) conference in Boksburg, South Africa, which challenged Anglican provinces to review and renew their responses to the MDGs.

June 2007: General Synod passes resolution A213, asking for various actions around the MDGs, including lobbying the prime minister, identifying theological themes within the MDGs, and renewing in-house and joint program work around the MDGs.

July 24, 2008: During the Lambeth Conference in London, Eng., Canadian bishops march alongside other Anglican bishops, interfaith leaders, and others to draw attention to the MDGs. Over 1,500 people attend. Some Canadians participate in an “online march” by sending letters to their Members of Parliament.

September 25, 2008: Archbishop Fred Hiltz, National Bishop Susan Johnson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, other bishops, and ecumenical friends march in Ottawa to urge the Canadian government to honour its commitment to the MDGs.

Where do i fit in?

There are many ways that Canadian Anglicans are working toward the Millennium Development Goals. Many support Christian MDG campaigns, including Make Poverty History and the Micah Challenge, while some are taking up the challenge on their own-for instance, the Rev. Jesse Dymond, Diocese of Huron, who spoke with local MPs about issues of global poverty. Some are working collectively, like the Diocese of Ontario, which encourages parishes to pray specifically for the MDGs and has held related vigils.

The momentum toward 2015 continues to grow, and General Synod is working to develop new resources. Stay tuned!

That day, on August 6, 1993, the Primate spoke on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada: “I am sorry, more than I can say, that we were part of a system that took you and your children from home and family,” he said. “I am sorry, more than I can say, that we tried to remake you in our image, by taking from you your language and your signs of identity.”

Archbishop Peers spoke these words during a tumultuous time for the Anglican Church of Canada. Survivors’ stories were coming out, churches’ financial futures were uncertain, and many former residential schools staff felt that their stories were not being listened to. Many Anglicans remember these times as dark days.

Fifteen years later seems like a good time to consider where we’ve been. Have we weathered the storm? The Anglican Church of Canada has certainly been blessed to have survived financially. Many parishes have taken steps toward healing and reconciliation. Some parishes and dioceses have done antiracism training, and produced resources to help improve relations between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals. In some areas, priests have represented the Anglican Church of Canada at legal hearings of residential school survivors.

Yet the lives of many Canadians continue to be strained by the legacy of residential schools, so the apology needs to live.

What is a living apology? It is not a constant prostration in search of forgiveness from a maligned group. Our Aboriginal leaders have lifted the church from bended knee and extended an invitation to walk together. This is the kind of forgiveness only Christ can enable. Now we must actually do the walking, step by step, in conversations and relationships and programs, trying to build right relations between Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals. This is how the apology lives.

It lives in surprising and vibrant ways. There’s a new National Indigenous Anglican Bishop, Mark MacDonald, who has been criss-crossing Canada visiting Aboriginal Anglicans and encouraging their faith and ministries. He and others in Indigenous Ministries are exploring ways for Aboriginal Anglicans to govern themselves.

And the Anglican Church of Canada is trying to put its money where its mouth is. The Anglican Healing Fund has distributed over $3 million for projects that promote healing. These include training survivors in prayer ministry, training community counsellors, and supporting spiritual canoe journeys for youth. This funding is ongoing.

There’s a new spot on the national website where you can learn more about how the apology lives: www.anglican.ca/rs. Here you can read about self-determination, justice, and healing—lofty words for a church that has made many mistakes. Emboldened by Christ’s help, we are striving to live this out.