From June 3 to 11, 2010, over 300 delegates will gather in Halifax, N.S. for the Anglican Church of Canada’s national meeting, General Synod, held once every three years. This web forum is a place to discuss the major topics that will arise at General Synod—from governance to sexuality. You are invited to join the conversation.

It would be hard to overstate the significance of General Synod 2010 for the relationship between the Anglican Church of Canada and Indigenous Peoples. Indigenous Anglicans from across Canada will be present and participating in deliberations at many levels. Beyond this, a number of initiatives will be introduced that, if accepted, will frame Indigenous ministries for many years to come.

The Governance Working Group will propose that General Synod takes action to constitutionally recognize the Sacred Circle gathering of Indigenous Anglicans (roughly every three years), the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples (ACIP), and the National Indigenous Anglican Bishop (NIAB). This recognition is unprecedented. In it the broader church identifies, solidifies, and celebrates the development of these structures. This is a necessary foundation to fulfill the 2001 New Agape Covenant. It also continues the creation of a self-determining Indigenous community within the Anglican Church of Canada.

Over the past two decades, the Church has asked Indigenous Peoples what it might do to partner with Indigenous Peoples. The answer has been loud and clear: “Walk with us, on our healing journey.”  General Synod will give the Church the opportunity to renew itself in this healing journey of Indigenous justice in Canada. General Synod will look at Canada’s ongoing Truth and Reconciliation process, the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery, and the issue of Canada’s continuing refusal to endorse the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

General Synod will also witness the fruit of local and regional consultations that have been happening among Indigenous communities across Canada. By that time, two Area Missions will have taken major steps towards becoming self-determining structures with their diocese and selecting Indigenous bishops. This work will be presented against a larger backdrop of the growth of Indigenous churches, the expansion of ministry to Indigenous Peoples across the country, and major breakthroughs in the training and formation of Indigenous leadership for ministry.

Even with much to celebrate, we will not forget the ongoing challenges to Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Many communities across Canada that struggle with marginal conditions are faced with great difficulties in supporting their pastoral leaders. This is particularly true in Indigenous communities, including those in urban areas. The Church is morally obligated to provide for the development and support of ministry in these marginal areas. Among the challenges that these ministries and ministers must face are the youth explosion in Indigenous communities, the scandal of continuing poverty among the First Peoples of the land, and the continuing results of dislocation and dispossession—ill-health, violence and abuse (especially among women and children), and the high rate of suicide.

The 2007 General Synod affirmed the work of Sacred Circle and ACIP to create the NIAB. General Synod also strengthened its financial commitment to the Council of the North, as a way of enhancing its ministries among Indigenous Peoples. These have proven to be moments in an ongoing, larger development, something that more and more people are calling a “spiritual movement in the Gospel.”  It is felt that this movement is where the real hope for the future lies. This movement is a river of compassion, values, and vision that affirms the traditional character of Indigenous life but also give individuals and communities the power to rise and enter the God’s future for them. Many feel that this spiritual movement, consistent with traditional Indigenous values and teachings, is the necessary foundation for a hopeful future. This General Synod is called to become a part of this movement in the Gospel, and assist in creating the vehicles for a dawning new day, for both the Anglican Church of Canada and the Indigenous communities with it.

What do you think? Is the church doing enough in its walk with Indigenous Peoples?

From June 3 to 11, 2010, over 300 delegates will gather in Halifax, N.S. for the Anglican Church of Canada’s national meeting, General Synod, held once every three years. This web forum is a place to discuss the major topics that will arise at General Synod—from governance to sexuality. You are invited to join the conversation.

Welcome to the web forum for General Synod 2010. I am the chair of the Planning Committee, and I would like to introduce you to our forum. Over the next few months, this space will feature short columns that will introduce you to some of the topics that we will discuss at General Synod. We encourage you to participate in our online discussion of these topics by posting comments below.

We are looking forward to General Synod being held in Halifax NS from June 3 to 11. We will join the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island as it celebrates 300 years of continuous worship in their diocese.

Many changes

We are aware of the constant change happening in our world, and in our church. In acknowledgement of this, and in keeping with the maritime location, we chose our theme, “Feeling the Winds of God—Charting a New Course.” Mission is the focus for the synod, and we have invited partners from around the world to join us. Each day will remind us of our commitment to one of the Marks of Mission, which draw us together as Anglicans.

In keeping also with the theme of change, and to respond to a number of requests over the years to make synods different, we are attempting a number of new things. You may have already noticed a few new things in our preparations. We have heard many requests for greener synods, so we have an online registration system for delegates, and we anticipate that documents in the convening circular (reports and agendas for our meeting) will be available online. We encourage delegates to download them, rather than printing everything. Diocesan offices have agreed to print documents and help with registration for those who do not have access to the internet. At General Synod, documents, resolutions and worship materials will be displayed on the large screens in the plenary room.

We will have many opportunities for worship and prayer while we meet. We will have an opening service at the Cathedral of All Saints, a large celebration service with the diocese, a simple worship at St. Paul’s to give thanks for the Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund (PWRDF), and a number of other opportunities for worship in the mornings, at noon and in the evenings. There will be receptions, dinner with the Diocese of NS/PEI, and numerous other social occasions to meet and greet your friends, new and old.

Here are some of the topics we will discuss at General Synod:

• Vision 2019—to set priorities for the next three triennia
• Governance—to consider the role, jurisdiction, size and membership of General Synod, and to honour the desire of our Indigenous members for self-determination
• Primacy—to examine the roles and responsibilities of the Primate
• Philanthropy—to learn about our new Philanthropy department which is working on achieving financial equilibrium and encouraging a culture of generous giving.
• Human sexuality—in continuing discernment over the matter of human sexuality
• The Anglican Communion and the proposed Anglican Covenant

I invite you to post your comments on this major upcoming event: What are your hopes for General Synod 2010? How are you preparing?

I look forward to your participation, and to General Synod 2010 in Halifax. See you all there!

Canon Barbara Burrows
Chair, General Synod Planning Committee

One day I asked him about “accountability” and how he understood it. We had a far-ranging conversation, but here’s what has stayed with me. One of the things he emphasized was the word “key,” as in “key accountabilities.”

On the back of the paper place mat in the restaurant he asked me to write down the three to five key things that I was accountable for doing in my work as a minister. There was worship and preaching and pastoral care. He asked me to define those for him. What was my key accountability in this? That was a good question. He asked me to list the specific responsibilities I had.

Then he asked two questions that have stayed with me.

First, where did I get this information? Who told me what my job was?

Second, with whom did I discuss this and agree on it? That got me thinking, and I can still see the back of the place mat with my key accountabilities listed on it.

Then he asked me about relationships and who were the key people with whom and for whom I was accountable in my work. I made a list on another part of the placemat.

He asked me who I reported to? Who did I go to when there was a problem? Who would come to me when they were having a problem?

Before I knew it we had a list of no more than 10 people with whom I was responsible for the leadership of the congregation. These included (I’m an Anglican) the two churchwardens, the organist, the parish secretary, and the chairs of a couple of key committees.

My management consultant said that if I paid attention to the two lists—key work accountabilities and key relationship accountabilities—that I would do just fine.

As the coffee came, he talked about trust—that most sacred part of human relationships. He said trust is often assumed but can never be taken for granted. It takes a long time to build and there is no substitute for carefully building a foundation. Once it’s broken, he said, it’s almost impossible to repair.

“So keep building the trust,” he said. “Over communicate—check your assumptions, let people know what you’re thinking. Invite them into your own reflections so that they can see where you’re coming from. And focus on the key jobs and key people and you’ll be fine.”

I hope you can see why I kept asking him to have lunch with me.

My doctor is a small man, and I’m a tall and big man. Every year when it’s time for a check up and I stand on the scales, he says the same thing: “You tall guys can sure hide a lot of weight.” He is a skier and works out. When I was in parish ministry, I didn’t have time to work out and skiing was too expensive. Besides, the one time I tried it, I couldn’t stop and ended up at the bottom of the hill in some hay bales, which were not soft cushions at all.

Anyway, sitting up on the paper-lined cot while he takes my blood pressure gives me a chance to think about my “lifestyle.”

And, in thinking about my weight (which isn’t way out of line, given my height), I have come to realize my good doctor does not face the reality of sandwiches and squares after funerals; of long car trips to and from hospitals; sitting at meetings for days it seems; meeting young couples about their wedding after dinner when you’d rather go for a walk; and having lots of good food and drink around while you’re working because there’s always something in the church fridge.

He sees patients in his office and then goes home. Probably he visits the hospital in the morning and I’m sure he has a very stressful job.

But when I go home, I’m faced with a bunch of deadlines that make me feel anxious—my column for the newsletter, the homily and arrangements for the funeral, Sunday’s sermon, and reading the minutes and reports for the volunteer community board I agreed to serve on. And I’m hungry, and there are snacks and beverages of a spiritual nature that will make me feel good and if I’m not careful, drown my sorrows.

This is a particular challenge in small rural parishes where there is a generation of generous women whose mission in life is to feed men.  I ministered to one of those congregations and I really enjoyed my afternoon visits because I love to eat. And most of the time I was hungry and so I wasn’t faking it.

But I knew if I ate too much in the afternoon, I wouldn’t be hungry for dinner, and my wife, who was home with the children and had worked hard to prepare something nutritious, wouldn’t be happy that I’d been out snacking.

I remember one cold afternoon visiting a farmer and his wife. We sat at the kitchen table and they set out a huge block of cheddar and homemade bread fresh from the oven. Tea was served in mugs and I could have happily sat there all afternoon.

I also remember enjoying some wine at a 50th wedding anniversary party and then having to shift mentally when someone wanted to have a serious conversation about their spiritual journey, more than I was up for.

I remember deciding that I’d better minimize, if not eliminate, drinking alcohol at church functions because in a sense I was “on the job” and I needed to be able to focus. There would be time—and there always was—when I could relax and put my feet up later.

So I’ve come to understand that, among many other stresses in ordained ministry in congregations, there is the added pressure of eating and drinking. Jesus enjoyed both, and we do need to celebrate all that life offers.

But there are special challenges for those who don’t have enough time or inclination to exercise, and who like to eat and drink, and who have stressful and important jobs.

Knowing I had an annual medical coming up always made me think twice about the second date square (my favourite) after the funeral.

A church I visited recently has a new minister. He follows someone who was there a long time and was well loved. I could see it was overwhelming for him to be with all these people and wonder if he’d ever get to know them.

I remember that feeling. Each time I moved it was awful. Saying goodbye to one set of people was hard enough. But suddenly, there was this whole new group—all of whom knew a lot about me already, and I had no clue who they were as individuals.  And what overwhelmed me was getting to know all their names.

What helped me was to keep a small clipboard with me on Sunday mornings so I could jot down questions about people that I could ask some of my key folks about—who’s the woman who sits by the window?  The one with the big hat? Who’s the guy who helps people get in and out of the elevator? It was like a crossword puzzle in a way.

Sometimes I could fill in the name of the person by myself. Other times, it filled itself in as I completed other parts of the puzzle, if you know what I mean.

I developed little tricks for remembering people’s names, which worked for the most part.

But even after being in a congregation for several years, there were a couple of embarrassing occasions where I should have waited and not tried too hard to get the name right. One was asking a woman how Roy was? “That was my first husband whom you buried,” she said.

Then there was a nice guy I really liked, but I could never remember whether it was Dave or Bob, and in trying to impress him, and maybe myself, I always got his name wrong. He didn’t stay with our congregation very long.

Once, when I was a new assistant, I visited the quilting group with my rector. There was one woman who didn’t come to church and he asked her, while we were chatting, why not? She said that whenever she came, he couldn’t remember her name.

He promised—I was there with him—that if she came the following Sunday he’d remember her name. So she did, and as she shook hands at the door, she said, “Now, what’s my name?”

He looked at her vacantly and said, “I know you—you’re Wednesday morning!”

When we say hello, it’s the beginning of a conversation that may lead to a relationship.

Clergy share in the ministry of the Good Shepherd who calls the sheep by name. Part of that is being known by name. A church congregation offers many people a community where they can be known by name.

As a minister, it occurred to me many times that getting to know people by name was one of the most important things I could do. Each name was tied to a person. Each name had a story to it, which was the story of that person’s life.

And so I said a prayer for the new minister as I watched him cope with this, and hoped that it wouldn’t be too long before he would know most of the names.

The Rev. Canon Maylanne Maybee (second from left) celebrated her 60th birthday by hosting a total of 60 friends for dinner throughout the year.

I was talking about my impending birthday with a friend who had spent time in China, and he told me that a 60th birthday is considered very special in Chinese culture. In fact, the Chinese traditionally do not pay much attention to birthdays until the 60th, which they usually mark with a big celebration. Sixty years is regarded as the completion of one life cycle, and 61 the beginning of a new life cycle. Not only was this heartening, but it had special meaning for me. I like to tell people I was “made in China” (though born in Toronto) and I’m as old as the People’s Republic of China. As a reminder of my origins, my parents gave me a Chinese name with an Anglicized spelling, “Maylanne,” meaning “beautiful orchid."

In taking inventory of my life at this stage, I was aware of how precious my family was becoming to me: my parents, siblings, their offspring and mine, even my “exes”—my former husband, my brother’s former wife. I was aware too of the many friendships that had blossomed over the years through my justice work at Church House—in Toronto, across Canada, and overseas.

On the other hand, as workload increased and resources decreased, I was also aware of the absence of Sabbath time in my life—time for rest, for re-creation, for being creative, for nurturing these friendships, and showing friends and family the gratitude I felt for their support and hospitality. I started thinking of how to involve them in celebrating my jubilee year.

I played with the idea of a kind of cross-Canada progressive dinner—borrowing kitchens and dining rooms and hosting friends and family for meals on my travels from Victoria to Halifax. Then I thought of having 60 friends for dinner over “a month of Sundays”—four or five weekends in February and March. But both plans seemed too ambitious.

Eventually, the idea dawned on me to celebrate a diamond jubilee year, and invite 60 people for dinner in various sittings over a 12-month period. I considered who should be invited with whom, and worked out a nice chart of 10 dinner parties with six friends per meal, evenly spaced from February to February, with time off in the summer.

I decided to start my dinner project with people I had known the longest—people such as Michael and Dorothy Peers, whose wedding I had attended when I was 15 years old; Alyson Barnett-Cowan, who entered Trinity College as an undergraduate the same year I did; Kate and Helena, who were divinity classmates; and so on.

What I soon learned, however, was that even with four weeks’ notice, or more, it’s impossible to coordinate everyone’s commitments. So I just assembled a company of friends as best I could. I had determined that with limited space and cutlery, eight people, including me, would be the maximum I could handle. But, surprise! At that first dinner in February, 10 people sat at table: a couple who had been out of town phoned the morning of the party and said they’d love to come. I used every leaf in my dining room table and sat two at each end. It worked fine. (This was good practice for another dinner at which two people showed up when we were about to sit down—I’d forgotten they were coming!)

What did I serve?  I’m no great cook, but I can follow recipes and do fine with step-by-step menus that are timed by the day and hour. I decided to start with oxtail soup, in keeping with the Chinese year of the Ox when I was born. I researched cook-ahead menus on the Internet and served pork, vegetables, salad, and a lovely peach desert. My Sinophile friend had told me it was a Chinese tradition to serve foods with auspicious connotations on a special birthday: “long-life noodles,” eggs, and “peaches”—a dessert of steamed wheat in the shape of a peach with a sweet filling.

Later in February, I hosted a dinner for 12 family members in Picton, about midway between Ottawa and Toronto, two cities where most of them live. It was a lovely postmodern occasion that included ex-spouses and new partners. For the meal, I hired Deb—a friend who boarded with me while studying theology and had been a chef in her former life. At the end, I made a little speech about my love and appreciation for every family member, new and old. This had a healing effect and became a feature of my monthly meals.

As the weeks went by, I soon learned that, as someone once pointed out, when we make plans, God laughs! Certainly planning to have six people a month for 10 months was a laugh! In April, Holy Week and Easter came, and in a clergy household, a birthday dinner was out of the question. In May, my father died, aged 90—a sorrowful, intense, yet exhilarating event that took every ounce of my energy.

No dinner for two months, then three, then four, then five. June was conference month, and I didn’t have one weekend at home. In July, I left for four weeks of vacation, and in August my son got married. I hosted a wedding rehearsal party—cooked and served by the intrepid Deb—but didn’t count it as a jubilee dinner. As the year progressed, my motivation was waning, and I wondered whether I should quietly drop the whole idea.

I was saved when I found an unexpected companion for the journey in Julia Child, who arrived in my life late August when I went to see the movie Julie and Julia. Until then, Julia Child’s name was only faintly familiar to me, but her ebullient personality, portrayed by Meryl Streep, leapt out from the screen and filled me with delight. All that feasting and drinking with friends looked wonderful!

Along with the rest of the world, I bought a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In September I organized two birthday dinners in quick succession. I ventured to make the boeuf bourguignon for one, coq au vin for the other. It was a thrill to replicate these recipes, even in the most modest way, and serve them in my own little house.

I began to realize that there is a certain economy of hospitality that goes beyond mere reciprocity. Friendship begets friendship. One dinner companion invited me to her graduation—42 years after she had begun her degree. Another was inspired to organize a neighbourhood reunion of friends I hadn’t seen in 30 years (see picture). Yet another gave me a copy of My Life in France, Julia Child’s story of becoming a chef, cooking teacher, and hostess extraordinaire. Reading about her life breathed joy and spirit into my own modest little jubilee project. It was these moments, rather than the stress of the workplace, that began to form the reality of my life.

At the time of writing, I am almost at the end of my jubilee year. I have had eight dinner parties and served 55 friends. I’m thinking of a prize for the sixtieth person who comes through the door!  My only regret is that I didn’t have people sign a guest book, and I didn’t take pictures. I’m now looking forward to gathering friends just for the joy of it. And I’ve signed up for cooking classes in this year’s “Winterlicious” festival to build confidence and expand my culinary repertoire.

I’ve learned that it takes a lot of time and effort to find a date that works, invite friends, plan a menu, shop, prepare, and clean up. Sometimes the dinners have taken place right after a long trip or an intense conference when I’d rather wear my pyjamas, watch a movie, and eat popcorn.

In My Life in France, Julia described one occasion when she and her husband, Paul, were supposed to visit close friends in Provence, but it began to seem just too inconvenient and bothersome. She remembered a favourite saying, though, that had carried them through their diplomatic days: “No one’s more important than people!”  “In other words,” writes Julia, “friendship is the most important thing—not career or housework, or one’s fatigue—and it needs to be tended and nurtured.”

This “sixty for supper” experience has given me new insight into the Jewish understanding of the Sabbath, closely associated with the notion of Jubilee. In his book The Sabbath, Rabbi Abraham Heschel writes, “Six days a week the spirit is alone, disregarded, forsaken, forgotten. Working under strain, beset with worries, enmeshed in anxieties, man [sic] has no mind for ethereal beauty…. Then comes the sixth day. Anxiety and tension give place to the excitement that precedes a great event.”

So it is with these birthday meals—the day before is spent in a fever of marinating and moving furniture. Then the guests arrive, the candles are lit, the wine is poured, and life stops for a minute. It’s a tiny glimpse into the seventh day when God rested from all that he had done in creation and said, “indeed, it was very good.”

Children from the San Juan Apostol parish, Chichicastenango, Guatemala. Photo by Emilie Smith.

I love Guatemala. I have loved Guatemala for 25 years and now I am living here, come from our mountains in Vancouver, to these great, majestic mountains in the Department of El Quiché. Here I am, an Anglican Volunteer in Mission.

My view on mission is that we shouldn't engage in it at all unless we are clear that we are God's servants, and servants of God's people, and that we know almost nothing, and are not the carriers of faith to those who haven't yet received it. I consider myself a pilgrim and servant, and am grateful for the hospitality and the kindness with which I have been received in Guatemala.

Let me share a few words about how my heart is being undone, and re-done, in the shadow of the crucifixion. For Guatemala is a land of great suffering, of terrible poverty, of obscene violence. It is also a holy land.

A holy, broken land
The reason Guatemala is holy is because Ajaw, the creator of heaven and earth, made this land, alive with its forests and mountains, its endless fields of corn, its holy and sacred people, who have kept the days and the stories of their ancestors. The Maya have lived on this land for 10,000 years, and they have kept the count of days, tended the land, and fed their families sacred corn of the four colours from the four corners of the earth.

Five hundred years ago strangers arrived in this holy land, strangers bearing firearms and Bibles, riding horses, and—worst of all—carrying dread disease. Human geographers estimate that 90 per cent of Central and South America’s Indigenous population was decimated in the 100 years of epidemics that followed the 1521 Spanish invasion.

More recently, during the Central American civil wars of the 1970s and early 1980s, Guatemala suffered the worst genocide our hemisphere has known in recent history. Over 200,000 people—men, women, children and the elderly—were murdered. Another quarter million fled the country, and a full million, one in every nine Guatemalans, were internally uprooted and displaced.

In 1996 a peace treaty was signed, but little true healing, and no justice has occurred since then. In fact, levels of violence and poverty remain virtually unchanged. In some rural areas of the country, 80 per cent of Maya children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

The church, both Catholic and Protestant, has been both a faithful witness to this crucifixion, and a blind participant in it. The church has been both witness to the resurrection, and perpetrators of the ongoing violence. Current levels of violence in Guatemala are shocking and terrifying, and levels of poverty are heart-breaking and obscene.

Where my heart is supposed to be
With this history in its heart, the Guatemalan Episcopal Church (a small but strong faith community) has begun a new ministry—the creation of a new diocese in the Western Highlands of Guatemala, to attend to those areas most devastated by the history of violence and poverty. I have been invited by the church and its bishops, Guerra and Lainfiesta, to participate in this holy ministry, and I am delighted to say “yes!” to the church in Guatemala, and to God. So that is how I have ended up here, priest-in-charge of San Juan el Apostol, in Chichicastenango, assistant to Bishop Lainfiesta. I have also been invited to begin a mission in Santa Cruz del Quiché, 15 kilometres up the road, where I will live.

After a month’s travel from Canada—by bus, train, and pickup truck—I arrived, at last in this holy land. As I write this, I’m resting, while Bishop Lainfiesta goes back to the city for a week. I am left here, it is raining endlessly, and all I do is pray and think.

Yesterday a man appeared in the yard, and I went out to greet him. He is Miguel, Akiel in K’iche’. His Spanish is rough, but my K’iche’ is practically nothing, and I find out that he is the husband of Reverenda Pascuala—my ministry partner at San Juan. Joy! We talk for a while, as best we can, and he corrects my pronunciation, and I think that I will learn K’iche’, if I throw myself in the deep end. K’iche’ words sound different in his mouth, but I’m not a bad parrot, and I have a good ear. After a few tries it sounds okay. My heart swells in happiness, and he tells me that later la Reverenda will come by and say evening prayer. She’s busy right now, he says. She has two ladies about to give birth. La Reverenda Pascuala is a midwife, and a healer, and a priest. I am deeply grateful that we are working together.

Later, Akiel comes back and brings me three pears, little sweet fat pears that taste like candy. For my welcoming he says, and I grin, like a fool. Matyox! Thank you! And then la Reverenda comes by, and three, then four, then five children, neighbours they are, and we file into the church. Glory be! Church is church, and prayer book is prayer book and evening prayer is there, and the Magnificat, Mary’s song and God’s promise that the hungry will be filled with good things, and I pray, and try not to cry (again) but I cry mostly because I’m so happy, and I can’t explain it, but in this dusty, drippy, plain, yellow church, here with these people, my heart is where it is supposed to be!

And after the book service we kneel and La Reverenda Pascuala prays in K’iche’ and I know that it doesn’t matter what language you use, because fierce Ajaw, mother hen, mother bear, mother earth, has laid a great banquet before us, to share.

I cry, as I kneel in the yellow church, because I read before Akiel came that Guatemala has reached the level of the fourth country in the world with the highest rate of chronic malnutrition. The highest in Latin America. That goes too with the useless number that Guatemala has the most unequal land distribution in the Americas. Does that have anything to do with the legacy of the unacknowledged genocide, the quarter million dead and buried in these cornfields that surround me? My tears are falling on the wooden kneeler, that Oscar the young boy who read out the gospel (Jesus not loved in Nazareth) put down for us to share.

So friends, the rain comes down and no one can stop it. God is the lord of heaven and earth, no one else is, and he is a God of Justice. I don’t know exactly what my life here will be like for the next two years. Challenging. An unfolding blessing. I think it was Akiel’s pears of welcome that assured me, a hot-headed pilgrim, that here too, is my home.

The diaconal ministry of the baptized is a profoundly hopeful ministry.

This is the last of three articles by the Ven. Dr. Thompson on the orders of ordained ministry—priests, bishops, and deacons. The first installment presented the ordained ministries as refracting the ministries conferred in baptism, then focused on the ministry of priests. The second installment focused on episcopal ministry, and now we turn to diaconal ministry of the baptized.

Three losses characterize the human predicament in these early years of the twenty-first century. These losses—the loss of the holy, the loss of communion, and the loss of mission—haunt our contemporary landscape.

As it turns out, these losses are not unique to us or to this time. They are, in fact, part of a universal rhythm of grief and grace woven into the human story. And because our losses are part of that rhythm, our ancestors have endowed us with resources—traditions and stories, songs and prayers—that allow us to endure and address them. Sadly, we have not always treasured those endowments, and so a community once uniquely equipped to address the hunger provoked by these losses has unwittingly relinquished much of that capacity.

Churches have settled into forgetfulness. Traditions and stories, songs and prayers that once sounded across the life of God’s people like “Reveille,” awakening them to the coming day, now feel more like a lullaby.

In Teaching a Stone to Talk, Annie Dillard probes the loss of the holy in the lives of churches:

Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning.

The holy, the undomesticated wild mystery that runs through the life of the world, has in many places—even in churches—been driven underground, usurped by gods who can be tamed, but cannot save.

They have mouths but do not speak; eyes but do not see.
They have ears but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat. (Psalm 115)

As I wrote in the first of these reflections (Fall 2008, “A Witness to the Holy”), attention to the holy finds itself expressed and refracted through the ministry of ordained priests, but it is the responsibility of the whole community of the baptized. Recovering our capacity for the transformative encounter with the holy depends in no small part on the capacity of those ordained priest to invite the whole community of the baptized into this dimension of the ministry conferred in our baptism. But it depends also on the willingness of that community to take up that invitation and, as I wrote several years ago, to visit the house of a dangerous God, to risk the unsettling encounter with an undomesticated wild mystery of a God who runs through the life of the world for its healing and renewal but not for its ease.

The second of the losses is the loss of communion. As our proximity in a global human village brings us into contact with the Other, a global village in which we ourselves are Other for so many, we are more and more in need of evidence that our Other-ness need not make us enemies, need not lead to violence and hostility. Where values diverge, where practices among one group are in conflict with practices in another, a human capacity for communion, for sensing a common life even and perhaps especially where diversity and divergence are obvious and persistent, will make the difference between a good future and no future at all.

But one need only explore recent events among Anglicans to discern that, as the world hungers for a sense of human communion—that is, of people and communities working with diversity toward a common life in service of the common good—the churches are no safe place for such hopes. Some of the same Primates who said in 2000 that “when we turn away from one another, we turn away from the cross of Jesus” now turn away from the very presence of Jesus in the blessing, breaking, and sharing of bread with those of whose leadership and discipleship they disapprove.

In a world of alienation, distrust, hostility, and indifference, God calls the community of the baptized to offer an alternative vision of human interactions: communion instead of rivalry. That some of those ordained bishop use that office to obstruct rather than refract the light of communion is nothing short of scandal. That others find Christ’s accomplishment of communion, in the sacrifice of love on the cross, more compelling than their need to prevail in doctrinal squabbling, is a sign that the office still functions to refract the light of communion.

The third loss is the loss of mission. Remarkably, the church has become, in many ways, an association of religion clubs, each franchise desperately committed to competing for a larger share of a shrinking market. Religion clubs concern themselves with producing an acceptable religion product, either for existing members—who often prefer things to stay more or less the same—or for the prospect of new members, in whose name have been proposed and enacted many changes that failed to draw them into club membership.

In his 1994 book, In Over Our Heads, Robert Kegan asserts that, until some time in the twentieth century, the final stage of human development involved learning to cooperate with others. The end toward which such cooperation would lead was a matter of what he calls “a community’s collective intelligence.” Purpose, that is to say, was provided, mission was transparent and in place. In contemporary society, purpose is no longer provided by the community, and mission is neither simple nor clear. This creates what Kegan calls an “extraordinary cultural demand” that each person create internally what once was given by culture—a sense of the purpose toward which we might direct our lives. We have lost our mission, and must somehow create it for ourselves.

Religion clubs have nothing to offer in the face of the human loss of mission. They enact the same selfishness and inward-turning purposes that plague so much of the life of the world. They divert God’s gifts from God’s transforming mission into institutional self-preservation for which no Messiah, no matter how kind, would offer his life. And they offer no contradiction to prevailing narratives of the age, narratives in which selfishness is the only reasonable response to a world of rivalry for scarce resources.

In fact, it was not for, but against the instinct of self-preservation among the leaders of the temple that Jesus acted during his ministry. That ministry took up the proclamation of his cousin John, a proclamation of a new kingdom, of a new creation, of a new life, but not of a new religion club. In Luke’s gospel, he echoes Isaiah and takes upon himself the Spirit-driven work of freedom for prisoners, liberty for the oppressed, sight for the blind, good news for the poor. He enacts the Kingdom of God in healing and in driving out demons, proclaims it in teaching and parable, clothes himself in its ethic of compassion and justice, and serves it in his body absolutely and at enormous cost in his passion and death.

In all of this, Jesus lives out the servant ministry conferred in baptism and held as a common vocation by the whole community of the baptized. This ministry, refracted through the life and ministry of those ordained deacon, is not simply a ministry of serving others, but is also a ministry of disclosing, proclaiming, enacting and serving the Kingdom of God, and offering it as a living alternative to the kingdoms of this world, governed as they are by indifference, hostility, entitlement, and lethal rivalry. Diaconal ministry joins the community of the baptized to the mission of God, who seeks the transformation of the world, and offers Jesus into our midst to proclaim and enact that transformation among us.

Like the orders of priest and bishop, the order of deacon serves to recall the church to a vital dimension of the ministry conferred in baptism—the dimension by which God’s mission offers purpose and freedom. The diaconal ministry of the baptized is a profoundly hopeful ministry, because it both proclaims and enacts the extraordinary truth that our lives have a purpose that we need not invent, that we cannot purchase, and that we share with others in such a way that even the most modestly gifted life can contribute to the common good, and to the dream of God.

Two-thirds of the island of Walande (Solomon Islands) were swept away by king tides in 2009. Photo by Derick Loea.

A retired bishop explains how global warming is flooding his former diocese.

For 34 years, I have lived and ministered in the South Pacific, where all countries are affected in one way or another by global warming and rising sea levels. We are sometimes called the “liquid continent” and when the sea level rises, for many it becomes a crisis.

Much media attention has been focused on the small nation of Tuvalu, whose entire land area is virtually at sea level. Indeed, Tuvaluans expressed disbelief about a recent tsunami warning issued for them “to head for higher ground.” There is no higher ground. And the whole nation could not fit atop the country's only four-storey office building. With rising sea levels, storms, and “king tides,” frequently much of the country is under water already. Discussion is underway about virtually resettling the whole nation, perhaps the world's first global-warming refugees.

I write just after the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has taken place. The results are not very hopeful for the Pacific nations greatly affected by climate change. Along with the Minister of the Environment, three young women from the Solomon Islands attended the summit to represent the Solomons, taking with them a film on the effects of climate change here that was shown to the delegates. I have not yet seen this film, but hope it is shown widely.

Solomon Islands encompass many low-lying coral atolls—large, ring-shaped reefs—including the world's largest inhabited coral atoll, Lord Howe or Ontong Java. It is located northeast of Isabel and Malaita islands, a day's trip by ship from the nearest large island. The atoll has an overall area of 1,400 sq. kms. (including ocean), but the 122 small islands that make it up are only 12 sq. kms. in total. Lord Howe is a part of the diocese I looked after for 12 years and I visited it half a dozen times. Many times I spent the whole day inside the peaceful lagoon, with strings of islands in the distance on both sides of the Southern Cross. I would sail from the large village of Luaniua on the south to the smaller village of Pelau on the north, each a parish with its own parish priest. The atoll is entirely Anglican. Most of it is virtually at sea level.

The people of Lord Howe are Polynesians, closely related to the people of Nukamanu (or Tasman) islands located to the north on the Papua New Guinea side of the border. The atoll has a population of about 3,000, all living off the rich resources of the lagoon. The islands are famous for their fresh and sun-dried reef fish, clams, and swamp taro, a traditional root crop grown in pits that are hollowed out of the sand and coral and then filled with compost. The men have incredible diving skills and the women dry fish and make a heavy swamp taro pudding, kakake.

However, in my last two visits to Lord Howe, clearly something was wrong. Sea water was seeping into the swamp taro pits from below and, following storms and “king tides,” covering and flooding them from above. The sea salt killed the young taro shoots and in a few months the villages were without a major staple, requiring the emergency importation of rice to prevent people from starving.

After church one day, the parish committee and I talked about global warming and rising sea levels over breakfast, considering possible solutions. There has been talk of resettlement, and at one point Malaita province even tried to set aside land for resettlement from another low-lying atoll to the south, Sikaiana. But the Malaita land was disputed and nothing came of the plan. Papua New Guinea has set up a resettlement scheme for people on Polynesian atolls near Bougainville and there has been a little migration. But always the problem is the same—for hundreds of years Lord Howe people have been living off the sea and to shift to the land without a reef nearby will require a whole new way of life. Many would prefer risking the rising sea levels.

Interestingly, the solution the community felt most positive about was intermarriage with other island groups, permitting them to resettle without controversy on other islands. Yet with such resettlement there is the risk of losing language, culture, and an ancient and distinctive way of life.

There has also been some attempt at adaption—for example, introducing vegetable gardening on raised beds, but there really is not much good soil, as the atolls are almost entirely sand.

Because the lagoon is rich in bêche-de-mer (sea cucumber, for which Asians will pay dearly), clams, trochus (sea snails), and fish, my guess is that many people will decide to stay, even as the sea rises, coping however they can. But many others are leaving, moving to the Lord Howe Settlement in the capital Honiara (also at sea level, as is the whole central business district of Honiara) or other places around the Solomon Islands.

This is just one global warming story from the Solomons. There are also the artificial islands of Malaita and atolls of Temotu. On the small island of Fanelei in South Malaita, many times I have waded to church in sea water up to my calves at high tides. Salt water people that they are, people build their houses higher and higher or move to the mainland. But more and more, “king tides,” which often accompany a storm and high winds, destroy everything in their path. Rising sea levels are part of this new phenomenon. As land is jealously guarded in the Solomons, some people have no place to go.

I have just returned from spending Christmas in nearby Walande, where people, concerned about rising sea levels, have been moving to the mainland for the last 10 years. Early last year two-thirds of the island were finally swept away. The accompanying photo was taken soon after that disaster. But the new mainland settlement flourishes, as people are still near the sea upon which they so much depend.

Solomon Islanders are not without blame, as they too contribute to global warming. Logging continues at an unsustainable rate. Taxis, buses, trucks, and diesel generators spew out pollution. Clearing of mangrove forests goes ahead, although recent tsunamis have, I think, slowed down this destruction. The Solomons should be using solar and wind power rather than fossil fuels, but the equipment and installation costs are beyond most people's means.

Solomon Islanders are survivors. I believe that, despite the rising sea levels, many people will stay where they are and cope; many have no choice as they are unable to find land elsewhere, unless the government facilitates resettlement. Others will move to town, contributing to urban drift and social unrest. Rising sea levels are just one more problem for the many people who already struggle against rampant malaria, high infant and maternal mortality rates, inaccessible education, and the constant grind of poverty. However, the next generation may not be so accepting of the status quo. While they have not generally done so yet, rising sea levels may displace these other problems as some people's first concern. Land problems will be the inevitable result.

Where is the church on all this? The Anglican Church of Melanesia sends representatives to the Anglican Communion Environmental Network meetings. We have offered to host the next meeting of the Network in the Solomons so others can see how serious the problem is. I also think that if eventually the government does not act where resettlement is the only option, the church, with its commitment to holistic human development, will act instead. But the best solution would be a change in the world's energy consumption habits and a reverse of what is still, for now, reversible.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video was created by Jason Smart and the Rev. Canon Tim Smart, Diocese of Montreal. Visit the Mile End Mission online.