Online Summer Camp - EARTH - Day 5

 Pics and poem  - with Rev. Lidvald Haugen-Strand

 

Layers of the soil

 

Soil is deep

But we only see the surface

 

Covered in green

Plants nestled together rooted

 

As we look deeper we see roots

Fingers digging ever deeper and wide

So we are not uprooted

 

Did you know that plants can talk?

That they work together to grow and protect

That uprooting breaks the bonds and isolate?

 

Year after years

Leaves fall

A carpet that decays.

Year after year the carpet grows deep.

 

And in our lives the soil grows deep

Generations grow within us.

 

As we root into our soil we discover treasures

Jewels and diamonds

Broken shards of Glass

Patterns of unrooting and restoring.

Civilizations and wisdom

Nourished by generations of ancestors

 

And throughout the generations

The Gardener rejoices

 

Lid Haugen-Strand

May 30, 2022

Online Summer Camp - EARTH - Day 4

 

Nutrition Devotion + Recipes – with Meredith Lapp, RD

 

 photo thanks to Rev. Pam McNeil and her garden  -Pastor Pam's response to Day 1

EARTH

grounding, family, foundation of life

 

FOODS

Root vegetables, nuts/seeds, legumes

Fermented foods

Roasting and baking food prep

 

Seeds, nuts, and legumes are packed with nutrients as they are the seat of life in the plant. They are a dense source of protein to build muscles and enzymes; a source of Earth minerals like iron and magnesium; and also a source of non-digestible fibre that nourishes our microbiome, the symbiotic constellation of helpful bacteria that lives in the gut. We are still learning about the full impact of the microbiome on mood, immunity and longevity. Fermented foods like kefir (fermented milk), sauerkraut, miso, kombucha, pickles and vinegars have been used in traditional foodways for millennia to support this vital inner world.

 

Recipes:

 

Flourless Chocolate Chickpea Muffins

(featuring Earth foods - chickpeas, hemp hearts, maple syrup, cocoa) Adapted by Meredith Lapp RD from the Simply For Life recipe collection

 

- 19 oz can no-salt-added chickpeas, rinsed and drained

- 1/2 cup 100% pure Nova Scotia maple syrup

- 1/3 cup cocoa powder

- 4 Tbsp shelled hemp hearts

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 3 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 3 large eggs

- Sea salt (optional garnish)

 

1) Preheat oven to 375F.

2) Prepare a 12-cup muffin tin (grease the cups with additional oil, or use paper liners)

3) Combine all ingredients into a food processor or blender.

4) Blend until smooth. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin tin. (Optional - sprinkle a few grains of sea salt on the top of each muffin)

5) Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the largest muffin comes out clean.

 

 

Strawberry Kefir Smoothie

by Meredith Lapp RD

 

1 cup unsweetened cow's milk kefir or vegan kefir (look in the yogurt section)

1 cup chopped strawberries (fresh or frozen)

1/2 banana, frozen*

1-2 tsp ground flax seeds

1-2 tsp pure maple syrup (if desired for sweetness)

 

Add all ingredients to a blender, blend, and enjoy! You can optionally add 1 scoop protein powder of choice (whey or plant-based) to make a meal out of this smoothie. You can also add additional milk of choice if you find the smoothie too thick. Try freezing the smoothie in ice-pop molds to make a healthy summer treat!

 

*The frozen banana adds the sweetness and creaminess to this smoothie. When bananas become over-ripe, peel, break in half, and freeze the halves in a large zipper-style freezer bag so there are always frozen bananas available.

 

The Follow-through

 

I get the Gospel reading. It is short and curt and seems not so hospitable, perhaps even nasty. I get this way when I am on a mission. In the middle of working on a project, when I am focused I like to plow ahead uninterrupted. It makes me a little short with people around me. I don’t listen well to outside voices. My focus is solely on the task at hand that leads to the envisioned end product.

Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem, focusing on God’s mission and the steps to bring it to fruition.

I can imagine that Jesus is thinking out the steps of the mission and preparing to face critics and backlash in Jerusalem and strengthening resolve to stand firm in proclaiming a new way.

Jesus is not interested in engaging in religious or racial squabbles with the disciples, or the Samaritans. Jesus has completed ministry in the hinterland and is not interested in people joining the cause or leaving the cause; Jesus knows the climax of the story and message is in process and about to happen; and this will change everything.

 

Since the time Luke wrote the Gospel, people have spent hours interpreting and preaching these few verses, defining and making rules about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

 

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

My answer today is different from what it would have been three years ago when we heard this same text. Pandemic has changed the answer; or created a more complete answer.

Following Jesus through pandemic has been faithfulness – faithfulness in prayer, worship, Bible study, devotions, and in continuing to find ways to be church and share the Gospel with the world.

Following Jesus has been kindness – giving people space and compassion to feel what they are feeling; gentleness – in listening to other peoples’ stories and finding ways to be community and have safe social interactions; generosity – through collections of items, redistribution of personal property, virtual and mail-in offerings.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Although one might describe the pandemic experience as being sheltered and cut-off, following Jesus has meant an increase in ministry. I know, hard at first to get one’s head around. We have managed to share the Gospel, through worship, Word, music, with more people than ever before. We have had more engagement in Bible study, prayer, intimate conversation, and devotion than in pre-COVID times.  Pandemic has changed us. We have been more faithful in our following of Jesus.

 

From conversations that I have had recently with friends, and opin pieces and blogs describing where people are at, there seems to be a malaise that has settled over us. Articles speak of exhaustion, people quitting jobs or not going back, others giving up on masks and precautions ‘we’re all going to get it anyway’, and those who persevere to stay safe.

This past week with colleagues we read literature from the Alban Institute on burn out – of clergy and congregations as a whole, I think their three part definition can apply to the malaise that has settled inside and outside the church.

Burn out has three parts:

Exhaustion – a depletion of mental and/or physical resources;

Cynical detachment – a depletion of social connectedness;

Reduced sense of efficacy – a depletion of value for oneself.

 

I feel all three: exhaustion, cynical detachment, and a reduced sense of efficacy. Not every day. Not necessarily all in the same moment. Not always about me – sometimes about work, or the neighbourhood, or the world – particularly the world.

 

Everything – all the energy and resources Jesus had- Jesus put into that last trip to Jerusalem. Jesus knew that it was the end of the road, before a new beginning.

Human Jesus was not leaving Jerusalem alive; every particle would bleed out to saturate the world with love, joy, peace.

 

What is it to follow Jesus?

Crucifixion is not the end for most of us.

Yet, by the end of life if every particle of ourselves bled out to saturate the world with love…

that would be following Jesus.

 

What is it to follow Jesus? To get to - my whole being – the churches whole being- ‘saturating the world with love’

Bishop Kathy Martin, of the BC Synod, interprets today’s Gospel into a focused set of life-restoring practices to set us on the path to ‘our’ Jerusalem; highlighting the action in the text from Luke in a positive, do-able way.

Kathy writes:

Let go of the past.

Bury what is dead and move on.

Leave the comforts of home.

And get moving.

 

Covered in malaise, dancing around burn-out, these are four steps on the path.

Four steps to help us continue to be faithful, kind, generous, gentle, self-controlled, peaceable, joyful, and loving --- for the healing of the whole world.

 

Go continue in faithfulness as you follow Jesus.

 

 

 

Online Summer Camp - EARTH - Day 2

                                        Camp Edgewood, Eden Mills, ON - the Chapel in Winter

READ – Job 12: 7-10

 

As a teenage I spent my summers working at Lutheran Camp Edgewood in Eden Mills, ON.  The camp setting was 52 acres of forest, pond, and bluff. The program had opportunity for campers to build and sleep in home-in-the-woods. Teaching and learning about creation and nature was part of the program too.

My summers at camp grounded me and grew me into who I am today.

I had good teachers!

Turtle, Ginger, Cedar.  Elderberry, Rabbit, Maple. Yarrow, Robin, Pine.

 

Ask the animals, and they will teach you. – Job 12: 7

Ask the plants of the earth, they will teach you. – Job 12: 8

 

·        *      What have you learned from the animals, from the plants?

·         *     Does Earth (and that earth holds) draw your attention inward or outward?

·         *     Does Earth draw you to the Creator?

 

There is something about a chapel in the woods: singing and the birds joining in, listening to God-stories with a wind gently playing on the skin, praying and sunshine dappling down through tree leaves to warm the face, feeling whole as the smell of the forest floor fills one’s being. Side-by-side with members of creation and campers in this sacred earth space was grounding!  The experience grew respect, honour, kindness.

Firmly planted on the ground, respect, honour, and kindness bubbled up from my toes and my whole person felt joy and connection. Creation and human beings gathered in the space were equals, in relationship, breathing together.

In God’s hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being. –Job 12: 10

 

·         *     Have you worshipped or prayed outside surrounded by Earth?

·         *     How did it make you feel? Was the experience different from being inside?

·         *     What did you learn?

·        *      Does Job 12: 10 (written above) cause you to consider how you live and act in the world?

 

Spending summers outside, rain or shine, changes how one approaches each day. Time living intimately with Earth has one consider bigger questions.  Chapter 38 of Job shares such contemplation.  The chapter is a series of creation themed rhetorical questions:

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Have you entered the storehouse of the snow?

What is the way to the place where the light is distributed,

or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

 

One of my favourite Lutheran theologians is Joseph Sittler (1904-1987). His work is rooted, drawing on a relationship with God and Earth, weaving together an ecology of faith and evocations of grace.  He wrote: I have never been able to entertain a God-idea which was not integrally related to the fact of chipmunks, squirrels, hippopotamuses, galaxies, and light years.

 

·       *       How do you interpret the relationship between God and Earth?

·         *     Do you have a relationship with God? With Earth?

·         *     Does one relationship help the other?

 

Creator,

We give you thanks for Earth.  Ground us in Earth. May we learn from the animals and plants. In relationship with you and creation, grow in and from us, respect, honour, and kindness.  Amen.

In Full Colour: Trinity and Imagination

 

If I see one more real estate or renovation show where the kitchen is completely white, I think I will puke. Oh, wait, perhaps that is too much about me. Let me start again.

Imagine that you find yourself in a newly renovated open concept kitchen with: a back splash of smooth white subway tiles, crisp white cabinetry, white quartz countertops, white molding, and a French door with white framing. How does this room make you feel? How does it make you think? What adjective would you use to describe the space? Perfect? Fresh?

I am extremely biased – please note my disclaimer – I have no problem with all white kitchens or people who like them or have them; it is just that I would not be happy if that was my full-time kitchen.

 

I am pondering this on Trinity Sunday because the readings are not the white kitchen. The scriptures for today have layered images, circular patterns, and stretched a basic description of God into something beyond crisp, lineated, and squarely defined.

The readings had my mind think of ‘Colour Runs.’ For a colour run people gather at the start line wearing white t-shirts. The group is going to run what has been dubbed, ‘the happiest 5k on the planet.’ There is no time limit, no medals, no winners, and no serious racing. During the race, participants are doused in different colours of powdered corn starch. By the end of the race, white t-shirts (and the rest of the runner too) are plastered in colour – vibrant pinks, lime greens, fluorescent yellows, brilliant blues. This craze started 10 years ago and is now the largest running series in the world; running in 50+ countries and experienced by over 8 million runners.

On their website it says, “Our mission at The Colour Run is to bring people together and make the world a happier, healthier place.”

Imagine the participants at the end of the run, covered in vibrant colours, laughing, joy-filled, dirty, playful. The chaos of it … this is how I picture God as Trinity. This is how I imagine grace. This is how I imagine kindom.   … in full colour, exuberant, playful, unexpected, filled with joy and a little chaos too.

I suppose too -God-  is like stepping out your door after an early spring rain: when greens are lush, flowers are bright, bird song is bursting, the air smells sweet, and creation is full of texture and delights. This is Trinity, kindom.

 

My understanding of God is coloured by my imagination. I start with a whiteboard and draw, write, erase, add; grow ideas and thoughts and feelings. Others can add to the board too – in whatever colour they choose. Dream dreams. Vision. Innovate. Create. God, described as like imagination, is expansive, robust, never-ending, curious, playful, joyful, filled with surprises.

Robert Fulghum, American author and Unitarian minister wrote:

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.”

Is this not a modern way to express what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans?

I believe – since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that we boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ----Rom. 5: 1-5

 

Imaging grace, as pouring over and plastering a plainly dressed me, in every colour of the rainbow; standing in that grace --- changes me.

In some ways, community is like coloured cornstarch at a Colour Run. In community I change colour: when I hear peoples’ stories of suffering and endurance, when I notice peoples’ characters growing, when I see and hear expressions of hope, when I witness the sharing of one’s heart, when love is given. I am changed!

All the connections and relationships painted in community are people accessing the grace in which they stand and spreading it into the world.  Trinity inundates the world and imagination grows exponentially.  

 

English author, Neil Gailman, wrote:

“We all have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that society is huge and the individual is less than nothing. But the truth is individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.”

I confess that at times I get lost in a spiral of despair, that the world is falling apart, and question ‘what is the point of all this anyway?’ Until I am reminded to look around – stand in grace- imagine that things can be different.

And where is it that I am reminded of this?

 

In community, in scripture story, in creation.

 

It is no small task to endure and persevere. It is no small task to hope. It is no small task to love.

Our mission is much the same as that of The Colour Run: our mission is to bring people together and make the world a happier, more hopeful, and love-filled place.

And we do this by standing in grace – and using imagination image something different; Trinity different, kindom different.

Perhaps, God is not dead or non-existent as some assume, perhaps it is a lack of imagination and not taking the time to daydream.  Maybe we are guilty of putting God in a box – shackling the work of Trinity- by failing to dream dreams, see visions, and prophesy images of a coming kindom; a kindom that can come now, imagined into being.  We have been wearing plain t-shirts and trying to keep them clean, instead of being bold, getting messy, playing, participating in creating community, and imagining a world filled with endurance, hope, and love.

 

On this Trinity Sunday, let us stand in grace, being filled and spattered with colour. May our imaginations and daydreams run wild, getting to work, imagining a world filled with the Trinity of endurance, hope, and love.

Once imagined, we are changed; God- Trinity is let out of the box to colour the world so that all can stand in grace. And the world is reimagined, change, covered with endurance, hope, love.

The Fire Extinguisher - A Trigger

It is hard to believe that we have come to this point in the service, and Suzy (a puppet who participates in leading worship from time to time) has not noticed and interrupted to ask, “Why is there a fire extinguisher on the altar?”

Or maybe, just maybe… Suzy did see the fire extinguisher and let it pass because it makes absolutely perfect sense!

 

I have shared with you before the words of author Annie Dillard:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. 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. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.

 

Luckily, we are prepared! We have fire extinguishers in the building! Usually this one, is on the wall to my right, in plain view of the congregation while worshiping. There is a second extinguisher at the back of the sanctuary. And there are others in the hall.

We are ready for the Spirit to come.

This is too hopeful a thought. The fire extinguishers in this space have probably never been connected to the Holy Spirit. They are here because of the fire code for public buildings and for insurance purposes; and rightly so, this is an older building with lots of wood in a space where we have candles with open flames, and sometimes we burn incense too.

 

We have fire extinguishers in this space!

And today they are here to remind us that the Holy Spirit is very much moving among us; setting fires, kindling hope, sparking ideas, and igniting passion and action.

 

As I shared a few weeks ago, I have been learning about Emotional Intelligence.  A portion of the course teaches that is possible to re-wire our brains; we can change our emotional response to triggers by planting new images. We can train our brains to be triggered. I am going to invite you to do something crazy --- we are going to plant a trigger that has us consciously think about the Holy Spirit in our daily lives.

Look at the fire extinguisher. Put what you see as a picture in your mind. Now turn it into a black and white picture. Make the picture  -the extinguisher- bigger. Keep focusing on the image. You have been sitting in church and have prayed, sung a hymn. Imagine that at this moment you hear someone reading scripture.  All of a sudden, the fire extinguisher comes alive! The stop pin flies out. The nozzle lifts, pointing towards the ceiling above the congregation. The handle depresses all by itself. With great force a white powdery fog blasts into the air.

Now picture the particles of fog connecting with pop, pop, pops. Tiny shimmering flames appear and rapidly drop to rest atop peoples’ heads. As the fog disappears, there is holy fire everywhere. Run that movie through your head one more time.

 

I invite you to take a hand and make an ‘O’. When you think of the particles connecting, pop --- pop your fingers upward.  Listen to the sound.  Try it by both ears.

Pop, pop, pop… there are tiny shimmering flames – there is holy fire everywhere.

When a new idea is formed in someone’s mind – pop- another flame. When hope is kindled – pop- another flame. When love bursts in a heart – pop- another flame. When kindness erupts -pop- another flame. When grace blazes… when peace flickers … when passion is ignited…

 

You can replay the still picture of the fire extinguisher, the movie created, the movement and popping sound as many times as you want.  The more you put this image in your mind, the more likely that when you see a fire extinguisher in your travels, you will think of the Holy Spirit and holy fire bursting everywhere.

 

In our world today, it is important to have triggers that remind us of who we are and what we are to be about in the world. It is too easy to get smothered in news feeds, entangled in other peoples’ drama, and to suffocate under pressure and stress. The world over, people have their fire snuffed out by accumulated grief and circumstances, while others rage with destructive fire.

 

The fire extinguisher movie reminds me of the times that I have been passionate; times when I have chosen to speak out, to get to the bottom of a situation, to call the powers that be and state my concern.  These tiny shimmering flames – the times I get really passionate and feel like I am going to explode – this is the Holy Spirit at work. In me passion and flame is usually connected to wisdom and more specifically teaching and learning.  This passion – the tiny shimmering tongue of fire that the Holy Spirit has lit on me – directs how I teach confirmation and explore faith within community; how I go about structuring religious framework and instilling ways for others to grow from that structure. My passion includes inviting others to wonder in creation, interpret scripture, hold various truth, contemplate God in a wholesome and life-giving way---all this in a beautiful fog that kindles seeds and fans more passions which are the Holy Spirit’s way of working in the world.

 

What sets you on fire? What gets you going – as in angry, sad, excited, curious? What actions do you take? These are the tiny shimmering flames, the tongues of fire from the Holy Spirit that rest on you; that are popped into the world through you.

 

When you see a fire extinguisher, remember that the Holy Spirit rests on you. The tiny shimmering flames – the passions you have- feed them like wildfire.  Pursue them. Share them. Act on them. Embody holy fire.  Holy fire suppresses and extinguishes fires of destruction and desperation. 

 

We have fire extinguishers in church! We are ready for God to come in out-of-the-box ways.

We do have hope and faith that goodness is great than evil, that the Holy Spirit does move among us and does work through us to spread God’s shimmer through the world.

Stand in the blast of fire extinguisher – be filled with the Holy Spirit—and shimmer.

(making the popping movement/sound by ears) Patience. Forgiveness. Love. Peace. Grace. Kindness.

Passion. Passion. Passion.