Tay Moss - Ninja Priest

Chestnut "Chum" Restoration: Part 1

2011-12-11T01:28:00.003-05:00

Here is a first look at the Chestnut "Chum" type canoe that we are restoring this winter. This canoe was graciously donated to us, and we planning to restore to her to stock condition, plus fit her with a mast partner so that we can sail her. Yes, we are planning to sail this canoe. We think she will probably end up living at the QCYC sailing club where she can be shared among a group of us for day-trips around the Toronto Island.

-t

Bending Stems

2011-12-11T01:12:00.004-05:00

This winter a group of us guys are building and restoring some canoes. In this video, we are bending the "stems" of the canoe. The stems are the structural bones in the bow and stern which create the shape of the ends. To bend these pieces of ash, we first soaked them in water for a week or so. Then we baked them in a "steam box" for a while. The purpose of the steam is simply to conduct heat to the wood, there is no magic in getting the wood moist through using steam. Nor, according to experiments that have been done, is there any point to pressurizing the chamber. We were using a wall paper steamer to generate the steam, and it wasn't quite enough. The rig worked, but barely, so we are going to add some more steam generation when we steam the ribs.

Anyway, so you get the ash pieces hot and then you quickly bend them to shape on the form and clamp the whole thing in place for several weeks. Eventually the ash will maintain it's now shape. This is an ancient technique used by boat builders for centuries.

-t

Synod 2011 Video Responses

2011-12-04T19:46:00.002-05:00

Here are two more videos that Matt and I (mostly Matt) created as part of our coverage of Synod. Part of what we were trying to do was make Synod more approachable for people who have never been, will never go, and have zero patience for reading the reams of paper produced by such a gathering! These are just short little pieces that gather some vox-pop responses to the events of the two days.

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The Archbishop's Charge to Synod: 2011

2011-12-02T16:34:00.002-05:00

Here are parts 1 and 2 of the Archbishop's Charge to Synod for 2011. It was given to about 700 people gathered on the first day of the semi-annual meeting of parishes in the Diocese. It was a busy and intense few days!

Part 1

Part 2

-t

What's God Up to in the Diocese of Toronto

2011-12-01T15:20:00.002-05:00

This was the third and final video created this summer by Matthew Carter, the "Video Intern." He shot almost all of the video for this and did all of the editing. I got a "Producer" credit for mentoring and guiding him at various points in the project. But mostly this is really Matt's impressions based on his summer exploring what God is doing in the Diocese. Some say this is their favourite of the three videos, and I can understand why.

Special thanks to Tim Elliot who volunteered his time and skill to play some of the music you hear on the background of the video. That's him playing Piano at the end (at Messiah). He was impressed by our piano and the acoustic of the church, which made me quite proud. Actually, the church works very well for recording piano.

Funny story, while Tim and I were at the church recording, I left Henry with Tim's son Jeremy at the Paul Hahn Piano store. Jenny Andison, a priest and friend of mine, walked in with her husband piano-shopping. She says to Jeremy, "You have a very cute son, he looks a lot like Henry Moss." "Well," said Jeremy, "In fact it IS Henry Moss...." Small world, heh?

When I came back to pick Henry up after our recording was done, Judy Maddren, Tim's wife and Jeremy's mother, was just returning from taking Henry for a walk. She threatened to kidnap him. So he was clearly in affectionate hands while I was gone.

Daube Provençale

2011-11-21T13:19:00.005-05:00

This is a pretty simple lamb stew--and follows the same pattern as Boeuf Bourguignon. The only thing is that it takes a little time to simmer down. I have made this dish several times, and I still come back to it. Like it says in Like Water for Chocolate, soup can heal anything.

Alas, I don't have lamb or veal stock on hand. Restaurants get bones by the bag-full and make stock from scratch. I wish I could do the same. Perhaps one day I'll have that kind of time--but don't hold your breath. In the mean time, if any of you know a supplier of these kinds of stocks in the GTA, let me know.

Betsy is working late, tonight, so I'm making this for Henry and me and giving some more to our pregnant neighbours. Pregnant women need stew. The beauty of a stew like this is that you can do it many hours in advance of serving.

Daube Provençale
from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
(thanks Meg and Seb)

Ingredients
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 Tbs. butter
3 lb lamb neck and shoulder with bones (or 2 lb boneless) cut into 2" pieces
salt and pepper
1/2 lb. slab bacon, cut into lardons
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 celery rib
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbs. tomato paste
1 Tbs. flour
1 Cup white wine
1 Cup strong, dark veal, chicken, or lamb stock (got some demi-glace? sneak in a spoonful)
1 small carrot, coarsely chopped
1 bouquet garni
zest of 1 orange*
2 potatoes, peeled and "turned," meaning cut into small football shapes, or just cuke the damn things into large dice
4 sprigs of flat parsley

Equipment
Dutch oven with cover
tongs
wooden spoon
serving bowl

Serves 4

Prep the Lamb
Heat the olive oil in the Dutch oven on high heat. Add the butter. Foam it. Let it subside. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Sear it on all sides in the hot pan, in batches if need be, until all of it is deep, dark brown. When browned, remove from the pan with the tongs and set aside.

Cook the Stew
Add the bacon to the still-hot pan and cook until it's crispy and has rendered out its fat. Remove the bacon from the pan and set aside. Discard most of the fat and then add the onion, celery, and garlic to the pan. Cook over medium-high heat until the vegetables have caramelized (browned), about 5 minutes. Using the wooden spoon, stir in the tomato paste and cook for an additional minute. Stir in the wine and scrape up all that brown stuff. Bring the wine to a boil, reduce by half, then add the stock (and a teaspoon of demi-glace if you have any). Bring back to a boil and reduce immediately to a simmer. Add the lamb, carrot, bouquet garni, orange zest, and bacon. Season with salt and pepper, cover the pot, and simmer over low heat for about 90 minutes, occasionally skimming the fat from the surface of the stew.**

After 90 minutes, add the potatoes to the stew and cook until they are tender, about 12 to 15 minutes. Skim the stew a final time, making sure there is no film of fat floating on the surface, then serve in a big old bowl, garnished with the chopped parsley.

Tay's notes
* I find this to be too much zest, I like it better with about 1/2 an orange zest.
** Using a spoon to skim off the foam at the top of the stew sucks, don't do that. Instead, use a small fine strainer. The point is to get the foam, which is created by nasty protein molecules you want to grab.

-t

Sermon - Reign of Christ 2011

2011-11-21T00:15:00.004-05:00

Here is my sermon from Sunday. I was pleased with it, and the congregation certainly liked it. Here are the texts that we read on Sunday. On Reign of Christ Sunday it seems imperative to deal with eschatology and perhaps to unpack all this stuff about "kingdom" and its implications.

I don't love my use of the word "promise" is this sermon--I just couldn't think of the right word to express what I meant about the kingdom conceived in terms of this world. I probably should have thumbed through Rowan Greer's great book on eschatology, Christian Hope and Christian Life: Raids on the Inarticulate. It's been a while since I've read my former professors wonderful book, but people familiar with it will recognize the influences, even if I didn't mention any Patristic or Medieval examples. Anyway, I should have thumbed through the book to remind myself of the arguments and language, but I just ran out time in preparing.

Something positive I noticed giving this sermon is that I felt very fluid and dynamic with the words I was using. Sometimes I can stumble a bit when I'm actually stringing things together. I mean, the meaning will usually be clear enough, but it is hard to have the elegance and poetry of written rhetoric when you are preaching extemporaneously with only a brain tree of spacially arranged concepts in front of you and the memory of what you want to say within. I think what really marks great extemp preachers is their ability to be not merely coherent, but actually poetic and concise and elegant as they speak. I don't always manage that, but with practice I've certainly improved.

One last observation, the image of the cedar tree was something that occurred to me on Saturday during some pastoral counselling. I was trying to describe to someone what God's promises might mean for them--how it was something beyond the mere solution to today's problems--and this image of the tree popped into my head. Bishop Yu often talks about the connection between pastoral care and preaching, and this is another example of the truth of that.

One more point for aspiring preachers out there: notice that when I told the story of the New Yorker Cartoon, I didn't assume I would get a laugh out of people. Remember that the original joke was essentially a visual gag, and those are very hard to convey verbally in a way that will get real laughter out of people. But I didn't need people to guffaw to get immediately into this notion of the two conversations happening.

Foie Gras aux Pruneaux

2011-11-20T16:30:00.002-05:00

I made this dish for some friends the other day. It was the first time I've ever cooked foie gras, and I must say that was intimidated by the ingredient. It's precious, and delicate. So I decided to go for a simple preparation and let the one ingredient be the star. the results were spectacular. This is both easy and incredibly delicious.

Expensive? You'd spend as much or more on the main course. Or perhaps two bottles of wine. So, not so bad in those terms. I got my piece of lobe from Pusateri's. I might look for some other sources next time.

Immoral? Well, if the ethics of foie gras really bother you, you can get "foie gras" made cruelty-free from Quebec. I don't know if it really tastes the same. People have been fattening fowl in this manner since at least 2500 BC. There have been studies done that have supported either side, so the jury is out about whether this really causes the animals any distress or not. Keep in mind that ducks and geese don't have a gag reflex, and often store food in their throats as part of the digestive process. So, from what I've read, I suspect that this method of producing food is no more cruel than any other meat product. Anyway, it's delicious: rich and buttery.

Foie Gras aux Pruneaux
from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
(thanks Meg and Seb)

Ingredients
8 Prunes
1 Cup (225 ml) port
2.5 oz. (70g) fresh foie glas - cut into 4 slices
salt and pepper

Equipment
small bowl
heavy-bottom saute pan, preferably cast iron
slotted metal spatula or fish turner
wooden spatula

Serves 4 (What the hell-make it for 2 and pig out)

Prep
Place the prunes in the small bowl, cover and with the port, and soak for at least 2 hours before cooking the foie gras.

Cook
Season the foie glas with salt and pepper. heat the saute pan over high heat until very hot. Sear the foie gras in the pan (no butter or oil needed) for about 45 seconds per side. The foie glas will shrivel and shrink and kick out a lot of fat. The idea is to sear it quickly on each side until nicely caramelized and brown, without melting the whole thing away. it's almost impossible to cook this dish too rare, so concern yourself with the external color. If it's brown on both sides, lift it out of the pan with the slotted spatula and transfer to a serving platter.

Quickly discard about half the fat that issued so enticingly from the foie, then add the soaked prunes. Using the wooden spatula, stir in a little of the soaking liquid to dislodge (deglaze) any browned bits in the pan. Cook for 2 minutes, reducing the sauce, then pour it all over the foie gras and serve.

Serve
This dish is very nice served with a few thin slices of brioche toast to mop up the sauce. If you want to really look like a hotshot, you can also (much earier in the day) reduce some balsamic vinegar to a thick syrup and then drizzle a tiny bit of it over the foie gras and the platter in decorative Jackson Pollock patterns as a sweet-sour garnish.

Tay's notes
Cook this seconds before you serve it--and consider inviting your guests to watch you make it. The port can make a nice flambe effect when it hits the pan.

-t

"Developing Congregations"

2011-10-23T14:57:00.005-04:00

Here is another video from the Diocese of Toronto. I was the producer for this one, as well, but most of the work was done by Matthew Carter. He shot all of this, edited, and directed it. He got some help from the Congregational Development department, too. This video is really intended for congregations to help them know what resources are available from the Diocese. Good stuff!

This was shot with a Canon XH-1AS... what a camera! It seems to do especially well outside!

-t

More Wedding Photos...

2011-10-23T14:52:00.005-04:00

More photos from Jeremy and Carolyn's Wedding...

Streetcar Wedding

2011-10-11T22:45:00.001-04:00

This photograph is from a wedding I did a few weeks ago. Most people from Toronto will recognized City Hall in the background. I met the happy couple outside the main entrance shortly after their civil ceremony, and led them in procession with their guests with a giant processional cross to a Streetcar stop on Queen Street. From there we hopped aboard a vintage streetcar that had been chartered to take us to the reception site. While we travelled, I blessed the marriage using the "Blessing of a Civil Marriage" rite. Leading the group of people while wearing full vestments (cassock, surplice, stole, cope) through the streets of Toronto was exhilarating. We got lots of attention from by standards with cameras--all of it positive. The groom and several of the male guests were wearing kilts (mine was hidden under my vestments when the picture was taken), and that just was icing on the cake as far the visual delight of the day goes.

I preached about love on the streetcar--short and sweet--but I could have also preached about intersections. Things have a way of coming together in people's lives, and here we had a heady post-modern mix of civil/religious and public/private happening. How fitting it was to bring all these things together in one shining moment with my friends who live this same tension daily. Because so much of life is dominated by the pastoral persona, I forget how complex that interface can be for people who are faithful, but don't wear their religiosity on their chest the way I do.

When we arrived at the reception site I took off my vestments and spent the rest of the night rocking my new kilt. It's worth a blog entry of it's own, in truth, as it is a garment of epic coolness!

-t

"Reach"

2011-10-10T22:34:00.003-04:00

This is the first of three videos that I produced for the Diocese of Toronto. I co-supervised Matthew Carter, an summer intern working as a Diocesan Videographer. Matthew did all the shooting and editing, and I think he did a great job. This first video, "Reach," focuses on a micro-grant programme that provides relatively small grants ($500-$5000) to churches that are looking to try new things to reach new people. Mad props to Matt who did such a great job with this and the other three!

This is part of of my work with FEWG - The "Fresh Expressions Working Group" - a committee of folks reporting to the Archbishop that work to promote new church planting and mission work in the Diocese of Toronto. We decided last spring that we needed to do more to tell the story of the what the Holy Spirit and God's people are doing in Toronto, so we came up with this video project.

-t

Sermon - Harvest Thanksgiving 2011

2011-10-10T22:09:00.003-04:00

I preached this sermon for "Harvest Thanksgiving" Sunday. I was pleased with how it turned out. Usually I spend some hours reading some commentaries and engaging the text in a scholarly, post-critical way. But the Gospel lesson for this Sunday, Matthew 6.25-33, just didn't seem to ask for that from me, this time around. I did consider giving a meditation on gratitude, per se, and basically just take delight in cataloguing all the things people should be grateful for, but the real question for me was somewhat deeper. What is the relationship between detachment and gratitude? It would seem that they are somewhat contradictory, and I wanted to explore that.

In preparing for this sermon, I spent a long time puzzling over how to tell the stories that begin the sermon--particularly the first story. I didn't use a text, --that whole section appeared as a mere phrase on the mind map I was using as notes. But I had rehearsed telling the story multiple times and refined the exact language and details I would use. I was pleased with the results. Those of you who preach, I would highly recommend trying this method of honing a story--simply tell it again and again and find those details that ring most poetically. Another key, in my opinion, to good story telling in preaching is to be reading some fiction you find compelling. Right now I'm working my way through A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. If you want to be a better preacher, expose yourself to good narrative.

By the way, the image of the people preparing the funeral pyre by the river was based on my own experience of seeing such a cremation done in Nepal. I sat on a smooth river boulder, soaking my sore feet in the cool water, and watched the funeral rites about two hundred metres away. I was alone, and no one from the village spoke to me, but I found out later that our group's language teachers had asked after me, and that villagers had been moved by my quiet, respectful attention. Just watching, sometimes, is all we need do.

-t

Vital Church Planting Conferene 2011 Video

2011-09-27T13:21:00.002-04:00

Every year I find the Vital Church Planting Conference to be a wonderful opportunity to be inspired by the new things happening in the church. This year's was no exception, and this video produced by Andy and Sue Kalbfleisch will give you a little taste. Incidentally, a few of these shots were taken by me! Lol.

-t

Massasauga!

2011-09-25T21:38:00.017-04:00

A few weeks ago I decided to introduce Betsy and Henry to canoe camping. Betsy had a little experience camping, but nothing quite as rigorous as what I had in mind. My experience is not terribly broad, but does include a week-long epic trek in Algonquin a few years ago.

We first got our feet wet (figuratively, not literally, thankful) by borrowing a friend's sweet 1950's era Peterborough Canoe on Toronto Island. It's a sweet canoe: wood-and-canvas--tracks and handles beautifully. Smooth and much quieter than a fibreglass tub. We took it out for two trips with Henry. Paddling around in the quiet waters of the channels, Betsy in the bow and Henry napping between us, was like something out of a Victorian Romance. But my favourite memory was when we tied up under the shade of a tree and a three of us took a nap, gently rocking as the boats went in and out of the QCYC marina. This was an important proof of concept. It gave us confidence that Henry would do well in a canoe and not try to crawl out.
Betsy, Henry, and I at Toronto Island on a day trip.
Henry slept well under his improvised sun-shade

So I went ahead and planned a "real" trip. I chose Massasauga Park because it's close enough to Toronto that we could leave after church on a Sunday and get into a back-country campsite before sunset. I borrowed a friend's canoe--a tripping monster that has seen the watersheds of three oceans! We borrowed some other gear and bought a few things. (Many thanks to Dave and Keith for the loans.) Betsy's parents gave us a tent and some ground pads. Gear-wise, here are some recommendations for those of you thinking of camping with your little ones...

A Five Gallon Plastic Bucket
We used this from dirty diaper storage (and other trash, too). It's airtight and cheap and you don't have to worry about cross-contamination. Plus, it makes a very handy stool for sitting on. I found that it bit nicely in the space behind the stern seat of the canoe.

Platypus Gravityworks Water Filter
When I went on my trip to Algonquin our group used an MSR MiniWorks EX Water Filter. It screws onto a standard Nalgene bottle and then you hand-pump water through the ceramic filter to fill the bottle. It was a real chore, to be honest. But the Platypus Gravity fed system is pure awesomeness! You fill up the "dirty" bag with four litres of water and then let it drain through a filter cartridge into a "clean" bag. In about 2.5 minutes, presto, you have clean water! With this system it was easy to have more than enough water in camp our whole trip.

MSR DragonFly Stove
We borrowed one of these camp stoves from an experienced tripper-friend. This is far easier to cook on than an open-fire, and much kinder of the environment, too, when you think about the impact of gathering wood around well-used sites. It can deliver 8700 BTU, which will bring a litre of water to boil in less than four minutes! Coupled with one of these coffee makers, it made mornings far more civilized! Oh, and the flame can be turned down to a bare flicker, which means you could simmer as easy as kiss-my-hand.

Seal Pup Elite Knife
I've always found a multi-purpose camping knife to be handy gear on the trail, and this sweet knife got plenty of use preparing kindling, cutting food, opening wood bags, etc. It might not be essential gear, but it is surprisingly useful. For example, for dinner the first night we had campfire-grilled steak. The "camping" utensils we had were useless at cutting it. This bad boy carved through the meat like butter. It's extremely comfortable in the hand, and so sharp that I could shave off arm hair straight out of the box.

Child-Sized Sleeping Bag
One of our biggest questions heading out was how Henry would sleep in the tent. We were out for two-nights, and on both occasions he did quite well. He did move around a lot, which I suspect he does in bed at home, too. So even we started out with Betsy in the middle and Henry on one side, half way through the night Betsy and I would switch places to put me in the middle with Henry to my right. I'd leave my bag mostly unzipped so I could get to Henry and he could get to me. Sometimes he managed to sleep in or on this adorable sleeping bag. Other times, when it seemed especially cool, I simply pulled him in and spooned him for a few hours. He liked that. When he got too warm (he was wearing two layers just-in-case), he'd simply crawl away from me into the corner of the tent.

I brought along two maglight flashlights, storm-proof matches, a length of rope, a compass, and other odds and ends. One thing I forgot to bring in all my careful list-making and planning was toilet paper. Luckily I had brought along extra baby wipes, so they substituted just fine.

Just like at home, one person needs to watch the boy while the other does anything require concerted effort, like setting up camp or cooking. Henry was thrilled to find so many sticks to play with and new things to point at. "Mah? Mah?" he kept saying at each new thing, looking back at us to see if we saw the bird, or tree, or cliff, too.

We ate well. Here's the menu:

Day 1 - Supper
Steak
Potatoes a Gratin
A pre-made toddler meal (I think it was ravioli with red sauce)
A Tretra-Pak of red wine
Popcorn for dessert

Day 2 - Breakfast
Coffee
Mexican-style eggs (basically just scrambled eggs on tortillas with salsa and cheese)
Milk for Henry
Apples

Day 2 - Lunch
Beef tacos (with taco meat I made the day before we left)
Applesauce and other goodies for Henry

Day 2 - Supper
Pasta with meat sauce and cheese (using dehydrated beef I made a few days before)
Red wine
Milk and other goodies for Henry
Apples
Popcorn for dessert

Day 3 - Breakfast
Coffee
Oatmeal with brown sugar and milk for everyone
Apples

I was quite proud of my menu planning. Opening up the cheese in the morning and then using it up across three meal works quite well. So did pre-measuring the butter I would need and the coffee for each morning's brew. Probably the best meal was the first night. Few things in this planet can match the experience of eating campfire grilled steak with red wine after a few hours of paddling. Loons in the background and the most purple sunset you've even seen complete the picture.

Speaking of pictures, here are a few... the pictures from the trip!

By the third day Betsy, Henry, and I had really found our rhythm and felt as though we could easily have handled a longer trip. As we paddled back to the boat ramp at Pete's Place we felt strong and fast through the water. Henry spent part of that last paddle peaking over the gunwales and part of it sleeping on a blanket between dry packs and Betsy's seat. We got to Pete's place with plenty of time to spare, so we deliberately hung out in the middle of the lake taking pictures and messing around.

I grew up as a country kid, exploring the wheat fields and rail road tracks of Kansas. I have a lot of wander-lust in me, and getting out into the woods reminded me of that part of myself. I felt so alive, so in touch with myself and comfortable with the challenges in front of me. I'm really a different person in the field, and I had forgotten that. I like who I am when I'm preaching or presiding and I like who I am when I'm sailing, but this back-woods Tay that used to sleep on the chicken shed and walk for hours down a creak bed has rarely gotten to shine this last few years. I'm hoping that as Henry grows up I can introduce him to the pleasures of waking up with the previous-nights smoke still in your hair, or the satisfaction of building a fire from a small, still smouldering ash from that day-old blaze. I love the way my muscles ache after a long paddle or how my soft my sleeping bag can feel. It's even more rewarding to share these experiences with my family, which is one more pleasant surprise of fatherhood.

-t

Sermon - Holy Cross 2011

2011-09-25T21:34:00.001-04:00

Here is my sermon from Holy Cross this year. Cheers!

-t

What is Prayer Like?

2011-08-21T09:04:00.001-04:00

This poem by Mary Oliver (from her collection Why I Wake Early) has been on my mind for a week and half or so. The best way to get a song like this out of your head is to share it:

Where Does the Temple Begin,
Where Does It End?

There are things you can't reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.

The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.

And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

The snake slides away; the fish jumps, like a little lily,
out of the water and back in; the gold fiches sing
from the unreachable top of the tree.

I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.

Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
as though with your arms open.

And thinking: maybe something will come, some
shining coil of wind,
or a few leaves from any old tree--
they are all in this too.

And now I will tell you the truth.
Everything in the world
comes.

At least, closer.

And, cordially.

Like the nibbling, tinsel-eyed fish; the unloosing snake.
Like goldfinches, little dolls of gold
fluttering around the corner of the sky

of God, the blue air.

Mary's poetry really does evoke me in the same sort of feelings I get where reading Rumi, David Whyte, or the Desert Fathers. Amazing stuff!

-t

Contemplating Canoe Building

2011-08-16T23:04:00.003-04:00

The guy I sail with (Dave) and a few others of us are considering taking on a winter project this year while Peregrine is out of the water--building a canoe. Dave and a friend of his both have a lot of experience building canoes, and it turns out that this is a do-able garage project. Here is a five minute video that shows what the process looks like for one type of home-built canoe:

Pretty, isn't she? So I'm thinking of building something like this this winter...

-t

Here's a Koan for You...

2011-08-16T16:25:00.001-04:00

I find myself with a little time this afternoon (a very unusual circumstance), so I can finally do a little blogging. Mostly just some updates and reflections at the end.

Betsy, Henry, and I have had a nice summer. We went down to New Jersey for a little family reunion with my mom, sisters, and their families. Some of my cousins also came around. It was wonderful to spend so much time with them, particularly with my two brothers-in-law. We spent many a late night sipping bourbon on my mother's porch and talking about mutual interests. I even introduced them both to Cuban Cigars (contraband in America, I know, but living in Canada does have it's perks). Henry has four cousins, and it was rewarding to put them all together and let them play. We even organized a "Pirate" day complete with treasure hunt. My birthday included lobster (a family tradition) and we celebrated the 4th of July with BBQ and fireworks!

After New Jersey we headed over to Pennsylvania to see Betsy's parents, sister, and her family. More eating (I was taking a sabbath from my diet) and talking.

Back in Toronto Betsy and I have managed to go for canoe picnics on Toronto Island twice. A friend has a canoe at QCYC (the sailing club where I race on Wednesday nights). It's a beautiful wood-and-canvas vessel made in the 1950's. She tracks gracefully through the water and turns heads. Betsy and I have found that Henry does well in the middle position, and he has taken naps in the canoe on both trips. We put a picnic blanket down for him and rigged a sun screen across the gunnels.

The first time he fell asleep in a canoe we decided to take his cue. We pulled up to the bank of the channel and tied off to a shady branch. Betsy and I got comfortable and drifted off into family-nap time. Bliss.

Another time we ended our picnic-day by meeting up some friends with a boat for BBQ. After we ate we motored over to the Wards Island Beach, anchored, and went swimming off the back. Henry was a bit freaked out by the depth of the water, but I think we'll cure him of that fear with practice.

Canoeing is a real art form. I much prefer to kayaking, to tell the truth. A old joke goes like this:

Canadian: How can tell an American from a Canadian?
American: A Canadian knows how to have sex in a canoe.
Canadian: Nah, any fool can do that--a Canadian knows to take the thwart out first!

Ha. Drifting along with Henry gazing at the wild life, towing a bottle of wine deep enough to get the cold lake water, glancing at Betsy's blonde hair in the breeze... that's summer in Ontario for me.

In truth, these two canoe trips where a test to see how reasonable it would be to take Henry on longer-trek in September. Things went so well that we're planning a three-day (two-night) paddle in Massasauga Park. This is backcountry camping--a seriously ambitious undertaking with a 20-month old! But I'm thrilled. There is something incredibly liberating about getting back into the woods.

I'll have to post separately about the goings on church land. I start to get really intense when I talk about it. The complexity of parish ministry in mind-boggling. I think all pastors probably experience this. The longer you are in a place, the more complex the problems and the joys seem to be. The questions that occupy me now are both the same and different from when I first started. I feel like I've aged a decade in ministry.

Some days I'll have great experiences that make me feel like I am doing exactly what I was put on this earth to accomplish. These are wonderful, joy filled times. Then there are days when I feel like I am an awful person who is wasting everyone's time. Yes, there is some real dark places I can go when I think about all the problems my community faces. We are making progress, and I do believe the church is far better off now than when I first came. Slowly, so slowly.

For example, today I held my monthly "Traditional Communion Service." Usually I get about eight folks attending. We celebrate the Eucharist using the old language from the Book of Common Prayer. I even use the collect that prays for the Queen! It's sweet and unapologetically old-fashioned. After mass we have lunch and chat. But today only one person showed up. The others, unfortunately, had made a commitment to something else before they realized the scheduling conflict. Oops.

So I spent about 30-45 minutes getting the church all ready. Candles on the altar, chairs put out and arranged, lessons marked, etc. I was vested in my number two cassock (number one needs a bath), surplice, and stole. And one sweet, sweet lady arrives. She is hard of hearing, so I gave her one of the wireless headphone sets and put on a wireless mic to help her out.

In my homily I said that such a liturgy was a chance to recall that worship is about an offering made, not a service received. Saints and angels attended, no doubt. But the feelings that this kind of thing stir up are pretty intense and pretty varied. You can feel good about the "craft" of your ministry, the way you smoothly go through the liturgy and make prayers with your hands and even the way you hold your shoulders. And then you feel disappointed that on one wants to see that. Not even free lunch is enough to lure them in! But then you find yourself giving over to the prayer... letting it flow.

A priest I knew once told me that when I prayed the Sursum Corda (the call-and-responses that begin the Eucharistic Prayers), he could sense the energy coming out of the palms of my hands. He said it was like love. That's a nice compliment, but it is also a pretty scary reality to contemplate. What he didn't know is that many years ago, when I was college, I spent many nights praying in a chapel on campus. Usually I would end my prayers by asking God to bless my hands for healing, and I would put them on the smooth, varnished top of the altar. It was an electric and exciting way to pray, and suspect it effected the way I preside at the Lord's table to this day.

Interesting that I would write about that now, I've never told anyone that story.

One time a few weeks ago, when I was feeling particularly discouraged about some crisis or other. Might have been about money or it might have been about the music ministry or it might have been about some programme I was trying to launch without success. Anyway, I was keenly feeling my lack of ability and the thought occurred to me, "They don't pay you for what you do; they pay you for who you are." That's not entirely true, of course, but it's a useful koan for meditation. It's an antidote to the flawed thinking that ministry, or "church", even, is about accomplishing something. It's not about accomplishing anything--it's about the relationships that we are creating and sustaining horizontally and vertically.

"The church rolls on," they say. Indeed she does. And yet the struggles remain essentially the same. For me, the hardest part of this vocation is balancing my own spirituality with the practical stuff that just needs to get done. Floating down a stream in an old cedar canoe is a luxurious indulgence in world of broken, flooding pipes, reports and committee meetings! How to balance? Something about noticing when we go out of balance, I suppose.

'Nough rambling for now. Just wanted to share a bit of what's going in my world this summer!

-t

Sermon - Pentecost 2011

2011-06-14T09:59:00.005-04:00

In this sermon for Pentecost I explained a new way of approaching the "problem" of church. Rather than looking at it as though it were a recipe with some missing ingredient, I looked at it like a piece of Origami. Church-as-folding problem means that we can assume that we will still have all the same elements, but we seek to arrange them in a new way. Folding is getting a lot of attention in the world of science because it is a fundamental piece of conceptual architecture necessary for understanding String Theory in physics and protein formation (DNA) in biology. In turns out that that "folding" is something that happens a lot in our universe, and working with that knowledge has born fruit in the "hard" science.

So what does our theology (particularly our understanding of liturgy and ecclesiology--that is, worship and church itself) benefit from this framework? Well, for one thing, it helps move us past the confetti of post-modernism: the bits and scraps and fragments that we, in church land, keep trying to arrange into some kind of mosaic that makes narrative sense our a fragmented world. The old prayerbooks and bibles have been shredded, and we put the pieces together to create a meaningful experience by taking a little from this book and little from this other one. The problem is that in liturgy, to take one example, the effort to create a mosaic sometimes devolves into "Fraken-Liturgy"--a grotesquely imbalanced creature whose un-natural origin is evident to all. In an Origami approach, it is understood that the entire tradition is still present, only it's been folded around into a new arrangement.

For example, imagine an origami leaflet. The congregation receives, when they arrive at the church site, a single piece of paper that has been folded into some kind of a shape. As they unfold it, the liturgy itself is revealed. But perhaps this is not a linear liturgy like we are used to. Maybe instead of flowing, temporally, from gathering to word to table, people flow physically from one area to another. This kind of stational liturgy is in our church DNA, actually, and certainly evident in larger churches where you might find little chapels and prayer areas and votive stations and displays set up. This is worship as environment rather than worship as event. The secular analogue would be architecture rather than drama. People have plenty of experience encountering spaces and inhabiting them, even spaces with a strongly pedagogical intention (think of class rooms, museums, and art galleries).

So once this origami leaflet is completely unfolded and laid flat it functions as a map of both the conceptual and physical space. Suddenly the unity of the liturgy becomes available in a new way. Rather than merely repeating a cyclic story attempting to create drama by suspending our own knowledge of how it ends, the participants are never asked to surrender that knowledge at all. The power comes not from the sequential build-up of tension and then climax as in drama, but in the depth that comes from going down, down, down deeper into knowing a space on its own terms.

Epistemologically speaking, we might expect more change out of people with this approach. There is much more discovery in it, much more participation as the group cooperatively makes worship together. It moves us in the exact opposite direction of movie-theatre style worship with its hierarchies of knowledge and provider-consumer dialectic.

Another appeal of this approach is that it lends itself to adapting another important conceptual framework: fractals. Fractals are a phenomenon where the smaller parts of something resemble or repeat the pattern of the whole. For example, if you look at branch of lightening, you will see a similarity between a very small branch and the entire structure. Snow flakes are also a common example. When we start talking about the Holy Trinity, we quickly get into fractals as we grab examples from nature to show that the fingerprints of Trinitarian thinking are everywhere.

Another thought has to do with the way that mutation works. As we disassemble and reassemble the Gospel, we are actually encoding it and decoding in such a way as to produce variations and mutations. Most of these will be dismissed as noise in the process, but a few of these mutations might be good enough to spur evolution.

So this is something I'm puzzling through right now. Not abstract at all, since I can easily how these concepts find application in parish life. If I want to create a transformational experience of church community, than I need new tools to configure the elements that I've got. I can't assume that some magic element is going to be added into the mix!

-t

Sermon - VCP 2011 Jenny Andison

2011-06-13T21:28:00.001-04:00

This is Jenny Andison, the Canon Missioner for the Diocese of Toronto, preaching at the Vital Church Planting Conference (East) a few weeks ago. I shot this video, it was edited by Susan & Andy Kalbfleisch.

-t

Lamb

2011-05-22T20:58:00.003-04:00

After Henry was born we celebrated Christmas with this meal: Carré d'Adneau au Moutarde (Rack of Lamb with Mustard), Gratin Daughinois (Gratin Potatoes), and Sautéed Vegetable Medley. This week I recreated that meal for some friends that came over. This is not a difficult meal to do, but it does take about 2 1/2 hours to make, soup-to-nuts. Worth it.

The crucial difference this time around was the lamb. Last year I used New Zealand lamb pre-packaged an shipped to Canada. It's okay, the sort of rack of lamb you find the grocery store. I picked up the ingredients for the meal at my local grocery store, but they didn't have lamb. So I went to Grace Meat Market, and they didn't have it either! Bummer.

I Googled butchers nearby, and ended up calling Vincent Gasparro's on Bloor West. Yes, they had lamb. Not only lamb, but fresh, organic lamb from Mr. Gasparro's farm! This is was some fantastic looking meat. The sort of cut that makes you take a deep breath and say a prayer that you don't mess up such a great piece of meat.

This was, no kidding, the best lamb I have ever made or eaten. I seared it and then roasted it with a mustard and breadcrumb crust. Herbs: rosemary and thyme and salt and pepper. Red wine and stock reduction mounted with butter for sauce. Rare, which worried me for a second until I tasted it. It was amazing. Butter melting tender. It changed the way I taste lamb.

It was so good, I actually thought about the animal from which it came. I thought about that creature and was grateful that it gave its life so that my friends and I could have a nice meal. I felt like a better person for having that lamb. It was so good, I sent an e-mail to the butcher to tell him how good it was.

Man, I love food.

-t

The Pulpit

2011-05-17T23:16:00.004-04:00

Pure busy-ness prevents me from posting more often.

This morning Henry woke up earlier than usual, (about 6.30) and spend the next fifteen or twenty minutes sleeping in my arms in a rocking chair. I must say, having my little guy sleeping on my shoulder is one of the best sensations in the whole world. By 7 we were downstairs making coffee and breakfast shakes for mommy and daddy.

Betsy pointed out, helpfully, that I am being expected to function at both a Micro and Macro level of ministry simultaneously. Sometimes I'm being asked to think about the implications of Diocesan-level policies and help shape conversations happening at that level (via the Fresh Expressions Working Group, my column in the Anglican, etc.), and other times I'm being asked to stack chairs and create bulletins. Today, in fact, I spent about 2-3 hours preparing my church for a BCP (that's "Rite I" for you Americans) service we do once a month for about 10 mostly older members. I had forgotten to leave a note telling the cleaners how to set up the chairs. And the volunteer who normally handles lunch after the service had evidently forgotten.

So that left me to set up the chairs, the altar, and manage lunch. While I set up chairs I noted that they had been badly stacked (not the cleaner's fault, a group had been using the space Sunday afternoon)--which made my job more difficult than in should have been and put some scratches in the walls. As I arranged the chairs I reflected on the nature of ministry. Who would have imagined that I would have such strong opinions about the "correct" way to stack chairs? Whether I am being a perfectionist or merely doing what is necessary. What does it mean to take care of people?

So after setting up the chairs and doing everything necessary in the Sacristy (bread, wine, candles, books, holy-hardware), I ordered lunch from a deli just before it was time to Vest and take care of business. Six people showed up. Seriously, I think 2 1/2 hours of set-up plus another hour for the service and another for lunch (4.5 hours, total) is worth it for six people--but I doubt the rest of the congregation realizes what it takes to make a little service like this happen in a place like Messiah. Back when I had an Administrative Assistant I could rely on more of this happening without my intervention, but such is the breaks.

I preached a sermon, and even though I had barely looked at the texts ahead of time, it was a solid little homily and people responded with appreciative nods during and private asides after. When the candles were out I hopped on my bike ("George") and went to the Annex Hodgepodge to pick-up the lunch I had ordered. They helpfully put in a box for me and I strapped that to the rack on my bike. Pedalling back the church with sandwiches for my heniors (in my collar and corduroy jacket, no less) made me feel like an honest-to-God parson. It is supremely satisfying to feed people, especially when I do that it multiple ways all in one morning.

My folks noticed how hard I worked to get them lunch and were deeply appreciative. They said they wished they had known--but of course I had no idea my volunteer wasn't showing up until it happened. I could have called the night before, I suppose, but I certaintly don't think it's a good policy to call every volunteer to confirm their service the day before! Anyway the sandwiches were excellent and my people were very happy and feeling loved.

As my lunch was ending wo guests arrived for a meeting about a new ministry partnership that is brewing. I gave them some extra sandwiches and then had an excellent meeting about a potential project we are developing. My office is being repainted by volunteers, so we had to meet in same room where we served lunch. They didn't mind, meeting some of my parishioners actually gave them a firmer sense of what COTM is about, anyway.

That's my life. One minute I'm setting up chairs and sweeping the floor and another I'm discussing the history of supportive housing developments in my neighbourhood. Betsy is right, this kind of rapid switching from Microscale to Macro is difficult, and yet it seems somewhat inherent in the clerical calling. I don't mind the diversity of work. I enjoy working with hands and solving new kinds of problems. Perhaps the best part of being a priest, for me, is having to learn new things.

Tomorrow I have another morning service, then meetings, and then in the late afternoon and evening I'm going sailing. This sailing season I'm the Tactician on the team I crew with. It's a huge responsibility--a major step-up. And yet there is nothing I would rather do on the boat (which says something about the skipper's excellent discernment of crew roles). I've got a handsome new hand bearing compass and stop watch, and our practice sessions have gone well. Being the tactician is all about synthesizing a lot of information and then doing what you think is best for everybody on board. What more perfect role on a racing boat could there be for a parish priest? (A smart-Alec will suggest "bartender"--fie on him!)

There was a moment last Saturday when we were practising out in Lake Ontario in heavy fog and rain. I had my foul weather gear on and was hanging out on the bow as we approached a buoy that we were pretending was a mark on a race course. My job was to "call the tack"--that is, tell the the rest of the crew when to execute a 100 degree turn through the wind. The key, for me, was knowing just when the buoy was lying on the correct angle to the wind relative to our boat and anticipating the delay between the call and the actual turn. We were heeled over with a strong wind, and I was standing on the bow (front) of the boat with my hand bearing compass out in front of me. I could see the relative bearing of the buoy decreasing as it passed from forward of us to almost abreast of us. Just before it was at the correct bearing I yelled over the rain, "TACK!" and rushed forward.

The four other crew members executed the turn. Rather than retreat to the mast, I had chosen to go to the very forward most part of the boat (the "pulpit") and step over the leading edge of the front sail as it swept across the deck from one side of the boat to the other. It's much like mounting a bicycle, and as long as you grip something solid with both hands, perfectly safe. I was wearing a PFD over my rain gear just in case.

With the sails sheeted tight again, the boat heeled well over. As the buoy passed about a foot from the side I punched the air in excitement "YES!" It was about a prefect a call I could have imagined, and great fun to execute, too.

That's a big chunk of what my life is like, right there. Rain, fog, me with my Weems and Plath Compass waiting for just the right moment....

-t

Bixi - How To

2011-05-16T16:09:00.002-04:00

With summer coming to Toronto it's time to bring bikes out of storage and onto the street. For the first 3 years we lived in Toronto we were without a car, so I used my bike a lot. When I became the Incumbent (Rector) at Church of The Messiah, I pretty well figured I would need a car and got one. But I kept my bike and used it frequently until it was stolen out of our back yard! Ever since then I have been bemoaning the lack of a bike. People kept promising to give me old bikes they no longer used, but that never happened, so in the end I just decided to buy a new bike.

George, as I call him, is a "Dutch City Bike." Designed for cruising on paved roads without getting your clothes greasy, he has hub-enclosed gears and breaks, narrow tires, and very upright riding posture. I love it--so smooth. Many thanks to people at Curbside Cycle for taking the time to walk me through this decision.

But I'm not the only one with Bikes on my mind. The city just introduced an initiative called Bixi which puts rental bikes all over the downtown core of the city. You can rent these for short, one-way trips. It's a great idea, and I hope it is wildly successful. I've already seen some people using them, and with the weather improving I expect it will explode.

Here is a short little video (three minutes) that describes the system and how to use it. Very helpful.

-t

Sermon and Baptism - Easter Day 2011

2011-04-29T14:32:00.002-04:00

I finally managed to get a good video of a baptism at Messiah! The problem in the past has been finding a place to put the camera on a tripod ahead of time that wouldn't be blocked during the actual baptism. So this time I had a moment of inspiration and handed the camera to a friend of mine who happened to be there and whom I thought would be able to handle the camera without dropping it. (Yes, this was filmed with the Diocese's extra special camera that I have been learning to use.)

This video starts out with my sermon. Like all good Easter Day sermons it is relatively short (10 minutes) and high-energy. It relates baptism and resurrection and also seeks to make the resurrection hope real to people, not merely an abstraction. I have heard some preachers over preach on days like Easter, and I think that's one of the worst mistakes you can make. I kept it pretty loose, which also meant making a few rhetorical mistakes (nothing drastic or heretical, just not as neatly phrased as I might like). Anyway, feel free to fast-forward through that part if what you really want to see is how we do baptism at Messiah.

Alas, I did not get a good video of the blessing of water part of the rite. I also skipped over a little moment I had with the kids around the font where I talked to them a little about the meaning of baptism.

-t

Sermon - Lent 5 2011

2011-04-11T09:09:00.003-04:00

Nancy is coming towards the end of her Internship at Church of The Messiah. I will be sad to see her go, she has been a great student. A quick learner, she has picked things up very quickly. For this, her next-to-last, sermon with us, I asked her to "do something different." Nancy is a very good preacher, but I wanted her to stretch herself beyond her comfort zone by doing something new and risky. She decided to go in the direction of using personal story, which is a particular preaching skill.

As it turns out, the texts for Lent 5A are all about death: Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones, the raising of Lazarus, etc. So she bravely went down the road of disclosure and I think people were quite moved by it, I certainly was.

-t

Psalm 130 - Emergent Psalter

2011-04-10T22:52:00.001-04:00

Here is Infinitely More (Allison Lynn and Gerald Fleming) performing Psalm 130 at Church of The Messiah on Lent 5. They are using The Emergent Psalter by Isaac Everett, which I have mentioned on my blog before. It's a very interesting resource for those of you looking for new ways to handle psalms.

-t

Update on the Messiah Challenge

2011-03-31T12:10:00.003-04:00

It's no secret that The Church Messiah is facing a financial challenge. After a few years of balanced budgets we saw our income from givings plummet (mostly, according to our analysis, because of the hit the economy took) in 2010. We started a Stewardship Campaign in response, but it was delayed by several factors (my parental leave, a general loss of momentum in summer, and some parish deaths). With few cash reserves to rely on, we started to owe money to the Diocese--now the Diocese is understandably anxious. We had a meeting last night with some reps from the Accounts Receivable Committee and Bishop Yu. It went very well, and I have to say that we were encouraged. There is work to do, for sure, but it is "do-able." The biggest thing we have going for us at the moment is that we are, in fact, growing. If we can sustain this growth for the next few years we'll be fine. But this transitional period of adjustment is difficult.

I just want to say that I am very proud of my leadership team at the church. The Wardens, finance committee, and others have really been pulling together. A plan is beginning to take shape that gives me a tremendous sense of relief. I'm finally feeling like we have a handle on this thing. Whew!

Interestingly, at one point in the meeting I felt a very powerful feeling of affectionate and love for my little church. I'm sure all pastors feel this. It's perhaps the best part of parish ministry--sweet to taste.

-t

Sermon - Epiphany 6 2011

2011-03-28T22:29:00.002-04:00

Another one of Nancy's sermons. Here are the texts.

-t

Blanquette de homard

2011-03-27T23:13:00.004-04:00

When it comes to lobster, I'm normally a purest: boiling water with some salt (perhaps even sea water), melted butter on the side, lots of paper towels and newspaper. But I decided to try something different this time:

Blanquette de Homard
from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
(thanks Meg and Seb)

Ingredients
8 oz.* haricots verts (skinny French green beans)
salt
12 pearl onions
6 tbps/75g butter, softened
pinch of sugar
2 2-lb/900g lobsters*
1 shallot, peeled and sliced very thin
1 leek, white part only, washed and sliced very thin
1/4 cup/56 ml white wine
1 cup/225 ml light chicken stock or broth
2 cups/450 ml heavy cream
white pepper
juice of 1 lemon
1 bunch of fresh chives, chopped small (that's fresh--not that freeze-dried garbage, okay?)
a few sprigs of flat parsely or chervil, for garnish

Equipment
large pot
large bowl, filled with ice water
paring knife
small saucepan
big-ass knife, with a heavy-duty blade
wide sautour (a large saute pan with perpendicular edges) with lid, or with foil to cover
wood spoon
tongs or slotted spoon
warmed serving platter
whisk

Prep
First, the haricots verts. In the large pot, bring 4 cups/900 ml of water to a rolling boil. Add a large pinch of salt. Cook the beans until tender, but still bright green and slightly crunchy, about 7 minutes. Do not add the beans to the water until the water is roiling!! if your beans look army-green colored and limp, you've screwed up. Do it again. When the beans are properly cooked, remove from the boiling water and plunge them immediately into the ice water to shock them and arrest the cooking. When cooled, set them aside.

Okay. Take a breath. Relax. Next, the pearl onions. Peeling these little ****ers is a pain, I know. Just get it over with. When peeled, place the pearl onions and 2 tablespoons/28g of the butter, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of sugar in the small saucepan and cover with water. The onions should peek out above the surface. Cook over medium heat for about 10 minutes, or until all the water evaporates. make sure the onions don't take on any color. That would be bad. if they look like they're starting to get brown, or you think that you need to add a little more water, do it. Just make sure you don't cook them too much; you do not want mush. You want tender, distinctive little onions that have retained their shape but are cooked through. Remove from the heat an set aside.

(Some delicate people like to "kill" the lobster bofer cutting it up, by putting the tip of the knife between its eyes and cutting open the head lengthwise. You can do it that way, but it's really not that much help; the lobster is still going to move long after it's dead.)

All right. That's done. Here comes the ugly part. You might need a drink for this: Cut the still wriggling, flopping, and protesting lobsters' tails into 4 pieces each, crunching right through the shells and leaving the meat intact. Don't worry. Lobsters are essentially big ****ing bugs; they're too stupid to know they're dead. And if it makes you feel any better, they do much worse things to one another. Tear off the claws and crack them, meaning give them a good wallop on top, behind the hinge of the claws with the heel of your knife. Hopefully you're using an impressive hunk of German steel so you're not going to screw up the blade. When the blade goes in, cutting through the shell but not the meat, you can wobble or rock the blade a little, prying open a fissure in the shell with a resounding CRACK! Reserve the unused parts of the lobster--the knuckles and the heads. That's gold, baby. Freeze them and use them some other time for lobster stock or lobster butter or bisque.

Cook
In the wide sautoir, and over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons/28g of the butter until foaming and hot (but not brown) and add the shallot and leek. Reduce the heat to low and cover the pot with its lid or foil. Cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the lid and crank up the heat again, deglazing by adding the white wine and scraping up all the good stuff from the bottom of the pan. When the white wine has nearly cooked away, add the chicken stock, bring to a boil, and reduce by half. Add the heavy cream, reduce heat again, and simmer. Add the lobster claws and tail pieces. Cover and cook for about 8 minutes over low heat. Remove the cover and throw in the precooked pearl onions and haricots verts. Add white pepper to taste. Simmer for another 2 minutes with the lid off.

Serve
Remove the lobster pieces and the vegetables from the pot and arrange artfully on the warmed platter. Quickly fire up the heat to maximum, bringing the sauce to a boil. Whisk in the remaining 2 tablespoons/28 g of butter, the lemon juice, and your no doubt impeccably chopped chives. Adjust the seasoning. Hopefully the sauce the will be reasonably thick (but not gluey--just enough to coast the lobster). Pour it over the lobster and vegetables and garnish with parsley or chervil.

Tay's Notes
Yep, this is is delicious. It goes well with pasta on the side, and crusty bread for all that sauce.
* The cookbook actually calls for "2.5 lb./225g" of green beans. Obviously, 225grams is nowhere near 2.5 pounds! So I think the metric here is correct.
** You can substitute 3 smaller lobsters for the 2 big ones.

-t

Sermon - Lent 3 2011

2011-03-27T21:55:00.002-04:00

Here is my sermon from this past Sunday. I felt it important to preach about Japan. I liked out this sermon turned out, but I think the content was better than my delivery. Ah, well! Here are the texts for Lent 3 A: hard to escape themes around recognition and the presence of God.

-t

Lapin aux Olives

2011-03-26T21:08:00.007-04:00

One of the the things I do to relieve stress is cook. We had a friend who is currently living in Spain over, so I gave this receipt from Anthony a shot. I've been wanting to cook rabbit for a while, and wasn't really happy with most of the recipes I've found online. This one is much better. Compared to most of Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles recipes, this one is relatively straightforward.

Lapin aux Olives
from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
(thanks Meg and Seb)

Ingredients
4 Rabbit Legs *
1 Small onion, coarsely chopped
1 Small carrot, coarsely chopped
1 Celery rib, coarsely chopped
4 Garlic cloves, crushed
2 Bay leaves
2 Sprigs of thyme, plus
1 Sprig of thyme, leaves only, finely chopped
1 Sprig of rosemary, plus
1 Sprig of rosemary, leaves, only finely chopped
1 Sprig of flat parsley, plus
1 Sprig of flat parsley, leaves only, finely chopped
1 Tbsp/14g whole black peppercorns
1 1/2 cups/340ml White wine (1/2 bottle)
Salt and pepper
1/4 Cup/56g Flour, for dredging, plus
1 Tbs/14g Flour, for sauce
2 Tbsp/28ml Olive oil
1 Tbsp/14g Butter
1 Tbsp/14g Tomato paste
1/4 Cup/56ml Red wine vinegar
2 Cups/450ml Chicken stock
1/4 lbs./112 g Picholine olives, pitted (or a mix of red and green unstuffed, pitted)

Equipment
Large mixing bowl
Dutch oven or other heavy, large pot
Wooden spoon
Strainer
Serving Platter

Serves 4

Prep the bunny
In the large mixing bowl, combine the rabbit legs, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, bay leaves, whole sprigs of thyme, rosemary, and parsley, the peppercorns, and the wine. Let marinate for 2 hours.

Cook the bunny
Drain the marinade and reserve the liquid and the vegetables separately. Pat the legs dry and season with salt and pepper. Dredge the legs in 1/4 Cup of the flour. Heat the olive oil over high heat in the Dutch oven and, once the oil is hot, add the butter.** Brown the legs on both sides until they are dark golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Remove the legs from the pot and set aside.

Add the vegetables from the marinade to the pot and cook over high heat until they are browned and caramelized. Stir in the tomato paste and the remaining tablespoon/14g of flour and mix well with the wooden spoon. Cook for 1 minute, then stir in the vinegar and the reserved marinade liquid. Cook over the high heat until the liquid is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon. Stir in the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Add the rabbit legs and reduce to a simmer. Cook over low heat for 1 hour, or until the meat is very tender. Remove the legs and set aside.

Finish and serve
Strain the cooking liquid and return it to the pot. Return the legs to the pot and bring the liquid to a boil. Stir in the olives and the chopped herbs, season with salt and pepper, and serve on the platter.

Tay's Notes
* or one whole rabbit, organs removed, chopped up. If you go the whole-bunny route, beware of bones.
** On the advice of my butcher I added some lardons of bacon, about 1/2 cup worth at this stage and rendered the fat after that. Thus the rabbit was seared in olive oil, butter, and bacon fat!
*** Including the marinading, this recipe takes about four hours, plan accordingly.

A note about sourcing rabbits in southern Ontario. The butcher told me that there is really only one supplier of rabbits to the grocery stores and butchers down here. There are no large rabbit farms, there is no money in it. However, farmers like to give their kids a few rabbits to raise as a way to teach them the basics of animal husbandry. People also raise them personally for meat, of course. So this rabbit processing company does a big round-up a few time a month when anyone can come by and sell their rabbits. Mostly, I'm told, these rabbits are actually being raised by Mennonites!

-t

Return of the Cold

2011-03-24T11:45:00.001-04:00

For many weeks I have been nursing a minor cold. It hasn't caused me too much grief, and Dayquil and other meds. have kept me from missing much work, but when I went on retreat last week the cold pretty much resolved completely. Something about all that rest and healthy living gave my body what it needed to finally defeat that persistent cold.

Alas, Tuesday night I was up late working on church stuff (as I have been a lot, lately) and didn't get as much sleep as I need. Sure enough, Wednesday I started to feel the cold coming back. I tried to fight it by going to bed early with half a dose of Nightquil, but my sleep was fitful at best. Ideally, I would have just stayed in bed this morning, but someone had to be at the church to meet a technician from Bell to fix the phone lines. Of course, the tech hasn't showed up, yet, so I went ahead and spent the morning doing sermon prep.

All these are first-order observations. Not very interesting, really. But then I flash to something Mary Gates used to say. She said that colds are a somatic expression of depression. I don't think I'm depressed, but I do carry around a significant amount of suppressed sadness and anxiety. Just yesterday I almost cried when talking about a departed member of our church. The emotion surprised me, obviously there is some unresolved stuff there. No doubt I would be healthier, and perhaps cold-free, if I could unpack some of this baggage.

The problem is that this is such a critical time in my parish's life that I have a hard time letting go of the tiller. Besides the Stewardship campaign, I am in the middle of Holy Week planning. There is also a sermon and bible study for this weekend to prepare. And leaflets. The leaflet for Sunday must be printed before tomorrow afternoon so that the volunteers have something to fold.

Did I mention that today I have an appointment to take a parishioner for her elderly Driver's License re-examination/renewal or that a tire on my car is flat and needs to be replaced with a spare and dropped off for repair?

I'm not complaining, I'm just explaining why my cold hasn't gone away. As busy as I sound, many of my parishioners have lives that are even busier. I know people who juggle incredibly stressful jobs, lots of kids, and multiple volunteer commitments. I have no idea how they do it.

The pastoral and homiletical challenge posed by this epidemic of stress in my community is profound. What is the word of Torah spoken on the street corner to those rushing by? One thinks of Jesus, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her" (Lk 11.41b-42).

Really, Lord? Didn't you also command us to "Go, and make disciples of all nations" (Mt. 28.19) and "feed my sheep" (John 21.17)? Discipleship, not to mention a call to apostolic leadership in ordained ministry, seems to involve making an attempt to inaugurate God's new kingdom here-and-now. I am trying my best to make my church a place of love and growth, and that requires working phone lines, among other things!

Perhaps the monastery has some things to teach us. The absolute nature of the commitment to a Benedictine organization of time means that prayer takes priority over work automatically. You simply must go to the church whenever the bell rings. Five times a day you go. Does that compromise one's ability to get "stuff done"? Of course it does. Yet everything that must happen does happen. There are still many hours to work in the day, and everyone goes off to their cells or offices to do it.

Unlike in a monastery, parochial ministry seems far more burdened with a Martha-esque urgency. I have people literally begging for my attention and help. And I'll be damned if I'm the last Rector of this historic church!

In a monastery one has a community of peers. I only see most of my community on Sunday--through the week I do most of my work alone or one-on-one. The isolation of pastoral ministry in small parishes is a well-documented problem. I have well meaning parishioners offer their pastoral support all the time, but it would be highly problematic for me unburden myself to any of them. Besides the obvious confidentiality issues, it would be unfair for me to develop special intimacy with any one in particular, a recipe for discord and division. Nope, for that I need peers. As much as I am ambivalent about clericalism, it does create a culture that feels comfortable and supportive. When I go to a "clericus" meeting or a Diocesan Committee I can speak in short-hand code that immediately elicits "me too" sympathy and good advice. Nothing that I am describing here is unique to me, I think all of my colleagues have been in a similar position with a similar spiritual problem.

At their best these encounters bring brief relief, rest, and reassurance. Perhaps some insight comes, as well. Yet this Martha-Mary paradox requires transformation, not accommodation. "Venting" make you feel better, temporarily, but it doesn't usually lead to the kind of sustained change or conversion that is actually the mark of the Holy Spirit's activity. For that, something else is required.

I suspect the answer may dwell in the hearts of my parishioners. If I can infect them with the Gospel... If I can make them Jesus followers... If I can show them how to build God's Kingdom... How would that change the character of priestly ministry in this parish? I try--I try very hard to do this.

For the moment I have no magic bullet to offer, just faithfulness, craft, and love. Will that be enough?

-t

Holy Week Planning 2011

2011-03-22T21:48:00.002-04:00

Today I had a meeting with the musician who will be sharing his gifts with Messiah from Palm Sunday, through Holy Week, and for the first several Sundays of Eastertide: Simon Waegemaekers. Simon is a pro, and I am especially appreciating how good he is working with the choir (he has been rehearsing the choir for the past few weeks in anticipation of the Holy Week rigours). Running a choir is a fine art, especially church choirs, especially especially volunteer church choirs. But to paraphrase a psalm, singing together in harmony is like fine oil running down the beard.

Today we had a meeting (along with my student, Nancy) to plan out more detail for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Great Vigil, and Easter Sunday. It's a monumental amount of work to prepare and plan these services, and much of it has actually already been done. Today we finalized the scripture lessons for those days as well as picked out much of the music.

Last year's Holy Week was epic. Really, some of the finest liturgy I have ever offered-up, anywhere. I think that many of my colleagues would be amazed at what we were able to accomplish, worship-wise, in our small parish. Eric and I worked out a lot of stuff and then brought in more and more people to contribute to that vision. But it didn't take vast sums of money or hired-gun-musicians or any of that stuff. It just took passionate people, two principal leaders, and lots of thought.

This year Simon, Nancy, and I started with last year, and then started tweaking and changing things. I put sheets of flip chart paper on the wall with notes about the various services: date/time, lessons, prayers, configuration of space, music, etc. These sheets are going to live on my walls for the next several weeks. They look fairly neat now, but will be a mess by the time Holy Week actually comes!

So this is starting to make Lent a little less Lent-ish...

-t

Sermon - Reign of Christ 2010

2011-03-21T12:35:00.002-04:00

I've been starting to go through the back catalog of sermons that I needed to edit, encode, and post. Naturally, I'm starting mostly with sermons that were preached by other people. Here is another one preached by my student, Nancy. The occasion was the Last Sunday of Pentecost, also known as "Reign of Christ Sunday." It also happens to be the Patronal Festival of Church of The Messiah (in as much as we have a Patronal Festival).

-t

Sermon - Lent 2 2011

2011-03-20T23:58:00.005-04:00

Betsy and I met in seminary, and I've always known that she would be good preacher if she wanted to manifest that particular charism--so I was pleased that she finally took my invitation to preach at COTM this week. I think she did a marvellous job. Here is a link to the lessons for the day.

While Betsy preached and John Hill presided downstairs, I was in the Sunday School space doing church with the kids for the morning. We do this every so often--it's a good way of showing them (and the adults) how much they matter to us.

Here is a link to the leaflet in case you're curious.

PS for you techies out there. This is one of those videos where I really wished I had a "fill" light coming in from the camera's left side. I have sometimes used a video light, but it tends to really annoy my parishioners (those that have to read at the ambo, at least) so I'm afraid Betsy appears a little backlit in this video. Life and liturgy are all about compromise!

-t

The Last Seven Seconds

2011-03-18T08:34:00.001-04:00

I've heard of a certain kind of Buddhist retreat that lasts seven years, seven months, seven days, seven hours, seven minutes, and seven seconds. They say that all the benefit of it is realized in those last seven seconds. I'm experiencing a similar thing today as my time at Holy Cross comes to an end. Just this morning I woke up for Mattins feeling refreshed and alive to the possibilities of the last few minutes. The Office was lovely, and afterwards a spent some minutes watching the sunrise over the Hudson River from the Lesser Cloister.

The "Lesser Cloister" is a brick colonnade connecting the main guesthouse with the monastery church. It is open on the river side and forms one side of a three-walled courtyard with a big old oak tree in the middle. This Oak tree is one of the symbols of the Order of the Holy Cross--by the way, a stylized version of the Holy Cross oak appears as the cross in the stole of my green set of vestments.

Watching the river and listening to the birds, I thought about this retreat time. I slept more than I expected. When Brother Andrew saw me at lunch on Thursday he exclaimed, "Where the hell have you been?" "I asked my body what it wanted out of this retreat and it said, 'sleep.'" "Good for you!" he said.

Normally I get a great deal out of attending the Daily Office and Eucharists, but this time my body needed something else for a time. I've gotten so much rest that my cold has almost completely disappeared. This minor cold has been with me for weeks and weeks, and is no doubt a somatic manifestation of my spiritual exhaustion. So now that I am rested my body is settling into the rhythms of this place--on the last day!

This place is so powerful. If you are willing to consent, and perhaps even if you are not, it will change you. Simply watch the River for a few minutes and you will feel your soul swell. A marble slab over the door to the guesthouse reads, "Crux est Mundi Medicina." It means, "The Cross is the medicine for the world." It is true in many ways.

Hard not to fantasize about living here. Indeed, I have lived here for extended periods a couple of times. They call such people "Residents." There are two houses on the property that have been used for folks. There is also a little suite of rooms in the basement that would work for a small family. I've lived the life of a Resident and known the other Residents who have come and gone well enough to have a pretty realistic sense of what the life style entails. One of the Residents, Tony, used to talk about the "Gate Keepers" who live at the boundary between the monastery and the world. Life always thrives at the boundaries.

I think Henry would love it here. I can imagine him walking around and pulling open every drawer and cabinet to see what it contains. I think we would like the woods and the shale beach. But I think what I want him to experience most is the simple quiet of this place. It's a quiet that goes beyond mere silence or absence of noise--a quiet that goes deep to your heart.

-t

Location:Broadway,Esopus,United States

The Air

2011-03-15T16:05:00.001-04:00

The air here is so much cleaner than the city air of Toronto. When you are in the city you don't notice that it's particularly polluted. Indeed, Toronto's air is much cleaner in my experience than in Manhattan or LA, but, still, when I come out to the country I am blown away by how different the air feels. It's a pleasure to breath!

So far I've mostly sleeping and praying--which is ideal for a retreat. I also took my customary walk around, like a cat, to see what has changed since my last visit. Probably the most notable difference is that they repaired the crypt chapel. For many years it had a problem with water, but that's all fixed now. It's a very pleasant space and is where we celebrated a "Contemplative" style Eucharist this morning.

It was Bede's birthday yesterday, and I am planning to take him out for dinner this week. We take our dinner-outs very, very seriously. Since I don't get a lot of "real food" on my diet, I am very much looking forward to this. I am even going to allow myself some wine while I am down here (I've given up alcohol for lent).

Otherwise, I'm settling in and relaxing into things. It feels good to be back--very natural and familiar. Sweet.

-t

Location:Broadway,Esopus,United States

Safe Harbour

2011-03-14T20:59:00.001-04:00

I just got into Holy Cross an hour or so ago. Last night I was up late finishing the bulletin for next Sunday since it had to be done before my retreat started. This morning I picked up the rental car (Betsy's needs the "Red Barron" to be able manage Henry this week), packed, and did a few other odds and ends before starting the trek to Holy Cross. It's an eight hour drive, and I made good time despite a 45 minute wait at the border. I spent the drive listening to some music and podcasts. The Chevy Impala the rental company gave me is a nice cruiser.

On the drive I took a call that told me that a member of the Messiah community passed away. She hadn't come to a service in many years, but she spoke fondly of my predecessor and certainly considered herself a member of the church. Her family wants a church funeral, and cell phones and such make it possible for me to arrange that even as I was driving across New York state. I haven't had too many funerals to deal with at Messiah, actually, but it is a ministry that inherited churches like mine do quite well. There is a lot of wisdom and love to be found in the burial traditions of the church.

I realize that a lot of my colleagues would shun their cell phones and iPads while on retreat, and there is good reason for that. Retreat usually involves a certain amount of ascetic withdrawal. I probably will, too, for some of the next several days. But I am an extravert, and so one of my needs (much neglected in the last few weeks) is talking out loud to process my stuff. And there is a lot of stuff for me to work on this Lent.

A few weeks ago I was talking to Betsy one Sunday evening when I was overcome by emotions I had apparently been suppressing. I had a good cry as I talked about two of my mentors: Mary and Bede. I also talked about the tremendous pressures I am under and my worries and concerns about the church. Looking back over the last few months I can see some moments when I think I did some of my best work ever as a pastor. Then there are other moments when I disappointed myself. Looking forward I see both threat and opportunity. The ways things will turn out is only partially dependent on what I do--so many of the outcomes of things in parish life are outside my control.

The feeling is very, very common among my clergy friends and probably among the non-ordained leaders of our churches, too. It's a mixture of anxiety, holy hope, and desire to do the right thing. But there is also a tinge of apocalyptic dread. The metaphor people sometimes use is "making planes in the air." Imagine falling through the air trying to assemble a wing, a fuselage, an engine.

An image that has more depth, for me, comes from the world of the Aurbrey/Maturin novels. At the end of Desolation Island Captain Aubrey and his crew are in desperate shape. They can barely control their sinking ship, and they are heading further and further away from inhabited land. Jack employes all his skills and technical abilities to keep the ship afloat and attempt to navigate to land, only to experience set back after set back. Much of the crew, including the First Mate, mutiny--putting their hope in tiny boats in rough ocean. Jack and his most loyal crew are left with the stricken ship. Patrick O'Brian manages to build and build this scene. The feeling of exhaustion and fear is incredibly vivid. The way things unfold and the ship is saved is a remarkable study in how organizations turn themselves around from the brink of destruction.

Messiah is leaking money, and we are all taking our turns around the chain pumps. The rudder is partially shot away, and so we are limited in terms of the directions we can go. Landfall is no where to be seen. Somewhere in the din my watch was broken, and without knowing what time it is, all the observations we make only reduce to a partial fix. We must stop the leak. We need more time. We need to find a habour...

Holy Cross has been a safe place for me to hold up and repair for years. I have great hope that the next few days will help me regain some equillibrium.

I may post more about how it goes. I might not. Right now I'm entering into the mode just following where the wind blows...

On my mind this evening: Betsy, Henry, and my parishioners....

-t

Location:Broadway,Esopus,United States

Sermon - Lent 1 2011

2011-03-14T04:23:00.003-04:00

Here is Nancy (my student's) sermon from Lent 1. I thought she did a great job.

Here a link to the leaflet.

-t

Last Epiphany

2011-03-07T15:53:00.003-05:00

Yep, I'm definitely starting to get a handle on things, again. Slowly but surely I am catching up the pile of stuff that has been thrown my way--just in time for Ash Wednesday and Lent.

But first, a word about Sunday... Here is a link to the leaflet.

The musical group was "Infinitely More" (Allison Lynn and Gerald Flemming). They did a marvellous job--professional and beautiful. I love working with musicians that have the flexibility that comes from self-confidence merged with deep musicianship. Their style is quite a bit more contemporary than a lot of what we have done, recently, but it was very well done and offered a nice counterpoint to some of the more traditional liturgical music we have done at Messiah. I was particularly impressed with Allison's voice and Gerald's guitar skills. At one point I saw him tapping harmonics, which I believe is a fairly advanced skill. Allison was intrigued with our experience with Paperless Music, and led the congregation in a Gloria she had written using that technique.

Hymn-picking is an interesting phenomenon. Some of the musicians I've been working with can and want to pick the hymns we sing. Others have no idea how to do this. A few know how to do it, but want me to do it for them, which puzzles me. If I was a church musician and the priest asked whether I wanted to have some say about the hymns I would be leading on Sunday, I would be all over that! So I've spent a fair amount of time the last few weeks with Common Praise and other hymnals open.

The journey continues. This season of life at Messiah is definitely calling to be on my toes when it comes to church music!

-t

Black History Service at COTM

2011-02-28T22:57:00.006-05:00

Last Sunday we celebrated Black History Month a the church. We had a guest musician--Glenn Marais--which presented some interesting planning challenges. Glenn is a performer and educator interested in bringing change into the world through education. He is primarily used to giving an hour and a half long presentation to high school groups and other venues. And while a musical tour of black history would be interesting, it wouldn't necessarily be the gospel. And my people need the gospel, yeah know? So the challenge was to squeeze his presentation into a 45-minute "Liturgy of the Word" part of the service.

Because Glenn does not know how to lead congregational singing (hymns and such), I had to rely on my choir to lead the few hymns we did a capella. I used the RCL's Hebrew Bible lesson (aka "Old Testament"), but changed the Gospel reading. I also selected a relevant Eucharistic Prayer. I had to cut or streamline a bunch of other stuff, and those you interested in liturgy might like to see the leaflet I made:

Click here to the leaflet.

What the leaflet does not reveal is some of the cool stuff that happened spontaneously. For example, after communion someone passed me a note asking whether I thought we should lay hands on Glenn and pray for his ministry. So at announcement time we did just that--forming a holy-huddle of hands around him as I prayed that he would receive the Spirit's gifts of wisdom for his work of spreading a message of peace and reconciliation. We've only done this a couple of other times since I've been at Messiah, but the nature of this community is that they are totally prepared to "roll with it." Afterwards I was telling someone about how the Quakers handle "leadings" of the Spirit--there are many useful pieces of wisdom from that tradition.

Glenn was quite humbled and moved by the experience. I was pleased about that, too. Our community might be struggling to figure out the money thing, but we certainly have some solid spiritual foundations on which to build!

-t

PS. I think most churchy people are service bulletin/leaflet connoisseurs. If you are of that mindset, you will find some of the things in this leaflet design worth noting, like the deliberate creation of margin space to put extra notes and marginalia. Most of this design has evolved over the years, especially when my former Music Minister, Eric, took over doing the leaflets. We went back and forth on the design and made huge strides--even just switching over to InDesign (previously they had been done on Microsoft Publisher) was a huge step forward. It gave him (or whomever was making the leaflet) far more dexterity. Since Eric left we hadn't had a leaflet--I just didn't have time to make one with everything else going on. But last week it was necessary because of departures from the BAS Glenn's visit inspired.

Annual Vestry....

2011-02-28T22:42:00.004-05:00

A week ago Sunday we had our Annual Vestry Meeting of the Church. Actually, it was just the first half of the meeting--the other half will happen after the Stewardship Campaign has run its course. So, because of that, the financial plans for 2011 are probably going to shift somewhat depending on how successful the campaign is.

The other thing we did differently this year was actually integrating the Annual Vestry Meeting with the Sunday morning worship. So we had Eucharist and all that AS WELL as doing most of the stuff necessary for it to be a canonically correct Vestry meeting (and those things we didn't get to on Sunday we can do later before the Vestry is officially adjourned).

So here is the actual Vestry Report. You can scroll through it in the window below. You can also right-click on it to get other options (like viewing full screen or printing it). (Here's the link to the actual PDF file.)

Yes, I realize this is much more attractive than most church Vestry Reports. I think that people are far more likely to read it and get something out of if it is visually engaging. Mostly I just used last year's as a template. InDesign is a beautiful thing! But there are a couple of pages that I was particularly proud of from a design/layout point-of-view. Not bad for a few hours work...

-t

Musicians

2011-02-25T09:36:00.002-05:00

I've had some great experiences working with various musicians to create liturgy in the last few weeks, but one of the learnings for me is that I cannot take for granted the people I'm working with share my language for liturgical music. For example, I was talking today with someone and realized that even though he is going to be leading worship at my church this upcoming Sunday, as far as I can tell he has little or no experience or interest in leading congregational hymn singing as we know it in the Anglican Church. He's happy to play beautiful, worshipful music and even lead pieces that involve the choir, but he really has no idea where to start when I say something like, "Can you pick a hymn to sing during the offertory"? This just isn't one of his gifts or part of his background. No problem, that's why I'm thankful that I have a choir capable of filling in gaps like this. For the offertory we'll simply do Ben Allaway's "Freedom Come" as a paperless piece--very apt for a Black History Month service.

Meanwhile, I met with another church musician who has a much stronger background in church music, but mostly in the genre of praise and contemporary music. Interestingly, she asked me about how our congregation does paperless music and we had a long conversation about that I showed her some clips on You Tube of some of my favourite examples. She has no trouble at all leading or picking hymns.

Two Sundays ago we had an incomparable accordion player who doesn't know much about liturgy, but is pretty much fearless about learning whatever he needs to know. He also has great love for God. If I had to choose between working with someone with great musical skill and no liturgical training or background versus someone familiar with church land but with poor musical sensibility, I would take the former every time. Of course the ideal is to have both.

This time is requiring me to dig deep into what I know not just about how about music, but about you form people to lead worship and those people form us. I'm pleased about how much I am having to learn to work with people from such different musical backgounds and traditions.

-t

iPad

2011-02-16T14:28:00.001-05:00

Also in the news: I finally got at iPad. I love it. Perfect for my work. The main things I do is read, talk to people, attend meetings, and write. It's perfect for all of these tasks. Meatier than an iPhone but as bulky as a laptop. I especially like using mine to read with. Applications like Flipboard and Kindle and iBooks are great for reading all the articles and PDF's that people pass on to me.

Evernote is also changing the way I manage information. I'm learning to rely on it to keep all those pesky little notes and scraps of information. I'm becoming far more efficient, I believe.

One of these days I need to do a tech column for The Anglican. I believe most priests in the Diocese would benefit from an iPad. No wonder that at the Missional Summit we had last week (a gathering about about two-dozen missional leaders) there were four or five iPads present.

-t

Update from the Trenches

2011-02-16T14:20:00.001-05:00

I'm having a hard time finding time to blog, lately. So much has been happening that it is difficult to find the time and energy necessary to attend this outlet.

First off, my Minister of Music, Eric, resigned. We had a tight collaboration, and I have to say that I have never worked with a more knowledgable partner to plan and execute liturgies. I'm feeling the loss keenly, but I'm also aware that one should never let a good crisis go to waste. So I am working with the choir to grab hold of this "missional moment."

On my mind, the role of the traditional "Director of Music" is small parishes. Is it sustainable in our era? There have been so many resignations among Music Directors in Toronto in the last two years that it raises some serious questions about how we understand the roles of clergy and musicians in making worship happen. I have a theory--I think that a lot of the problems happening in the parish-music-world have to do with the enormous pressure church musicians are under. Many are being asked to do things they were never trained. The church most of were trained to serve is rapidly passing away.

Another question on my mind has to do with some of the basic assumptions of where "good" liturgy comes from. I was trained to think that good liturgy is the result of experts applying accumulated wisdom from the tradition to plan a service on behalf of the people. Parishioners are expected to come alongside basically after the planning has been done, which limits participation in liturgy to the execution side. Yes, I absolutely realize that many churches have worship committees and other ways to spread out some of the planning responsibilities, but this seems to be the exception, not the rule.

So I am experimenting with a return to fundamentals. The last two Sundays we haven't even had a leaflet, I've simply called out hymns and page numbers and people have figured it out with the BAS and hymnbook in hand. There are a lot of limitations to book-based worship, but it does simply things in many ways. For the moment, simple is good as we get our legs underneath us again.

The Annual Vestry meeting is this upcoming Sunday. The big issue is clearly stewardship. Giving was way down in 2010, and even though we managed to keep expenses under budget, we still managed to accumulate a lot of debt thanks to our operating deficit. It is not sustainable. So we are going to have to make some hard decisions, in all likelihood. My hope is that the Stewardship Campaign over the next few weeks will substantially increase giving, but if it doesn't then we need to take a ruthless look at the budget.

The pressure on me feels enormous. Clergy easily become the "symptom bearers" of a congregational system. Meaning, when things are dysfunctional in the parish, clergy become symptomatic. I'm experiencing wild mood swings, depression, disrupted sleep patterns, and difficulty in my prayer life. The parish has noticed, and I've had spoken my mind with my Wardens, but the problem is really only get solved in one of two ways. Either the people in the parish are going to take on more responsibility for addressing our challenges, or I am going to become more differentiated. That is, I'm not going to take the problems of the parish so personally.

Yet that kind of heathy differentiation is much harder to achieve, especially in a Pastoral-sized parish and especially in a first-incumbency, than I expected. I am the one responsible, it seems. Try as I might to get others to be in charge of one aspect or another, it just seems to always default back to me. That's why I have to arrange the chairs on Sunday morning and pickup the discarded papers and hymn books after worship on Sunday afternoon.

If I were healthier I would simply let the chairs go where they will go, and not worry about cleaning up the church after worship, either. But right now I care too much about this place not to make it tidier. See the dilemma? This is at the heart of one of the fundamental issues in parish life: how do you form disciples and fellow ministers, rather than simply engage people with worship. Worship is great, don't get me wrong, but we are called to far more than simply coming to church on Sunday!

As I said, I think this is a classic problem in parish ministry, and that probably it is harder for those of that are relatively new to the craft. Then again, I might be totally out on a limb. We'll see!

-t

Sunday Shifts

2011-01-31T14:39:00.001-05:00

I'm having a hard time finding time to blog, I admit. Between church and Henry and other projects I just haven't had time to write full-blown blog posts. I suppose it doesn't help that I can so quickly and easily share stuff on Twitter and Facebook, so if you follow me there you have probably been seeing me post stuff.

On my mind: the upcoming Annual Vestry meeting. This in the once-a-year meeting of the entire parish in which we discuss the financials, elect officers, and do other tasks related to managing our corporate life. This year will be particularly important since we are facing some significant challenges as a community. Basically, we did a fine job of controlling expenses in 2010. In fact, we came substantially under budget on the expense side of the ledger, but the income side suffered. We simply did not meet expectations around giving. Not even close! So this puts even more importance on the stewardship campaign.

So in preparation for Vestry this year the corporations (the Wardens and myself) are meeting weekly. We are writing reports and brainstorming strategy and taking care of as many details as we can. The meeting is Feb 20th, which is coming up fast!

Also on my mind, some interesting shifts happening in the congregation. attendance since Christmas has been a little soft, but then this Sunday it was back up. So was the energy, especially after the service. I saw a great deal of tenderness between the members of my community. They were taking care of each other, and I was pleased to see it.

Spring is coming. Thank God! And if I am wise I will play up the connection between the coming of spring, the celebration of Easter, and the resolution of various crises in the church's life. We have buried our dead. This week we are going to care for some of our sick. Then we will begin to mass for our counterattack upon the rough shores of fickle fortune!

-t

Hawai'i 2011

2011-01-15T13:05:00.000-05:00

Here are the still photos I've uploaded so far from the Hawai'i trip.

You can see the set on flikr here.

-t

Psalm 201: Let Them Praise Eric

2010-12-29T12:48:00.004-05:00

Here's us having a little fun at the Choir/Chancel Guild Christmas party this year. Betsy and I wrote a little psalm to honour Eric. He took it well.

Psalm 201: "Quam decorus es vestri induviae"
For Eric
Tone 2.1

Antiphon: Let the peoples sing praises,
let them präise Eric.

How beauteous are thy vests,
with buttons and brocade they sparkle.

In colors liturgical and festive,
the gaudate is so gay.

Music by Marilynn, harmonies by Howells,
so hard to teach,
a–vert thine eyes.

All things bright and Anglican,
all music right and li–be–ral

No ornament meets your ire,
nor doth the zimbestern offend.

Thy stomach is so sensitive,
it cannot abideth Lad–y Gaga.

Thy status ever changeth on Facebook,
yet thy repertoire var–i–eth not.

The church rolls from generation to gener–a–tion,
yet the Golden Girls di–eth off.

Blanche no more goeth forth,
nor does Dorothy go–eth out.

Thy library is so large,
yet thy librarian is so dwarfish.

The canticles of thy prayers are numbered,
beyond the days of thy life.

Thy cassock fits so snug,
God mistaketh thee for a curate.

Principle, chimney flute, trumpet, super octave, clarion, vox céleste,
the churches foundations shaketh much.

Thy phrasing is so sound,
no comma goeth un–noticed.

ANTIPHON:
Let the peoples sing praises,
let them präise Eric.

-t

Christmas!

2010-12-28T15:12:00.003-05:00

Christmas is done, and I am mostly recovered. Still, I think getting away for a week and a half to the tropics is about what I need to return all the way back from the brink of madness.

The church had a very charming Christmas Pageant as the Liturgy of the Word on Advent IV (the last Sunday before Christmas). We've taken to calling it the "chaos pageant" to reflect the just-in-time nature of how we put it together. We tried, in past years, to do more sophisticated pageants with memorized lines or, at least, blocking. But we can never get nearly enough rehearsal time with our kids. So last year we created a format that would allow us to plug in the kids with as much flexibility and as little preparation as possible.

So, this year, we started off with the chairs in the square format we have been using for a few weeks, now. In the centre, on the rug, was the wooden coffee table from my office. Upstage and to one side was a rocking chair, a reading lamp, and one of those fake electric hearths.

As the pageant started, one of the grownups with a good reading voice comes out and sits down in the rocking chairs and starts reading the story of Christmas from a children's book. As he does so, the kids come out in costume to listen and sometime pantomime the action. The story is cut up with a series of thematically appropriate carols.

Henry, now twelve months old, got to play baby Jesus. We put a Moses-basket style cradle on top of the coffee table and he managed to lie in it for a few minutes. When he got squirmier the kids held onto him, which is he quite used to by now.

When the story was complete we announced the peace and cleared most of the set away. But instead of using hip-high altar to celebrate the Eucharist, I simply sat on a stool and used the coffee table. That way, the kids could gather around like we do for baptisms. Someone later noted that it was remarkable how comfortable the Messiah kids are surrounding me at the altar when I'm singing the preface and doing all those priesty things. It's a very "Messiah" style way to do things. I loved it.

Because I was sitting and the Deacon and Sub-deacon were sitting and the kids were sitting, it only made sense to have the congregation seated as well. On person said that really opened his eyes to an entirely new set of perspections of the sacrament. Cool.

That afternoon we had the annual Lessons and Carols service. Very nicely done, as always. I especially appreciated that it was all Messiah talent--to outside performers this year. It's a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Christmas Eve, itself, was intense as you would expect. Christmas Day had a light feeling. We had decided to do a BCP (that is, Canadian BCP) Traditional Communion Service. The language is beautiful, but there is a lot of it. It's also strange to get used to having the Creed before the sermon and some of the other idiosyncratic pieces. Still, I was pleased to note that Eric and I are perfectly capable of doing a well-executed, polished BCP Traditional Eucharist (with hymns, of course). Too bad attendance was so low.

The Sunday after Christmas also had sparse attendance. We anticipated this, but it still can be discouraging.

Meanwhile, at chez Moss, I was cooking up a storm. For Henry's birthday it was lobster (it's a Moss tradition to have lobster on your birthday). For Christmas Day we had goose, and Sunday Supper was cassoulet.

I was particularly proud of my first cooked goose. A little trickier than turkey, but it's a nice change of pace. I think I might actually prefer the meat of goose to turkey, anyway. Green beans, salad, and one of the best gravies I've made served as sides for this Christmas day feast. Sparkling white to drink. Creme Brulee for dessert.

Sunday afternoon we had Cassoulet. I made Anthony Bourdain's version--which is an epic undertaking. First off, I had to find a butcher with all the pieces. Grace Meats turned out to be perfect. Then, you have to prepare the dish over three days! The first of these is just to make a simple Duck Confit. That is a cool trick. There is a moment when you pour four cups or so of rendered hot duck fat into a dish with duck legs and rosemary and it all sizzles in the most appetizing way. Then you cook it in the oven for a long time, then it goes into the fridge where all that fat solidifies around the duck lucks to preserve them. Very cool.

Making the Cassoulet itself involved sauteing sausages in duck fat, cooking beans with pork belly, making a very cool paste from onions sauteed in duck fat and then pureed, and then layering these various meats and beans into a casserole dish for a long cook in the oven. Like I said, epic.

I might try doing this recipe again a few times and then posting it here with my modifications, as I did for the boeuf bourguignon recipe. But considering the time involved, I'd be curious how many people would try it when there are much simpler versions of Cassoulet available.

The beneficiaries of all this cooking were my wife's parents. They came up for the Christmas holidays and had a good time playing with Henry and eating. Henry's favourite Chistmas gift this year was probably the crawling tunnel they gave him.

Henry is finally getting over his bug. For a while he simply wasn't very interesting in food, but over the last few days his appetite has improved. I could hardly believe how much he packed away at lunch today. So then I offered him a bottle of big-boy milk for the first time, and he gobbled it right up without a blink. I've heard of people having trouble switching over to cow's milk from formula, but Henry has always been an adventurous eater.

Now... we rest.... some work, but mostly rest!

-t

Pasta with Ham and Mornay

2010-12-22T13:36:00.007-05:00

Ever have leftover baked ham? This is a fantastic dish--fast, tasty, and mostly composed of ingredients you should have on hand. The nutmeg is a fantastic touch, but I would also consider playing around with a little white wine. Another direction would be to try mustard.

Pasta with Ham and Mornay Sauce

Serves 2

Ingredients
kosher salt
1 handful of spaghetti or fettuccine pasta
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 garlic clove, minced
1 Tbs. all-purpose flour
2 Cups hot milk
1-2 Cups cubed ham, cooked
1/2 Cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 Cup freshly grated Gruyere cheese
kosher salt
pinch white pepper
pinch freshly grated nutmeg

Method
Bring a big pot of water with plenty of salt to a boil for the pasta. Put in the pasta around the same time you start the sauce. Keep checking the pasta as you make the sauce. Just before the pasta gets to al dente, drain it (but DON'T RINSE) and set it aside.

In a medium saucier or sauté pan melt butter on medium heat. As it begins to bubble, add the garlic. As the bubbling begins to subside and just as butter begins to change color, sprinkle on flour and whisk continuously to form a roux.

After about 2-3 minutes, but before the roux becomes too dark, slowly add the warm milk, still whisking constantly. (Hint, to make your hot milk, just microwave it in a pyrex measuring cup.) Once all the milk is incorporated, add ham cubes and bring back to simmer.

Once the sauce is simmering, take it off the heat and add the cheeses. Whisk continuously as the cheese melts. Once the cheese is melted, put back on medium heat and add salt, white pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

Add the almost-cooked pasta to the pan and stir to coat pasta thoroughly. Bring to a simmer and heat until the pasta is finished cooking. Serve.

Optional garnish--freshly cooked bacon bits sprinkled on top.

-t

Christmas 2.0

2010-12-15T20:49:00.001-05:00

An amusing video about how the nativity would be experienced in our own time.

-t

Tay's Chicken Noodle Soup

2010-12-15T19:53:00.004-05:00

This is an extremely adaptable and forgiving recipe. I improvised it based on what I had at hand, but you could adapt it. For example, by using dark meat or a whole chicken rather than white meat. And using Turkey stock was totally a product of necessity--we had some leftover in the fridge. So think of it more as a guideline...

Tay's Chicken Noodle Soup
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 Quarts Turkey stock
1 Quart Chicken stock
Bouquet Garni
Garlic Clove
2 Medium skinless bone-in chicken breasts
Salt and pepper
3 Medium carrots
3 Celery stalks
1 Small to medium onion
3 Tbs. Butter (in three slices)
1 Tbs. All purpose flour
12 Oz. package of egg noodles

Method
Put you meat out on the counter so that it is room temperature before you get to the stage of prepping it.

Get the stocks simmering in a large pot on the stove over medium low heat. Add the Bouquet garni and garlic. If the stock is thin, allow a long time to reduce, otherwise, reduce to taste, adding salt and other seasonings to taste as it develops over the course of the following steps.

Preheat over to 400 degrees F. Liberally salt and pepper both sides of the chicken breasts and place them breast-side-down in a 10" to 12" stainless steel (oven-proof) skillet. Put in oven.

Slice carrots, celery, and onion into relatively small (1/8") slices.

After about 15 minutes, beginning checking the chicken frequently. If you are uncertain, use a kitchen thermometer to check doneness--you want to take them out of the oven just this side of 175 degrees F at the thickest point. It's easy to over cook a chicken breast, so beware. When it's finished, remove and set aside for a few minutes (at least 5-10) before carving meat off the bone. Cut the meat into bite-size pieces and set aside. Put leftover carcasses and any pan juices in the simmering stock.

Put 1 Tbsp. butter into the skillet over medium-high heat. Once the butter begins to bubble, add the carrots and saute until the carrots begin to brown slightly on edges. Pour them (and whatever liquid is left in the skillet) into the pot.

Put the next Tbsp. pat of butter into the skillet over medium-high heat to saute the celery and onion. When they become translucent, toss them and their juice into the pot.

Put the final Tbsp pat of butter in the skillet and turn heat down to medium-low. As the bubbling of the butter subsides and the color just begins to change, sprinkle flour onto the flour and begin to whisk. Cook this roux for about a minute, whisking continuously. Before it burns, laddle in a bit of the boiling broth and whisk it in. Incorporate another laddle-full of broth. You should see something like gravy in your skillet. Try to scrape off any of the charred bits from the pan.

Remove the two carcasses and the bouquet garni from the stock pot. The garlic clove can remain as a bonus for a guest. Pour the contents of the skillet into the stock pot. Add chicken pieces and egg noodles, too. Simmer for about 10 minutes until noodles are done. Correct spice balance of the soup as necessary.

Laddle into bowls and garnish with parsley.

Notes
Simmering your stocks long enough results in a ridiculously rich and delicious broth. Just be careful about ending up with something too salty. Salt should be added in increments throughout the development of the dish, not just all at once at the beginning or end.

Using turkey stock left over from Thanksgiving added an interest complexity to the dish, but was totally optional.

The roux added a little more thinkness and richness to the broth, but is also completely optional.

This was a good dish to serve on a blustering Toronto winter night with a sick kid in the house and a 24-hour fire in the living room!

-t

Funeral II

2010-12-13T20:48:00.002-05:00

Saturday there was another funeral. Although it was a member of my church, the family had a colleague from another parish do the funeral at a local funeral home. It was all rather strangely handled, but at the end of day I can't really go against the family's wishes. Still, I was invited to preach, at least. The service only lasted 20 minutes (the family didn't want any hymns or tributes/eulogies)--and liturgically was the diametric opposite of the funeral service we did for Daphne the week before.

It's quite remarkable to reflect on how varied funeral liturgies can be. They are probably the most contingent of all the liturgies we do regularly in church. Contingent on the family, contingent on the timing, contingent of the presider, contingent even on the weather! So much of what we do around death betrays our cultural location.

It was a pleasant enough funeral and the turnout from Church of The Messiah was strong. It was fine. My colleague was professional and polished, as was the funeral home staff (mostly).

I say mostly because of this odd thing that happened... After the reception Betsy and Henry and were poking around the showroom at the funeral home. We were looking at the caskets (yes, death is expensive) and the urns. Some of these are so cheesy I swear they are there as a kind of negative example to swing people towards a moderate, rather than budget, priced item. Anyway, we were poking around in there for a minute and one of the funeral directors walked in. "And who is this?" he asked looking at Henry.

"This is Henry," I said.

"Henry! Does Henry want to be a funeral director someday? Henry, do you want to see the basement? We have an operating room down there. But it's not very pretty, it's kind of old and yucky, actually...."

Betsy and I agreed, in the car, that this guy was just creepy. I had heard before that the "operating room" at this particular funeral home is a positively medieval affair that hasn't been modernized since the 1950's. Morgues and places like that are frankly creepier in person than they are in the movies and TV, and old ones are triply so.

Sidebar. Morgue sets are expensive to build, so a lot of the police shows you see on TV actually shoot those scenes in real morgues. Also, the morgues in the hospitals I've worked at aren't marked "morgue." Instead they usually have some innocuous title on the door like "Storage" or "Room B204." You could write an interesting paper about how the hospital architecture denies death.

Sidebar #2. Here is a counter example, however. At Yale-New Haven Hospital we also a "Bereavement Room" near the ER. When someone died up in the regular hospital rooms we would do viewings with the families up there, but if someone died in the ER we would move them to this room. The Emergency Department is a busy place with little privacy, and the hospital administrators would just as soon turn around the beds as fast as possible, anyway, and a proper viewing can take an hour or two. So YNHH had a special room where we could put the deceased and their families. It was great, we loved it. They something similar in Newborn ICU. This an example of a hospital really understanding how to handle death in a healthy way.

Anyway, that was the second Messiah funeral in as many weeks. I've told some of my leaders that I think we should have some notes set aside for each of our older members, just in case. We should have a list of whom to call, for instance.

After the funeral I visited a Messiah kid who is in the hospital. I found it more difficult than I usually do. Hard to see a kid in the hospital. My mind wanted to picture what I would do if Henry was in that bed. Ah, "Transference!" learning to deal with transference is a critical skill in pastoral care. Anyway, it was a good visit.

On Sunday I was struggling a bit. I was just off my game and making all kinds of mistakes. For example, I failed to remember or notice that this is the one Sunday a month when we do Anointing for healing during Communion. The Chancel Guild hadn't noticed, either. So I had just starting giving communion to the choir and when I got to Betsy she whispered, "Anointing?"

I briefly considered in my mind whether I should perhaps skip it this Sunday. Then I thought about all the people hurting in our community right now, including me, and decided to make it work. So I signaled to a priest who attends my church. He came up and took over giving communion like a pro. Meanwhile, I went to my office to grab my anointing oil (I had taken it with me to the hospital the day before). Back in the sanctuary, I went to a side area and began anointing people as they came up and knelt. More than usual. When it seemed that they were finished, and my two theological students were just doing the ablutions (cleaning up the dishes after the Eucharist), I signaled one of them to come over. "Have you ever anointed anybody?"

"No?" she replied as I kneeled in front of her.

"Ok, I'll be your first. Just makes the sign of the cross on my forehead with the oil and pray." Then I tried to remember the formula that I use for anointings. The formula I had just said about 15 times without hesitation, and it was gone. Just not in my head. Wow, I thought, I really am hanging out on the ragged edge. "Ok, I can't remember it. Just make something up." My student laughed. She then prayed over me just fine.

I needed it. I was struggling. What a weekend.

Today I did some Christmas shopping and some other errands. Made a stew for dinner. Also made a batch of Fish House Punch and did some Christmas decorating. Henry had to come home from Daycare early because of a fever, so Betsy and spent much of the evening caring for him. It's probably just a little cold.

Tomorrow it starts again!

-t

Office Time

2010-12-09T23:38:00.002-05:00

<----Begin Rant

The last two days I've been getting some static from folks outside the church community about the degree to which I am in the office at church.

So here's the deal.... I'm in the church office a lot. About 40 hours a week, in fact, NOT including work done off site. In truth I'm probably working 50-60 hour weeks, easily. But just because I'm not there on Mondays (my only day off, and even then I still work it sometimes against my better judgment), and Friday mornings (I have a standing meeting on Friday mornings), doesn't mean I'm hard to get a hold of. I'm on Facebook, Twitter, and email pretty much constantly. I have my cell phone on my hip (and the number is on the church's voice mail, website, my business card, and the bulletin), and I usually answer it unless I'm in the middle of meeting, one of my 3 or 4 weekly services, or am praying. If you stop by and my office door is closed but the light is on, it means I'm probably either meeting with someone about something important or working on something that requires my complete attention. Respect the closed door, please.

So I was pretty annoyed today when when one guy told me I was "a hard man to reach" and another was surprised that when he showed up at the church randomly and I wasn't there.

I said to the first guy, "Did you try my cell phone? The number is on the message of the church answering machine." He said, "I don't know what my associate tried." Sigh. You know that part on a church's voice mail where it says, "In case of pastoral emergency Father Tay can be reached at ....." Perhaps DEATH is such a case? Of course, I didn't point that out. Instead I went with the more pastorally appropriate response, "I'm disappointed that you proceeded without speaking with me...."

In the case of the second guy, a tradesman who needed to repair something, I simply had him wait five minutes so that I could walk back to the church to let him in. I had just walked home after already working seven hours without lunch and feeling ill from a cold. I had settled into a project in my office and home but dutifully put my shoes back on and trudged back to the church because he couldn't be bothered to call me before he showed up.

Some people (not parishioners, let me be clear) seem to think that clergy should keep banker's hours. That we should sit passively in our studies just waiting by the phone and our desks for someone to come by.

In fact, I should be spending less time in my office. I should be taking more meetings and having more coffees and lunches with people. Ministry is about ministry, not about being around in the office. Most of the time I'm in my office I'm by myself, doing e-mail and reading and either cleaning up from one event or preparing for another. I'm sorry, but stacking chairs and throwing out old bulletins is not the best use of my time, but I do it because it needs to be done. But the best parts of my day inevitably involve other people. Being a body available to let people in or answer phones is one of the least important things I do in a day.

Okay. 'Nough said.

-t

End Rant---->

Funerals

2010-12-05T12:48:00.003-05:00

Saturday was the funeral of a dearly beloved member of our congregation, Daphne Archer. Daphne was a spry 84 year old who loved to ring the church bell and tell anyone in ear shot what's-what. She had a thick accent betraying her Barbados roots, and loved to talk. She was surprisingly strong for her age, so it was a surprise when she died suddenly at home.

Everyone who thinks of Daphne thinks of her faithfulness, to family, to her work, and (naturally) to the church as well. So mother church returned the favour with a proper Anglican send-off. Funeral Mass and grave-side committal with lots of music and some high-church touches she would have appreciated.

I arranged the chairs "choir-style" in the church, rows facing each other across the nave. This has several advantages for a funeral. For one thing, people can see everything (particularly the coffin). Second, it provides more place for the coffin, whereas in many churches the chancel or crossing gets a little crowded when you put a casket in the space and gives the impression of imbalance. Third, because people are facing each other (across the casket, no less), it feels very warm.

The casket was processed into the centre of the space (sacred ministers leading the way). The Pascal Candle burned proudly by the her head. Moving liturgically-east is the ambo and then the altar. The sacred ministers sat behind the altar an bend set on a platform one step high. Because we had to accommodate so many (112), we put more chair rows on the open end of the rectangle, but these were angled in at 45 degrees. It was a nice, balance, comfortable affect over all.

When the casket first arrived I coordinated a few details with the funeral director. Then I met the body at the hearse and escorted it in while saying some prayers and psalms to the church lounge for a time of visitation.

I feel strongly, for myself, that I want to see the actual body of every person I bury. Part of this comes from the old-fashioned notion that you, as the presiding minister of the burial, are responsible for making sure the correct body is being buried. These days funeral homes rarely make that kind of mistake anymore, but it's not totally unheard of.

But the real reason I want to see the body is more existential or spiritual in character. One of the roles of the priest is to be the "secret keeper" for the congregation. And if the ceremony has a closed casket, then you have established a certain mystery or secret in the community. It's not a bad thing, but it is a power thing. The closed casket has a kind of gravity and power that functions. By peering into that mystery, you become a kind of witness on behalf of the community. I can assure anyone that we buried Daphne because I saw here, with my own eyes.

That said, this kind of approach isn't necessary. I certainly wouldn't tell a colleague or student that they must or even should view the body, merely that it is something to consider in developing one's pastoral ministry around death.

When I told the Funeral Director that I wanted to the see the body, he advised me against it. "I recommend that you remember her the way she was." That's funeral parlor code for, "It isn't pretty." I assured him that I had seen many dead bodies, even attended an autopsy once, and that I was okay with whatever might be in there. He was looking at my very straight... no doubt trying to assess what sort of man I am. He became a little more direct. "She had been dead a long time." "Yes," I said, "I realize that. But I feel that it is my responsibility to look at her before the funeral." Realizing that I was not to be dissuaded, the Funeral Director said that he would leave this up to the family.

That was fine with me. In fact, I had mentioned my desire to view the body during my planning meeting with the family. So they quickly gave permission without hesitation.

We created some privacy by closing the doors to the lounge. Then the Funeral Director opened the casket. It was Daphne, of course. And I could see that they had placed a prayerbook in with her. I would have asked them to place one inside if it hadn't been there already.

I only needed to give her a solid look, then I asked them to close it again. After that they opened the doors to the lounge and people came in to pay their respects. When it was time for the service itself, I met the coffin and the back of the church (which is also where the lounge is) and led the pall bearers down the aisle.

There were three sacred ministers for the service; myself, Father Mark from St. Thomas', and Rev'd Catherine, a Deacon who is also a Theological Intern assigned to be one of my students. The service itself was pretty much straight out of the BAS, with only a few minor variations. After a reading from Revelations and the singing of Psalm 23 and the Gospel reading ("I am the Good Shepherd"), a member of Daphne's family gave the Eulogy.

Eulogies at funerals are tricky. Many families wish to have a great many people come up and praise the deceased. But in my experience, it is far better to limit the number of eulogies. The problem with eulogies are, first off, that most people that give them aren't actually experienced with public speaking and the second problem is that eulogies often make a fond remembrance of the deceased, but don't really bring religion much into it. Susan, the eulogist for Daphne, however, was actually strong on both counts. She was a good speaker with a well written text, and she did bring in some nice spiritual content. It was one of the better funeral Eulogies I've ever heard, in fact, and I've heard quite a few!

My turn, next. The congregation wanted to applaud Susan, but restrained themselves. I understand their impulse to thank her, so I began my sermon by saying, "Let the people say, 'Amen.'" This being a mostly black congregation, I got an immediate and heart-felt "Amen!" Then I launched into my sermon.

A number of people have told that it was an excellent sermon. Certainly I felt "in the groove." It was mostly improvised based on a couple of land marks I knew I wanted to hit. But as I went along new rhetorical and theological avenues opened up to me. This is the most satisfying part of preaching extemporaneously, when you both know where you are going, are feeling your way to that place without labouring, and are also superbly aware that your congregation is with you all the way. I could feel the people with me. I looked at those I knew well, my parishioners, and I could tell they were listening with close attention. I looked at the people visiting and I could see them nodding and listening, as well. I even got a few muttered, "Amens" and "That's rights" that assured me that I was on the right track. I began by talking about Daphne's faithfulness and how it shows us a glimpse of God's faithfulness. But my real zinger was when when I said, "With Daphne, the conversation never stopped." Lots of nods. "She couldn't stop talking to us because she loved us." Then I talked about how with God, the conversation also continues, even through death. I felt great about that sermon, but the end of it my voice, already strained from a cold and several days of non-stop talking, was pretty much gone completely.

Luckily, I had already asked Mark to celebrate the Eucharist. Catherine and I deaconed for him. As Betsy said, "Mark gives a good Mass." Indeed, he was articulate in both word and gesture. Nice and clear and rich without being fussy at all. Perfect. It was also rewarding for me to note how my training of Catherine had paid off with her assisting another priest at the altar with high skill.

Many more people came up for communion than I expected. And after "the dishes were done," we had a liturgical dance piece done by one of Daphne's cousins. Originally the family had suggested we play the music for this dance over the speakers, but with Eric on piano and our cantor as vocal it was a far richer experience. The composition they chose started with Amazing Grace, but then added a few verses in a related, but different, melody composed by Chris Tomlin.

We took our places for the Commendation and listened the choir sing a Russian setting of the Kontakion ("Give rest, O Christ, to your servant with your saints..."). More prayers, then we led the body out of the church. Fr. Mark and Catherine said their goodbyes. We shared a few comments of the sort priests and deacons share. "Good sermon." "Very nice sung preface." Thanks all around. I got a ride with the Funeral Director, and we had a nice talk on the way to the cemetery.

The worker at the Cemetery told me that although he was Roman Catholic, he had been to my church a few times as part of some ecumenical work he was doing at the time. It's a small world.

It was cold and very windy at the grave. They lowered the coffin and I said the committal service, which is blessedly brief. The Funeral Director kept trying to get me to use the little vial of sand he had for the ceremonial tossing of dirt on the grave. White sand. I'm not sure what that has to do with death. Dirt. A handful of dirt has a substance that is more than mere metaphor. We are actually burying this woman, not just making a gesture towards it.

While we sang favourite hymns from hymn sheets my music minister had helpfully prepared ahead of time, the workers prepared the grave and then people took turns with a real shovel putting real dirt on top of the coffin. When people had taken enough turns, a backhoe was brought in to complete the burial. By this time I was quite cold despite the Capa Negra (black cope) I borrowed from Fr. Mark. Capa Negras are a really great vestment to have, I must get one if I keep doing funerals in winter! The family, like Daphne, were from Barbados, and had no intention of leaving the grave until it was completely filled in. I appreciate this. In fact, I make it my custom to stay behind at committals until the grave it completely filled even when the family has gone on to the reception.

By this time my voice was completely shot. I sounded like a frog that had swallowed gravel. Nonetheless, I made a brief appearance at the reception and then accepted a ride from one of the funeral home's drivers. Before we parted company, the Funeral Director shook my hand and said, "You're a good man." I flashed back to his evaluative gaze a few hours before. Apparently I had passed his test.

As I relaxed on the car ride home I thanked my lucky stars, or perhaps God, that I had scheduled one of my parishioners to preach on Sunday many weeks before Daphne's death. Surely I could have preached today, but in all honesty I didn't have a lot left to give, and Brendan's sermon was excellent.

After I got home I spent some time with Betsy and Henry and baked up 200 chocolate chip cookies for the church's bake sale. Yeah, 200! Supper, a few pages of a Patrick O'Brien novel set in the 19th Century English Navy, then sleep. Blessed sleep. I dreamed about church, but they weren't anxious dreams. Just me working on different projects with different people. I would have rather dreamed of being on a Frigate in Indian Ocean chasing a French Squadron, but one doesn't get to choose one's dreams!

Woke up this morning feeling pretty good. Church went well--and now I'm going home to watch football!

-t

Hawai'i

2010-12-01T14:59:00.000-05:00

Betsy and I are starting to think about our next trip--a long overdue trip to Hawai'i to see my dad, his wife, and the chickens, pigs, mongooses, coffee plants, and general green-stuff that is their home. To get in the mood, here's a brief video my sister shot of her son playing with a chicken at the farm:

-t

Tidbit about Bipartinanship in US Congress

2010-11-30T14:50:00.002-05:00

As we all know, the US Congress is more ideologically now than in living memory. There has simply been far less cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. But there is one shining exception, the Food Safety Bill. In response to all the recent food safety problems (recalls, deaths, etc.) both sides of the aisle decided it was time to strengthen the FDA and put some more regulation in place to ensure safety. The article about this in the NYTimes includes this amusing paragraph:

Despite Mr. Coburn’s opposition, the bill is one of the only major pieces of bipartisan legislation to emerge from this Congress. Some Republican and Democratic Senate staff members — who in previous terms would have seen each other routinely — met for the first time during the food negotiations. The group bonded over snacks: specifically, Starburst candies from a staff member of Senator Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and jelly beans from a staff member of Senator Richard J. Durbin, an Illinois Democrat. And in the midst of negotiations, the negotiators — nearly all women — took a field trip to a nearby food market so that a Republican staff member could teach the Democrats how to buy high-quality steaks. (source)

At least we all agree that steak is yum.

-t

The Problem of Openness

2010-11-19T16:26:00.002-05:00

I've been fretting about this post for several days. It's about the problem of openness.

You see, many (perhaps most?) of us in parish ministry would say that "openness" or "transparency" is an important value in Christian leadership. We might encourage people to come to us and say we have an "open door" policy. That's all good and great, until people ask us inconvenient questions.

You see, in parish ministry leaders are exposed to all kinds of classified information. You might imagine the sort of dirty secrets that come up in pastoral relationships: affairs and past crimes and current vices. But actually that's not nearly as much a problem as the petty conflicts and foibles that drive a lot of decision making in parish life. People ask me about decisions that staff members or the corporation (the lay leadership of the parish) and I or even the bishop have made, and I simply can't give them the reasons. And I don't want to lie, and so I end up saying something really lame. "That person went on other opportunities" is a terrible, terrible line, but usually it's pretty much the only thing I can say when we have staff turnover. Even if the reasons for the change are quite positive, I usually can't share them.

Then, things get very complicated because people often have heard rumours or have fantasies about the decision in question. Typically they've heard or figured out enough truth to be wet their curiosity even further, but then there is usually enough falsehood mixed in there too to tempt you to correct them.

Sometimes, I really wish I could say more. I see how some people are hurt by things that have happened, and I want to sit them down and explain what happened. I'm sure they would feel better knowing the truth. But, of course, this would be bad, very bad. In fact, I knew a priest once that got sued for talking publicly about a parishioner-to-parishioner conflict happening in parish. Even if what he said was factually correct, in was also embarrassing to at least one of the people involved. I totally understand why he did it, but, yikes!

So "openness" turns out to be a great principle, but it has nothing to do with disclosing the "truth" about "what happened." What else could it mean? Is it something about the emotional honesty of the leader? Maybe. Is it about sharing as much as you can about the non-classified stuff? Of course. But this explanation doesn't help the way I feel when people ask me about important things that I can't talk about....

-t

The St. Paul's Water Project

2010-11-16T10:37:00.002-05:00

Here is a good example of a church turning a fairly prosaic repair problem--redoing a parking lot--and making into a fantastic ministry. Note how embedded into the city this project is. Note also how slow and deliberative was the discernment work that went into creating this project.

-t

Provoking the Liturgy

2010-11-14T12:56:00.002-05:00

A rainy, cool day here in Toronto. Low attendance at church. I take encouragement, however, in the fact that more and more people feel like they need to tell me when they aren't going to be in church. It shows the level of commitment as well as their sensitivity to the fact that I care whether they are there or not.

It was an unusual Sunday. For one thing, we were recognizing Remembrance Day. We have a tradition at Church of The Messiah of reading the names of the parish war dead and ringing the church bell once for each name. We also sang "O Canada" and "God Save the Queen." A more emotional inclusion was a short, one verse hymn written by a parishioner's brother-in-law shortly before his death over the skies of Europe.

We changed service music, too. We are doing a new Gloria and very cool and funky paperless setting of the Nicene Creed written by Marilyn Haskel. It has a wicked syncopated rhythm in the melody that makes it very catchy--especially for a Creed. For the past few weeks we have been saying "Affirmations of Faith" instead of the historic creeds. There is nothing wrong with the Apostle's or Nicene Creed, but we think they can become pretty repetitive and rote when they are repeated Sunday after Sunday. What's the alternative? The alternates provided by Common Worship 2000 (the Modern-language liturgy collection authorized for use in the Church of England) is a place to start. Bishop Yu is okay with this, though he has warned people not to be making up their own Creeds of questionably theology. The Affirmations of Faith we use are paraphrases of scripture, so they are pretty orthodox, and help ground the faith in scripture.

Anyway, we've noticed that the spoken Creeds sometimes bring down the energy. Everything just kind of grinds to a halt for some reason at Messiah when we say the Nicene/Apostles Creed. So... having a nice music setting is a way to deal with this challenge. Today was encouraging.

The sermon was challenging. Luke 21:5-19 is about Jesus forewarning about the destruction of the Temple. As Richard Swanson points out in his Provoking the Gospel commentary, you really can't understand this passage from Luke without realizing that it was written only about 30 years after the fall of Jerusalem and the Destruction of the Temple in the Great Jewish Revolt. The Romans were trying to put down the Jews by striking as the spiritual and cultural heart of the Jews. It was a horrendous massacre. Josephus, who is generally apologetic for the Roman Empire, describes the fall of the Temple this way:

Now as soon as the army had no more people to slay or to plunder, because there remained none to be the objects of their fury (for they would not have spared any, had there remained any other work to be done), [Titus] Caesar gave orders that they should now demolish the entire city and Temple, but should leave as many of the towers standing as they were of the greatest eminence; that is, Phasaelus, and Hippicus, and Mariamne; and so much of the wall enclosed the city on the west side. This wall was spared, in order to afford a camp for such as were to lie in garrison [in the Upper City], as were the towers [the three forts] also spared, in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, which the Roman valor had subdued; but for all the rest of the wall [surrounding Jerusalem], it was so thoroughly laid even with the ground by those that dug it up to the foundation, that there was left nothing to make those that came thither believe it [Jerusalem] had ever been inhabited. This was the end which Jerusalem came to by the madness of those that were for innovations; a city otherwise of great magnificence, and of mighty fame among all mankind. ....

And truly, the very view itself was a melancholy thing; for those places which were adorned with trees and pleasant gardens, were now become desolate country every way, and its trees were all cut down. Nor could any foreigner that had formerly seen Judaea and the most beautiful suburbs of the city, and now saw it as a desert, but lament and mourn sadly at so great a change. For the war had laid all signs of beauty quite waste. Nor had anyone who had known the place before, had come on a sudden to it now, would he have known it again. But though he [a foreigner] were at the city itself, yet would he have inquired for it. (source)

The carnage was massive. Indeed, the commander of the Roman army (Titus) refused to accept a victory wreath because, he said, there was no honor in defeating a people abandoned by their own God. Yikes.

Swanson says that he you need play this scene as though the backdrop was the funeral of a child. Yeah, it's that bad. When I preached, I told the story of the Destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the Bar Kokhba revolt. The Bar Kokhba revolt had a pretty nasty ending. The Romans killed the last of the rebels at a fortress called Betar, and then, according to the Talmud tradition, used the blood to fertilize their vineyards for the next seven years. It would seventeen years before they would allow the dead of the fortress to be buried. What can we compare this to? I mentioned the firebombings of Dresden and Tokyo, and the Holocaust, and 9/11. "Not one stone will remain on another..."

So how to get this back to a place of hope? I re-read the Isaiah passage appointed for the day: Isaiah 65:17-25. It's a wonderful vision of the promise of the restoration of Jerusalem. Then I talked about resurrection and the meaning of resurrection. How Jesus didn't come to give us less death--He came to give us more life. That means that the wounds are still there. The stones will still fall. But the wounds will be transformed--made glorious.

A complicated sermon, to be sure. Difficult to pull off this kind of emotional turn, but worth it if you can do it. As I explained to Nancy (my student), on Remembrance Sunday... the week after we did Holocaust Education Week... with these texts.... you just can't ignore the bad stuff, all you can do is redeem it.

For the Eucharist we are using Common Worship 2000 Prayer F. Nothing wrong with the BAS prayers, but Prayer F is excellent. Beautiful and vibrant imagery. I'm singing the Preface (really nice music, too), and then speaking the prayers. The congregational responses after each paragraph are sung with a simple echo (I sing it, the congregation sings it back).

Anyway, those are a few of my reflections post-Sunday!

-t

Go Fish

2010-11-12T17:00:00.002-05:00

I bought a fish tank today for my office. It's just a little book-shelf sized guy. I have to let it sit and circulate the pump for about a week before I can actually buy the fish for it. I'm thinking I'll start with some cheap, but pretty goldfish. Eventually I'd like to graduate to Koi, but we'll see how I do with these little guys, first.

Why now? I dunno. Probably for the same reason that last week I put up a ledge for icons along a formerly bare brick wall. It's the same reason I finally got around to making some other minor improvements and clean-ups in my office. It's a pastoral version of fung shui. The icons invite the presence of the figures they speak. The books connect me with discipline of my studies. The fish.... the fish are about surrounding myself with life. On Sundays this place is teeming with kids and activity of all kinds, but sometimes mid-week it can feel a little dry when I'm alone. The fish will keep me company.

-t

Days Off

2010-11-07T20:07:00.007-05:00

One of the critical skills in pastoral ministry is figuring out how to deal with unlimited expectations, unmeasurable outcomes, and finite resources. The demands of ministry are simply bottomless, and the job will take as many hours and as much energy as you are willing to give it. Indeed, I have met plenty of martyrs to parish ministry that burned themselves out doing what they thought they were expected to do.

This is as big a problem for paid, ordained ministry as it is for unpaid volunteers. One of my parishioners is fond of saying that the nicely lettered wall listing past Wardens is a record of burnout. I would say that the list is is a stark rebuke to the whole parish--a sign of our failure as a community to nourish leadership. Harsh, I know, but I don't how else to interpret the pattern of leaders leaving. Of course, none of my former wardens have left the parish, but it is telling that the NCD survey revealed a low score on the question labeled "Our leaders are a spiritual example to me." We have work to do.

Mondays are my day off. Saturdays are a half-day, and every other day is basically a full-day. But lately (the past several days) I have spent a significant amount of time on Mondays doing church work. Usually it's doing the kind of projects and errands on behalf of the church that might be considered extra credit. The problem, though, is that it's on the margins of "extra-credit" where excellence lies. In other words, the difference between putting in four hours of bonus hours on a Monday and not putting into those four hours could very well be a tipping point for the parish. It means having a well-organized maintenance closet or sending people birthday and anniversary cards or reviewing a grant application written by one of my staff.

I find the work I do incredibly rewarding and invigorating. The other day I was meeting with someone who knows little of church culture. He asked me what I enjoy about my work and I told him about the sheer diversity of it. One minute I'm doing one-on-one pastoral care with someone in serious emotional distress. The next I'm rewiring a light switch or cleaning out a closet that hasn't been emptied in ten years. Sometimes I'm writing my column for "The Anglican" and other times I'm teaching a student how to walk in liturgy. Yeah, I spent fifteen or twenty minutes the other day teaching someone how to walk. I write sermons. I pick up trash. I pray the Office and practice chanting psalms. I make coffee (always adding a pinch of salt) and talk to the restaurant owner across the street about vandalism in the neighbourhood. I coach my staff on how to work with volunteers and I plan complex liturgies. It's a fascinating job that requires constantly mastering new skills.

Therein lies the problem--a seductive vocation promises personal fulfillment. It promises increased self-worth and the satisfaction of building something with superior craft. But like all idols, the "uber-pastor" idol demands sacrifice. Time spent in the evenings and mornings checking email or (yes) blogging often means leaving Betsy to feed or take care of Henry.

Work is important, sure, but how important is it? Hard to gauge. It's always a judgment call. For example, imagine it's 7 pm and I'm feeding Henry and my phone rings. It's a parishioner. Do I answer, or do I let it go to voice mail? Honestly, often when I answer it turns out to be less than an emergency, other times, it is! But I can't tell the difference by the caller-ID. So, in truth my willingness to answer the phone at night is an intuitive, snap-decision based mostly on my own sense of exhaustion. Honestly, if I'm tired and I've had a drink or two and it's late I'm far less likely to answer that late-night call. Can that be okay? I know people that think that you should be ready to be a priest at all times. You should be ready to take that call and "be there" for your people no matter what. But as I mature in ministry I have come to question that uber-pastor myth.

When I was young in ministry I fantasized about having a "go-bag" with prayer book, stole, and anointing oil by the door and another in my car. Nine months of being a hospital chaplain cured me of that particular fantasy right-quick! Sure, you can be prepared for your first emergency, and maybe your second. But when your beeper goes off the third or fifth or seventh time in an on-call period, you quickly realize that God's grace isn't about you and your pitiful attempts to "be ready." If you are going to be an effective conduit of God's grace, it ain't gonna be because you had a pretty kit. Either you are the sort of person that can help someone cry at 3 a.m. with their dead mother, or you can learn to be, or you can't: those are your three choices. However, nothing you can imagine will prepare you for the challenges of pastoral ministry. Trust me. You cannot anticipate the stuff that is going to come at you.

Consider this scenario... a priest I knew was called at 8.20 P.M. because one of his parishioners died. It was one of his Wardens that called him and asked him to visit the widow. The man that died (and his wife) were pillars of the church. The priest said he couldn't go. Why? Because, he said, he had been drinking. Harsh. Imagine having to tell someone that. "I can't take care of this person because I've been drinking." Yet many professions have exactly that danger. I'm sure most doctors and lawyers, for example, could tell a story like that. When I heard this story, before I knew what the ministry was really about, I had a hard time not being judgmental. I think I said something like, "Well, put on a pot of coffee and tell them you'll be there in an hour!" Now I'm wiser. I see that sometimes "no" is a good answer. Harsh. But if you don't bend you are gonna break.

Self-giving in ministry (and I do mean "ministry" broadly) is more complex than the extremes of enthusiasm would suggest. Give everything of yourself away and the demons will eat you for breakfast. Give nothing and you are like the walking dead, floating along and changing nothing. And most of us Christians answer in the ambiguous middle.

I know, this all seems pretty obvious. But this razor thin margin--between working a couple of hours on Monday or not--is where transformation happens. Something about that decision is a fractal that describes your relationship with God, the world, and yourself. It's a microcosm. And it's not an obvious choice. Sometimes, it's Godly to put in those extra hours. Sometimes it's not!

And that's what I'm thinking about as I think about what I'm going to do tomorrow.

Footnote--I've noticed that my parishioners are stepping up their commitment to the church to match mine. The head of my chancel guild snatched my alb away with a zeal for washing it that made me realize that something quite important had happened. Sweet!

-t

Pot au Feu

2010-10-30T21:59:00.014-04:00

Pot-au-Feu, "Pot on the Fire," is one of those classic dishes in world cuisine that takes many forms with regional variations. This is winter food that reminds you of home and hearth. Essentially, it's just the French way to do a basic beef stew. Usually it's made with cheap cuts of meat like oxtail. This is a relatively easy recipe, but like all good stews and soups it takes time to develop and simmer.

Pot-au-Feu
from Anthony Bourdain's Les Halles Cookbook
(thanks Meg and Seb)

Ingredients
1 lb. paleron of beef or "chicken steak" or brisket
6 pieces of oxtail, cut 1 1/2 inches thick
6 beef short ribs*
1 veal shank**
8 whole cloves
2 Onions, cut in half
6 leeks, white part only
2 small celery roots (celeriac), cut into quarters
4 carrots, cut into 4-inch lengths
1 bouquet garni
salt and pepper
4 medium potatoes, peeled and cut in half
1 head of cabbage, cored and cut into 6 to 8 wedges
1/2 lb cornichons
1 Cup large-grained sea salt
1 Cup hot prepared mustard

Equipment
a really big pot
tongs
ladle
3 medium ramekins
marrow spoon (you can use the back end of an iced-tea spoon)
serving platter (a bloody big one)
soup terrine

Serves 6***

Cook
In the huge pot, combine the steak, oxtail, short ribs, and veal shank and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat and as soon as the water comes to a boil, remove from the heat. Set the meats aside and throw out the water. Clean the pot. Seriously, do it. Then put the meat right back inside. Push 2 cloves into each onion half and add the onions to the pot, along with the leeks, celery roots, carrots, and bouquet garni. Season with salt and pepper and cover with cold water.

Bring the pot to a slow simmer, gradually, and let cook over medium-low heat for around 2 1/2 hours, or until the meat is tender. Skim the cooking liquid with a ladle periodically to remove scum and foam. Add the potatoes and cabbage and cook for an additional 30 minutes, until soft. You want to maintain the structural integrity of the meat and vegetables. Adjust the seasoning as needed.

Serve
Put the cornichons, sea salt, and mustard in the ramekins and set on the table. Remove the chicken seat (or brisket) from the pot and cut into 6 pieces. Remove the veal shank from the pot and cut the meat off the bone, again into 6 to 8 pieces. Using the marrow spoon, dig out all that lovely marrow from the inside of the veal bone. Arrange the oxtails, the meats, the marrow, and the vegetables in an attractively disheveled fashion on the serving platter and spoon some of the cooking liquid over and around it. Serve the rest of the liquid is a soup terrine.

Alternatively, you can arrange the meats uncarved, with the vegetables around them, swimming in broth in a big, beautiful pile in a deep serving platter, and let your friends just tear at it like the savage animals they are. (I'm getting hungry just writing this recipe.)

Tay's Notes
Bourdain call this "comfort food for socialists"--I understand why. This is home-food. You can easily imagine a winter home where the only heat is the kitchen stove with a pot continuously boiling. Like I said, a relatively easy recipe to make. Nice for a dinner party since most of the work is front-loaded. Once you have everything stewing in the pot you can either focus on other dishes or simply be entertaining your guests.

I served this with Gratin Dauphinois, which is a nice creamy potato gratin. I rounded out the meat-and-starch by serving a leek vinaigrette salad course (Blanched the leeks, then plated and drizzled on a generous helping of sauce gribiche.) I paired all of it with a Pinot Noir. We had our guests bring dessert, but if that was my responsibility I would have probably gone for Crème brûlée. You make it the day before and just do the caramelized-sugar topping before you serve. In fact, you could even do this at the table with a propane torch if you want to delight your guests. BTW, if you are trying to make an impression, why not use a full-size plumbers torch instead of one of those little "kitchen torches"?

Consider serving this with a crusty french bread to sop up some of that goodness.

If you serve this with plates, it's not clear what to do with that terrine of soup. Peter Hertzmann says that the broth was served, traditionally, as a separate soup course before the meat and veggies, and that makes a lot of sense to me, especially if you allow the broth to cook down some more after you remove the meat and vegetables (perhaps keeping them warm in the over).

* For short ribs, I used 6 short rib pieces, rather than 6 actual short ribs.

** The the Veal Shank is lovely. An Ossobuco cut is fine, too.

***6 Guests? Baloney, Tony! This recipe just about filled my 12 quart pot, so I would say it easily feeds 8 to 12 guests! Seriously. Especially if you are serving it with side dishes.

This is an adaptable recipe. If you have a good relationship with a butcher you can work something out and use more morrow bones and scrap cuts, etc. Stews forgive many sins!

If you want more on the history of this dish, I suggest the excellent article on Peter Hertzmann's blog.

Next on my list of canonical french dishes to try--cassoulet!

-t

Stress

2010-10-30T12:45:00.003-04:00

All of a sudden, I'm feeling incredibly stressed out. A situation has arisen--the kind that arises frequently in my profession--the sort that I can't talk about. It has me pretty stressed out as I'm not entirely sure what to do about it. Last night we had had friends over and cooked up a nice feast, and that was a nice distraction. The only problem was that cooking a nice meal on a Friday meant that we had a hard time getting the house ship-shape and ready for company and the food ready. In the end we managed it, but not without some stressful moments.

Ah... stress... my old friend.... There is a very interesting line of connection between chronic stress and clinical depression. So chronic stress is probably not a sustainable state. Duh! And yet it seems difficult to avoid in leadership where the leader becomes the point of intersection between what is and what could be. There are many different responses to this dilemma. One is to cultivate a kind of detachment, but I'm afraid that will be misconstrued as as a lack of care.

In my fantasies I have more help--especially for the little details that seem like they are not the best use of my time. For example, we've had a problem with the internet in the church. It works fine in the office (except when it rains, but that's Bell's fault), but hasn't been reaching the daycare. So Friday I spent some time troubleshooting it. I think I fixed it, but that was about two hours of time that would be been better spent reading, writing, or even meeting with people.

The alternative, in this case, would have been to hire someone to come and fix it. We have done this in the past, but it's expensive. There are one or two members of the congregation with the technical expertise to fix a problem like this, but they are busy people, too. This is how it is with many things in a pastoral-sized church trying to grow.

Ah... stress!

-t

Tay PA - Round 2

2010-10-26T21:25:00.003-04:00

Last night I "racked" five gallons of homebrew beer. "Racking" is just the brewing term for bottling. Five gallons yielded about 30 bottles. The specific gravity (a measure of a liquid's density) was on target, meaning that the sugars had all been converted into alcohol as expected. The taste was fine--it will be a lot better after a few weeks of aging. It's a nice, big-hearted IPA.

Brewing this batch was far easier than the first batch I made. I invested in a few odds and ends, equipment wise, that made a big difference. Even something as simple as a "bottle tree" made the step of sanitizing all the bottles much easier and faster. I also switched from using a diluted bleach solution to a product called "Star San," which is an industrial food equipment sanitizer. One of the beautiful things about this product is that you don't have to rinse the equipment once you soak it, just air dry. Also, you can reuse the product--so once you have a bucket going you can just use it over and over again until the PH rises to 3. (Which reminds me, I need to get some PH test strips.)

In truth, the set-up for brewing is more hassle than anything else about it, so I feel that in the future I should maybe do double batches and realize the increased return per work effort. It's like canning that way--the bigger the batches the less effort it takes per item.

Anyway, I think I'm in for another batch of good beer in three or four weeks!

-t

Appreciative Inquiry in the Diocese of Toronto

2010-10-25T02:44:00.002-04:00

Here is a quick video from last week's training session in Appreciative Inquiry...

-t

A Few Breakthroughs

2010-10-23T17:45:00.004-04:00

I mentioned previously that I spent three days at the SSJD Convent Receiving the Appreciative Inquiry Training offered by the Clergy Leadership Institute. The instructor was Rev. Dr. Rob Voyle. Rob is psychologist with a great deal of clinical experience, as well an executive coach and even a former Cathedral Dean. He is an interesting guy whose life purpose is to be "Helpful, healing, and humorous."

Registration was limited to be about 25 people, and mostly that was composed of Senior Diocesan Leadership plus a dozen or so parish priests like myself. That made for an interesting dynamic, as when I was paired with Bishop Yu to do an interview designed to discover the deepest, most compelling personal motivations of the subject!

The "Appreciative Inquiry" framework has a lot to offer, and I've already had two opportunities to apply it. Last night I hosted a Stewardship Committee meeting in my home. We are prepared our fall Stewardship Campaign and are facing a substantial deficit as we do so. Raising the giving in the parish by about 30% would fix it and get us back to a balanced budget, but raising giving by that kind of level is going to take some real excellent leadership from everyone involved in the campaign.

So I started the meeting by asking people to go around the room and tell us about something they really, really enjoy doing. When they finished sharing, I explained that this was an easy way to get toward an understanding of people's core values and passions. Knowing that makes moving forward on a group project far easier because it means you can put the builders in charge of building and the deal makers in charge of deal making, etc. The meeting went on and accomplished many things, though not without a few moments that really challenged my skillfulness as a small-group leader. As they left, people said they felt encouraged and enthusiastic about the work ahead, which is great sign.

The second application of Appreciative Inquiry techniques happened in a one-on-one pastoral care situation. Obviously, I can't share much about that, but I will say I was able to resolve a long-standing stuck-ness that had defied several other interventions. One of the things I noticed right away was a large degree of consonance between the method I was employing and the parishioner's therapeutic instincts. In other words, it felt like the right approach to both of us. The energy of the whole dynamic shifted noticeably and I'm really happy about that.

So, there you have it, my endorsement of Appreciative Inquiry. It works, simple as that.

-t

Chicken Slaughter

2010-10-22T02:00:00.003-04:00

Very few people choose to think about the way their meat gets killed. Probably they believe that knowledge of what happens in butcher houses would make it difficult for them to enjoy meat, and they may be right. I think most people are pretty sheltered from this part of life, to tell the truth.

But it is a very big deal, ethically, to consider the massive amount of animal death and suffering that occurs so that we can eat meat. And so for those of us who still choose to eat meat, I think we owe to the animals to at least minimize the suffering involved.

There is a whole fascinating story about how Temple Grandin, revolutionized the practices around the slaughter of cows. Before her, the sort of people that love animals, as she does, simply couldn't talk with people who make a living turning them into food. But Temple was able able to do tremendous good by showing hard-nosed business-first types that being compassionate and humane to animals is simply the best way to do things.

So now chickens may be next. The New York Times reports that two large poultry producers, Bell & Evans of Pennsylvania and Mary's Chickens in California, are preparing to switch slaughter methods to one that appears much more humane. Instead of simply hanging the chickens upside down and slitting their throats, they are going to "gently" put them to sleep with Carbon Dioxide first.

Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a prominent livestock expert, consulted with Bell & Evans as the company worked with Anglia to design its system. She said it was better because the chickens were not aware of what was happening to them. “Birds don’t like being hung upside down,” Dr. Grandin said. “They get really stressed out by that.” (source)

Now they are trying to figure out how to market this concept. "Humanely Handled" seems like the best euphemism I've heard so far! Anyway, I see this as a sort of progress...

-t

Comings and Goings

2010-10-19T23:25:00.004-04:00

What is Tay up to? Tay is pushing himself hard to get as much done as humanly possible on many simultaneous fronts. That means I am violating the very important spiritual principle of Sabbath (or, in Benedictine terms, "Holy Leisure"). It's not at all sustainable, but this seems like such a critical time in the life of my parish that I simply can't bear to let the opportunities pass.

On my mind: Natural Church Development. Our church did an NCD survey a few weeks ago to get a snapshot of the congregational dynamic. The parish's NCD leadership team got the first view of the results, and I have been processing that. The congregation will get to see the full results in a few weeks, in the mean time I've been studying and thinking about the profile. The biggest surprise so far, my people don't know how to relate the bible to their 6-day-a-week faith. So that gives me something to work on! Incarnating faith.

This past Saturday I went to the parish work day. Once upon a time, before I came to Messiah, they had a hard time getting volunteers to take care of the grounds around the church. Now we organize half-day work events two or three times a year. The main objective of this last weekend was to get the place ready for winter. I took charge of making sure the burned-out light bulbs were replaced.

A word about light bulbs for all you church nerds out there. You are far better off getting your light bulbs from the sort of place that sells to electricians and contractors than from a place meant for consumers like Rona or Home Depot or Canadian Tire. Electrical supply places have a much better selection and are much more informed about the products. I went ahead and replaced our "Par 38" Incandescents with the same, but I also got a CFL version to experiment with. But what I really have my eye on is an LED bulb. These are expensive, but last a long, long time. And after you've been on top of our mega-tall forty-foot ladder you begin to see the wisdom of LED! LED lighting is definitely the future.

In truth, I find the interior of my church too dark, especially at night, and I look forward to getting better lighting someday. It's right up there with getting the interior repainted.

Anyway, back to the work day. I was pleased by the turnout. We had lots of people and therefore made fast work out of everything we tackled. We were finished on time to have lunch at noon and then I did my usual services.

We did not have high hopes for Sunday. The Toronto Marathon was this Sunday and the route surrounds the church on three sides, making access very, very difficult. So we were pleasantly surprised that our attendance was relatively good. First time visitors made the difference, and I can't wait to see if they come back!

Indeed, the service had a great vibe. People have settled into the square layout nicely and it was used to full advantage. I even did an impromptu dramatized Gospel Reading to start my sermon that worked very, very well. (Yep, I'm already thinking of ways to deal with the scripture-relevance issue). Circumambulating around the altar as I preach feels natural, and I love the way the community sounds me for the Eucharist. Just brilliant.

The next challenge is to adapt this for the upcoming Holocaust Education Week event on November 7th. We won't be celebrating the Eucharist as part of the main service that day in deference to our Jewish guests (last year we had the disconcerting experience of seeing half of them leave at the Peace!). So having the altar in the centre just doesn't make a lot of sense. Instead we are doing Morning Prayer, adapted. Hmm.

I felt that my sermon was strong and all the other pieces, including the music, were just great. Thumbs up all around.

Monday I was running around doing church stuff most of the day, even though it is my day off. For instance, I bought a bunch of stuff at Home Depot to organize the maintenance closet at the church. Peg board, hangers, a tool box, etc. I know this seems like a strange thing for the Rector to be concerned with, but it's precisely this kind of detail that populates the positive edge of the bell curve of ministry excellence. That closet has been a mess for three years--enough with that!

Today (Monday) I got up early to head up to the SSJD Convent for training in Appreciative Inquiry. Appreciative Inquiry is a process for organizational development that fits into parish work and pastoral care quite well. Basically,
it gives practitioners a paradigm to structure dialogue in a way most conducive to the desired outcomes. Perhaps after I'm finished with the training (Thursday afternoon) I'll have time to write more about it.

So another day-and-a-half of training to go. Then back-to-back meetings on Friday. At least I was smart enough not to schedule myself to preach this Sunday!

-t

Snapshot of Racing on the Pegrine

2010-10-16T18:19:00.002-04:00

Our sailing season is over, but here is a quick video snapshot of what it look like on night where the winds were alternating between strong and "meh." Note how wet my shoes around two minutes into the video.

My thanks to skipper Dave the crew--we had a fun season.

-t

Sailing Anarchists

2010-10-13T15:07:00.004-04:00

Here is an example of the sort of thing that makes me love sailing. True wildness and wanderlust are still possible in this world...

Hold Fast from Moxie Marlinspike on Vimeo.

I think my favourite moment is probably when they stun the Mahi Mahi fish with the winch handle against the floor of the cockpit.

BTW, Moxie, the author, is also a well-known "white-hat" hacker. Meaning, he uses his uber computer skills for good, rather than evil. But that also means that he can make plenty of cash in his day job. I am not saying that he does make money, necessarily, I'm just saying he could make lots of money. This lifestyle is a kind of asceticism--a deliberately chosen discipline, not the harsh result of fickle fortune. He would probably frame it in terms that relate to ethics or eco-justice, but I see it as a secular form of apostolic poverty. Poverty-as-ethical-choice is a really interesting and ancient tradition practiced by many ascetics. It's an admirable witness, and quite an interesting phenomenon for to those of looking for how God manifests in a post-Christian society.

-t

The Japanese Tea Ceremony and the Holy Eucharist

2010-10-11T00:44:00.007-04:00

I've been teaching priest-craft to two seminarians this semester. I'm covering a lot of ground, but that is no excuse for skipping important detail of the sort they won't learn in class. I'm talking about deep body knowledge. There is a way to hold your body as a priest or deacon, a way to move through a space. A way to sit with parishioners and sip coffee. Craft is truth, too.

So when teaching a student how to prepare the gifts on the altar I start with the empty table and invite them to appreciate the emptiness that is there. Then, as they begin to make gesture of prayer through movement in that space, I mention the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Move with purity of purpose, unrushed, focused, calm.

I know, for a fact, that I am not the first person to notice a connection between the Japanese Tea Ceremony and the "manual acts" made by priests and deacons during the Holy Eucharist. Both, afterall, are formalized rituals of hospitality.

As a kid I used to watch an obscure, sub-titled Japanese docudrama series about the life of Oda Nobunaga produced by the national television network of Japan. Nobunaga is a very intriguing figure from Japanese feudal history (we're talking 16th Century) and was the principle force behind the unification of the country under a strong Shogun. He also was very interested in European Culture and was a patron of the Jesuit missionaries to his country. He even let them built the first church in Japan in Kyoto in 1576. Nobunaga was a great patron of the arts, as well, and popularized the Japanese Tea Ceremony.

Each episode of this series would start with a narrative historical preamble. One of these compared the traditional gesture of wiping the tea cup in the Tea Ceremony with a similar gesture made at the end of the Eucharist during the ablutions. The narrator then claimed that the Christians picked up this gesture from the Jesuit missionaries to Japan, who learned it by observing the Tea Ceremony. That claim sounds dubious to me, but I do think it makes sense that both ceremonies would arrive at similar gestures through independent evolutions.

It also follows that a priest looking to master the rituals of the Holy Table could learn much from the Japanese Tea Ceremony (and perhaps vice-versa). The aesthetic of the Tea Ceremony will be recognizable to anyone who has studied liturgy. The Japanese sought to embody harmony, respect, purity, and tranquillity.

Every gesture--an expression of some truth. There is something true and worthy of our attention that happens when we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist. Whether we chose to do this in a very simple fashion or a complex one, we should do it with intention and meaning. This take years of diligent practice to master, and the effort to do so can inform any other priestly skill from pastoral counselling to preaching to volunteer management.

Here is a video of part of a Tea Ceremony. Enjoy!

-t

RIP Mrs. Patel

2010-10-07T16:30:00.002-04:00

On Dupont Street, just a few blocks from the church and my home, there is a well-known Restaurant called "The Indian Rice Factory." Betsy and I have only been there once, but man did it make an impression! Some of the best Indian Food I ever had. Turns out the chef/owner, known as Mrs. Patel, is famous for basically introducing the city of Toronto to good Indian Food back in the 1960's and 70's. James Chatto has a wonderful telling of the story that he also related in his book, The Man Who Ate Toronto:

There were only two Indian restaurants in Toronto in 1967 (India House and Rajput) when Mrs. Patel arrived in Canada, a young nurse from Bombay. One afternoon, she decided to have lunch at the Inn on the Park hotel, at Eglinton and Leslie. The hotel’s restaurant, Café de 1’Auberge, was famous for sophisticated French cuisine, but it was the buffet of the day that aroused her curiosity – a culinary event entitled “From the Chafing Dishes of India.” In those dishes were examples of the curious travesty of Moghlai cooking that European chefs were trained to prepare: chicken, shrimp, or beef in a sort of bechamel sauce coloured with curry powder. Mrs. Patel called the manager and gently tried to explain that this was a little less than authentic.

When the conversation moved into the kitchen, executive chef Georges Chaignet listened politely and then invited Mrs. Patel to come back next day and cook him a meal. She obliged; he was stunned. As Stratford Chefs School instructor Jacques Marie, then Chaignet’s sous-chef, recalled: “She showed us what curry is really about. It was a new world to me.”

To the kitchen’s eternal credit, Mrs. Patel was hired to teach the team all that she knew. After a year, she moved on, first to Julie’s Mansion on Jarvis, working her magic in the casual upstairs dining room called the Bombay Bicycle Club, more famous in those days for the lissom beauty of its sari-clad waitresses than its buffet, and then to the Hyatt Regency.

In 1970 she opened her own place on Dupont Street, called Indian Rice Factory. The tiny room would be considered avant-garde even today. It seated barely a dozen customers who sat around an open cooking station, choosing from a short and frequently changing list of dishes on a blackboard tied to the back of the fridge. Slender, beautiful and always elegantly dressed, Mrs. Patel radiated a soft-spoken confidence as she worked, preparing many items à la minute, and explaining her recipes to anyone who asked. (Source)

By all accounts, she was a major force in the development of the Toronto Restaurant scene. She was generous with her time and recipes and something of an institution. You can find some of her recipes on the Indian Rice Factory's website.

It's telling that the website for the restaurant discusses the spiritual implications of Indian Cuisine. She had deep knowledge that craft to those places of art and truth. "Cooking is an art we savour and a ritual that we take seriously."

She died in August after a long battle with breast cancer. She had been the owner and chef of the Indian Rice Factory for 40 years. Her son had become increasingly involved over the years and now is taking her place.

A few days ago we had the planning team for the Music that Makes Community Conference at Church of The Messiah. I invited them over to the rectory, but had no intention of cooking for nine people on short notice, so I suggested that we order out. Many of the group were from San Francisco and complained that they can't find good Indian Food there.

I realized, then, that I didn't actually have any Indian takeout menus, so I googled the problem while Betsy got them drinks. As soon as I saw a reference to the Indian Rice Factory I knew it would be perfect, but it is not the kind of place that usually does delivery.

I called them, and they said they would make an exception since it was a relatively large order (9 people) and since the owner happened to be there with a car. The host helped me through the menu and made helpful suggestions about things that were particularly fresh or good that night. In the end, he also through in a few free dishes compliments of the house.

Forty-five minutes later or so Mrs. Patel's son, Aman, came to my door with a truly memorable meal. Our guests from San Francisco were impressed. Aman gave me a "Namaste" kind of bow after I thanked him profusely and complimented his restaurant. I didn't realize, yet, that his mother has passed on. I think I should send him a note saying that the meal we had was a great tribute to his mother.

I'll end this little obituary with one her recipes:

Butter Chicken in Three Easy Steps:

The Chicken

2 lbs boneless and skinless chicken

Marinade
12 cloves garlic
2 inches ginger
2 tsp coriander powder
Lime juice – 2 limes
4 tbsp canola oil
2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp cumin whole or ground
½ cup yogurt
1 tbsp red chili powder
Salt to taste

— all Marinade ingredients except the salt into blender and puree. Add salt to taste such that Marinade has a salty tinge. Put chicken in bowl, add Marinade, mix to coat thoroughly and refrigerate for 4 hours.

Basting
2 tsp ghee
1 tsp dry fenugreek leaves
1 tsp dried mango or lime powder
1 tsp roasted black cumin powder
Salt to taste

Garnish
Pinch of Garam Masala
½ fresh lime

— mix all ingredients together and have basting brush ready
— Prepare the marinated chicken either by grilling, broiling (cover with foil so as not to burn) or baking in a hot oven (350°F) until done. Baste regularly with Basting. Once done, set aside and garnish with sprinkle of Garam Masala and light drizzle of fresh lime juice.

The Butter Sauce

Butter Sauce
3 oz unsalted butter
2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp fresh lime juice
4 green chilies – slit
6 tomatoes – cut into wedges
2 tbsp whipping cream – unwhipped
— in a pot, melt butter and sugar over a medium-high to high heat until brown (not burnt); add lime juice (watch out for splutters and splashes!!) and quickly follow with green chilies and let cook for a minute, add tomatoes and reduce to medium heat and cook until tomatoes break down, add cream and reduce to a slow simmer. Set aside.

The Chicken Goes Into the Butter Sauce

2 oz unsalted butter
1 tsp red chili powder
4-6 green chilies – fine cut
6 firm tomatoes – quartered
2 inches ginger – grated
— in a pot, melt butter over medium-high heat, add red chili powder and Butter Sauce, bring to boil, reduce to medium heat, add the chicken, tomatoes green chilies and ginger. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
— Remove to a serving dish, add small specks of butter, pinches of roasted cumin powder and finely chopped coriander as garnish.

Serve with plain Basmati rice or Naan (or both). (source)

Namaste!
-t

Bath Time for Henry

2010-10-05T23:57:00.003-04:00

Betsy and I both love giving our Henry a bath. We used to do this with a little plastic baby bathtub, but lately we've switched to using a full-size tub. In fact, I often take a bath with Henry, which is great fun. The little guy just loves the bubbles and toys we give him. Johnson's "Baby Bubble Bath & Wash" is awesome stuff. Works well on grownups, too! Tonight I even shaved in the tub while Henry played by my feet with some toys.

One of my favourite things to do is lie down in the the bath and put Henry on my chest, facing me. He likes to push up and arch his back so he can look around. Such a cuttie. Holding your baby like this makes it hard to think about anything else. It just makes everything right, you know?

Since we switched the full-sized tub he has a lot more room to move around and explore. Baths are lasting a lot longer.

After his bath Henry typically gets some skin lotion and then PJ's (with feet, of coure) and then milk and then bed. Sometimes he gets a story or I sing him Compline. Last night he slept for a whopping 12 hours! Go Henry!

-t

Splitting Wood

2010-10-04T23:34:00.004-04:00

A busy Monday. I tackled a couple of projects around the house--the most ambitious being to split and stack a bunch of wood left over from a tree that fell last year. It has been drying for the last year by the side the house since our landlord and his son-in-law cut up with a chainsaw. The landlord has been suggesting (for months and months) that I should split it up and use it for our fireplace. But, honestly, I've split wood by hand before, and it's one of those jobs that is best done with your shirt off to impress the Mrs. If your real purpose is to get wood ready for winter, than you ought to simply rent on buy a hydraulic wood splitter (IMHO).

The weather is turning in Ontario. Time to start packing up the deck furniture and get ready for the snow. If that wood is going to get split, I decided, it was doing to be me that does it! So I bit the bullet.

First stop, Canadian Tire. There I picked up a little 4-Ton Log Splitter. I don't think they sell many of these downtown in Toronto, but they managed to find one in the back! I took it home and was pleased with the performance--it had no trouble splitting everything I through at it. It has a little 1.74HP Electric Motor that runs a hydraulic pump that moves the ram. Bigger models are probably faster and can handle even bigger pieces, but this little guy is perfect for home use. But even with this little beauty it still took me about 3.5 hours to split the pile and stack it on the back deck. Ah, well.

I was inspired to tweet some Haiku:

A new power tool
Splitting wood in Autumn Air
Fall in Ontario

There is something very distinct about Fall in Ontario. I really need to get going on getting some apple cider fermenting in the basement. I also want to make some more apple sauce--I'm just using up the last of last year's batch and boy is it good stuff. And easy, too!

After I picked up Henry at the Daycare I got some take-out from my favourite Thai place: Flip Toss and Thai. Those of you living near the University should know about this place--terrific Thai food at a cheap price. The folks that work there are clearly a family, and enjoyed see Henry with me.

-t

Tailgate Eucharist

2010-10-04T22:21:00.004-04:00

The Rev'd Canon Dan Webster from the Diocese of Maryland has started doing a Eucharist in the parking lot before Ravens (NFL Football) games.

Our prayers follow the form on pages 400-401 of The Book of Common Prayer. It is similar to a Eucharist you might experience at an Episcopal camp but without the music. There was plenty of music coming from the stage at the Ravenswalk. Some of that music seemed to be particularly meaningful to those faithful gathered in the rain to break bread and pray before kickoff. ...

We weren't the only religious folks there that day. A local Chabad House of Lubavitcher Jews was celebrating Sukkot, the Feast of Booths. They had rented a pickup truck and built a sukkah in the truck bed. They asked people at random if they were Jewish and if so then invited them into the sukkah to pray. (Source)

When this went out on e-mail among some clergy types, one of the bishops said that this be a great idea for Argos (CFL Football) games--perhaps we could get season tickets on the Diocesan Dime (not likely).

This is actually a great idea. Talk about putting the church into the world! I like the way it claims the festival, food-drenched atmosphere of tailgating and plants our sacred meal firmly in that ground. Reminds me a lot of battlefield Eucharists done by military chaplains.

-t

RIP Greg Giraldo

2010-10-01T01:28:00.001-04:00

Greg Giraldo, a well-known Comedian, died of an accidental prescription drug overdose a few days ago. Here is a clip in which he discusses, among other things, God and Gay Marriage. He was in Canada for this. Probably not safe for work or young ears, but very funny.

As a comic, one of the things to notice about Greg was that he was very disciplined in his delivery. The content is sharp and bit transgressive, but carefully honed. It seems like an improved rant, but it's not. Notice how carefully he controls his timing and rhythm.

Some other facts about Greg:

He was a graduate of Harvard Law, but only did one year of practice before becoming a stand up comic
Greg was married with three children
Greg gave up drinking in 2005

After he was found in a hotel room he was rushed to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He died four days later. I did my CPE Chaplaincy Summer Internship at that Hospital.

-t

Possible Life Sustaining Planet?

2010-09-30T01:00:00.002-04:00

Scientists are announcing that they've discovered a planet that appears to be the right distance from its star and the right mass to possibly support life. The NYTimes reports that Gliese 581g (that's pronounced GLEE-za) is about 20 light years from earth. One scientist estimated about a 90% chance it has water on it. Which sounds pretty good, except that you don't want to spent a bazillion dollars on a probe to a planet with only a 90% chance it will find water when it gets there. Just as important as the finding of this planet is that was found relatively easily, but astronomically standards, and they therefore expect to find a bunch more.

The whole thing reminds me of the Drake Equation, which is really an interesting thought expirement. I've blogged about it before, but here it is again:

The Drake Equation:

where:
N is the number of civilizations in our galaxy with which communication might be possible;

and

R* is the average rate of star formation per year in our galaxy
fp is the fraction of those stars that have planets
ne is the average number of planets that can potentially support life per star that has planets
fℓ is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop life at some point
fi is the fraction of the above that actually go on to develop intelligent life
fc is the fraction of civilizations that develop a technology that releases detectable signs of their existence into space
L is the length of time such civilizations release detectable signals into space.
(source)

The Drake Equation, named after Astrophysicist Dr. Frank Drake, is an argument for the existence of life on other planets with whom we could communicate. The argument is based on probability, essentially arguing that if conscious, communicative life could develop on earth, than the probability is greater than zero that it could have developed elsewhere in our galaxy. While the parameters for the equation are somewhat speculative, we do have plausible value that yield a current estimate of....

N = 7 × 0.5 × 2 × 0.33 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10000 = 2.31

In other words, the best guess is that there are 2.31 civilizations in our neighbourhood of the universe capable of communication with us. Of course, if you give different values to the parameters you can make this number go up or down, but it can never be reduced to zero because, in fact, there are people to ask the question!

How cool is that?

-t

District 9

2010-09-29T03:37:00.003-04:00

This is a great movie. It's a sort of scifi thriller with strong themes about racism, colonialism, and even a bit of spirituality. I recommend it, and am wondering where I can find some informed theological reflections on it.

-t

Another Day, Another Batch of Beer

2010-09-28T03:19:00.003-04:00

Mondays are supposed to be my day off. So why did I end up spending about four hours doing church stuff? Probably because the rest of the week is jam packed. Still, I felt like I got some important things done today--including another batch of beer. It's fermenting away in the basement. Of course, I ended up being awake to 3.30 AM to do it, but it was either that or let another week go back with the ingredients and tools sitting patiently in the corner of the dining room!

Another thing I accomplished today was looking after Henry after Daycare. Betsy has a class on Monday nights, so I was in charge of picking him up and feeeding him supper and getting him ready for bed. Normally Betsy and I divide up many of those tasks.

Henry loves bath time, so I tried something different. Instead of using our little baby tub, I used the big tub. Not only that, but I took a bath with Henry, rather than just bathing him. He enjoyed crawling on my chest and chewing on the wash cloth. It felt good to be with my little son, playing in the water. He is such a delight.

On Sunday we tried a square layout of chairs with the altar in the middle. It was a great success. I see a few small things to tweak, but that is almost always the case. The square says that we are gathered around God. It has a very warm and communal tone to it, even more so than choir-style seating. I definitely appreciated having people so close!

It was also Back-to-Church Sunday. I had asked people to invite a friend, and many did! Attendance was high. We had BBQ afterwards to celebrate.

Nancy, my new Theological Intern, did a splendid job. She's eager to learn and picking things up quickly. She wants to learn about liturgy, so I am attempting to teach her the esoteric secrets of our craft. Sure, everybody knows about picking liturgical texts to use and reading well and all that. But I'm teaching her how to pray in the Vestry before the service, how to set a table, how feel the congregation. It's all very Zen and terrific fun.

As usual, many of the most pressing things on my mind cannot be shared here. In the ebbs and flows of parish life energy flows around this way and that. I have many parishioners on my mind. I don't know if people in parishes realize how much we clergy think about them. One just got Tenure. Another is celebrating a big birthday. Another is growing up fast. I look out on Sunday morning and think, "What on earth does that person need to bring them closer to God?" It's so much easier one-on-one.

I'm feeling very much pulled in different directions. Even when I devote crazy amounts of time and energy it doesn't seem like it's enough. I think everybody probably feels that way, and I feel guilty about it because I ought to know better. Is it time for a vacation, yet?

This next week is going to be crazy busy and a hellafun. Pray for me!

-t

A Perfectly Obvious Observation

2010-09-23T01:14:00.003-04:00

The pace of my life has significantly accelerated since Henry entered our lives. Months are simply flying by. My perspective of time is starting to shift. It feels like that trick in cinema where they pull the camera back and zoom in at the same time (known technically as a "Dolly Zoom"). Then I think about all the undone projects that have accumulated and I get really scared!

But, in truth, I'm having some very productive days and have the calendar to prove it. Next week, for instance, is going to be insanely busy. We are hosting a Music that Makes Community Conference at the church (regular blog readers will recall that Eric and I went to one of these in Atlanta about a year ago) next week. I'm looking forward to that, especially since I don't have to travel this time. I'm also doing ten other things that week. Over-committed? Definitely!

Naturally, Henry requires a lot of time. I'm finding that I'm having to get up earlier everyday just to make sure we get him to daycare and me to work and Betsy to school at a reasonable time. I'm starting to think that I should take my showers at night to give myself some extra morning time. Amazing how many little things have to happen everyday for him--feeding, washing, cleaning, and playing. He loves to play. He needs to play. One of his favourite games right now is crawling to a piece of furniture and then pulling himself up to standing. He can manage to keep himself standing for a minute or two, and then will topple backwards with delight.

Funny how quickly our lives can change. I feel like a different person than I was a year ago. And yet I'm the same, too. Weird. Koan like.

-t

Rumi: This World

2010-09-19T12:51:00.001-04:00

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.

-Rumi

Wendy's

2010-09-17T00:19:00.003-04:00

When I was a teenager I worked at McDonald's and Wendy's.... at the same time. It was a real learning experience. I greatly preferred McDonald's, to tell the truth, because it was a much better work environment. The Wendy's management was pretty terrible. When they scheduled me to work on a particular day that I couldn't, they told me I had to find a replacement. When no one on the call list would swap, they said I could either show up on the given day or get fired. It's the only time in my life I actually got fired, and I didn't mind at all. I remember the manager telling me that this would "teach me a lesson" about the "real world." Joke was on him, McD's was paying me a lot more, and so all he did was make it easier for me to take more shifts there.

I could say a lot else, but I think these training videos will give you the picture of what it's like being a Wendy's employee. They actually made us watch this crap.

McDonald's fact: the number one customer complaint about the french fries: "Not Salty Enough."

-t

Ode to Pseudophedrine

2010-09-16T10:09:00.003-04:00

O Pseudophedrine, for a thousand dry mouths to praise your excellent character, your superb effectiveness, your quick action. Thou clever diastereomer of ephedrine, you indirectly affect the adrenergic receptor system to make my nose dry and snot-free. Indeed, thy elixir-of-dryness powers prevent fluid from leaving all my nasal blood vessels to fill inflamed tissue.

My heart doth quicken in response to thee, O Pseudophedrine, whether thou commest under the name of Sudafed, Actifed, Contac, or partnered with other muses of cold relief such as your coy friends guaifenesin, dextromethorphan and acetaminophen.

But thou art a fickle mistress of the drippy nose, and art known to inhabit dens of ill repute to be transformed into thy wicked cousin, Methamphetamine. Be true to me, O greatest phenethylamine, my nose doth drip without thee.

-t

Holy Cross Day 2010

2010-09-12T13:01:00.002-04:00

Today was an amazing day at church. I love Sundays like today. We had decided to transfer Holy Cross day to today because, well, I have a special attachment that feast and it's a good one to celebrate in parish life. The propers (readings and prayers) are just so well aligned that it makes for a compelling liturgy even before you add in wonderful music (including variations on Pange Lingua as an organ prelude, "Lift High the Cross," and Ave Verum Corpus). I arrived early at church, but Eric, my Minister of Music, was already here practicing. Not only that, he had done many of the things I do to get the church ready on Sunday morning. That meant that I had a solid two hours to refine my sermon. I already knew what I wanted to do with it, but having the time to actually practice it in my head in the space really helped tighten it up.

An aside for all you Minister types out there: I have a special mix of music I listen to on Sunday mornings to help me prepare. It's a really grab-bag that includes Joan Baez, Mickey Avalon, U2, Enya, Leonard Cohen, Shaker music, Elton John, Gorillaz, Pink Floyd, and Eminem. How's that for eclectic! Actually, this morning it was the Eminem that really got my juices flowing. I listed to it on my earbuds as paced back and forth in the church feeling my way through the sermon.

The sermon itself came across really strongly, and I'm eager to post a copy of it here on my blog. I even managed to weave in some asides about Buddhist Bardo States! Bede would have loved it, and it's quite appropriate that there was a Holy Cross taste to a Holy Cross Day Sermon. Another nod to OHC was that I mentioned "Blessed James" during the Eucharistic Prayer.

We chose Prayer F from Common Worship 2000. As Eucharistic Prayers go, it has a nice rhythm and strikes me as well written and focused. We spoke the congregational responses, though Eric wants to sing them paperless-style next week.

After the service several people commented that they liked the sermon and the service overall. This included a retired priest that I respect, so I am very pleased about the compliments. Normally I don't solicit feedback about my preaching because I've discovered that I'm far better off not getting attached to praise about my preaching. The most important thing about a sermon is not whether it elicits praise and 'at-a-boy's, but whether it makes Christ present through the scriptures. I think it's tempting to get caught up in the trap of preaching to make people feel inspired or impressed or something, but that really isn't the point.

David Bartlett, one of my professors from Yale, tells the story of a plaque in the pulpits of his father's church. Where only the preacher can read it one reads, "Sir, we would see Jesus." It's actually one of the most helpful things anyone ever told me about the task of preaching. Seriously, if I just wanted to inspire and amuse, my sermons would include a lot more pithy anecdotes about pets, children, and other "cute" subjects. Sometimes those kinds of stories are helpful and good. I used a feel-good story about the birth of an infant last week. But they need to serve the text.

Anyway, I was feeling the Spirit this morning! I wished my Intern had been there, because there were several key learnings I think she could have gotten. I would have told her about the process of writing it. For example, on Saturday at the Contemplative Eucharist and then at the Healing Prayer service we had ended up having some long discussions about death from the Christian perspective, that obviously informed how and what I preached about today.

Also, the choreography of my movements during this sermon were deliberately crafted to emphasize the dramatic and thematic arch of the sermon. As the world spun around on the axis of the cross, so I spun around 180 degrees at a key moment. That's not particularly subtle. But what is subtle is that it was at that moment that I was least on-book. In other words, as the intensity of the sermon peaked, I completely ignored my notes about what I had planned to say and instead went with my gut and improv-ed my way through it. It has taken me years to learn how to do that kind of thing, and I can't wait to teach my intern! I really wished someone had taught me these kids of advanced techniques when I was a student.

My main preaching professor at YDS was Wes Avram. He taught me a lot of stuff. For example, understanding the role of emotion in persuasion is critical to good preaching. You need to rehearse, before the congregation, you're own process of being persuaded in order to bring them to the same place. Also, the emotional content of that process is more important than the intellectual content. I remember him correcting some of my bad habits, like "accidentally" introducing props into my sermons that would distract. If you are reading a quote from a book, don't show the congregation the book unless it actually is relevant that they think about the book. Otherwise you reduce the impact of the quote. But as much as Wes Avram and David Bartlett taught us, there is still SO much more to the craft of preaching.

Anyway, it was a good Sunday and I like to treasure these sorts of memories as a reserve against more difficult times!

-t

The Wind

2010-09-08T14:15:00.003-04:00

Today has been a really interesting day. I felt very "priestly" as I did some rewarding ministry. It started off with my usual Wednesday morning Contemplative Eucharist. Because all the prayers are extemporaneous, it requires a lot of contemplative focus to be in the right moment. You really have to be "right" with the Spirit to do it well, and I find the spiritual challenge of that both exhilarating and humbling.

After that I said morning prayer by myself and did some administrative tasks. Then I had back-to-back counseling sessions that turned out to be Spirit-full and rewarding. I certainly wouldn't say that the Holy Spirit was absent from my life when I was on leave, but She was usually veiled a bit. But when you are working with someone one-on-one on deep spiritual issues sometimes you get this sense of presence that is wonderful. Those kinds of moments in counseling/direction give me such joy and consolation. Occasional moments like I had today are more than enough affirmation of my ministry to sustain me for some time.

Nor does it hurt to have the sense of making progress with the Administrative load I have to bear. Last night we had an NCD--Natural Church Development--planning meeting that went well. I think NCD will be be helpful as we figure out where to go, strategically and operationally. Today I submitted some paperwork for reimbursement for some of my retreat expenses from the summer (Anglican Priests in Canada have a nationally-managed continuing education fund). We are on track to print the latest edition of the resurrected parish newsletter this week. The staff meeting yesterday was very productive. Etc., etc. I'm crossing things off the to-do list and it feels great.

The perfect end is going to come in a few hours as I go sailing. The prediction is for strong winds, so we expect a challenging and exciting race. Last week's strong winds caused the fore-stay to let loose, which could have brought the whole mast down. Fast action saved the rigging and the repair turned out to be straight forward. One of the nice things about racing a Catalina '27 is that she has some extra margins of durability in the design. Many other boats would have lost their masts immediately if the fore-stay broke, but a little bit of redundancy in the rigging design of the Catalina '27 gave us enough time to jury-rig a temporary fix and limp back into port. So we are excited to give her another go.

Henry is doing great. He crawls all over the place, now, which means he must be constantly watched unless we have him in his crib or a pack-n-play. The living room has mostly been turned into a baby-safe zone, but now we need some barriers to keep him in there. He has figured out that he can easily and quickly crawl from the living room to the kitchen. Several times I've caught him just in time as he grabbed a handful of cat food. I think his look of delight on reaching the cat bowls would change to confusion if he managed to shove the pellets into his mouth.

Life is grand. Today is a good day.

-t

Back to Work

2010-09-03T15:39:00.000-04:00

So I've officially been back to work for a few days now. The predictable pile was waiting for me. Lots of things had to be put on hold waiting for me to return, but I am pleased that many other things simply went on (or started) without me. I told the congregation not to wait for me, and I am glad some have taken initiative.

But the routine for Betsy, Henry, and me has still to settle down. This morning Betsy ended up feeling pretty rushed to get out the door so I could give her a ride to the campus as I dropped off Henry. But we are figuring it out.

We are also starting a diet. Slim-fast. My idea. Why Slim-fast? Because it's a very basic, straightforward and non-cult-like method. It's pretty easy to follow and long-term studies have shown that it's perfectly healthy and effective. So, why not? My goal is to lose about 20 lbs in 6 months.

I'm still processing stuff from this summer. I didn't get all of my projects done, which means I have them still waiting for me. For instance, I need to sand-down and then re-oil the counter tops in the kitchen. I also have a bunch of firewood to chop once the weather gets a little cooler. Ingredients are on the way for another batch of beer. I also want to do some hard cider now that apple season in coming. I've already canned two-bushels worth of tomatoes (mostly as a nice red sauce), but I would like to can some other stuff as well. I can think of more... the projects never cease. Many of them are not strictly necessary, but I do enjoy having crafts and hobbies.

I'm looking forward to preaching again. I sort of have an itch to preach sometimes and I am really glad to have the opportunity to scratch that again. Preaching Sunday after Sunday becomes a real discipline than shapes your life when you are committed to it.

So... onward and upward!

-t

Article from September Anglican

2010-08-30T22:11:00.004-04:00

Here is the article I wrote the the issue of the Anglican that was just published (September 2010):

It's a short reflection of my thoughts post-Canterbury.

-t

Betsy and Henry Playing

2010-08-27T09:49:00.002-04:00

A moment from my life these days:

-t

Mommy Rhapsody

2010-08-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

From the folks who brought you "Dad Life," it's the "Mommy Rhapsody"....

-t

Dad Life - The Video

2010-08-14T16:31:00.000-04:00

The "Church on The Move" (yeah, they abbreviate it COTM) in Tusla, OK, created this hilarious rap video called "Dad Life." I identify so strongly with this video it hurts!

-t

Steps at Canterbury

2010-08-13T11:06:00.001-04:00

I've wanted to take this photograph for a long time. These are the steps leading to the shrine at Canterbury--much worn from Pilgrim feet. Pretty cool, heh?

-t

A Brief Note from the Land of Paternity

2010-08-13T10:05:00.005-04:00

Yep, I'm still alive. But this summer I haven't been in a space that really facilitates blogging. Which is too bad, since I've got a lot of blog material piling up in my brain. But I find that blogging is tied to my preaching, so since I'm not preaching this summer I'm not spending time in the head space that leads to blogging.

This summer has been wonderful--three whole months off to be with Henry and to visit family and give Betsy a chance to get back on track with her studies. It's going remarkably well, and our little guy is growing into a champ. We dragged him to NJ, PA, DC, Calgary, and Banff! He did great, which means he probably will have some of his parents' wander-lust. I think, from our experience, that the key to travelling with an infant is to relax and adapt. Adapt, adapt, adapt. Sometimes I find myself thinking, "Where can I change Henry," even when he isn't with me.

People always want to know how he is sleeping. Lately (the past few months) his sleeping has really settled down into a nice pattern. Unless he has a cold or is teething, he will typically go to sleep at around 8:30 PM and wake up at 3:00 AM. Then Betsy will nurse him and he'll sleep again from about 3:30 until 7 AM. We do the morning routine and then he'll have a mid-morning nap (for about an hour) and a longer mid-afternoon nap. Our pediatrician has recommended giving him only water at the nighttime feeding to get him out of that habit, but we aren't quite there yet.

It's interesting to talk to other parents and realize that people get quite passionate about how they get their children to sleep at night. I've heard several couples talk about the "Cry-it-out" method as painful but ultimately worth it. We did the opposite and seemed to have fine results, which just goes to show that parents should simply do the research and pick their strategy and make it work.

Speaking of Henry's sleep patterns... It may not be very PC of him, but he really likes furs. Someone (CK) gave us a sheep skin for his crib. It is similar to the ones sold at Ikea, but this one can be machine washed at home. It's brilliant. Henry loves the soft feeling of the sheep fur under him and we believe it does a good job of keeping him warm when it's cold and dry when it's warm. There is something primal about putting your baby to sleep on an animal skin that appeals to me, too.

When we visited the Glenbow Museum in Calgary we let Henry touch a buffalo skin they had out as part of a hands-on fur-trade exhibit. His eyes lit up immediately with him favourite texture--softness. I thought it would be very cool to have a whole buffalo-skin rug to put down on the floor for him to play on, but then I discovered that these suckers cost about a $1,000! My David Thompson and Charlotte Small fantasies of Canadian child-rearing ended there.

Side note for non-Canadians: David Thompson was a great explorer and surveyor of the Canadian West. He mapped out 3.9 million square kilometres of wild frontier with nothing more than compass, watch, sextant, thermometer, and a nautical almanac. His journeys make Lewis and Clark look like silly boys on a late night, suburban Taco Bell run. Even more remarkably, David Thompson's half-Indian wife, Charlotte Small, came with him on many of these journeys and bore him 13 children along the way. Think about that... thirteen children while travelling 3.5 times as far as the Lewis and Clark Expedition. They were married for 58 years before he died, which is the longest marriage on record in pre-confederation Canada. She died a few months after him.

Right now I'm reading a biography of David Thompson called Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West by D'Arcy Jenish. It's a good read that gives you a sense of what the 18th and early 19th Century fur-trade in Colonial Canada was like. I am particularly fascinated with the details of how they managed to live on the frontier as well as what relations with the First Nations were like ("complex" probably sums up both). Anyway, a good summer read if you into that kind of history.

We've been going to a bunch of a different churches since we've had time off from Messiah. I'm looking forward to writing about that experience. I found our visits to non-Anglican churches particularly valuable. Stay tuned!

-t

Back

2010-07-23T11:21:00.003-04:00

After England went to NJ, DC, NY state, and then back to Toronto. It's been a crazy time for travelling and I'm only now beginning to relax.

Here's a funny facebook moment I saw reported on Huffington Post:

-t

Orpington

2010-07-13T18:36:00.002-04:00

The retreat was great. It wrapped up in fine style this morning after Mattins. Both the Cathedral Clergy and the Guest Lodge Staff went out of their way to give us fond farewells. I have a lot of memories and stories, and I look forward to a moment when I am relaxed enough to tell them. As it was, I spent much of the day traveling from Canterbury up to London and then down to a town on the outskirts of London called Orpington. I'm staying with a ministry friend and his wife until Friday.

Tomorrow I'm meeting with Rachel Jordon from Church House and some of her colleagues to talk about church-y stuff--Fresh Expressions and Pioneer Ministry and Missional Church, etc. Then I might do a little sight-seeing. The short list of places to visit Wednesday and Thursday includes the Tate Modern, Lambeth Palace, the National Portrait Gallery, Covent Garden, and the British Museum. Of course, I won't be able to hit all of those in two days without a severe brain-sprain, so I'll pick two or three and see how it goes.

On Monday I was wandering around the cloister with Bede when we noticed a door that said, "Private - Archdeacon's Garden." Bede stooped down and peered through the key hole. Like many of the doors around the Cathedral, it still has one of those old fashioned locks with the big key-holes. As he was gazing in, one of the workman came up behind us, "No need for that! Here, have a proper look 'round." With that he unlocked the door with an impressive set of keys and swung it open. He invited us to step just across the threshold and explained the different ruins and houses we could see. He was genial and warm and obviously enjoyed our interest.

Now, he didn't know we were part of a retreat group, we were just curious visitors so far as he knew. And he wasn't a steward, verger, or cleric. He was simply one of the maintenance staff who went out of his way to show two visitors a little something special. As I said to Bede as we walked away, "At Canterbury, curiosity is rewarded." There is a spirit of generous hospitality that has totally imbued the place at all levels.

When we told this story to one of the Canons, she explained that most of the staff were actually non-Christian, yet they are also fiercely loyal to the Cathedral and believe in its mission. They are enormously proud and want to share what they have with others. Time and again this was referred to as the influence of the Benedictine virtue of hospitality. The Rule of Benedict says that all visitors are to be treated as Christ.

The Verger who took us up to the Organ Loft above the Quire Screen on Sunday told us about what Canterbury means to him. He finds meeting people from all over the world incredibly rewarding, but he also is honored to be part of an institution that has done this ministry of welcome for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. He explained that he had been initiated into the Cathedral Foundation as a special ceremony in which is name was inscribed in a special book. He beamed as he talked about his work.

When I get back to Toronto I want to write a long-ish letter to the Dean to compliment various people who were particularly friendly and helpful. I hope it's the sort of letter that ends up in personnel files.

I'm already missing the place. I'm thinking of the Canons waiting by the exit from the Quire to say goodbye to us as we left Mattins to go to breakfast. Some places just feel like home, yeah know?

-t

The Canterbury Organ Console

2010-07-11T16:39:00.001-04:00

A Verger we have gotten to know was pleased to fulfill my request to see the organ loft above the Rood Screen in the middle of the Cathedral. This is the domain of the Organists. Here is a picture I took of the console. Note the video monitor that is hooked up to cameras that allow the organist to see the action without having to get up and peer over the sides.

This second picture is from the other side of the console. What you see are too very comfortable but tattered arm chairs and some recording equipment. Also, a few toys!

The Verger was quite proud to show us this rarely seen part of the inner workings of the Cathedral and took the time to answer a bunch more questions.

I'm really enjoying my time here. It's wonderful to be in such a deep place for so long!

-t

Location:S Close,Canterbury,United Kingdom

Update from Canterbury

2010-07-08T04:24:00.003-04:00

I've been here at Canterbury for the "Benedictine Experience" Retreat for a few days now. I'm almost over the jet lag, but not quite. I woke up at 3.30 A.M. this morning. But this is a very easy place to settle into: comfortable and welcoming.

Yesterday Bede, another priest, and I had a wonderful chat with one of the Canterbury Vergers to plan our Eucharists this week. We will be using the Jesus Chapel in the Cathedral Crypt, and the Vergers were quite happy to set things up just the way we like them. This chat also gave us the chance to see the principle Sacristy of the Cathedral. We were told it was one of the few parts of the Cathedral that Thomas Becket would have recognized: when he was around in the 12th Century as Archbishop, it was used for pretty much the same purpose it is now.

The Sacristy at Canterbury Cathedral

Yesterday was the feast of the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury (Becket). On July 7th, 1220 his remains were moved from a crypt chapel to an elaborate shrine in the chancel that became one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Western Europe until it was destroyed by order of Henry VIII in 1538. Evensong filled the Choir of the Cathedral and was sung by a men's choir. The Responses were by John Rutter, the Magnifcat and Nunc Dimittis were from Michael Walsh's St. Paul's Service, and after we processed (to "God, whose city's sure foundation" sung to Westminster Abbey) to the site of Thomas's Shrine the choir sang Salve Lux Laetitiae by Alan Ridout. While that anthem was sung, I watched one of the Canons cense something that isn't there--the shrine of Thomas. I've seen a lot of things censed and blessed in my church life, but never an empty space!

In the afternoon we had tea with the Dean of the Catherdal-- Robert Willis. He spoke powerfully about the Cathedral and it's role in the life of England and also the life of the worldwide Anglican Communion. He said that this was our mother church, and that we should take "comfortable possession" of it. He spoke brilliantly about how this place belongs to all Anglicans and how his 250 Full-Time Staff (including only 6 clergy) and 800 volunteers practice hospitality. His passion and care were moving.

This place is incredibly beautiful. It's such a privilege to be here. I particularly love the little nooks and crannies and tea gardens hidden all around this place. Just when you think you know some part of the Cathedral grounds, you will discover some new passage leading to some ancient ruins or rarely-used chapel. Yesterday's Eucharist, for example, took place in the Holy Spirit Chapel, which visitors rarely see. A tiny medieval door in the chancel leads up scary stairs to a second-storey chapel that has a connection of Evelyn Underhill (a very important name in contemporary mysticism). There are constant surprises like that. On our first afternoon here, the Archdeacon hosted us for cocktails in her garden just north of the cloister. She explained that her house was once a pilgrim hostel and that before that the site was where the medieval monastery's kitchens would have been. One of the old cooking hearths still stands by the east wall of her garden. Bede pointed to one of the ruined arches and said, "Roman brick, presumably from some structure that predated whatever was built here."

We are staying in the Cathedral Lodge (also known as the International Student Centre), which about 20 feet from the Cathedral Wall. The rooms are VERY comfortable--much more like a nice hotel than any retreat house I've stayed at. From my window seat I can see the Cathedral towering over us. Right now I'm blogging from a lovely rose garden under an old copper birch tree while someone practices organ in the Cathedral.

Matins is usually said with about 40 people in the quire (aka "choir") of the church. So far it's just been from Common Worship 2000, modern rite. Simple but well-done.

Evensong is glorious. As it happens, every evening so far has been of high-enough calendar rank to get the choral treatment. The boys choir is spectacular, as is the men's choir that I described earlier. The boys all attend the King's College School here at the Cathedral. The girls of the school have an elaborate music training programme of their own, but generally don't participate musically in liturgies until they are older. The Dean explained that he would love to a have a girl's choir, but they simply don't have the resources to support it.

It's important to point out that Canterbury Cathedral (unlike many other famous Cathedrals like Notre Damme) receives no financial support from the government or the national church. They are entirely self sufficient. The gate fee for visitors pays for the necessary infrastructure for 1.4 Million Visitors a year, but the renovations and programmes are paid for by donations. Luckily, Canterbury has many patrons, so it's no surprise that they have a £1.6 Million project underway to restore the South Trancept window.

Later today I'll be saying Mass in the Jesus Chapel in the eastern part of the crypt. I'm very excited about that. It's neat to think about all the great holy people that have come through here on earthly pilgrimage. What a treat to be a part of that.

Another thought... this place has a richness that can be almost overwhelming. As Bede says, you have to kind of float on top of it all. Music, gorgeous stained glass, incense, 12th century frescos. It's a river of spiritual poetry.

A woman who lived on the Cathedral Close during World War II tells this story. On one particularly bad bombing raid the Germans attempted to destroy the cathedral. Bombs fell just North of the Cathedral (where I'm writing this now, in fact), and just South, and as she huddled in a basement by the Christ Church Gate she was sure they had demolished her beloved Cathedral. It was the end of everything she knew. Then the Tower Bell chimed the time and she knew, in her heart, that places like this are so much bigger than us, even bigger than kings and wars. In truth, a bomb hitting this place would merely have transformed it, as it did to Coventry Cathedral. That's the true beauty of a resurrection faith.

Time for another session...

-t

Location:S Close,Canterbury,United Kingdom

Arrival at Canterbury

2010-07-06T09:31:00.001-04:00

Just arrived for my week long retreat at Canterbury. The facilities at the International Student Centre on the grounds are incredible--very much like an cross between a high-end hotel and a seminary. Here a picture out my window... No kidding.

The flight and London traffic were rough. I need to regroup a bit.... Not sure how much I will be able/desiring to blog during retreat, but I didn't want people to think I had died!

-t

Location:S Close,Canterbury,United Kingdom

A Pablo Neruda kind of Afternoon

2010-06-22T14:26:00.004-04:00

Henry and I had a big day yesterday--several miles of walking and an hour of waiting at Service Ontario to update my Health Card. Henry did pretty well with the waiting in the Government Offices. He can be very flirty and made friends with several baby groupies. (For my American readers: Service Ontario is kind of a one-stop government office where you can get your Driver's License renewed or your Health Card, etc. It's nicer and more efficient than any DMV I've experienced in the states. I've been through the DMV process in CT, VA, NJ, CA, and KS. The worst, if you're wondering, was New Jersey by far. Anyway, the Service Ontario system is another sweet advantage of living in the "socialist" north.) After supper I transferred the watch to Betsy and went to play softball like I normally do on Monday nights.

I had a descent game. My batting is improving rapidly and my fielding was much better. There is lots of room for improvement, but that's why we play the game. But all this seemed pretty unimportant when one of the guys broke his leg sliding into second. It looked to me like he completely dislocated his ankle, but the EMS thought it was just a clean break. Either way, it looked bad, but I snapped right into the crisis mindset I learned as a hospital chaplain. My main concern when I first rushed over was bleeding. Did the fracture severe an artery or vein? When I saw that the fracture/dislocation had not punctured the skin, I was next looking for edema (blood pooling under the skin) but that didn't happen to an appreciable degree, either. At that point we were calling EMS and the guy's wife and even posting guys at the entrances of the park to flag down the ambulance. When the Paramedics arrived they got him on the gurney and took him to the hospital. They said that their main concern was possible nerve damage, but the fact that he could feel his foot was encouraging. Some of the guys were a little shaken by the experience. Me, I just kept thinking of how much worse it could have been. I remember a time when I carried a code/trauma beeper that would summon me to the worst possible kinds of carnage. Honestly, I kind of miss the adrenaline rush of those on-calls.

So today Henry and I are taking it easy. Did some cleaning in the morning, and now I'm in the living room having a Pablo Neruda kind of afternoon. Let me explain what that's like...

It's cool and rainy outside, so I have the doors open to let in the breaze and hear the rain. But I also have a fire going in the fireplace to add some dry warmth to the living room. Henry is on the floor having his mid-afternoon nap. That has become harder since his teeth started emerging from his gums. Me, I'm sipping a little Brandy. My fingers smell like a Cohiba because I was just checking the humidity in my humidor. (I only smoke a few cigars a year, but I like having them on hand just in case.) What else could complete such a scene except a little Pablo Neruda, one of my favourite poets. Check out his "Ode to the Onion":

Ode to the Onion
by Pablo Neruda
Trans. Stephen Mitchell

Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.

You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone

and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.

Days like this are made for poetry, warm fires, sleeping infants and cats, and brandy.

-t

Tay Moss - Ninja Priest

Chestnut "Chum" Restoration: Part 1

Bending Stems

Synod 2011 Video Responses

The Archbishop's Charge to Synod: 2011

Part 1

Part 2

What's God Up to in the Diocese of Toronto

Daube Provençale

Daube Provençale

Sermon - Reign of Christ 2011

Foie Gras aux Pruneaux

Foie Gras aux Pruneaux

"Developing Congregations"

More Wedding Photos...

Streetcar Wedding

"Reach"

Sermon - Harvest Thanksgiving 2011

Vital Church Planting Conferene 2011 Video

Massasauga!

Sermon - Holy Cross 2011

What is Prayer Like?

Where Does the Temple Begin,Where Does It End?

Contemplating Canoe Building

Here's a Koan for You...

Sermon - Pentecost 2011

Sermon - VCP 2011 Jenny Andison

Lamb

The Pulpit

Bixi - How To

Sermon and Baptism - Easter Day 2011

Sermon - Lent 5 2011

Psalm 130 - Emergent Psalter

Update on the Messiah Challenge

Sermon - Epiphany 6 2011

Blanquette de homard

Blanquette de Homard

Sermon - Lent 3 2011

Lapin aux Olives

Lapin aux Olives

Return of the Cold

Holy Week Planning 2011

Sermon - Reign of Christ 2010

Sermon - Lent 2 2011

The Last Seven Seconds

The Air

Safe Harbour

Sermon - Lent 1 2011

Last Epiphany

Black History Service at COTM

Annual Vestry....

Musicians

iPad

Update from the Trenches

Sunday Shifts

Hawai'i 2011

Psalm 201: Let Them Praise Eric

Psalm 201: "Quam decorus es vestri induviae"

Christmas!

Pasta with Ham and Mornay

Pasta with Ham and Mornay Sauce

Christmas 2.0

Tay's Chicken Noodle Soup

Tay's Chicken Noodle Soup

Funeral II

Office Time

Funerals

Hawai'i

Tidbit about Bipartinanship in US Congress

The Problem of Openness

The St. Paul's Water Project

Provoking the Liturgy

Go Fish

Days Off

Pot au Feu

Pot-au-Feu

Stress

Tay PA - Round 2

Appreciative Inquiry in the Diocese of Toronto

A Few Breakthroughs

Where Does the Temple Begin,
Where Does It End?