The West Beyond the West

{Textile squares hanging in Kim's design studio at Capilano College reminded me of Tibetan "prayer flags"}.

Last Thursday morning Krista drove me to the airport and I flew just over an hour to the city of glass, water, and cedar. Douglas Coupland has written well about this fair city. And soon, in an annual dance, it will be drenched with cherry blossoms. In Life After God, Coupland writes about how the geography ofVancouver, hanging on the edge of the world, created a new moral space, beyond the boundaries of the Rockies, a place where people from "back east" could create something new.

Vancouver has always lived large in my consciousness, since, for most of my childhood it was "the city." My parents used to take us often - a few times a month to picnic on the lawn in front of the Ferguson Point Tea House at Stanley Park, overlooking Spanish Banks. We would stroll through Gastown in the early 80s, and I had a ritual of playing amidst the First Nations' treasures at Hill's, and then buying butterscotch candies in a tartan tin at some Scottish tourist shoppe.

At the course I took on Friday on the topic of "The Challenge of Sustainability for Heritage Conservation" , I learned that in the 1970's the plan was to raze all of Gastown to build a dozen or so high-rise towers. I also learned how, during World War Two, the Canadian beaurocrat W.C. Clifford wrote most of the tax code here in Canada specifically to encourage the demolition of older buildings. He wanted a fresh start, and worked tenaciously to make level every historic urban area in Canada a tabula rasa for his conception of a rational, Modernist plane. Clifford went so far as to actually call those who cherished older buildings "perverts." Are we? Am I? Despite the fact that "sustainability" is perhaps the slipperiest of planning buzzwords, and if you've been to a dozen conferences on the topic you've pretty much been to them all, I took one thing away from this day. That the possibility still exists to foster a culture of repair. This is really what the whole thing is about: finding modest ways to consider what we discard and throw away. The practice of salvage lived large in the course. Salvage is sometimes good - but not "vulturistic" salvaging... robbing Peter to pay Paul. The very fact that the culture of repair was mentioned was hopeful to me, planning as I am to take my broken wedding shoes to a cobbler one of these days.

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In the course of the weekend, I had many blessings: Attending Kim's classes with her and just getting some good visits in, meeting some new friends (as well as visiting old ones for French Toast on Saturday), and enjoying some peaceful music. Back in the Edmonton airport, as I waited for my Beloved to come pick me up, I talked Church politics (God, forgive me!) with an Eastern Catholic nun from Saskatoon. No matter how enchanting Vancouver is, there is substitute for coming home.

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Speaking of another kind of "conservation," please do take a moment to check out A Rocha Canada. This is an amazing organization that works worldwide, encouraging Christians to engage in care for the Creation. Our good friends Jay and Milissa Ewing are embarking on a journey with A Rocha as Directors of the Field Study Centre in Canada. This is an amazing work, so please join in prayer with and for them!

Tomorrow I will cross the Peace River

A. Y. Jackson, Peace River Bridge, 1943.

Compatriots in the District

The cool slang for Washington, D.C., is "the District."

This morning, before my last session at the conference, I finally made it down to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. With very full days of listening to academic papers (my new friend Dan Greeson has a good list of them), I've not had as much time to see "the District" as I would on a more leisurely trip. That said, I have wanted to visit these sites ever since reading about them in an article in a 1960's era National Geographic that I read as a kid. {Digression: In my parents' house we had hundreds of these old magazines, going back to the 40s - a wall of yellow. Every night, before bed, I would pick one at random and carefully page through it, reading whatever interested me. I always liked the old car adds in the front, and the black and white military school classified in the back.} I'm pretty sure this is how I picked up a lot of my trivia. In any case, this particular article was written by a young Sikh man {strangely he was from Burma and knew then U.N. Secretary General, U Thant.} This guy travelled around the States in a little campervan, recording his journey in photos as he went. As a ten-year-old, I greatly admired his spontaneity.

I called Krista and we got to visit through digital particles and soundwaves floating through the late November brightness here this morning. As I approached the Lincoln Memorial, I thought of this great man that I know mainly through Elton Trueblood's book Abraham Lincoln: Theologian of American Anguish. I also thought of how much it resembles a classical pagan temple, right down to the statue of Lincoln seated inside. Then I saw the sign above his head, which reads:

"IN THIS TEMPLE /
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE /
FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION /
THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN /
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER."

Several of the papers this weekend dealt with theology's relationship to the political.

I have always been struck by the religious nature of public life in the United States. Is it in spite of or because of "the separation of Church and State" that this country is so religious? When Karl Barth came to the States in the early 1960s, it was precisely the nation's deeply religious character that stood out to him. "I can see that in every way you are very religious," (Acts 17.22).

We talked as I walked up to the temple precinct. 1 Corinthians 8-11 flashed into my mind. Thankfully, there were no hot-dog carts in site, so I didn't have to worry about meat being offered to the idol; I did, however, accidentally kick over a travel mug of coffee that someone had left unattended. I'm hoping that this doesn't count as latreia? Krista asked, "Do Americans worship their Presidents, or something?" Touring these monuments you might get that impression. I felt as though I might as well have been in Delphi or Ephesos or somehting. Of course, there is a historical tradition of a quasi-imperial cult in the American republic. It was also in National Geographic that I first saw the painting "The Apotheosis of George Washington" by Constantino Brumidi. It is not surprising that this fresco was painted in 1865, at the conclusion of the Civil War and the year of the death of America's 'Messiah'-president, Lincoln. We should also be aware, as the Apostle was, as Barth was, that it is in the most religious societies that there exists the greatest tendancy and temptation towards idolatry. True worship of the true God is the only antidote.

Don't get me wrong. In good ole' Methodist fashion, my heart was 'strangely warmed' at these monuments this morning. As I entered into the naos of the Lincoln Memorial, I suddenly remembered that today is the the Feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple. But this was not all. I discovered that I was truly on hallowed ground. I soon found the spot where Dr. King gave uttered the words, "I have a dream..." Just down the steps, on the same day, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez sang "With God on Our Side".

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Most of us have many idolatries. In the precincts of national memory, I was challenged to wrestle with some of my own. I hope that the theological reflection on the political will bear good fruit.

In any case, I was also pleased to meet some fellow Canadians at the monuments.

Matthew Francis Goes to Washington

Yes, this is me standing in front of the White House. I've come here to Washington to attend the Annual Congress of the Society of Biblical Literature. It is a place filled with lots and lots of talk. There are about 4000 Religious Studies and Theology profs hanging around, talking on and on about one thing or another. And I diligently did my part. First thing this morning I presented my paper in the "Bible and American Popular Culture" Section, and our theme for this year was "Speciality Bibles." There is a pretty diverse selection of Bibles out there, including "Biblezines" which contain the whole text of the New Testament in a format akin to Seventeen or Men's Health . I wonder what Marshall McLuhan might think of these? I'm pretty happy with how it went, and had some helpful feedback from some of the attendees. A prof. from Texas presented on the very odd illustrated Bible called The Brick Testament, which has Biblical scenes conveyed entirely through Lego. (Warning: Not suitable for all viewers). My paper was entitled "The Orthodox Study Bible and Orthodox Identity in North America", and attempts to understand the meaning of the volume put out in 1993, interestingly by the same publisher as the Biblezines (collaboratively with a whole bunch of Orthodox clergy). Some people loved it, some people didn't. Whatever side you take, I argue it's still an important publication. If you're interested in conversing about this, feel free to post a comment or to email me.

Anyway, its been good to be here (after a crazy all-night flight and sprinting my lungs out in Toronto to catch my connection), and to see friends old and new. Oh yeah, and there's a room the size of two football fields full of theological books for sale at discount prices. Help!!

It is only minor consolation to know that during this sojourn, missing Krista and home... I can take solace in billions of words - I pray that some of them might even be meaningful.

Akathist at Sts. Peter & Paul, Montreal

On Friday night we served an Akathist (a style of liturgical prayer-poetry) in the presence of the Port Arthur Mother of God Icon.

There is an interesting story behind this icon (surrounded by flowers on the left of this image - click on the picture for a larger view). This copy was given as a gift to our Archdiocese of Canada, and will be permanently located in our Cathedral in Ottawa.

You can see a few more photos from my trip to Montreal over here.

Home is where one starts from...

On Thursday I am flying to the city of my parents' meeting and courtship, the city of their wistful nostalgia at the mention of its name. It is the city of my pre-history, and the burial ground of my paternal grandparents. If time allows, I will try to spend a moment at their graveside. On Thursday, I am flying to Montreal.

To my knowledge, I've never been there. My mom and dad took us on a trip that way when I was two or three, but our car broke down in a small Francophone town called St. Isidore, and I fell out of the car, smashing my forehead on the curb. Blood spilled everywhere. My dad informed me (as he rushed me into some hospitable old lady's house to provide some First Aid), that I had broken my "pumper vein." So we didn't make it then to Montreal.

This time, I am going to lend a hand in the awe-inspiring, fatiguing, harrowing work of the Church (to attend our Archdiocesan Council meeting on behalf of the younger generations), a role I'm honoured to play - as an assistant to Fr. Richard. We go to parish rich in history, Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral... almost 100 years old. It has struggled, and flourished, and declined, and now, again begins to open up. They have extended a warm invitation to us. It is the Church of the Apostles who at times vehemently disagreed, but continued to love each other anyway. It is the Church of Iron Sharpening Iron (Proverbs 27.17 ).

So it's time here again to return to Four Quartets, now to East Coker.

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.

The morning of September 11, 2001...

...I woke up deep in the Black Forest. Well, actually on the floor of Matt Friesen's dorm room – but it was in the Black Forest – in Freiburg, Germany, to be precise. I’d been visiting Matt for a while and we’d arranged months previously… while walking around in the West End of Vancouver to see the Icelandic singer Bjork in Stuttgart, Germany. So Matt bought the tickets – quite pricey as I recall and we made arrangements to go to the show. I’d moved back to Manchester, had just submitted an MA dissertation entitled The Apocalypse of Sacred Space: Christian Conceptions in the Book of Revelation. But I was about to learn something about apocalyptic apocalyptic. I was about to witness an apocalypse (or two).

Matt and I arrived at the Hoptbahnhof (sp?) and made our way through Karlsruhe to Stuttgart. On the train we talked – no joke – about the end of the Pax Americana: Bush’s sabre rattling with China, etc. We were early and had several hours before the show. The city seemed to be built in an awkward postmodern guise: decimated as I assumed it had been by the ravages of Allied bombing in the WWII. We strolled around. There were street performers in various places, but we were unimpressed with Stuttgart’s apparent bleakness. We went and found the hall where the Bjork show was going to be. Matt bought an alarm clock at a department store in the centre of the city (first reports of an aviation incident in New York were on TVs), we browsed in a feminist bookstore (all in German) tried to use the washrooms in one building that looked public and were shooed out. We finally went and got something to eat at a Turkish kebab shop. On the way, walking through a tunnel, past some skate-punks with graffiti, I had the ominous premonition. I said to Friesen, “I think the world might end today.” It was there, as the proprietor made our kebabs, that we saw the footage. Al-Jazeerah was playing, and the first thing we saw was Palestinians rejoicing, cheering. What is this? Then the planes, again and again.

A crack in the universe.

“Are you Americans?” he asked, in English. Strange, since Matt had ordered in German.

“Canadians.”

“Ah, well, Canada’s next you know! Thirty cities have been hit so far!” he said.

I thought immediately of my friends in London. And Calgary’s an oil town. No doubt they’d be one of those. My head swam. We stumbled outside and I gazed at the sky, fully expected fighter planes to swoop overhead to bring on the end. My thoughts, selfishly, went to my dissertation. "Good Lord! Was I wrong?! – were those nut-jobs right?” Forgive the expression, but I was thinking of The Rev. Jack Van Impe and the like. (Comedic sidebar: In 2001, Jack Van Impe Ministries won the Ig Nobel Prize for astrophysics for their assertion that "black holes fulfill all the technical requirements to be the location of Hell.") This sounds like their kind of thing. What is this? My head reeled. I wanted to search out a priest, to confess all of my sins. I felt like falling to the ground right there. But the heavens did not open up like a scroll. Instead, I looked at Friesen. He looked at me. We looked at the price on our Bjork tickets. It was something like one hundred and fifty three German marks (yes, they still had marks then). “Do you think the show is still on?”

We walked around the corner to the concert hall. A gaggle of Bjork fans were standing about. The ambient noise group Matmos was opening for Bjork. It was like any other day – any other group of people milling around. This was about 5:30pm German time – maybe 9 or 10am in New York. They probably hadn’t heard yet! Matt and I walked in an adjoining cemetery for a while. A moment of quiet. We waited around a couple of hours, processing, thinking, praying, uncertain of what was to come. And then, the doors of the hall opened. It was a gorgeous theatre. We found our seats. Friesen smuggled in a small recording device and captured the whole show. Matmos was good. And then, Bjork, with a full orchestra, a choir of female singers from Greenland. It was captivating. Her ethereal voice rang out, “It’s not up to you… it never really was.” And then, in English, she spoke of hearing the news of the disaster. She said she had written “a prayer that day for the people of the island of Manhattan.” She sang it in Icelandic – a prayer she called “Gotham Lullaby.” The whole show was full of such astonishing beauty that I was given hope that the world would survive. We walked through the streets buoyed by the goodness of the people around us, talking about the show in excited German. Hearing some French in the crowd. And then, we found ourselves in this new place, this square we had not found before. And in the middle of the square was a tall column, with an archangel poised atop – illuminated. It had been raised over a hundred years before, to commemorate victory in a war. This messenger of God appeared to be standing in the “fear not” pose. And to us it was a revelation – an unveiling of a kind of mercy, an apocalypse of hope on that darkest of nights.

We walked through the park and Matt played some portions of show back. We slept on the cold station platform in Karlsruhe, and the next day awoke to a changed world.

A Prairie Road East...

Bright and early tommorrow morning, Krista and I are hitting the open road - the Yellowhead Highway east for Saskatoon. We're heading to the "City of Wonder," my sweet girl's hometown for the wedding of our friends Rachel and Micah. What a joy to see these two get married! As the Orthodox service says, may the Lord, "Crown them with glory and honour." And it also happens to be our first anniversary, so we'll do a little celebrating, too.

See you next week...

The Baptism of Owen Lanteigne

This past Sunday Krista and I became Godparents to Owen Pierre Edward Lanteigne. We flew on Thursday morning to Abbotsford, BC and soaked in the lush verdant green of the Fraser Valley as we landed. We stayed with Mom and Dad out in Chilliwack, who live just around the corner from Owen's parents - our awesome friends Gabe and Amy. It was a great honour when he and Amy asked us both to serve as Godparents to their first son.

The weekend turned out to be a great rest for us from our usual routines here in Edmonton. Krista has just finished her clinical placement, and I've recently started my new job, so it was nice to get a little break before the summer. Krista started her new summer job at the Royal Alex. Hospital yesterday! We spent some time with my brother Jeff and Catherine and the kids on Saturday morning after breakfast with our incredible friend Ryan Wugalter, and were able to attend Vespers on Saturday night at Saint Herman of Alaska Orthodox Church in Langley, where the next morning Owen was baptized and chrismated (anointed with holy chrism - a special holy oil made by the Bishops each year with fragrant spices). I held him during most of these prayers. After the actual baptism, Krista held Owen as we processed with Fr. Lawrence around the font three times.

After church, Kurt and Victoria hosted a BBQ at their place. I drove back to Chilliwack with Kim and Gabe Friesen (Krista went with Amy and Ryan's girlfriend Katie), and there we had a good ole' party, and then Krista and I headed off for our flight home. Soaring over the sea of jagged mountains, I watched Fox News Sunday and the latest whirl of news from Washington, DC swam by me.

This poem seems fitting. The beginning of a new life, an old poet reflecting on newness in ripe old age (Thanks Victoria for this).

Late Ripeness

Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year,
I felt a door opening in me and I entered
the clarity of early morning.

One after another my former lives were departing,
like ships, together with their sorrow.

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas
assigned to my brush came closer,
ready now to be described better than they were before.

I was not separated from people,
grief and pity joined us.
We forget - I kept saying - that we are all children of the King.

For where we come from there is no division
into Yes and No, into is, was, and will be.

We were miserable, we used no more than a hundredth part
of the gift we received for our long journey.

Moments from yesterday and from centuries ago -
a sword blow, the painting of eyelashes before a mirror
of polished metal, a lethal musket shot, a caravel
staving its hull against a reef - they dwell in us,
waiting for a fulfillment.

I knew, always, that I would be a worker in the vineyard,
as are all men and women living at the same time,
whether they are aware of it or not.

- Czeslaw Milosz

An Incredible Weekend - With the Feast!

I think I must be the luckiest guy in the world sometimes (and luck, of course, has nothing to do with it!). This past weekend I got to participate in a retreat out at the the Holy Cross Chaplaincy at UBC in Vancouver, and also head over to the Island in a Cessna 172 for some time with the awesome people of All Saints of Alaska. I have to say to that it was so amazing to be with everyone out there in BC, including friends old (Jay, Milissa) and new - (Matthew D., Mark N., Dave P. Raphael L. among many others), and my awesome sister and Mom & Dad! Thank you so much to you all for your amazing friendship and generosity to this guy from across the mountains.

And, I also got to meet the little boy that Krista and I have been blessed to be asked to serve as Godparents to - Owen P.E. Lanteigne!

Here's a picture from the Festal Divine Liturgy of the Annunciation that was served at the retreat on Saturday. It was so amazing to see Vladika Lazar and these three amazing priests - Fr. John, Fr. Justin, and Fr. Christopher at the Holy Altar together... well, you can't actually see Fr. Justin in this picture, but hey - there's Christian! Hey Christian!.