Edith Rankin Memorial United Church, Kingston Ontario

“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”  At least that’s what I was told to retort on the school playground when the other kids said mean and nasty things. Of course, we know that’s a crock. Words can be the death of us.  Verbal abuse and the vitriol spilled from the tongue can scar children for life, ruin careers and reputations, and generally wreak all kinds of havoc. And, of course, when the words are accompanied by pictures worth a thousand of them – be they poses purloined by relentless paparazzi or drunken teenagers with a smart phone – sticks and stones might seem merciful. We pass laws against libel, slander and hate crimes for a reason. Pity we don’t have laws against political ads! As role models for our youth, parliamentarians too often make us want to blush with shame at having elected them, especially during campaigns and  Q & A sessions when it’s obvious that their mothers never washed their mouths out with soap. Whatever  happened to civil discourse, even during disagreements? Honourable members, they are not.

Attack ads are alleged to work, although there is increasing evidence that this is less and less likely to be the case, at least where people with a working synapse are concerned. What is more evident, apart from the way they poison the airwaves, is that attack ads appear to normalize and even give some kind of official sanction not only to rudeness, but to deceit. If you repeat a lie often enough and loudly enough, folks may well come to believe it. But to win power by being a better liar than your opponent is hardly a noble victory and certainly one void of any virtue.

“If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all” is, I admit, rather naïve advice especially when there is truth to be told and evil to be resisted.  But surely we can request higher standards from politicians and other figures than trench mouth slurs and sandbox name calling that are little more than toxic fuel for violence of the sticks and stones and bombs and bullets type. Matthew, Mark and Luke all record that Jesus occasionally called his critics a bunch of hypocrites. Matthew even has Jesus call them a brood of vipers (Matthew 12.24; 23.33). Maybe it wasn’t one of Jesus’ better days. Or maybe the gospel writers were putting words in Jesus’ mouth to make Jesus a poster child for bones they had to pick with folks who said nasty things about their congregations. But Jesus could hardly be seen to be a big fan of attack ads and potty politics: “For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure. I tell you, on the day of judgement you will give an account for every careless word you utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12.34b-37).

Something tells me Jesus wasn’t simply talking about Election Day!

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Okay, I get it. Religion has a bit of a bad rap these days. Especially that oxymoronic thing called “organized religion”. Christians have been too imperialistic. Muslims can get a bit extreme. Judaism is just plain complicated.  And don’t get me start on  Buddhism! I’m sure those Buddhists have done something at some time or another to get somebody’s dander up. Half the time, my own religious group is so “dis-organized” I’m tempted to get a crush on all those terribly superior people who go around pronouncing that they “are very spiritual but not religious.” Gee, I wish I were a spiritual being and not stuck with having to work out my own salvation with both feet on the ground.

Anyway, religious types are a varied lot and some of us have done some naughty or downright nasty things. Even when we’ve behaved rather nobly and well (which is more often than not if truth be told), we’ve occasionally been too smug, too prudish, too arcane or just too boring. But the word relgion has Latin roots and has to do with “tying back”, “re-connecting” to those fundamental virtues and values that give life meaning, purposefulness, dignity and hope. I watch the evening news and am dismayed by the perversion of religion that leads to dreadful happenings in our world. Shame on us, for sure! And then I read about young Nova Scotian teen Rehtaeh Parsons, bullied to death by her peers after being sexually assaulted by 4 boys at a party where there was way too much drugs and booze. While I’m not nostalgic enough or naïve enough to think that families who do hard pew time together will never cross the foul line, I can’t help but remember a time when the things I learned in Sunday School were more than enough to prevent me from ever engaging in the kind of behaviour that had such dreadful consequences. Not because, I memorized a bunch of silly irrelevant rules or digested way too much bad theology, but because I learned that goodness and kindness, mutual respect and responsibility were actually treasures of great price. I can’t be sure, of course, but had Rehtaeh’s tormenters spent a bit more time in church or mosque or synagogue discovering the joys of loving both God and neighbour, her parents wouldn’t be waking up these mornings with irreparably broken hearts.

Oh, I’ve got a few bones to pick with my church. You see, I’m religious enough to want us to be better than we have been and better even than we are. I’m just glad and grateful that my religion has never ceased showing me that there is a Better   Way. Far better than drunken parties, sexual assaults, cyberbullying and teenage suicides.

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Spring has finally arrived today, with nary a cloud in the sky, warm sunshine coaxing the daffodils to blossom, and robins chirping from every tree. Goodbye, winter.

Every dog walker in the neighbourhood is picking up after their pooch.

A spokesperson for the British tabloids announced today that the paparazzi will no longer be hounding the Duchess of Cambridge and, if there is going to be a baby shower, they have some nice nappies they want to bring as gifts but promise not to take a single photo.

Saturday Night Hockey is looking for a new curmudgeon to replace the colourful Don Cherry. Cherry announced he could no longer tolerate violence in the game, was leaving Coaches Corner and, in spite of his age, hoping to enter the priesthood.

The National Rifle Association in the US has given up its opposition to gun control legislation. A spokesman said that the NRA had only been kidding all these years and that members used only plastic weapons and blanks because they couldn’t bear the thought of any living creature, never mind a child, getting shot.

Peace is busting out all over in the Middle East and spreading into Africa and may even erupt in the Korean peninsula. At a secret meeting held over the weekend, high ranking combatants and long-standing enemies decided that “rock, paper, scissors” would henceforth be used as a means of settling disputes.

Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair agreed last night over a couple of beers that, from now on, their parties would exchange a group hug before sessions of Parliament and always say “Please” and “Thankyou” during Question Period.

The Stanley Cup has already been awarded to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Spokespersons for the NHL said that the always amicable owners and players have agreed that there is no point in having playoffs this year since the Leafs are simply too good to be true and utterly unbeatable.

Justin Bieber tweeted his fans today to say he was sorry for being Justin Bieber. Both replied that it was okay.

All the folks who showed up in church yesterday for Easter services will be back again next Sunday.

But, seriously, you might want to check out I Corinthians 1.25!

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Haven’t blogged for awhile. Haven’t had anything to say. Some folks get a touch of March madness, I get a touch of March blahs. Nothing, probably, a little springtime wouldn’t cure, especially after a winter that seems reluctant to take its leave of us.  But what are you gonna do? Winter ends when it ends. Spring comes when it comes. In the meantime, even though I keep my snow shovel handy, I find my self noticing a few signs that both the weather and my spirit are starting to thaw.

I suspect Easter is like that for some folks. It takes awhile to dawn. People whose lives seem stuck in that long Holy Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday morning don’t find it easy to sing Hallelujah. Come to think of it, new life can be busting out all over, but if our lives are still feeling the chill of whatever ails us, it may take awhile for some of that new life to seep into the cracks of our own winter weary spirits.

The news that Christ had been raised from the dead seemed like an idle tale to the first disciples.  I get that. However we make sense of that tale today, the gospel storytellers all get it, too. Whatever happened in that borrowed tomb, Easter never really dawned for Jesus’ friends until they experienced his Presence and were renewed both by memories of his word and by a sense of hope for the future. Easter can take a while and waiting for it isn’t easy. But, like spring, it always comes. And more often than not, it surprises us when it does it does. That’s what makes it Good News, I guess. And why those hints of it I see are just enough to make me want to go look for my old copy of the Hallelujah Chorus. I may feel like singing it come Easter morning.

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When the eminent cardinals gather in the coming days to discern who among their number will be the next Pope, the crucial question is not who will wear “the shoes of the fisherman” but whether the white smoke rising from the Sistine Chapel is indicative of any fire within. While there may be some enthusiasm for ecclesiastical matters in Latin America and other Third World precincts, the hard fact remains that Benedict XVI is leaving behind a church that is in dire need of an extreme makeover.  It will require more than a peppy Pontiff who can text, tweet and put up a mean wall on Facebook. While conservatives and liberals can argue over which of their ilk they most prefer – not that there are any liberals in the papal conclave! – one can only hope that amidst the far from pious wheeling and dealing, there will be a few prayers for someone who is wise, gracious, courageous, truthful and trustworthy.  The pomp and circumstance, media hype and archaic protocols won’t be worth a teaspoon of holy water unless His next Holiness can help the church find its soul so easily lost with every attempt to gain the world.

It would be too easy and shameful for this Protestant outsider to peer through the keyholes of the cardinals’ secret conclave and tsk-tsk at the goings on there if it weren’t for the sorry state of the rest of the “one holy, catholic and apostolic church.” At least in Europe and North America. The church is simply sliding off the radar of most people and many of those for whom it is still a blip regard it as a minor option tucked away among various sundry pastimes. Protestants can’t lobby for a pontiff to rescue our perishing numbers, improve our credibility in the court of public opinion or simply be there to blame when the world squeezes the last of us into its mould and there’s nary a choir member left to turn off the lights. Without a little fire within, a genuine spiritual renewal to kindle a flame of both zeal and relevant purpose, Protestants will pretty much disappear with neither a bang nor a whimper, but simply with a yawn.

May the Holy Spirit sneak or muscle its way into the Papal Conclave in the coming days. And when it’s finished its work there, may it wing its way over to my churchly precincts and see if there are any embers still burning among the ashes. In both venues, if the Spirit still blows where it wills, perhaps the embers will become a flame and the world will get a chance to see some holy smoke after all.

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