O Canada!

I'm on the road to Chicago, heading for CPT's bi-annual Peace Congress.  This year, we celebrate 25 years of peacemaking and peacebeing around the globe, hearing from working partners, hearing voices of celebration and voices of challenge.

All that is ahead of me.  But what I'm thinking on just now are all the Canadian friends I've made through CPT.  We're so close and so similar, and yet so very different, Canada and the United States. 

So to the non-Canadians out there, if you've never been, you should go.  Canada has the better view of Niagra Falls and Dan Akroyd, Jim Carrey, and Raymond Burr (hey, laugh if you want to, but Perry Mason is one of the big reasons I became a lawyer!). 

Two Canadians  were the inventors of the first electric light bulb, not, as we're led to believe in the US, Thomas Edison.

On a more personal note, Gregg introduced me to the music of Ben Harper and taught me that a smile is as good as, if not better than, a speech.

Doug taught me to listen better.

Allen taught me that farmers may just save the world, if we'll let them.

Harmeet taught me that caring is a lifetime vocation.

Jim taught me that grace is a verb.

To them all, I am so very grateful.

And call me unpatriotic, but if you're going to have a flag, isn't a symbol of nature and beauty so much better than a symbol of yourself?

Ah Canada! 

I'm So Glad

Weeks ago, somebody spoke to me about suffering in a way that gut punched me - bringing back, as it did, memories of Tom Fox . . . of his murder in Iraq . . .

I called dear friend Anita, who was there through it all.  She reminded me of something important: when it comes to suffering the pain of loss, it’s not something we ‘get over’, at least not in the sense of it no longer being true.

The fact is, all that happens to and around us affects us – always.  The ‘it’ of the thing becomes a part of all our continuous present moments.

I won’t ever be over Tom’s death, his murder.

Tom’s passing from this life is a part of my story too, simply because I knew him.

Recently, I began reading James Loney’s book Captivity.  Jim was kidnaped along with Tom and two others: Norm and Harmeet.  The book is compelling reading.  I have dreaded picking it up.  The only thing that got me to is that if Jim could live it and write it, the least I could do is read it.  And I am.  Often I put it down, doubled over with the pain of remembering.  But I am reading it.

This past week, I have been in Indianapolis for the Presbyterian Big Tent gathering.

One of the gifts of being here is the continual and random encounters with people I have known but not seen face-to-face in a long time, most of them from my time at PTS (Princeton Theological Seminary).

Over and over again, we say the same thing to each other: “I am so glad you’re in my life.”

When I hear it, I understand perfectly.  I feel exactly the same way.

All of the ‘its’ that become a part of the fabric of our lives certainly include the tough and painful times: the deaths of those we know and care about, the suffering of another whose life intersects with our own, our very own personal suffering.  And those suffering moments do, as my friend Anita maintains, become a part not only of our past, but also of our continuing present.

What is so easy to lose sight of, however, is so too the good ‘its’.  And the joy of friendships past is indeed a present reality.

Molly, Bridgett, Kiran, and so many others, I am so very glad you’re in my life.