More Ponderings

My day of reflection yesterday was fruitful. In the morning I wrote a 1^st draft of a sermon for the Harvest Festival at South District Church – and yes- I included my issue about water as a part of the celebration and hope we can bring with the stewardship of God’s good gift.

Then I went to the beach to paint. After some searching along the west coast of the island, I found an interesting local park south of Holetown. It was called Bat Rock Beach and it was under some degree of rehabilitation because of some of the old structures. The surf was just pounding for it had been very windy that morning. With the tall waves came the surfers – tourists and locals. They were intriguing to watch playing in the thundering caps and obviously enjoying the sport. I sat by a low coral rock wall on the clean sand and soaked it all in. But it was the rocks that eventually pulled my attention more and more. I became struck by the relationship between the people and the rock upon which they live. When housing is the topic, it finds expression as “owning a piece of the rock”. When construction is underway, it’s all about manipulating the rock. When the surf curls on the ocean, it is because of the coral reef that edges the island of coral. When I leaned against that coral rock wall, it seemed like I leaned into a spirit and I began to sense the people themselves – porous like the rock they live on.

Perhaps I glorify this sense of the spirit. Perhaps I juxtapose my imaginings of what it must have been like historically to work this land on the rock – cutting cane by hand like the slaves had to do and digging crypts and foundations for churches where there was only rock. Maybe I glorify things or perhaps I sense something of the fragile life upon this rock. And every day, the water pounds away at it and transforms it.

What Spirit will these people need? From where will their visions come? Where will their hope find fertile ground? Living as a developing nation with a relatively short history of independence, the fruits of their first visions, hopes and spirit as a free people, these fruits are seen in their universal health, education and social networks. Yet, the tides are pounding the whole global community. Global warming, for example has a particular reality for this little island like it does for all coastal communities around the world. Yet, Barbados also has the 3^rd least amount of fresh water per land area in the world – add to this a history of decimating the landscape in order to grow sugar cane for export to colonial powers and the more recent effects of massive urbanization in response to the tourism industry and its consumption of water and Barbados is struggling with desertification.

Throughout the world, the voices of the silenced ones scream as they try to protect the old lands while many of the inhabitants of our communal home consume our very home for profit. Living in our new Empire with its monopoly of economics and cultural, we threaten the diversity and tolerance that has been built up by the people of this island. If I can just glimpse how this rock called Barbados responds to their ongoing struggles, what hopes and visions they lift up to the winds, then my time here will be a real gift. I wonder what I have to shed from my own being so that I can glimpse these things?

Blessings - come again!

Just some thinking

Monday morning, February 26th:

Before I came on this internship journey, The United Church sent me on a 10-day Orientation with the Canadian Churches’ Forum on Global Ministries. As I begin to live this unique experience deeply, more and more of my learnings from that Orientation are surfacing to both challenge me and to reassure me. The reassurance is easier to describe, so I’ll start with that one.

There’s a natural emotional cycle that all mission personnel go through. The first is the emotional “high” where all your senses are on high alert trying to take in and process all the new environment – physical, spiritual, historical, social and intellectual. After a period of this rapid input and processing, there will come a time where one begins to “crash”. Often characterized by symptoms of withdrawal and excessive yearning for that which is familiar, one begins to feel pressed in by the new forces around them, forces that once were delightful and invitational now begin to feel awkward and overwhelming.

The past few days I have seen that second cycle begin to emerge and I am very thankful for the “heads up” that I received in the time of Orientation. Yesterday’s time of worship at Vauxhall Church and their Harvest Cantata were very good places for me to be. The genuine hospitality was comforting. The special card of welcome touched me. The wonders of a community in celebration eased my spirit and brought out laughter and a sense of direction.

That evening, I brought out my paints for young Justen – Mary’s nephew who is an expressive and energetic 10 year old. He had been intrigued by my watercolour crayons and wanted to know how they worked. Letting him play with them drew me also into their possibilities of expression. I noted immediately the need to lose myself in them as a way to open up my inner self that had absorbed much these last 2 weeks. I knew then that I would be seeking the beach tomorrow with my paints. I wonder what Sophia (Holy Spirit) will try to get me to see. I am assured by the fore-knowledge that these emotions were to come and that I know that I must not only stay connected with people but allow space for my interior being to open up.

The particular challenge that I already find myself in is the tendency to jump to conclusions based upon my biases and passions, both which are shaped by a radically different context than that which exists in the psyche, soul and society here in Barbados. I am struggling between using my voice as an instrument of another perspective and silencing it out of respect for all that I know that I do not know.

The case before me – last Friday (Feb. 23^rd) there was an article in the “Weekend Nation” titled “Prayer team out in full for CWC (the CWC is the Cricket World Cup). I read through the initiatives of a certain denomination to reach out to the 30,000+ visitors expected on the island for the semi-finals and finals being played in Barbados over the next 8 weeks. This denomination has printed out 80,000 tracts (leaflets) and has plans to distribute 30,000 bottles of Aquafina water, free of charge. The message on the tract will be “Sharing Jesus Christ – Free Living Water to All – Drink and Thirst No More – John 4:14”.

I have been in deep contemplation since reading about this proposed water distribution as an evangelism strategy. To appreciate the roots of what is upsetting me one needs to be aware of the state of water in our global village and the dire forecasts around water from the United Nations. Bottled water is the fastest growing global trend and it threatens the very nature of life on this planet. (for more information, please access the following websites: http://www.polarisinstitute.org/node/49 and http://www.worldwaterday.org/) . Living within our new Empire means that water can be privatized and sold rather than being a free and basic human right for all. With World Water Day approaching on March 22^nd, I am preoccupied by the irony that I see in this evangelistic tool. First, one needs to acknowledge that bottled water is a commodification of our basic human needs that not only further creates injustice but also is destroying the very world that God created as a good gift to us humans. To give bottled water away in order to preach salvation through Jesus Christ is a dysfunctional expression of a faith perspective that is called to respond to all of creation is groaning for justice and God’s Shalom.

It will be interesting to see how I find my voice during this upcoming weekend's Harvest Festival in South District and the season of Lent ahead of us. I am a guest in this country and I am a representative of a national church; but I am foremost a child of God who calls me out of my hope filled faith into action for the sake of all that God has loved into being. I will pray for much wisdom over these days of challenge.

Thanks for visiting - come again!