Pop 89: I’m Counting On Grace
By Madonna Hamel
I miss our church and the odd little congregation that made it up. We've been closed for a while now. I can see the steeple from my back window. It used to light up at night, glowing suspended in the dark night sky, giving off a reassuring blue glow, the same blue often associated with Jesus' mom.
It may not be politically cool for me to long for a glowing cross in the sky these days, given the horrific history of treachery visited upon indigenous people by religious zealots in the formative years of this country. But I have always found comfort in crosses: The mother-of-pearl one hanging in our house, the large crucifix bearing the body of a mortally wounded Christ in the chapel of my childhood years (that crucifix began swinging back and forth once during a minor earthquake in our town), and another lit cross on the banks of Donnaconna. The cross replaces the one Champlain erected to thank St. Anne, patron of ocean voyages, for getting him safely across the Atlantic. His men were dying of scurvy until the local Huron showed them how to boil cedar boughs into tea. You can still get a cup of that tea at the Donnaconna Visitor's Centre. I lived behind it and would often walk over and down a paper cup full whenever I caught a cold. (Thank you and Merci to my Huron ancestors!)
As I write this, I am looking out over my brother's garden: twenty raised beds spilling over with squashes of all kinds, carrots, beets, kale, herbs and fallen apples. I am back on Cortes Island, and everything is still vibrant evergreen with interspercings of flaming red and yellow of maples. We are doing what we can to prepare for winter. My brother has made progress after his stroke, but some things will never change. And some will never return. And the daily, momentary struggle and letting go of an old life is an ongoing chore that takes precedence. My brother is my teacher now. I listen; I try not to use insulting, placating clichés empty of meaning. I pray a lot. We both do. On the drive to Nanaimo for more meetings with the neurosurgeon and the occupational therapist, we recite the rosary, just like we did when we were a young family on road trips. We cling to the ornate wee crucifixes on the tip of the lasso of beads.
We talk about the whole cultural shift away from practicing religious traditions that focus not on "getting" but "offering up" to secular habits of constructing tailor-made individual consolations concerned with temporal, material compensations. My brother and I can work up a good rant when we get on this subject. But it's a worthy awareness - the realization that an obsession with "getting mine," "getting recognition," and "getting even" is a painful posture toward life. Resentment and revenge do not strengthen the soul; they strangle it. Mired in self-pity and victimhood, we keep our worlds small and our vision navel-ward; we leave no room for Grace.
Belonging to The Nativity of The Blessed Virgin Mary Church meant having to put away my petty complaints and incessant cravings. All the postures and gestures and rituals reined me in, humbled me and unified me with the others – all eight of us. We had to sit and pray, sing, sit, kneel and stand together in unison and harmony for an hour, ideally not focusing on the slights others have visited upon us but on strengthening the habit of compassion for others. The cross on the wall behind the altar was not there to keep us grieving and dour but to remind us of the others in the world who are hurting, caught in that dire moment of despair, hitting complete bottom. We pray for Grace to visit not us but them, and in so doing, feel It's sweet relief.
I still haven't found a new church. Like many, I say my church is Nature. I am fortunate to be living on the edge of Grasslands National Park, where every day, a stunning sunrise or sunset, a glimpse of a moose or a bison mother with babies trailing her across a plateau or out of a swamp, fill me with the same (and often, even greater) sense of wonder that prayer and hymns do. But that is another kind of church. The church of wandering off into the desert to fast from other humans and human noises and to pray the soft, sad prayers of the heart is an essential church for anyone searching for a conversation with their God. But The Church is nothing without The People; it is The People. And no matter how misanthropic I prefer to be – lifting myself above the fray with lines like "the more I talk to people, the more I prefer my dog" and "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy," the less good I am to anyone, the more I know I must get me to a rural church. Kneel among others. And bake some Matrimonial Squares for coffee after mass.
In the old days, after special masses – weddings, funerals, Christmas - at The Nativity, we retired to the basement and sat around tables, eating squares and cookies and sipping weak coffee while we, the faithful, expressed our doubts. We grumbled that the cities just don't understand the effort and planning it takes to get to mass some Sundays, especially during calving season or in the midst of a blizzard. "Who cares about us?" we moaned, "a few small congregations in leaky churches miles apart and accessible only by bumpy roads?"
The diocese suggested we amalgamate and meet in different churches each week, even in each others' homes. (I cringed at the thought of opening up my living room, with my piles of books covering a crumb-covered rug.) "It'll never happen," we mumbled. "We won't survive". And out rolled the list of miserable scenarios. "Please," interrupted gentle Fr. Hope, our priest at the time, raising his palm and calming our catastrophizing with his deep, sonorous voice, "please remember to always leave room for Grace."
Like our beloved last priest, Fr. Joe, who was in his late 70s and in pain due to a never-quite-recovered broken back, still managed to make us think and laugh and hope and dream; Fr. Hope reminded me that whenever I feel a stir of empathy or compassion for someone's plight, when I may have harboured a resentment against someone, and suddenly am broken open by an unexpected glimpse of the frightened child in them, or by some unattended guarded sorrow, burbling up and revealed by their eyes or their voice, I know: that's Grace happening. Grace always shows up when I least expect it. I'm counting on it now.earching for a conversation with their God. But The Church is nothing without The People, it is The People. And no matter how misanthropic I prefer to be – lifting myself above the fray with lines like “the more I talk to people, the more I prefer my dog” and “God is great, beer is good and people are crazy”, the less good I am to anyone, the more I know I must get me to a rural church. Kneel among others. And bake some Matrimonial Squares for coffee after mass.
In the old days after special masses – weddings, funerals, Christmas - at The Nativity we retired to the basement and sat around tables, eating squares and cookies and sipping weak coffee, while we, the faithful, expressed our doubts. We grumbled that the cities just don't understand the effort and planning it takes to get to mass some Sundays, especially during calving season or in the midst of a blizzard. “Who cares about us?” we moaned, “a few small congregations in leaky churches miles apart and accessible only by bumpy roads?”
The diocese suggested we amalgamate and meet in different churches each week, even in each others' homes? (I cringed at the thought of opening up my living room, with my piles of books covering a crumb-covered rug.) “It'll never happen”, we mumbled. “We won't survive”. And out rolled the list of miserable scenarios. “Please,” interrupted gentle Fr.Hope, our priest at the time, raising his palm, and calming our catastrophizing with his deep, sonorous voice, “please remember to always leave room for Grace.”
Like our beloved last priest, Fr. Joe, who in his late 70's and in pain due to a never-quite-recovered broken back, still managed to make us think and laugh and hope and dream, Fr. Hope reminded me that whenever I feel a stir of empathy or compassion for someone's plight, when I may have harboured a resentment against someone, and suddenly am broken open by an unexpected glimpse of the frightened child in them, or by some unattended guarded sorrow, burbling up and revealed by their eyes or their voice, I know: that's Grace happening. Grace always shows up when I least expect it. I’m counting on it now.