Fenya & Bobby's Wedding - June 24, 2023

The most momentous June in living memory was capped off yesterday by a small but beautiful wedding ceremony uniting Fenya and Bobby.

Mr. & Mrs. Valencia!

They got engaged 27 days earlier after celebrating four years together this May, and with not just the blessing of Audrey and I, but our full-throated encouragement.

You see, Bobby has been accepted into the doctoral program of the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto starting this fall, so the two of them are moving to the Big Smoke this summer. Housing, especially for a couple starting out, is both sparse and expensive, and you can't apply for couples or family housing at U of T unless you are already married or living common-law.

Back in March, I started joking with Bobby about getting him a ladder for his birthday so the two of them could elope, but it turns out that particular cartoon trope has no relevance for the youth of today. So Audrey and I made it very clear that if they wanted to get married very quickly in order to get on the one year + waiting list for U of T housing, it was all right with us, even if they went down to City Hall or flew to Vegas and then told us after the fact.

Thankfully they decided against that and instead made plans for two weddings: a tiny, more casual one this year, with a minimal number of friends and family in attendance, followed by a larger one with a wedding party, reception and all the trimmings, presumably next year.

Rev. Mervin Gallant, our minister for seven years at St. Albert U.C., agreed to marry them at his new charge of Highlands United Church, so the immediate families and witnesses joined the happy couple there for a brief but incredibly meaningful ceremony yesterday afternoon.

Fenya wore an adorable romper complemented by a veil loaned by our dear neighborhood friend Sandy, whose 62nd anniversary was the same day as the wedding! She also made a wedding day bandana for Canéla from some century-old lace she had 'laying around.' 

The veil was a wonderful ‘something old,’ while the dress was ‘something new’. A bracelet from Audrey covered ‘something borrowed,’ while the 'something blue' was supplied by flax flowers in the bouquet Audrey harvested from her front garden that very morning, as well as a blue ribbon provided by Sandy.

I was also extremely flattered and touched that Bobby accepted my late father's wedding band as his own.

And how often do you get to take a selfie that contains every single wedding guest in attendance plus the newlyweds?

Following the ceremony, everyone (and three dogs) came back to our backyard, which spruced up pretty nicely thanks to Audrey and Glory's decorating skills, for food and libations.

Bobby's family is delightful, and talking to his parents Vix and Catherine was a real treat. Catherine also brought two huge trays of homemade spring rolls and pancit (a super-tasty Filipino noodle dish) to supplement the pizzas Bobby had ordered. 

The forecast had called for a possibility of thundershowers, but the skies remained clear and the afternoon pleasantly warm all day long and into the evening. We talked and lounged and ate and drank, had two kinds of cake (ube and ice cream!), and toasted the happy couple with glasses of prosecco.

The last guests said goodbye around 9 pm, and it took only a few minutes to get the tables stowed and the backyard reset to normal, and that was that - our firstborn was wed and our family had joined another in a day full of joy and smiles. 

Bonus smiles were had when Glory received news that she had passed the stats course for her spring semester. Her success was largely due to Bobby supplying endless hours of tutoring and coaching to her and her best friend Brooklyn over the past three weeks while essentially living at our house -what a champ.

 The night before, as the younger folks prepared to head out on the town in a limo Glory had arranged as a gift for her sister, my cousin Parker had called from Churchill to wish them well. Afterwards he'd asked me how I was doing with this big change. After all, he'd said, "you're giving away a daughter tomorrow."

"No," I said, "I am truly gaining a son."

UPDATE: Now with video!

Just Plane Glad For Dad

He's been gone 11 years now, but I still think of my dad every Father's Day. I loved and respected him deeply, and we got on very well despite being different in a lot of ways. We also had a number of common interests, one of which (eventually) was aviation.

Father's Day also causes me to reflect on being a father, particularly in regards to my two wonderful daughters, and soon to include a son-in-law, as Fenya and Bobby are set to tie the knot next Saturday before moving to Toronto in July.

With all the ladies away at work this afternoon, and Bobby and I cooling our heels between church and his lunch date with his parents, the topic of planes arose due to a post-service conversation with a former CF-104 pilot and aviation buff. Shared interests are a joy to be treasured, so I brought out Dad's collection of aviation ingots he started collecting while I was still in high school.

Called the Jane's Medallic Register of the World's Great Aircraft, it is a collection of 100 bronze ingots electroplated with gold that depicts significant and influential airplanes and helicopters, from the Wright Brothers Flyer to the SR-71 Blackbird. The reverse of each ingot shows the profile views of the aircraft, and each one sports a shiny proof finish. 

This was a product offered up by the Franklin Mint as a kind of subscription; another collector wrote about getting them regularly from January 1984 to April 1989. Once complete, a storage case arrived allowing the owner to nestle the entire collection into 4 velvet-lined trays. There is also a small tract describing each aircraft and an accompanying box to store them in.

I think Dad figured these as a sort of artistic investment, which turns out to have been kind of a futile hope. Based on some limited eBay searches, the $20 price per ingot doesn't appear to have even held up against inflation, let alone appreciated in value but I hope Dad took some joy from these, regardless.He was a hard-working and busy guy who didn't have any real hobbies or pastimes to speak of, and I wonder if perhaps he saw these as a shinier, classier version of the airplane cigarette cards he collected as a boy.

Despite the fact they don't display terribly well and spend the bulk of their time collecting dust (albeit in a handsome box), I can't imagine parting with them anytime soon. I am no numismatist but I definitely enjoy the ingots in the same way I enjoy beautifully minted coins, marveling at the remarkable translation of a 3-dimensional image onto a (mostly) 2-dimensional surface. The tiny ingots have a surprising heft to them which adds a tactile element to their enjoyment, the proof finish is very handsome and the artwork is wonderful to behold.

Bobby and I spent the better part of an hour looking at these beauties and our discussion covered an immense range of topics, from ramjets to warplanes, from history to our relationships with our fathers. I suppose that makes this register officially a conversation piece. 

When I told Bobby that, barring a surprise sale when we inevitably downsize, there is a better than even chance of him inheriting the collection someday, he started a bit. He looked the four trays over again, spread out across the downstairs table, and said, "I can't really see myself selling something like this either."

Which I found tremendously gratifying on a great number of levels.

Happy Father's Day!

Guest Pulpitations: Let God Be God (F. Fitzpatrick)

(I was so proud to hear Fenya deliver this sermon, her very first, on Pride Sunday.  She asked me for help, but my edits and suggestions were all minor tweaks; her first draft had all the structure, 99% of the wording and all of the heart. She got a few tears rolling (not just mine) and many, many compliments afterwards.)

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I want to start off by saying Happy Pride everyone! When I think of Pride, I think of happiness. I think of parades, music, beautiful colours, and I envision the joy on people’s faces as they get to celebrate being their full and authentic selves at events like the Edmonton and St. Albert pride festivals. Many people think of Pride month and Pride Sunday as a time of celebration, and while it is that, I’m glad that we also recognize that historically, Pride started as a protest. What some may not realize is that it remains a protest today. Stigma and social injustice are still a reality for members of the LGBTQ2S+ community. We are still seeing the persecution of our queer siblings across the globe, and here in our own western and North American communities, we have been seeing a startling increase in anti-LGBTQ sentiments, especially transphobic ones, over the past few years.

According to the Globe and Mail, In the US, there are now more than 650 anti-LGBTQ bills that have been introduced in state legislatures. These are designed to roll back the human and civil rights of LGBTQ communities. Currently, 18 states have passed bills or legislation banning life-saving gender-affirming care to anyone who isn’t a legal adult.

 
And Canada is not exempt from this increase in prejudice and intolerance. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation have gone up by 60% over the past 3 years in Canada. Last August we saw protests outside of the Edmonton Public Library against a drag queen storytime, even though that same event has been well received in previous years. When Premier Smith tweeted support for Pride and inclusion earlier this month, she received numerous angry and homophobic replies. And just over 2 weeks ago, the steps of the Ponoka United Church were vandalized with tar and eggs after having been painted in rainbow colours for Pride month.

This is why pride is still a protest today. Even though we have made so much progress in legislation and policy in this country, more work still needs to be done in order for us to see a complete cultural shift away from hate and discrimination towards this community. These examples go to show that even in Canada, being an open member of the LGBTQ2S+ community still comes with a price, and that allyship - like the kind provided by St Albert United Church - can still be met with backlash as well. I think back to a few months ago when some very angry people interrupted bible study here at the church, arguing that our pride flag contained a coded endorsement of pedophilia.

Unfortunately, so much of this injustice and discrimination is being done in the name of Christianity. We hear so-called “clobber passages” from the bible that people often use in order to argue that certain sexual and gender identities are blasphemous, or don’t or shouldn’t exist. These verses are almost exclusively from the Old Testament, usually taken out of context, and always overlook the larger overall message of the New Testament: to love one another.

When we review the reading we heard today from Acts, we hear that God treated the outsiders the same as the insiders, and didn’t require them to change who they were in order to receive the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t God who wanted the pagans to change, it was other people. It feels as though the apostles and leaders wanted the pagans to conform to their way of life in order to be a part of the community. But Paul and Barnabas understand that it isn’t external characteristics like circumcision that makes someone a Christian, it’s about what they believe, and who they are inside.

In the New Revised Standard Version’s translation of this text, Acts chapter 15 verse 9 says “and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us.”. God makes no distinction between them and us to the point that there is no “them”, and as a result, “us” means everyone. Considering a group of people as “them” automatically others them. It automatically labels them as someone who belongs outside of the community.

This story from Acts feels like a lesson on recognizing that everyone is a part of our community, and that it’s not up to us to decide who’s in and who’s out. It’s about people wanting to become part of the Christian community, but in today’s context we can look at it from the perspective of an even bigger community, the community of humankind. Because at this point, it feels like not everyone is interested in treating our LGBTQ2S+ siblings as human beings, who deserve the right to live free from discrimination and violence.

But God has made all of us in God’s own image, and God is everything! (which is why I use lots of different pronouns to refer to God!) God isn’t binary, God isn’t just male and female, they are everything in between and outside of that binary as well. God is cisgender, transgender and intersex, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and everything else! God isn’t just the “boy” colours or the “girl” colours, she is the whole rainbow. God transcends gender and sexuality; who are we to put what God’s image can look like into a box? Who are we to limit what it means for God to create someone in their own image? And if we consider God to not be exclusively male or female, why should we consider people that way?

In our scripture reading today, we hear that God treated the pagans the same as the Jewish people who believed in Him. Who are we to go against what God has done? We don’t get to decide for God who is in and who is out, and we don’t get to decide for God what people have to do in order to be part of the community or to be accepted by God herself. Let’s let God be God, and take a moment to understand that he has not ever called us to cast hate onto others. Our job has never been to decide who does and does not get to receive our love and acceptance, our job has been to accept and love each and every beautiful person that God has created.

God is love, and made us with the intent to love whoever we love and be whoever we are. When people try to out-God God by discriminating against the LGBTQ2S+ community, it keeps this love from happening, it keeps others from receiving that love, keeps them from feeling God’s love, and keeps them from feeling safe to love who they want to love or even from loving themselves.

Transgender author Katie Leone has some very insightful points in her article titled God Made Me Transgender, And God Does Not Make Mistakes, and I’d like to share a portion of it today.

“God doesn’t make mistakes.”...“being transgender does not mean that I was born in the wrong body. Being transgender means that God has placed me in the body that looks like one gender while I identify as being another. It is neither right nor wrong that I am a female in a male body, as much as it is neither right nor wrong that I am six foot tall and left handed. These things just are.

It might be a hard truth for some Christians to swallow, but God in fact made people who are transgender.

The amount of data leaves no doubt that transgender people are well aware of their situation even before the concept of sexual orientation enters the mix. When a Christian says that being transgender is a sin or an abomination, they are really trying to tell God that He made a mistake and that flies in the face of all that they say they believe.” …

…“It is common for people to question why and to act out of their own frame of reference. We want things to operate in ways that we understand and process. The problem is that we are not omnipotent, we do not have all knowledge, and we operate more out of assumption than we do on fact. Though I would like to understand why I was born transgender, why God would put me in one vessel instead of another, it is likely that I will never understand until I am in His presence.”...

…“God made me transgender for a reason, and when I try to fight against my own nature is when I leave the path that he had laid out for me.

Likewise, good meaning people want transgender people to conform to their assumption of what God intended for their lives. Since some cannot comprehend what being transgender is, they have a hard time accepting that it is ordained by God. Instead of aiding transgender people along life’s journey, some try to deter them down a path that the Lord never intended them to travel. Since we do not understand why God made a person transgender, who are we to question?

God doesn’t make mistakes.

God made me transgender; that is the way that it is. He did not make a mistake, for it was in His plans that I am who I am.”

Katie’s affirmation of faith points to why it is so critical to remind those who use scripture to shun or discriminate against our LGBTQ siblings that they are not the only voice within the Christian community; that there are Christians who oppose using scripture to hurt and not to heal. And we see this mentioned in our passage today as well. The Reverend Dr. Davis Chappel notes that after Paul and Barnabas report on what happened on their journey, it is written that some of the Pharisees objected to the pagans not becoming circumcised. In other words, the group that objected did not represent the whole, and were speaking for themselves rather than on behalf of all those of the faith. The same holds true today. Those who are opposed to the acceptance of the queer community do not speak for all Christians. Which I’m assuming you already know…because you’re here, on pride Sunday, in the “gay church on the hill” that flies the rainbow flag right over their door! Talk about preaching to the choir!

Following a lot of personal reflection, I came out to my family and my now-fiancé Bobby a couple of years ago as a bisexual woman. As a recently out member of the LGBTQ2S+ community myself, I am extremely blessed to have grown up in a church where I knew that I would be accepted regardless of my sexuality, and I have never lived with the fear of being rejected by my faith community because of it.

But we are the exception. Far too many individuals have experienced so much hate in the name of God.

We as an affirming faith community have the opportunity to have our voices heard too, and to share the message with all LGBTQ2S+ folks that there are Christians who love and support them for being exactly who they are. That being a Christian and being an ally (or a full member of the LGBTQ2S+ community) is not mutually exclusive. That we believe they can be who they are, and do not have to change anything about themselves in order to be accepted by the Christian community or the rest of humanity, for that matter.

Pride is still a protest today, and we as an affirming ministry are part of the movement to continue this path forward towards justice, freedom, and safety for people of all sexualities and gender identities.

So let’s advocate for our LGBTQ2S+ siblings across this country and across the globe. When people say “there are only two genders” or that transphobia, homophobia, racism and discrimination don’t exist anymore, call them out on their disinformation! Put those pronouns in your email signature! Let’s fly our Progress Pride flags, and attend pride marches (and parades) and drag queen storytimes to show everyone that we are here to support and love this community.

Now, I understand that some of these things might take you out of your comfort zones, but I encourage you to embrace that discomfort. Take a moment to reflect on why you might be uncomfortable, and welcome it instead as an opportunity to grow.

Let’s take a stand even when it isn’t easy…especially when it isn’t easy. And let’s let God be God; let’s let God be the one to create humankind in his own image; let’s let God be everything they can possibly be, limitless and expansive, the holy mystery that is wholly love.

Thanks be to God.

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READINGS

(Written by Linda Hutchinson for use on June 10, 2018 at Sydenham Street United Church, Kingston, Ont. Posted on the United Church of Canada website. Used with Permission.)

Acts 15:5–13

The scripture we have chosen for this morning is from Acts 15 in The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language. This reading is a call to “embrace those who are marginalized.” In other words, “to be radically inclusive.”

In the chapters just prior to the 15th chapter, Peter, a devout Jewish person, has a vision of a large sheet coming down from heaven containing all sorts of animals, many of them considered unclean and therefore not to be eaten according to Jewish law. But Peter hears God say very clearly, “Go to it, Peter; kill and eat.” When Peter objects that he cannot eat meat that is not kosher, God says, “If God says it is OK, it is OK!” This happens three times. With the help of others, Peter discerns that God was saying that the Jewish God was for everybody including the Gentiles—non-Jewish people who were, by law, considered unclean. With this background, we come to Acts 15 where, in a church in Antioch, Peter and Barnabas are reporting on their visits with the non-Jewish people.

Acts 15:5–13.

When they got to Jerusalem, Paul and Barnabas were graciously received by the whole church, including the apostles and leaders. They reported on their recent journey and how God had used them to open things up to the outsiders. Some Pharisees stood up to say their piece. They had become believers, but continued to hold to the hard party line of the Pharisees. “You have to circumcise the pagan converts,” they said. “You must make them keep the Law of Moses.”

The apostles and leaders called a special meeting to consider the matter. The arguments went on and on, back and forth, getting more and more heated. Then Peter took the floor: “Friends, you well know that from early on God made it quite plain that he wanted the pagans to hear the Message of this good news and embrace it—and not in any secondhand or roundabout way, but firsthand, straight from my mouth. And God, who can’t be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person’s thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as he gave him to us. He treated the outsiders exactly as he treated us, beginning at the very center of who they were and working from that center outward, cleaning up their lives as they trusted and believed him.

“So why are you now trying to out-god God, loading these new believers down with rules that crushed our ancestors and crushed us, too? Don’t we believe that we are saved because the Master Jesus amazingly and out of sheer generosity moved to save us just as he did those from beyond our nation? So what are we arguing about?”

There was dead silence. No one said a word. With the room quiet, Barnabas and Paul reported matter-of-factly on the miracles and wonders God had done among the other nations through their ministry. The silence deepened; you could hear a pin drop.

Listen for Peter’s words as we might imagine them in our theme today:

"Friends, you well know that, from early on, God made it quite plain that God wanted members of the LGBTQ community to hear the message of this good news and embrace it—not in any secondhand or roundabout way, but firsthand, straight from my mouth. And God, who can't be fooled by any pretense on our part but always knows a person's thoughts, gave them the Holy Spirit exactly as God gave the Spirit to us. God treated the outsiders exactly as God treated us.”

We are grateful for the wisdom revealed in these words of scripture, in each other and in ourselves. Amen.

Non-Scriptural Reading:

Our non-scriptural reading today is an untitled poem by Keaton St. James in which a trans man meets Jesus, and is loved.

(Written by Keaton St. James on January 13, 2017.)

when he touches you for the first time,

you will be soft as the inside of a heart

& you will be burning, not in the way of fire

but in the way of dusk, your body so heavy
your soul reaches for the sky–

you expect him to arrive in a specter
of pink marble & gold paint, but his lips
are chapped, his brown hands humanly
blistered. he says, my dear son,
& just like that the words tumble
peach-ripe off your tongue:

my fears are so sharp god i worry
they’ve become fangs & i don’t know
how to breathe in the mornings & god
what if they hurt me & oh what
will be done with my soul my soul my–

he cups your face in his palms. his skin
is blood-hot & he smells of rosemary.
my wondrous man, i can feel each
vibration of the electrons in your atoms
right now. when i built this immense
universe from helium & nitrogen i was
holding the shape of your true name

in my mouth. i am your buckler; i am
your wingbones, & you are a kingdom
of kindness. what need have you of fear,
when there is love for you here
more abundant than all the stars.
this blossoming of yours is mine too.

G&G XVII - Good Times, Bad Rhymes

A Doggerel Ode to Gaming & Guinness Seventeen

Fellowship reigns and geniality abounds 

When the g&geeks all gather from out of town

Some come often and others more rarely

From places like Ottawa and Grande Prairie

We even get two from Vancouver Island

And one thing we aren't when we gather is silent

We meet at Belongamick sometime around May

To drink beers, to swear, and play games for four days

Oh, not grown-up games, such as clubbing small balls

But battling with robots both enormous and small

Or exploring while dodging the Nazis' foul gaze

And rolling our bones in new custom dice trays!

In Suzuka, Japan, racing Formula cars

Or flying around an enormous Death Star

Pulling all games from the back of our shelves

Even betting on trivia made up by ourselves

Most games are long ones but there are lots of others

Drawn out from catching up with all our brothers

Starting with eats from the Baron of Burgers

And ending with parties of Trivia Murders

Not everyone drinks, but next day all are yawning

From chatting sometimes until two in the morning

Most of us have come back for this 17 times

And still these fine lads will put up with bad rhymes

Pulpitations: The Universal Translator

My sermon from today's Pentecost service, a day before the provincial election is held. The verse is below, but the short version is that after Jesus' death and resurrection, his disciples gathered for the Jewish festival of Pentecost. While together indoors, the holy spirit came upon them as a gust of wind, rested "tongues of fire" upon their heads, and they all felt themselves able to converse in a multitude of languages. 

Obviously, my thoughts turned, as they often do, to Star Trek...

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THE UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR

Language is the ultimate irony - it is the key to understanding and clarity, but also a cause for misunderstanding and confusion. Without a common language, It is nearly impossible to relate to other people.

Even within a single language, like English, one word can provoke multiple responses. Here’s an example: woke.

In today’s reading from Acts, Luke describes the coming of the Holy Spirit, a miracle that allows the followers of Jesus to speak in languages not previously known to them. Even more amazingly, they are heard in the native tongue of each listener who hears them.

Biblically, I find it intriguing that the same God who, in Genesis, toppled the Tower of Babel and confused the builders so they could no longer understand each other, is now helping to gift Jesus’ followers with innate multilingualism. The scriptures abound with these idiosyncrasies and contradictions though. If God has mellowed out considerably since the first book of the Bible, maybe it is due to becoming a parent? Who can say?

Back in Acts though, there is no real explanation as to how it is possible for all these languages to be heard and understood. Those of you who share my affection for science fiction and pop culture will no doubt immediately note the similarities between the effect of these “tongues of fire” and the well-established trope of the universal translator.

Dating back to 1945, the universal translator is largely a contrivance used to expedite storytelling. In the classic Star Trek episode “Metamorphosis,” Captain Kirk uses one to facilitate communication between people stranded on a planetoid and the glowing, mist-like creature preventing them from leaving. Kirk explains that there are certainly universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. The device compares the frequencies of brainwave patterns, looking for recognizable ideas, then provides the necessary grammar.

I mean, this idea is problematic right off the hop, right? The creature in this episode doesn’t even have a brain so Spock has to mod up the translator a bit, but just the idea of remote, inter-species brainwave recognition and interpretation - essentially mechanised telepathy - is pretty far-fetched, even for the 24th century.

Douglas Adams’ book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, takes an entirely different approach by introducing the Babel fish - a small creature that is placed in the auditory canal, It feeds on the brainwaves of sentient creatures speaking to its host, and, uh, excretes a translation into their brain. In the recent Ant-Man movie Quantumania, the main character drinks a mysterious ooze that lets him understand everyone around him, after which an alien blob casually says, “hi, I’m Veb - you just drank me?”

In science-fiction, there are very practical reasons for having a universal translator. If you had to waste time in every episode where the Enterprise encounters a new species, that would get pretty boring pretty quickly, even as a montage. Establishing a universal translator is a quick and dirty answer to the question, “hey, how come they understand each other?” It establishes that the fact they can understand each other is not the most important part of the narrative, and urges you to maintain attention.

God’s gift of universal translation to the followers of Jesus is way less mysterious than what happened back in Genesis with that tower. The message here seems pretty clear: if God’s love is for everyone, then God’s Word must be for everyone. Baptism, not just with water, but with the “living water” of the Holy Spirit John talks about, must become universal.

But whether we are talking about a universal translator, or a lingua franca, like the Greek that the New Testament is written in, or even a single dynamic language filled with context, nuance, classist associations and slang, challenges remain.

Could a universal translator reach across, say, a political divide?

I used the word “woke” earlier, as an example of a single word fraught with multiple meanings and impacts. In a social context, woke is an expression from black culture, dating back to the 1930s, meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” It was used extensively by Black Lives Matter activists after the Ferguson riots in 2014. When white people, particularly young white people, used woke to signal their support for BLM, opinions varied as to whether this was allyship or appropriation.

The Oxford English Dictionary added “woke” in 2017, but by 2020, it was more common to see it used ironically or disparagingly by those on the political right. Equated with “virtue signaling” or acts more performative than sincere, woke has become a catchword for political correctness run amuck (in their eyes, at least). “Go woke, go broke,” is the rallying cry for racist trolls and homophobes who hate the idea of diversity and inclusion upsetting the homogeneity of a culture that is not as familiar to them as it once was, and who review bomb films or games with a feminist protagonist or sympathetic depiction of queer culture.

Now, despite the fact that its harshest critics are unable to even define “woke,” or what it is about racial justice or the acknowledgment of systemic racism that is so terrifying, the word is a battleground.

So let me tell you, being given this scripture to discuss, the day before an incredibly important and probably divisive provincial election has really made me wonder if there is another layer of meaning to be found in the story of the coming of the Holy Spirit.

In two days’ time, we should have the election results. As of right now, it feels too close to call, so that means that no matter what the result ends up being, half the population of the province are going to be upset. Some are going to be sad. Some are going to be angry. And a very small group of that last set is going to act inappropriately.

Some of these emotions are going to carry over into the legislature, but I hope and I pray, I mean literally pray, that the next assortment of MLAs, no matter who the premier is, governs for all Albertans, and recognizes the need to heal the rift between left and right.

And outside the government buildings and riding associations, in the living rooms, and front steps and coffee shops and street corners and bus stops, we all need to talk - not in another language, but in whatever common tongues we have at our disposal. And we have to reach across that divide I mentioned.

And it won’t be easy, because there is going to be suspicion on both sides of this divide, and we will occasionally get our hands slapped as we stretch them across the chasm. But if we do it enough times, persistently, consistently, maybe we can get someone thinking hey, maybe drag storytime at the library isn’t an existential threat to civilization. Or wondering if perhaps capitalism isn’t irretrievably broken and just needs some rethinking, whatever.

But more than talking, we have to make sure our internal transceivers are set to receive and we have to listen. I mean really listen. The light of God is in that obstinate individual, the same way it exists in our stubborn selves! We have more in common with the folks on that other side than we have differences, no matter what side that happens to be. And yes, some of those differences are fundamental, but they always have been, and when we stop thinking in absolutes and start looking for areas of understanding and compromise, that is when Albertans, and humanity in general, have made their greatest progress.

Maintain your principles, but stay flexible, be fluid. Remember that anger often begins out of fear, and fear out of misunderstanding. Be patient. Don’t fight, flow! Bruce Lee, the famous martial artist and film star, spoke at length about this power:

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

In John’s Gospel, we hear Jesus say, ““Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” When we reach out, out of our individual communities, out of our respective bubbles, we become a channel for that water.

We use things like language and culture to define ourselves, but in doing so we often alienate the “other” - and spoiler alert, there is no “other.” By removing the language barrier at Pentecost, God illustrates that language is irrelevant in the big picture and not the important part of the story (just like Star Trek). And just like all the fictional universal translators, it is a storytelling contrivance - for a very important story.

God’s love is for everyone. The message of Jesus is for everyone. We can have that tongue of flame on our heads if we want it, and bring that message and that love to everyone, with our actions as much as our words.

Don’t stop reaching out! It is what God wants and what Jesus has taught us.

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Acts 2:1-21

The Coming of the Holy Spirit

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Peter Addresses the Crowd

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

‘In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.

And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’




John 7:37-39

Rivers of Living Water

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

A Deck Game, Except Indoors

One of the more puzzling gifts I received last Christmas was a black nylon bag about 6 inches in diameter and nearly five feet long. Audrey explained that it was some sort of game not being bid upon at a silent auction she had attended, and which she procured for a very minimal bid but never actually examined. 

I emptied out some of the contents of the bag at that time, decanting two bags of plastic pucks with three metal ball bearings in the base, as well as some pusher sticks. The scale of these helped us to divine that this was not, in fact, a tabletop game as my wife had suspected, but an indoor version of the cruise ship standard of shuffleboard. We elected not to unroll the playing surface due to its enormity, but finally got the opportunity to do so this weekend at our church's annual long weekend at Rundle's Mission at Pigeon Lake.

The upstairs of the lodge has an enormous common room with an obligingly smooth that is...well, let's call it mostly flat. We rolled out the vinyl court to its full length (about 12' perhaps?), assembled the pushers (more formally called cues or tangs), looked up the rules on the interwebs and set about playing.

Unlike tabletop shuffleboard which uses a curling-style bullseye and similar rules to play, regular shuffleboard has players aiming at a triangle, with the smallest scoring area at the tip gaining skillful shooters ten points. This is followed by an 8-point and 7-point band, bisected by a line into two areas.

At the end of the court is a wide band labeled "10 OFF" which, as you probably suspect, subtracts ten points from one's total. This is bracketed by two much narrower 3-point areas, which seem unique to this indoor iteration.

Initial scoring was decidedly difficult as not only did we need to dial in the precise amount of force to avoid stranding our discs (or "biscuits") in the middle or landing them into the dreaded "10 OFF" area at the end, but scoring any points at all requires the disc to be completely within the numbered area and not touching any lines whatsoever! Yes, the only point to bisecting the base of that triangle is to make scoring even more difficult. 

Games are typically played to 75 points, and after a few games, we found this normally attainable in 6-8 rounds. 

The accessibility of the mechanics and the compelling footprint of the set meant it drew quite a bit of attention from the younger visitors to Rundle's who maintained very accurate scoring each round but could not be bothered to maintain them from one round to the next. 

And when our dear friends Shari and Dave motorcycled up to Pigeon Lake from Red Der, we were delighted to get a couple of games in with them before they headed back through the smoky haze. 

All in all, indoor shuffleboard was a major success - it is just unfortunate that at this point, we only know of one venue we can actually play it in!

Ruthless Decisions and Daring Escapes at the Ju-Ju House

One of the things I appreciate most about tabletop roleplaying games (or TTRPGs) is that they are primarily cooperative ventures. Even when the sly rogue sends a note to the dungeon master about pocketing an extra gem from the treasure for himself (or even picking the pocket of a fellow player's character), these antics are more along the lines of a rivalry than flat-out adversarial.

There are campaigns where it happens though, where one character reveals they are a shapechanger who killed off the original a few sessions back, or that they have been co-opted somehow, or are actually a member of the secret police, but I've never been a part of one personally. So I was very surprised when last week's Call of Cthulhu session very nearly included the first time in my life where one character caused the death of another.

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SPOILER WARNING: If you ever intend to play the legendary 

Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, read no further, lest you be spoiled!

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New York City, 1925. Our group of five investigators, having come together on a previous adventure in Peru five years prior, are summoned to the Big Apple by another companion, the globetrotting author and death cult investigator Jackson Elias. They arrive too late, however, and see him murdered by a rag-tag group of cultists tied to an African sect called The Bloody Tongue.

Over the past few weeks, their investigations have led them to the cult's headquarters in the basement of an innocuous shop in Harlem called The Ju-Ju House. They have forced the shop's owner, Silas N'Kwane, into the basement at gunpoint, and discovered a pit covered by an immense stone lid. It takes three of them to winch up the enormous stone covering, after which one of them leaves to investigate shots fired upstairs by the comrade they left to cover the rear.

Randall Emerson Winchester II, formerly His Royal Majesty's diplomatic envoy to Hong Kong, keeps a bead on N'Kwane with his treasured trap-shooting piece. Delbert Greenwald, an academic from Miskatonic University left unsettled by the impossible things he witnessed in Peru, is drawn closer to the edge of the pit despite the strange wailing coming from within, his .45 automatic grasped tightly in his sweaty fist. Meanwhile, reformed burglar Jack Cole looks for any other egress from the room. 

Greenwald peers over the edge of the pit and beholds something even more unimaginable than what he saw in Peru; a twisting mass of writhing purple tentacles, each about as big around as a man's leg, and each capped with a horrific human visage. 

There are perhaps two dozen such faces, perhaps more, each wailing, moaning, screaming, whispering, laughing in a maddening cacophony. [Game Note: This causes a Sanity test, where each player must test the will and mettle of their character by rolling under their SAN score.] 

Greenwald fails his check and shrieks into the pit, preparing to empty the clip of his pistol into it. Randall flinches almost imperceptibly, but it gives N'Kwane the opening he'd been waiting for - he bats aside the muzzle of Winchester's 8-gauge shotgun, and charges the twitchy, tweedy professor, shoving him into the pit and to the floor of it 15 feet below. "Now the chakota can feast!" he cackles maniacally.

His triumph is short-lived, however, as the furious Winchester regains his composure and his Greener Far Killer barks deafeningly in the basement. In such close quarters, the blast almost cuts the elderly African in half, and N'Kwane's shattered remains tumble into the pit.

Greenwald blasts away at the horrid creature at point-blank range, but his bullets have no effect and he pitches the useless .45 in frustration. 

Cole scrambles over to the edge of the pit, hoping his climbing skills will help him extract Greenwald, but he too balks at the horrific sight in the pit and crabs away from the lip. At the bottom of the pit, while several of the chakota's heads begin devouring the remains of Silas N'Kwane, a handful turn their mindless attention to Greenwald, but he is able to dodge their slavering bites.

[Meanwhile at the table, I am figuring out who goes next - normally it goes from the highest Dexterity score to the lowest, but holding a firearm adds 50 to this figure, putting Winchester to the top of the batting order.

"What do you want to do?" I ask Jeff, Winchester's player, who has his chin in his hand and is deep in thought. 

There is a pause, and then he says, "I am half-tempted to just drop the lid on that damned pit." 

Silence surrounds the table, as everyone present (even the two players whose characters are fighting for their lives upstairs) knows this will unquestionably end the life of Prof. Greenwald. 

But they all have played these kinds of games long enough to recognize the tactical and strategic validity of Jeff's plan.

Greenwald's player, Scott, is the first to speak. Looking directly at Jeff, he asks earnestly, "What would Randall do? Never mind what Jeff would do or what Scott wants, what would your character do?"

Jeff is clearly pondering this, so I tell him to take his time, and return to the battle upstairs. This doesn't take very long to resolve, so all too soon I turn again to Jeff and say, "so, what does Winchester do?"

Jeff takes a deep breath, mimes holding an invisible shotgun and using its butt to break the catch on the winch suspending the stone lid nearly 15 feet in the air. "I do it," he says firmly. I hear a sharp intake of air somewhere around the table - maybe it was me though.

"So be it!" I say.] 

With an enormous crash, the stone lid drops from the ceiling, closing the pit in a cloud of dust and bits of broken stone.

[A hush descends upon the table, but as I return to my papers to determine who goes next, I am shocked to discover that Winchester has acted out of order! My fault entirely.

The +50 DEX bonus only applies if you are shooting a firearm, not using it in melee or any other way. I inform the players, undo Winchester's premature action and set the scene:]

Jack, sitting on the floor with his hands behind him propping him up, sees Winchester striding over to the winch holding up the stone lid, clearly intending to seal the pit with Delbert still inside it. The second-story man has a single moment before he does this…

[I turn to Totty, Jack's player, and say, "What do you do?"

He looks briefly at his character sheet and says, "I steel myself for what is in the pit and scramble over to the edge of it. If I make it, I stretch my arm into the pit so I can help Delbert to clamber out."

I check the pit's description and shake my head sadly. "It's 15 feet deep, your arm is maybe three feet long, figure Greenwald's arms over his head give him another two feet for a total of... maybe eight?. That means the professor has to make at least a 36-inch vertical, while fighting a monster, just to have a chance at it..."

"To be fair," Jeff adds, "those conditions are probably the best ones possible for a middle-aged academic to achieve a 36-inch vertical..."

"Be that as it may," I reply, "it won't give much of a bonus to his Climbing skill (which is only 20%)." Someone else cursed in frustration while Totty looked over his sheet again.

"Well, how far can I extend my body into the pit without falling?"

"Roll your climb skill," I tell him. Now, Cole's Climbing skill is 50%, as befits a former burglar, so rolling 50 or lower on percentile dice denotes a success, but rolling below half your score is called a strong success and typically grants a better result. Rolling below one-fifth of your score (10%) is called an extreme success, with an even better outcome.

So what a time for him to roll a 04!

When the table had quieted, I resumed the narrative.]

Jack scrambles across the floor, and heedless of his own safety, drops into the pit, arresting his fall with an iron grip on its lip. Delbert sees the possibility of escape from a previously hopeless situation, and lunges for the outstretched arm of his comrade...

[Due to the literal helping hand from Jack Cole in play, I give Greenwald a bonus dice, so he gets an extra 'tens' dice for his percentile roll. He rolls a 53 and a 23, so using 3 points of his rapidly diminishing Luck stat actually allows him to succeed.]

With a mighty heave, Jack swings the academic out of the pit and they both clamber to safety, mere seconds before Winchester slams off the catch on the winch handle with the butt of his shotgun, and the lid plummets to the floor with a massive slam. The creature is trapped, its disturbing cries muffled, and all three of the investigators are safe outside the pit. 

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A bit more happened before the adventurers fled the Ju-Ju House (one of them clinging to life from the battle upstairs), but that sequence has definitely been the highlight of the campaign for me, and the closest I have come to seeing one player character killed (or in this case, doomed) by another.

And best of all, this campaign is just getting underway! How many more such opportunities might we encounter?