NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

I once met with a priest who asked me “Lynn, can you tell me why most people when they get to where you are leave the church, but a few stay on?”  I didn’t have an answer at that time, but now I do - at least for me. “All can be Christians, all can be devout, and I shall boldly add - all can be theologians”  Erasmus of Rotterdam  [I’m not sure people appreciate what a loaded quotation this is from the 1400’s!] I had the good fortune  [or the bad fortune, depending on whether you agree or not with Erasmus] to meet a priest who fully believed in this quotation. Although it took time, he did convince me that I, too, was a theologian and so my thoughts, questions and understandings should both be offered and respected as part of the conversation. Laity, who’s views are sought after, listened to and considered as part of the answer, are an empowered laity.  But my experience has highlighted just how dangerous this is. Once you have a lait...

Last December we visited the John F. Kennedy, Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. It was a novel experience for me, the first museum I had been to where I remembered not only living through the events that were showcased but of hearing the original of many of the speeches that were being rebroadcast there.  There were many quotes from speeches of the Kennedys on the walls. And I not only knew immediately why I had liked him back in the ‘60s but also couldn’t help but recognize similarities to what we had been hearing pre- and post-election from Justin Trudeau. “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich” John F Kennedy Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961 “A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on,” John Fitzgerald Kennedy And from his brother: “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve  the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends fort...

This happening has stayed with me over a few weeks now, popping up into my mind every now and then. I was driving with a friend on a road, parallel to the street where she lives. As she looked toward that street over the narrow strip of land that was in-between, she comment ‘It sure looks different from over here.’  As I continued to be confronted by this seemingly innocuous comment, I began to wonder just what it was trying to teach me. And yes, I have discovered that those things which keep repeating themselves in my head, will continue to do so until I take a moment to consider just why that keeps happening. As I thought about these words and what they might be saying I realized a couple of truths. One, the street was just the same as it had been for all the years my friend had lived and driven on it. Two, my friend was the same person. Three, the reason it looked different to her was because she was seeing it from a different perspective, from a different vantage point...

We have had some odd weather this winter. with storms midweek and temperatures in the double digits by the weekend! I grew up in the 1940s & 50s, back before the days of television, computers and smart phones, before the days of wind chills and humidex readings. We got our weather from the thermometer hanging outside the kitchen window. -0 degrees or less meant meant you put on an extra layer of clothing, made sure you had a scarf and two pair of mittens on. Over 80 degrees in the summer meant you closed the widows in the early morning and pulled down the blinds. You knew you were having a cold supper that night, any preparation that involved cooking was done in the early morning. Any radio broadcasts that did mention the weather were usually just the temperature. Today we live in a world where weather alerts, weather warnings, wind chill, humidex readings, freezing fog and a host of other words have become part of the daily life on our smart phones, our TV and our com...