Scribbles & Pix

Great Chapter was held on 18-20 February 2011 in Waswanipi.  I preached on Sunday.  For once in my life I wrote the sermon out.  You can download it here:

GC20FEB11

Christmas Holidays are great.  Families reunite.  Friendships get renewed.  The Annual Christmas Letters bring everyone up to date.  When the year is complete, we then go on — refreshed — to the New Year.

The holidays are tough on some of us, however, and often for a variety of reasons.  This year’s tragedy in Mistissini was that of a 27 year old father of three kids, who took his own life just before New Year’s Eve.  The funeral was a week ago today.

What words of comfort can help, as we try to pull ourselves together and get on with our lives?  I’m still working on that one.  I do know that about 150-200 of us started to gather at the Church at eight in the morning.  By noon we had managed to close the casket.  Then we read the Burial Office.  I don’t know that that really eased any pain.  It DID help us get a step closer to what we had to do that day.  The healing will come later, I pray.  Nerves are raw right now, but there’s always hope in another day.

We got through the crisis and enjoyed our fellowship at the feast later on in the day.  Life goes on.  It’s a New Year.

This last Sunday, 9 January, we celebrated the Baptism of The Lord, and two little ones were baptized that morning.  They were young and beautiful and peaceful.  There was light in the darkness.

We keep going, as best we can, in love and in hope.  That’s life (and death) on a Reserve.

The Christmas Services kept me busy, of course.  By Sunday, the day after Christmas, I was ready for a quiet moment to mull things over and listen to the music of the Season.  We’re now in  the Season of Epiphany, trying to catch up to the Three Wise Men.  I’m frantically trying to get my act (what’s left of it) together for the Annual Meeting at the end of this month.

A few minutes of sunshine today!  True, the day has been mostly cloudy.  However, there were minutes today — I’m pretty sure there were — when there really and truly was evidence of the sun.

On Thursday — day before yesterday — we had almost a full day of sun — the first I’ve seen of the sun since Thanksgiving Day (if there WAS sun on Thanksgiving, and I cannot remember now if there was….)

I’ve been told to start gobbling down Vitamin D pills.

Monday, Monday….
The snow is coming down sideways this morning.   The storm has been blowing since yesterday afternoon.  Sometimes the visibility is near white-out.  All of this definitely calls for yet another pot of tea.

Tuesday, Tuesday….
The same deal.  The North Wind is blowing snow all over the place.  The town grader came through yesterday morning and cleared the road somewhat.  There were hardly any cars out anyway all day yesterday.  I can’t imagine there was much traveling.  I missed the annual Christmas feast put on by the Pentecostal Church.  I regret that, but driving was impossible, and I didn’t dare walk the relatively short distance.  My driveway now has a four foot drift at the end.  I’m grounded until I dig myself out or get dug out.

Last Monday (6 DEC) was quiet — in the morning.  Then: a phone call to tell me there had been a death of a lady who had been born at Mistissini.  However, she had lived in Montreal for most of her life.  Her sister wanted to bring her home for her burial.  We set the time of the Service for Wednesday morning, 8 DEC.

Most of her immediate family did not get into Mistissini until late on Tuesday.  They worked on what they wanted for the Service into the night.  I didn’t see their handiwork until the next morning.  It was a really good Service: just the right blend of formality and familiarity.  We were able to celebrate as an extended family, and we were able to say the solemn (and very sad) Good-Byes.

The weather had been holding.  That is, even though we have been getting snow all along — an inch at least, every day –  the temperature has stayed at around twenty above.  I worked up a terrible sweat in the Church, and then we went to the Grave.  I was able to linger there for a while, but I left before the Grave was entirely filled, so I didn’t get to shake everyone’s hand and say those precious good-byes.  Even with all that caution, however, I woke up Thursday morning to a sore throat — an excellent excuse for a quiet morning and several pots of tea.

On Thursday morning (9 DEC 2010) we woke up to a solid four degrees below zero.  There are signs of winter in the air.

On Tuesday (7 DEC) there was a funeral and burial of one of the Elders of the community — Smally Petawabano.  The Funeral Director, with whom I worked and talked a little on Wednesday, told me that he had been busy with that Tuesday funeral from the morning through to about 5 PM in the afternoon.  A huge crowd had turned out for the funeral, as is typical.  The Band Offices were all closed for the day, as is also typical, when an Elder is buried.  Our funeral on Wednesday was much shorter, and simpler.

Smally Petawabano was one of the original signers of the James Bay Treaty.  He was Chief at Mistissini for many years.  When I came through Mistissini in 1973, I went to see the local Manager (or, ‘Factor’) at the Hudson’s Bay Post.  Without realizing what I was doing, I had barged in on a conference he was having with the Chief of the Community.  I found out this week that that person — the Chief — to whom I had only nodded in my ignorance, rudeness, and haste — had very likely been Smally.  This year — many years later — we were, again, just ships passing in the night.

Thursday, 9 DEC 2010
The modem from the Phone Company arrived.  Hooray!!!

On Sunday (12 DEC) we celebrated  ‘The Blessing of an Infant’ — an adaptation from the 1962 Prayer Book’s ‘Churching of Women’.  This was for a family where Mom is an Anglican and Dad is from the Greek Orthodox Church.  They will celebrate the Baptism in a few months — as soon as they are able — in his hometown (Greek Orthodox) church.  In all my years as a priest, this was the first time I had done the rite.  It worked.  We should do it more often.

Sunday Evening I went to a kick-off Service for ‘Children Are Important Week’.  This event was for the younger set — many of whom presented some well rehearsed songs with robust and confident delivery.  Then, several of us preachers added our two (or four) cents, more for the benefit of the adults, perhaps, than for the kids.  But it all worked.  The St. John’s parishioners had told me: ‘Be there!’  I’m glad they spoke up.  I might otherwise never have known about the event.