Musings from the Minister
Open the heart. Explore
the mystery. Celebrate the glory and difficulty
by Rev.
Ray Drennan, Unitarian
September is a month
for beginnings and for endings. I was reminded of this as I carried out the
necessary close-up chores on our cabin — drain the pump, put up the
shutters, clean the privy and chop next year’s firewood. As I stood
back, all sweaty and sawdusty, I felt satisfied.
Chopping wood is excellent
therapy for a minister or for anyone whose job involves lots of people-work.
At the end of the day there are tangible results for all of the hard work.
I must admit though that most of the locals would be ashamed of my particular
woodpile. Unlike “summer-folk”, the locals busy themselves in
earnest over their woodpiles, for they know how much they will depend upon
them on those icy winter days, just around the corner. My good friend Bill
Miller, a gifted canoe builder and pretty decent poet with a wonderful sense
of humour, once wrote a poem about this seasonal activity, titled “Son
of a Beech.” As you might gather he had more than a little trouble chopping
that particular beech tree.
Here are the closing
lines of the poem,
You SON OF A BEECH
!!! I will never quit!
Till you and your brothers
are finally split.
Two hours later and
I long to yearn,
To sit by the fire
and watch you BURN!
As I stood there admiring
my meager woodpile I got to thinking what changes might occur in our lives
or in our world by the time those logs were burnt. After all, nothing is constant
in life BUT change. In September as we step back into familiar patterns of
work, school and community, patterns that we laid aside for a spell, what
changes have happened or will soon happen? We never ever pick up the same
tasks exactly as we laid them down, any more than we can step into the same
river twice, as the Buddhists say. Everything and everyone changes. Both the
welcomed and unwelcomed changes offer us opportunities of taking up familiar
tasks with freshness of perspective. Entering the familiar with fresh eyes
offers us the possibility of squeezing out more fully the essence of what
our lives and loves and communities might be. Each fresh beginning gives us
another chance to grasp more fully and more deeply the enriching possibilities
that surround us.
So, as you begin again
your life in your community, you might ask yourself what is it that we are
seeking to do? What is the task of life? This description, originally of a
Dervish community, seems to sum it up nicely. The task of life is “to
open the heart, to explore the mystery of union, to fiercely search for and
try to say truth, and to celebrate the glory and difficulty of being in a
human incarnation.”
May you enter the endings
and beginnings of life with such determination and freshness. Have an exciting,
enriching and enchanting year of your life.
Donating your body for
medical research
Because of what I wrote
in my last Musing, some of you have been asking for more details about how
to go about donating your body for medical research. The first step is to
contact the administrative secretary of McGill, Ms. Beverley Brackley (514)
398-6335. She will lead you through the necessary
papers and registration needed before your death.
