1.  Think about how you spend much of your time and energy,  then ask yourself how you would finish this sentence:  “It is too small a thing to___________”?

Where there is no vision from God, the people run wild,
But those who adhere to God’s instruction know genuine happiness.
Proverbs 29:18 (Voice translation)

The questions for this week got me in touch with a sense of sadness that only seemed to deepen as I reflected more. It is too small a thing ... 

It is too small a thing to think about God and talk about God but be disconnected from a sense of God’s presence. 

This weekend Joel and I watched the last episode of the Huston Smith documentary on the Religions of the World. Smith talked about how the Sufis describe religious experience as encountering a fire. There are three ways to encounter this fire. The first is to hear about the fire, the second is to see the fire and the last is to be burned by the fire. 

It seems like the experience of the mystics is to move beyond hearing and seeing to actually being burned by the fire of God’s love and then living that out in our world. As I listened to Huston Smith and to the Nomad podcast on Julian of Norwich, I found myself longing for a deeper sense of God’s presence and God’s love in my life. I have been on this road for close to 60 years but it feels like I am still at the hearing and seeing stages. I don’t know if I am asking for too much but I would just like God to feel a little more present. It feels like I have a vision of where I would like to be in my relationship with God (i.e. closer), but I really do not know what else I could do to make that happen. 

Then on Monday I was talking with Paul about our corporate sense of vision. What is it that we are about at Watershed? There seems to be a good deal of personal growth going on as people go through their individual studies and smaller groups but what is it that we are about as a group? 

I know that we had talked a few years ago about having a sense that God was asking us to make our tent bigger. That seemed to be a good vision to move towards. But we have had some discouragement on that account as well. The group connecting us to other house churches in the West End disbanded for various reasons. The Badger Coffeehouse and open mic night was a great place to meet people but when it folded we kind of lost touch with many of the people. The pandemic of course does not help. Not being able to meet in public or hold music events makes it difficult for us to interact with those outside our community. 

It’s not as if I want to start a big project or anything but I do wonder what God is calling us to. In my darkest moments I wonder if we are just keeping the institution alive until we all die out. That is not a cheery thought. 

Somehow I don’t think this is the flourishing life God wants for me. As I thought about it I remembered the passage in Acts 2 which talks about the young people having visions and the old people dreaming dreams. (Acts 2:17)

I’m not sure what the new thing is that God is calling me to or what God is calling us as a group to but I think I want to use my time during Lent to ask God to give me/us a dream that will inspire and enliven us even as we grow older. 

It is too small a thing to keep the lights of the house church on. There has to be a fire in the hearth to warm all those around. 

— Cal

“It is too small a thing to___________”?

Run a business and sell flowers every day. Live in the West End and attempt to contribute to making it a healthy neighborhood. Sit on the couch and eat snacks and watch the hockey game with my nephews.

These are the things that make up my days. They are gifts that have come to me in forms of making a living, shelter and relationships. The questions do bubble up in me if I need to think bigger than that.

I'm curious where the conversation will lead us. Part of Eldon's introduction makes it seem like if we live these daily tasks filled with the spirit they can be our calling. But then on the flip-side, is Yahweh in the text calling Israel out to a bigger plan? 

I guess this will be the question we flesh out.

—Mel

It is too small a thing to publish an e-book.

Lyle and I have been busy prepping the launch of my little e-book Letters for Lent. I have found myself going between being excited about sharing my deeper reflections (something I feel I was born to do), and feeling somewhat terrified and ashamed with questions like, "Have I said exactly what I mean in the clearest way possible? Could I have dug things deeper? Will I (and others) roll my eyes in a few years at how shallow my writing was? Am I truly honoring God?”

Reading this section of Isaiah, along with Eldon’s intro, was really helpful this past week. "To say something is ‘too small a thing’ does not diminish a thing, it it only places it in a larger frame.” It is helpful to see my wee e-book as only one thing in a much larger frame. Paul joked with me last week not to see it as the “great American novel”. Laughing at it loosens my expectations. One morning this week, I told God that it was his book, not mine. I can choose the words and images and formatting all I like, I can even put it out on social media, but after that it is really none of my business how it might land in people’s hearts (assuming they even read it). It is God’s business if God wants to stir up someone’s affections through my paltry words (and yes, they could always always be deeper). All I could really do was be faithful to the Word I heard to send it out, like a tiny seed, after editing it with devotion and discernment. There are so many seeds going out all the time, with people teaching, reading, mentoring, encountering people through their days, making flower arrangements or sourdough gifts. They are all small things in God’s large kingdom.

—Lydia

My thoughts today hearken back to the last years of my time working at the downtown library as a publicity assistant. It is too small a thing to stay in the same job for too long. It is one thing, a cliché, to say that working in a place for ’too long’ makes you feel like the walls are closing in on you, or that your feel like you’re on a hamster wheel running on the same spot. It is quite another to actually have this as your living reality, day after day. At first the thoughts that maybe it is time to leave and venture further along your life quest are fleeting and isolated, and you push them away. Then the drumroll seems constant and closer. The thing is, it was a very good job, and I loved it in many ways. The people were great, my creativity was used in multiple ways, and I often enjoyed being a WPL person. But at an unconscious level I was going stale without a significant change taking place. Leaving was a relief, and I think the right decision, but for a long time I have felt phantom pains. Almost a nausea. Because part of my identity was caught up in a job that I had for 3 decades, which is quite a long time. 

“To say something is ‘too small a thing’ does not diminish a thing, it only places it in a larger frame.” I don’t fully know what that means but today it means that my reasons for getting up in the morning need to grow deeper roots. Roots that dig deep into God’s gracious purposes. Instead of phantom pains, I need to be transformed (or continue to be transformed) into a fuller human being that resembles Christ, but with the individual qualities that are uniquely gifts of mine. That comes through, I believe, allowing the Presence of God in community to address me, and for me to respond. To yield, to give up, to ‘die’ to unhelpful ways of existing. And to allow the Light to shine, more rather than less, as we say in our covenant.

— Lyle

“It is too small a thing to___________”?

Thus “sayeth” the Lord: 

“It is too small a thing to score and gift Sourdough bread. It is too small a thing to plan potlucks and feed Watershed. I will plant you in a "broad place" where the bread that is shared is the living body of Christ, where the abundance of food and the spontaneity of laughter and the jostled closeness of a Sunday Lunch is given to you to strengthen and carry you, my beloved children of Watershed, beyond this crowded living room.”

Now that we’re on Zoom and away from our cozy little house church on Victor Street, the question of how we ‘eat’ together and experience fellowship over a communal meal comes up. I remember back in the early days of the Pandemic, a related question came up for me personally. Who am I and what is my place if I don’t have a space to prepare for on Sunday mornings? 

Being the ‘Parish gnome’ became a natural vocational fit for me. On a good day, I enjoyed the early morning solitude, buzzing around in the kitchen, putting out the cups, the plates, the snack. On the best days it became meditation, strangely helping to settle and slow me down, opening my mind and heart for the nourishment of the word and the worship we would all participate in later. Maybe that’s why I have embraced the Sourdough romance and jumped on the Snack Train. In some way it reminds me of our shared humanity and the fundamental need to eat together; to take in sustenance, not in isolation, but as a community. Spiritually imagined, this basic act, ingesting and digesting, tells us that we are One Body formed in Christ.  

"To say something is “too small a thing” does not diminish a thing, it only places it in a larger frame. In this passage the favoured people are called out of exile into safety and abundance, but that is only the beginning- Yahweh has bigger plans.” (from Eldon’s intro)

 With the Three ‘R’s” in verse 6, the Servant of the Eternal One tells us that our Worship meal is meant to “raise, restore, and reach”. The lavish spread of our combined offerings is not just meant to satiate us, a cloistered sectarian West End House Church. The food, both literal and spiritual is provided as fuel for our faith journey as we head out the door. Dispersed but not separated, the spirit takes us with our full bellies and nourished hearts and minds into places, each uniquely carved out for each of us, in order to share the living bread we received with others we meet along the way. 

Studies show that children who are given a nutritious and balanced diet thrive emotionally, socially and intellectually. It might have something to do with feeling loved and cared for instead of feeling neglected. I don’t know what big plans Yahweh has, but as we keep coming back to dine at God’s Banquet Table we are gifted with ways to deepen both our inner life and our fellowship with each other so that we too can thrive emotionally, socially and intellectually. The light and love within us was never meant to be hidden away but ultimately meant for God to take and use for the spreading of his vision of mercy and enlightenment beyond our community. As both Isaiah and John in his Gospel said, "I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth…. they will know us by our Love”.  

It was a meaningful exercise to play with the community/Watershed applications for this but I also found it speaking to me personally. This week's Enneagram surprise has been interesting to say the least, as a recent test revealed that I’m an Enneagram 9, not a 6 as I’d thought. On its own, this bit of new information is disorienting but folded into the goodness of God’s loving intentions for me, trusting that he is the author of all that is Bev gives me another way to leave the smallness of my compulsion with the Divine and Loving Trinity.

“It is too small a thing to hide and avoid; it is too small to want peace at the cost of your own authenticity. I will give you the courage to speak from your heart, to be yourself for the good of community and to trust those I’ve placed you with knowing that even in disagreement, even in conflict, I am grafting you all together in a greater unity.”

— Bev

Now the Lord says to me,

“It isn’t enough for you to be merely my servant.
You must do more than lead back survivors from the tribes of Israel.
I have placed you here as a light for other nations;
you must take my saving power to everyone on earth.” (49:6)

Looking back on the other side of retirement, with the help of the Lydie's memorial binder, I am so grateful for all the people, the events, courses, the merriment, and not-so-merry times, that formed us as a tribe over the past decades. Entering my reveries in-depth, I can even smell the new carpet at Cornerstone, and the ‘hootch’ Cal and I drank by the riverside just before his marriage to Linda. There were more spiritual moments like - breaking the spell of victimhood and misperception by cracking a brittle branch, a sort of exorcism. I remember burning the wieners at the Meet Your Neighbour party, or when Amergin our husky dog ate a dozen frozen, uncooked hamburgers off the Bird's Hill barbecue table one summer. I recall plunging Jeanie Mcfee (280 lb + me) beneath baptismal waters and swamping some of the sanctuary on Easter. Nor can I forget the deep theological reflection on what it means to fall in love, and how that love can mirror the love of Christ. These remembrances cry out for a book someday which might be part of the litany of joy and sorrow.

I read Isaiah's text and hear a summons again to dig deeper, listen to what the new thing might be, and be reminded of my faith's smallness concerning my/our future. A voice in my unconscious says, "Hey, buddy! You're done - time to dawn those golf shoes with the boys." (That is a joke.) What this voice actually says is, "Yes, you are done. Now relax, take it easy and float downstream." The tendency (and temptation) in retirement is to merely maintain one's accumulated memories and sustain our friendships for at least one generation.

Another voice, Isaiah-like, says, “Watershed, and all of you in it, are not here merely for your spiritual solace. I have a far-reaching vision for you. Remember the Dance of the Dawn People which you celebrated so early in your journey? Well, the same Lord of the Dance is with you; here, as your community ages, your moves might not be so smooth or quick, but there is an elegance to this well-cured duskiness.

Hearing this prompt, I realize sitting here watching BBC, reading Sherlock Holmes, and contemplating my Enneagram, that as good as these things are, they cannot replace that call from long ago that vocation has not worked itself through to conclusion. There is no retirement for those who are called to reflect the image of Christ in the community and individually. There is no withdrawing from co-participation in the life and death of Christ.

Isaiah answers my felt need. I have been wondering about purpose, meaning, and the reason why I took this journey. I have felt the pangs of redundancy that many retirees undergo unless they occupy themselves with a deep enough meaning to sustain their end. Lately, that meaning has not been there for me. Many days have become muddy, blurry, painful physically, and just plain sad. I haven't felt the deep, deep love for Jesus (song hymn lyrics), neither his love for me, or my love for the community. 

This has been a new experience, but like all dark nights - or dusk nights, this has to lead me to an open-armed welcome of Isaiah's message that it is not enough just to coast or maintain the faith; satisfaction comes in living it, sharing it, and dreaming it. God has poured out Christ's spirit on all ages, all flesh and the freshness that brings dreams for old men (and women) to dream. A dream to continue sharing and manifesting.

— Paul

2. Have you ever had a relationship, project or experience of "spending your strength for nothing" or "labouring in vain?”

I often have to balance working on a project with letting go of what happens when it's finished. A good example is happening at work these last few weeks. 

The team I work with has undergone several ‘makeovers’ in the last two years, in terms of new managers joining with new ideas on how to do things. Over that time I started putting together a "Wikipedia" type website to help our team with different steps as they evolved. I involved the team in different aspects as the website changed to meet different demands. The website became a process, a team effort; people were using it and finding it helpful. Since a lot of the thinking behind the website and process was gleaned from my almost 40 years experience in IT, I felt like it was a good note to leave on when I retire next year. I thought I could spend my last year at Wawanesa helping more on the sidelines and letting the website provide leadership guidance. It would be a way to leave well. But within the last 2 months, there were more ‘makeovers’ coming down the pipe and I realized these would throw this nicely-working process we had all worked hard for, into chaos. And that there wasn't anything I could do. It did, and does indeed feel futile. 

I fantasized about taking a "let me know how it goes" attitude, letting things break and then saying I told you so. But that would mean a lot of poisonous resentment building up in me. Then I remembered a through-line Paul often reminded me of in my working life: “Bring yourself to work.”  This was what I learned years ago when I started mentoring with Paul, and it has been a trustable principle. And now I realized that bringing myself to work would be a way to leave well that didn't depend on outcomes. Part of me bringing myself to work is not to be apathetic or cynical but to find ways to help the team. In a sense, the work on the website and process could continue, even if it fell apart, if it came authentically from myself. And in a more important sense, bringing myself to work also means to continue to be open to those good conversations that happen from time to time. To remember that sense of being called to work at Wawanesa in the first place.

It isn't easy to put yourself into work and yet be agnostic about results. "Passionate disinterestedness" is a phrase from one of Paul's articles (Desert Spirituality). It seems like the best horizon to aim for, a way of being open to God in the moment, and in myself, and a way to trust.

— Linda

When I read this passage I immediately thought of the many years we spent at our previous church, which could be seen as “spending my strength for nothing.”  What is to show for all the countless hours of building a Sunday School curriculum, moving to Maryland Street, teaching kids, carpeting a church basement, painting a theatre, selling snacks, cleaning a popcorn machine, attending countless meetings, welcoming newcomers, moving people, moving them again, and again, going on prayer walks, writing proposals, counting money every week, hosting cell groups, organizing BBQs, working at coffee houses, working at the church drop in? Thirty odd years of "labouring in vain." For what? Did the neighborhood change? Was I a valued part of a spiritual community? Did my faith rub off on my kids? Did my spiritual life grow? Trying to answer these questions makes me feel like even more of a Failure. Yes, a capital F.

So I have to look at the question differently.  I think of the poem Lyle sent out the other day, by Walter Rauschenbusch:

"O God, we thank you for this universe, our great home…
Grant us, we pray, a heart wide open to all this joy and beauty,
and save our souls from being so steeped in care and so
darkened by passion that we pass heedless and unseeing
when even the thorn bush by the wayside is aflame with
the glory of God."

My true vocation is to see that burning bush, and like Cal said, to be changed by it. Would I be in the place of studying and painting that I am today if I had not walked the sometimes painful road that those years brought? Would I be able to see the wideness of “Jesus's concern” (Moltmann) if I was still there? Is it enough to walk with concern for people and daily life if I don't have “a heart wide open” to beauty, and if I don't even notice the burning bush I walk by every day?

— Penny

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