A View from Five Oaks, by Mardi Tindal

If you’re looking for my regular (at least weekly) blogs, you can find me on the wondercafe.ca website OR by going to www.united-church.ca/moderator and following the link to my blog. See you there – from the COP15 talks in Copenhagen and beyond!!

I’m getting settled into the Moderator’s office during September. Please watch for a weekly Moderator’s blog. Direction will be found on the United Church website: www.united-church.ca

You’ll also find a Moderator’s page via that home page.

Many thanks again for your support and blessings,

~ Moderator Mardi Tindal

Many thanks to the almost 200 of you who visited Five Oaks to greet the Moderator today (me) and to all of you who have sent such generous messages and greetings.

I’m delighted that Don Linkletter will become Acting Director here at Five Oaks for the months to come, working closely with the board and staff.

‘Til my return following this three year leave of absence to serve the church in this new way, please know that my prayers are with you and Five Oaks.

I am so grateful for my staff colleagues who organized such a lovely afternoon today, and who care so lovingly for Five Oaks’ ministry every day – in partnership with the board!

Many blessings,

Moderator Mardi Tindal

Solar panels installed at Five Oaks July 29 2009

Another chapter in the story of Five Oaks’ commitment to live with respect in creation is being created this month.

A new energy-efficient boiler is being installed in the main building and the first solar panels have already been placed on the roof.

Solar energy will pre-heat water for domestic uses, thereby reducing oil consumption.

I will post further information as this project moves forward along with news about the grant and donor support which has made it all possible.

We look forward to hearing from more supporters who want to be part of these exciting new greening initiatives.

Jim Anderson was a good friend of Five Oaks. For each of the past 5 summers he relished every work project he requested during his retreats here, from spreading wood chips on the trails to moving stones by the creek.

It was a shock to receive Eileen’s call on the morning his body was found, asking for our prayers.

Last Tuesday we said farewell to Jim at a poignant memorial service marked by prayers not only for him and his family but also for the man who’s charged with Jim’s murder – and his family.

Jim has been coming to Five Oaks with Circles of Support & Accountability (a program of the Mennonite Central Committee) and Dismas. These groups form a remarkable community of wide hearts with whom Five Oaks is pleased to partner in supporting those who have returned to society following prison time, keeping both returnees and the broader community safer.

With the support of this community, Jim never re-offended. And what a worker he was! All of the photos of him displayed at the service had been taken at Five Oaks – during one of his few days here every year for which he longed in the other 362 days.

The community that gathered on Tuesday demonstrated how deep grief over the loss of a good friend can be held along with compassion for a murderer. They promised prison visits and care.

Harry Nigh asked the question:

“Lord Jesus, your first real saint was a thief who died beside you in your agony and you promised him paradise. Will you remember these two men too? Is there room in your kingdom for them too?”

We are grateful that there’s room in God’s kindom to bring together all kinds of people seeking – and making – peace and reconciliation, together at Five Oaks.

Our board recently adopted a statement of vision for the centre which Eileen, Harry, Jim, Eusebia, and others, are helping us live into:

“Five Oaks is a sacred meeting place for learning and renewal where people are inspired to participate in God’s healing of the world.”

Thank you, Jim, for helping us participate in God’s healing of the world.

Last Friday I accepted an invitation to Six Nations to join with those of aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities, for a ‘Transboundary Dialogue on Climate Change and Water in the Great Lakes Basin’. What most struck me was the fearlessness of the participants as they talked about how to initiate adaptations to climate change, even as they listened to report after report filled with hard scientific data about the alarming rate and effects of climate change on everything from personal health (e.g., increased illness from water contamination, poorer water quality) to stress on social order (effects on transportation, industry and energy, municipal governments).

Aboriginal voices have especially rung in my ears in the hours since, rooted so clearly in traditional wisdom and, on that day at least, so appreciated by the academics and government representatives. With what I perceived as confidence that change is possible, Dan Hill (not the singer) for instance calmly said, “Unless we change our attitudes and ideas, we’re all going to die of thirst.”

I find myself thinking about the similarities between aboriginal communal traditions, descriptions of early Christian community, and contemporary expressions of intentional Christian community; about living and working together as one. It seems to me that those who are immersed in this kind of strongly knit community are better able to tell the truth about their lives with a confidence that the community can deal with the truth – that change of attitudes and ideas is possible – because the community can be trusted.

So often the voices of our government leaders seem to be appealing to fear. But those of us who are committed to spiritual practices for the sake of community with the capacity to love God’s world, know about living in the tragic gap which Parker J. Palmer describes as “the gap between the reality of a given situation and an alternative reality we know to be possible because we have experienced it.” We are aware of reasons to fear but we are focused on reasons to hope.

When I’ve had the guts to trust community with my own truth, I’ve experienced reason for that trust. However, unlike most aboriginal people I know, I tend to turn to fear of my community much more easily than trust. Our culture does so much to erode our trust in one another.

I have been taught that economy is the management of the household. Friday’s conversations were about how to combine traditional wisdom about air, land and water with scientific knowledge in order to manage the household so that healthy food, clean water and air, are realities today and tomorrow. My hope for what is possible in the “management of the household” grew with the imagining of how we could tell the truth and work together to build such community across cultures to ensure that “the seventh generation” has good water to drink. Perhaps these questions about the economy are mostly about how we understand our rightful place within the natural order or the greater economy about which poet Wendell Berry writes.

I offer leadership from within the church community and was the only one in Friday’s gathering of about 60 people who I heard identifying self in relation to church. To my relief and surprise, everyone with whom I spoke personally responded with positive regard for, good experience with, and high expectations of the United Church of Canada.
It is not too late for my church, and for members like me, to risk listening to truth and telling truth in such urgent conversations. Without such dialogue it may be too late for the healing of God’s world.

As I start to hear buzz about web 3.0, I thought it was a good day to re-engage with web 2.0. One of the things I love about working at Five Oaks is the way in which we reflect upon having a sense of place in an often fragmented, dislocated culture. We greet guests here every day in this particular place of land, waters, peoples and other wild life which many describe as a ‘thin place’ while at the same time connecting with those in other ‘thin places’ across Canada and around the globe.

Tomorrow we welcome Tim Scorer and 20 aboriginal and non-aboriginal participants to a two-day program entitled Cosmic Pilgrimage – a great prelude to Matthew Fox’s March 20 – 22 program entitled Christianity & Mysticism (all are welcome!) These are only two of the many exciting and well-attended programs of this season (www.fiveoaks.on.ca)

I’m delighted to learn that my Mom’s early days on web 2.0 have her tagging the Five Oaks website as one of her two favourites. (The other being her grandson’s blog.) So for those of all ages, we’re here for you in cyberspace – and in the sacred space where Whiteman’s Creek flows into the Grand River, rooted and reaching.

I am coming more and more to see all of life as a journey toward integrity, a union of the ‘inner’ spiritual life focused on listening for God’s promptings, and the ‘outer’ life of being active in the world.

I am grateful to Five Oaks board and staff colleagues – and to Rev. Don Parsons (Acting Director of Five Oaks until my return in mid-December) for enabling me, in this time of sabbatical, to spend some concentrated time attending to the swaying, interactive movements by which one’s inner life and outer life grow in harmony.

Now midway, I can comment on two early fruits of this process: first, a renewal of my imagination and enthusiasm for the vital ministry enabled by Five Oaks; and second, my decision to accept Erie Presbytery’s nomination for Moderator of The United Church of Canada. The two are not unrelated.

It’s more than five years since I was first asked to consider a nomination. I rejected it immediately, even though it came then from one of our former Moderators, a person I deeply respect and admire. I have resisted many similar suggestions since.

In one way, finally saying ‘yes’ to the nomination is a relief. My son put it clearly when he said to me yesterday, “It’s not your job to decide who will be Moderator; you’ve done your job by offering yourself to the church in this process.” He’s right, of course, and it is a great relief to now hand off the weight of discernment to General Council when it meets next August.

Still, getting to this point has not been easy for me. Our church is blessed by many extraordinary leaders; there is no shortage of names of those who could fulfill this role magnificently. Knowing about their gifts – and my limitations – is merely one of the reasons why this discernment has been so difficult.

Everyone who has helped me to spiritually navigate this possibility has helped me to look deep inside. These include those who asked me to consider it, my spiritual director, my family members and those with whom I share Courage to Lead work, inspired and led by Parker J. Palmer. “Courage” work opens us to travel to the depths of soul, where we must go in order to be faithful to the Divine Spark within. We cannot make such a journey alone; it is demanding work to find the courage to say yes to that which we more easily say no. This is why we need places and times of retreat and of grace-filled community.

And so, at the end of a long period of discernment I am prepared to embrace both the demanding, joyful work of Five Oaks and that of being a Moderatorial nominee.

Naturally, I am being asked what I would hope to bring to the role of Moderator if elected. Every time I have been asked to consider the nomination, my first impulse was to ask the other what led them to raise this possibility. Their answers – which, through prayer and discernment have now become mine – are about how I would bring who I am, how I lead and what I hear in God’s call to us as church in this time.

There will be more to say to General Council Commissioners as next summer rolls around, but in the following few comments you will no doubt recognize an interweaving of my priorities at Five Oaks with how I would approach the role of Moderator. If another nominee is called to be Moderator, I will offer myself (both “inside and out”) to support them in their call, while continuing to invest myself fully in my responsibilities at Five Oaks.

Over many years I have been learning to balance my passion for an active faith with the depth that comes from regular spiritual discipline, leading to a continuous call through prayer into action and through action into prayer. My style of leadership interweaves the contemplative with the active. This is how I have learned to function in order to seek – and by God’s grace, to find – some degree of integrity.

My current passions cluster in three areas:

• The urgency of environmental care, which I see as tightly linked with social justice and the concerns of indigenous peoples. In the late ‘70s I served as a young member of the General Council Task Force on the Environment. In our report to the 1977 General Council, we said, “In order to love each other, we have to love the garden; in order to love the garden, we have to love each other.” I would encourage the church to delve deeply into what such words mean for us today and how they call forth our particular action and witness.
• Enthusiasm for what I hear from young leaders. At Five Oaks, we have nurtured a network of more than 100 young adults whose commitment and fresh vision both challenge and inspire me. I continue to seek out ways to give young members a greater voice.
• The need to continue learning what it means to live into right relations in this land. As a church we are uniquely ‘of this land.’ In coming to terms with our past, through truth, reconciliation and healing with indigenous peoples; in coming to terms with our present, through intercultural relationships; and in moving with confidence and hope toward our future, we owe Canada our continued faithful witness. I never hesitate to speak publicly about the way my faith inspires and supports my action.

Let’s help one another continue to deepen our integrity. We have been given the gift of community within the church of Jesus Christ: opportunities to worship and work as congregations and to embrace retreat and new learning in places like Five Oaks. Let’s help one another consider how our inner life, in dynamic relationship with the Holy, provides the nurture, structure and support by which we act in the world to reflect God’s love. And let’s take what we learn from our consequent action and efforts into our most intimate conversation with God, Christ and Spirit, Source of Life, Living Word and Bond of Love. We pray these things in order that we might live as one, undivided, with integrity. Amen.