Wolfe Island United Church

Wolfe Island United Church

April 15, 2018

Scripture: 1John 4: 7-9, 16, 19 -20

John 4: 25 – 37 (Parable of the Good Samaritan)

Humboldt Strong: God is LOVE

Don Misener

Friday, April 6 at 5 pm was a life changing experience for the residents of Humboldt, Saskatchewan and hundreds of family members and friends of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team. Since this tragic accident a groundswell of care has swept the country and the continent. If people are often God's language, and I believe they are, then God's love is most certainly embracing all those traumatized by this loss.

The bus collision with the trailer of a transport truck killed 16 – among them 10 hockey players and 6 of their support team. As the news trickled out the monumental nature of this accident gradually became clear. Like many others in Canada I found myself searching for more news and finding it hard to take in the impact of the news I was hearing. Surely there was a mistake. But eventually it was confirmed - 10 members of the hockey team, 5 of their support staff and the hospitalization of the other 14 members of the team. Later in the week another of the support team died as a result of massive head injuries. Two other players continue to be in critical condition as I prepare this sermon.

As the media revealed more of the details about the accident and the efforts of first responder's to save lives and safeguard the dignity of the deceased in the chaos of the accident scene the full reality began to sink in.

Then on Sunday evening there was a vigil conducted by the Humboldt clergy. I admired their courage in undertaking leadership of such an emotionally raw ministry On Monday as I continued to journey with this tragedy I felt the need to do something to mark the seriousness of what had happened. I decided to lower to half mast the Canada flag in our backyard. When we heard about the hockey stick tribute later in the week we did this on the front porch.

Tuesday was the day in the month set apart many weeks ago for monthly retreat at the Spirituality Centre located attached to the Sisters of Providence Residence on Princess St. This monthly one day retreat each month from my busyness in retirement makes it possible for me to give spiritual attentiveness to what God has to communicate to me. The rest of the days of the month I am preoccupied with the responsibilities and undertakings of the day. I like to be busy and active but this busyness tends to distract me from attentiveness to God's presence and communications. It is only when I set aside time when I am not distracted by other activities that I am so often surprised by what God has to communicate to me personally. That day apart consists of time on my own in a quiet space provided in the Spirituality Centre for some journaling about what is important in my life's journey at this point, some reading of my past journaling, time for reflection and prayerful attentiveness that concludes in the afternoon with a meeting with a spiritual director who gives me opportunity to talk about what my day apart has helped me discover in the journey with God. Since I am an organized person I usually go with some plans for where I will be focusing my spiritual attentiveness. I had read a very inspiring book while on vacation recently and wanted to spend some time with what made it so spiritually enriching. However I soon discovered that was not to be. I could not avoid remembering the tragic events of last Friday evening. Seemed to me God had more for me to discover in this journey with the suffering of the Humboldt community. So I focused my attention on the victims of that accident.

As the father of three sons now in their mid-life years I pondered what a massive loss the death of all these people involved within each of their families. 10 young men, highly motivated to achieve their best snuffed out in the flash of an eye. Their support team, so highly motivated to care for these young men - what a loss for all of us and especially for their families and friends. I pondered the impact of this loss of life on those who were seriously injured and had the added suffering of being informed of the deaths of so many in their hockey family. Survivor guilt, the ending of a dream in which they invested so much. Just two of the massive losses suffered. The impact on their families and friends Youthful confidence in the fairness of life assaulted. Their fears about living magnified. The trust so important for confident living and risk-taking undermined.

Then I thought about their families – mothers, fathers, their worst fears confirmed concerning one of their children. Their siblings in the family shattered. An irrepairable hole in the relational network of the family forever. The eruption of emotion, many of them out of step with reality but no less overwhelming. The shock, the fear, the guilt and regret of words spoken and unspoken, the anger and helplessness just a few of the feelings assaulting them. The responses of those seeking to help them who say that they should not feel that way they do, undermining their own experience, not only not helping them to feel better but sometimes leaving them feeling that those who want to support them are not listening to them and don't appreciate how devastating is this loss.

Then I thought about the experience of the billets – the families with whom the hockey players were living. This is where the tragedy came home to me because when we lived in Kingston from 1975 to 86 we were billets for the junior hockey team in Kingston. Two players lived with us for three years. They became members of our family. And that has continued. We celebrated with them their weddings and the births of their children. We visited them and they visited our home. Two years ago when we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary they were there even though one lives in California and one in northern Ontario. This personal experience gave me first had experience about the depth and breadth of the relationships that get built between these athletes and the billets.

Then I thought about the first responders and the trauma they experienced. I remembered the story of a first responder when my wife Bonnie and I were doing critical stress debriefing with first responders in a small town near Peterborough following a tragic accident that claimed the lives of two teenagers. One first responder, a volunteer firefighter, shared how he could not sleep because every time he closed his eyes he saw the face of the dead teen, her eyes open in death as he worked to extract her body from the wreckage. He had a daughter her age and this magnified his feeling of vulnerability to such a tragic loss of a young life. Something he was going to have to learn to live with.

As I journeyed with these thoughts and feelings I felt the need as I did Monday to do something. Fortunately there is an outdoor labrynth at the Spiritually Centre that provides a way outdoors to complete a walking prayer. Shortly after I began this prayer walk I came across a winters deposit of animal feces on the path and it reminded me that there is no safe place, not even “holy ground” is safe from “s...” happening. Then I came across a piece of trash that had blown onto the walk-way over the course of the winter and it reminded me of the human contributions to the pollution of our world. The ways our choices wound others. The errors in judgment that lead to suffering. I thought about the truck driver. I too have missed Stop signs so there was no need to judge or condemn.

As I walked this prayer I also found myself looking at nearby trees with their budding signs of spring. Then there was a flock of geese flying north in formation. Both these signs pointed to a spring I did not yet feel but that was nonetheless coming into being. I was reminded of God's grace even when we can't yet feel it. A reminder of the seasons of the year and the seasons of life where the winter journey of suffering also eventually opens the way into the springing of new life. Such a dependable cycle inviting us to trust and persevere in the winter season.

So where was God in this walking. Initially I was hesitant to complete the walk because I have been having some pain in my heel which leaves me hesitant to do any unnecessary walking. But I found that the spring season had thawed the soil long enough to change its consistency from mud when I stepped on it to soft soil that made walking comfortable. This physical surprise brought to mind how God meets us in our ailments with gentleness in unexpected ways and mysteriously meets our needs of the moment. Some might conclude this discovery is the result of a very active imagination but I experienced it as the presence of God providing very gently for my need of the moment.

As the cameras had panned the thousands in attendance at the vigil I wondered at times how well many were able to relate to the religious language being expressed. That led to remembering my own search 25 years ago when I was a member of the Chaplaincy team at St Paul's Hospital, an acute care facility in Saskatoon,seeking how I might help patients who were not religious to experience the presence of our Creator in their lives and find comfort and reasurrance. I am convinced that there is built into our DNA a spiritual sensitivity that is an essential resource in crisis when we have exhausted our own ways of coping. After some researching the spiritual awareness discoveries of other health care professional I composed the following:

Spirituality is the life energy

that awakens us

to wonder

to community

to trust

to hope

to healing

informs us about

our identity-who I am

our place- where I belong

our purpose-why I am

our values-how I live well

and inspires us

to be creative and responsible

to build mutually beneficial relationships

to cope with change and loss courageously

to invest in good that transcends our life.

So what might this definition of spirituality help me locate in the midst of suffering that can exhaust our human coping mechanisms, leaving us frightened in the midst of such an overwhelming tragedy. A loss that threatens our well-being and undermines both coping and courage. “Life energy that awakens us to trust, to hope, to healing.” How important caring people are to awaken such an experience of God's grace. “Informs us about our identity” as the creation of a loving God, assuring us that we are enfolded in a belonging that can sustain us in the dark nights of grief. “Inspires us” to reach out, to allow ourselves to take in the caring of others and to trust this collective caring to see us though our exhaustion. When we have reached our limits of coping to risk staying with the flow of others caring when despair is the only apparent alternative.

Well as I look at it through the lens of the suffering in Humboldt Saskatchewan it invites us to awaken trust in face of the threat of being consumed by despair. Trust in such a circumstance starts out as a decision. We choose to trust in face of the threat of despair.

It informs us that we are not alone even when what we feel is so overwhelming that it leaves us feeling isolated and abandoned. We are the product of a God whose name is love and who promises to companion us one day at a time even when we feel most deserted and most desperate.

This spiritual core at the very center of our being inspires us to reach out into community and to be present to others both as one who is caring and one who is open to receive the care of others. Both the giving and receiving of caring vital ways of awakening hope.

Such arousal of spiritual connection invite us to choose to live one day at a time daring each day to choose to trust that the spiritual grounding of our lives will help us find what we need and see us through the dark nights of the soul that threaten to swamp us with despair. In our home there is the picture of a winter day in a dark forest where in the distance peaking through the trees the sun is rising. Matched to this visual are the words of Camus “In the midst of winter I finally learned that there is in me an invincible summer.” That “invincible summer” I believe is grounded in our spiritual DNA. It is my prayer that those who must journey through the valley of the shadow of death will dare one day at a time to choose to trust this core spiritual ground of their being.

So often we are surprised by this awakening. As we approached the Canadian border on Thursday afternoon, the day of the first funeral, we discovered on all the entry points to Canada that were closed to auto traffice were the words “For Humboldt”. Every person who crossed the Canadian border at the Thousand Islands crossing were reminded and if they were not aware of the tragedy informed that they were entering a country in solidarity with the suffering people of Humboldt. Such an unexpected expression of caring brought tears to our eyes and inspired hope in our hearts. Truly the God at the very ground of our being that we so often discover through the medium of unexpected caring when we least expect it will see us though even when the way is long and dark. Thanks be to God.

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