Thursday September 28, 2022

I took my kitten out for a walk, for him to discover the world outdoors. Something launched a filibuster at us out of the catalpa tree. 

            It took me a while to discern the source. A squirrel. It leaped effortlessly from branch to branch, uttering a stream of profanities that would make a teenager blush.

             I have heard this language before. 

            When we lived in Toronto, a family of squirrels took up residence in our chimney. I wanted to evict them, so I opened the vent in the basement and thrust in a wad of burning newspaper. I thought it would send our furry tenants flying out the top end. 

            Not quite. Instead, an angry adult came hurtling out of the open vent into the basement, with its tail on fire. 

            Fortunately for me, it didn’t set anything else on fire. 

            By the time I cornered it and carried it back outside by its tail, I had heard enough squirrel swearing to last me a lifetime.

Bushy tailed rats

            The squirrels that have suddenly arrived in the Okanagan are Eastern Grey Squirrels, about twice the size of our native western red squirrels. 

            Although “grey” is a variable description. Back east, they can also be black, red, or near the city of London, white.

            Up close, the black squirrel is a mean-looking rat with a bushy tail. 

            We got acquainted with a black squirrel when we lived in Toronto. Her obvious teats made it clear she was female, and nursing. So in maternal sympathy, we shared scraps of our patio meals with her. 

            I never wanted to get too close to those front teeth.

            We called her “Mama.”

            Then winter came. She went away. Or hibernated. Or something. 

            The next summer, a whole year later, we saw a squad of squirrels cascading across the powerlines in our back yard. “I wonder if one of those is Mama?” Joan asked. 

            Instantly, one of the squirrels reversed direction and ran up to us, expecting a handout.

            Don’t ever tell me that squirrels aren’t smart.

            I wondered when and how eastern squirrels had reached B.C. Apparently they were introduced to Vancouver Island in 1966. Other sources say they were brought to Vancouver’s Stanley Park in 1906. No rationale given for either occasion. But they’re now considered an invasive species, along with Purple Loosestrife and Giant Hogweed.

Variations on invasive

            Like “grey,” the word “invasive” has many connotations. 

            Russian tanks flooding across the borders of Ukraine are certainlyinvasive.

            Zebra Mussels didn’t intend to be invasive. They just get carried in on the bottoms and bilges of boats. 

            “Invasive” implies something new and different. Probably threatening. The Roman Empire would have seen Christianity as invasive, 20 centuries ago. Dangerous to the established order.

            Just as Islam was considered invasive by Christian Europe 600 years later. 

            And as communism was – and still is – seen as a threat to the American Way of Life after World War II. 

            Invasive – something that needs to be stamped out.

            Alberta has spent 70 years keeping Saskatchewan rats from crossing the provincial border. It is now called the only rat-free jurisdiction in the world. 

            I doubt if Eastern squirrels can be similarly deterred, any more than Rome could stem the tide of Christianity. 

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

It would seem that quite a few of you are frustrated by meetings, too.

Cliff Boldt thought that an old saying typified many meetings he has attended: “When all is said and done, more was said than done.”

            In a second letter, Cliff amplified his rationale: “I am of an age where I still enjoy working with other people on issues and activities I consider relevant to my community.  

            “I look for a task that has a beginning and an end, both close together.

            “I shun any commitment what requires long term involvement which invariably involves meetings —- accept an assignment, do it and that’s the end of things.  I have been to more meetings than I care to remember, chaired more organizations, taken responsibility for things not in my personal best interest.

            “I don’t need to pad my resume any more.”

On the other hand, Nenke Jongkind saw tshe benefit in committee meetings: “I worked with congregations across Canada for the United Church’s Stewardship Services and could seldom attend, much less participate in any committee. It took many years before I could feel that I belonged -- especially because I was a refugee from a Christian Reformed congregation where I had been a member for 31 years since immigration, and that congregation had become a replacement for my extended family. It wasn’t until that role ended in 1994 that I was able to participate in the life and work of the congregation and important relationships could be built via committees and ad hoc work groups.”

Tom Watson agreed: “I attended many of the same type of church meetings…” 

Isabel Gibson offered an analogy: “In physics they call it ‘inertia’ -- the tendency of a body at rest, to stay at rest, and of a body in motion, to stay in motion.  Or, we might add, the tendency of people to continue with methods that reflect how things have always been done, without re-considering what the purpose is and whether it could be better served in another way.

            “Garrison Keillor said that all the important family discussions happened while washing and drying dishes. (Or, perhaps, while frying onions together.)         

            “I've had vanishingly few important discussions in meetings. There are better ways.”

Robert Caughell identified a few specific examples: “I wasted a lot of time in unproductive meetings when I could have been doing something more important.

            “One meeting was to tell us that a project was behind, having problems. Problem was that management waited three months to tell us.

            “Another was three hours long, blue-sky planning session. Very little to nothing came out of it.

            “My technical report of a software program took a few minutes to state that it could not do what the boss wanted it to do. He did not like my honestly -- I am detail oriented, the boss was not, and hated to hear too much technical information.”

John Shaffer sees both sides: “I often had a bad attitude toward meetings.  In seminary, one professor stressed how meetings could be used in positive ways, but I was never able to accomplish that vision.  In fact, now that I reflect on my career, when I tried to have a portion of a meeting focused on spiritual growth or inspiration, I got push-back from members who felt that was a waste of time, distracting us from the business of the day. I so wished that my seminary professor was present to understand reality in a local church.

            “But, when I focus on the value of small groups within a congregation, business meetings provide what is needed: it is a gathering of human beings in the same space.”

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Psalm paraphrase

The Revised Common Lectionary offers an abundance of choices for this Sunday: two readings from Lamentation, plus Psalm 37 and Psalm 137. I opted for Lamentations, mainly because I did an extended paraphrase of that book a few years ago that I’ve never published. Until now. So here’s part of the first lament, chapter 1.

Bent over by the wind, 
waves of grass sweep east 
across the prairie. 
They break like surf 
against the tombstones, grey, 
lichened, silent fangs that mark
a reef of memories 
unseen beneath the surface
of a rustling sea.

Wooden crosses tilt and totter, row on row.
No poppies grow, on graves of children never named, 
mute statistics of infant mortality
in an unforgiving world.
With crosses, grieving parents hoped
to sanctify their sobs and sorrows,
so future generations could feel their pain.

But no one hears, anymore.

No one places flowers at the graves.
No one hoes the soil of sunken mounds.
No one picks scabby apples off gnarly trees.
No one pulls weeds between the moldering boards
of rotting sidewalks. 
Thistles grow within the stonewalled nest 
where once a church thrust its steeple at the sky.
A battered chalice rests among the rocks.

Once, pioneers shouldered the wind, 
the cold, the loneliness, to plant here
a newborn community. By hand and arm
they plowed the black sod, built huts, 
raised wheat and children, 
worshipped God with stiff necks
 and stiffer judgement.

In the darkness, children pulled thin blankets
up over their heads to hush the howl
of wind plucking at the corners of their bedroom.
They feared the wind more than any goblins
crouched beneath their beds; the wind was always, 
more forever than God. 

Time has now silted over their struggles -- 
sweat in summer, frost in winter --
all blown away. The wind whispers its farewell
to abandoned dreams….

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

                  I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.

                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)