The world’s Joy Quotient declined a little on Sunday March 6, when Ian Macdonald died. 
        Ian was one of those rare people who never let his inner child get buried under the overburden of grown-up concerns. He took an almost wicked delight in wit. The prospect of trying something new and different -- whether a children’s tale for adults, or Bible study through improv drama --brought out a crooked grin, a glint in his eye. 
        I’m told that I described him once as “insane -- in the best possible way.”
        Around 1980, Ian and his colleague Jim Urich were the ministry team at Augustine United Church in Winnipeg. To relax, they strummed their guitars together. A neighbouring Anglican priest, Gordon Light, dropped in. Gordon also played guitar -- and had a guitar case full of songs that he had written but had never had the nerve to share with anyone. 
        Out of that meeting -- with the later addition of a third United Church minister, Bob Wallace -- came the vocal group known as the Common Cup Company. 
        For 35 years, the Common Cup produced albums and CDs of contemporary church music. It wasn’t traditional hymns, though at least a dozen of their songs have been included in denominational hymnaries. It wasn’t folk music, although it was certainly influenced by the passion for justice of Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. It wasn’t the “praise choruses” popular among evangelical churches, but it was clearly religious. 
        Ian and Gordon did most of the writing. In a surprising reversal, Gordon, coming from a liturgical church, wrote mostly about life experiences; Ian, from the liberal United Church, tended to focus on the significance of traditional sacraments …
        One of my favourites is Ian’s celebration of marriage vows: 
“Love is gentle, love is kind, 
Most surprising thing to find,
Healing and revealing every gift of heart and mind.
And love keeps no score of wrongs, 
But keeps singing out new songs…”

A child at heart
        But it was rare for Ian to stay serious for long. After the Mulroney conservatives were almost eliminated in 1993, Ian penned a short-lived song suggesting that the only thing rarer than a Rocky Mountain Lobster (think about it!) was a Conservative politician. 
        When fellow Winnipegger Fred McNally staffed the United Church’s national worship desk in Toronto, Ian and friends dropped in. Feeling that Fred’s cramped cubicle didn’t match his responsibilities, they moved the office walls while Fred’s neighbours were at lunch.
        As a child at heart, Ian loved parables. He sang of dolphins and eagles, of ponies and bones and rivers. And of dragonflies. One song told of bugs in a pond, climbing reeds to the surface and turning into shimmering dragonflies. But of course, they couldn’t go back to tell of their transformation. 
        “We sang him to sleep,” said Ian’s son Rory. The last song Ian heard would have been his Celtic Prayer, with its haunting refrain: “Bless Thou to me my life…”
        But when I heard that Ian had died, I thought first of the song he wrote for Ralph Donnelly, a beloved mentor in Winnipeg. It begins, “Come away, my own dear ones, so softly I’m fading…”
        Ian too faded away, as progressive dementia sapped his spirit and eventually his life. So for me, the song written for someone else becomes the epitaph for the song writer. 
        Fly free, dear dragonfly. 
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Copyright © 2016 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

The mail was all positive about last week’s column on the Chantecler hens. Several letters just said thanks for some good news, nicely told; others were more specific. 

Beth Burgess wrote, “Thank you for this wonderful, feel-good story about the hens. I hope all survive to adulthood and the journey. What a treat for the Inuvik people! This story proves yet again that small things can make a very big difference in the world.”

June Blau had actually been to Inuvik, and sent along “a couple of pictures from our visit to the Inuvik greenhouse in 2011. It is an amazing example of people working together to care for themselves and each other. We are delighted to know that a henhouse and hens have been added, with much gratitude to the lady in the Okanagan Valley.”

“Well, Jim, you always manage to add to my education,” Tom Watson wrote. “I was raised on a farm and we had chickens and by times a brood hen would hatch some chicks. However, never before had I known that the eggs upon which the hen was sitting was called a clutch. I hear that word ‘clutch’ used in other forms lately but never in the sense of incubating eggs.”

Katy Cox “liked the column. It talked about the high cost of food in the north. This is a huge problem. When we lived in Inuvik 20 years ago, a trucker served the Northern communities. He’d drive up to Inuvik from the lower mainland. Over the years his truck size increased. It had a bunk for him and his little white dog. Up the Dempster he drove except during freeze up and break up. He supplied the hotels and the residents -- sort of like a one-stall farmers market.
        “And my other comment is that Inuvik is not on the Arctic Ocean. That’s like saying Hope (B.C.) is a coastal town. Inuvik is on the Mackenzie River that flows into the Arctic Ocean.”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

The appropriate psalm for this coming Sunday depends on whether you’re celebrating it as Palm Sunday or Passion Sunday. I decided to go with this paraphrase of Psalm 31:9-16, because just a few days ago, our schools celebrated “anti-bullying day.” Kids can be cruel. Children who are unusually skinny or fat, who have poor hearing or thick glasses or speech impediments, often have to live with merciless teasing. 
        Perhaps you can still feel echoes of that treatment in your life. 

9   I feel lousy, Lord. 
My head aches, my heart aches, my whole body aches. 
10   My life is a sea of suffering.
Night after night, I toss in torment;
I cannot sleep; I waste away with weariness.

11   I have become a laughing stock.
My enemies scorn me, my neighbors avoid me--
even people who pass me in the street turn away from me.
12   My mind has turned to jelly.
I might as well be dead; I'm a fraction of my former self. 

13   I can hear them whispering about me.
They put their heads together;
Behind my back, they plot to make me look foolish.
14   But they won't grind me down, Lord, for I trust in you.
I know that you are my God.
15   Even when I can't help myself, you will guard me;
My survival is safe in your hands. 
16   Don't turn away from me too--
If you love me, rescue me from my torment.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah – the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
Alan Reynold's weekly musings, punningly titled “Reynolds Rap,” write reynoldsrap@shaw.ca
Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
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 twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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