Winter Issue 1
From the Editor’s Desk: Something Old, Something New
By Steven Gomez
Welcome to a new term at Regent, a new season of studying, and a new round of articles, poems, stories, and crosswords in this eclectic publication of ours.
I’m not one for making New Year’s resolutions. But I have noticed for a long time now that one of my no doubt many spiritual failings is that I’m terrible at prayer. I do it when I need something specific. When someone posts a request on Facebook. When I have an exam or paper to write. Never to simply orient myself to God; I’m not very good at this ‘spending time with Jesus’ thing people in my circles are always on about.
And while I was thinking about this I started looking at the simple wooden cross on a simple black string that my mother gave me eons ago. I used to wear it a lot before letting it hang from a pushpin in my corkboard. There’s something old-fashioned about the shape, the staining on the wood. It’s not large but it’s also not tiny. It’s not a cross that really goes with anything in your wardrobe. Unless your wardrobe happens to be some kind of monastic habit. It began to look like it belonged with beads.
So this Christmas break I finally did something about my prayer problem. I sat down with the Book of Common Prayer, my theological pondering, and a lifetime’s experience of hearing people pray, and came up with a simple and meaningful rubric for morning and midday and evening. I chose certain classic prayer traditions. I adapted sections of certain psalms that felt appropriate and that I love. Then I went down to Beadworks on Granville Island and selected what would represent each part: this colour for the Lord’s Prayer, this one for the Gloria, this for the psalm, and so on. Together with the wooden cross I made myself…I hesitate to call it a rosary. It’s not the Rosary, after all—I’m too Protestant for even one Hail Mary let alone five sets of ten. But they are prayer beads, a small circle of them with the cross at the bottom, not quite wide enough to put on my wrist. It structures my devotion. It orients me to God. It reminds me where trust and hope are to be found, something I’ve needed reminding of lately.
Prayer is so much more than a New Year’s resolution, and I’m not calling it that. It just so happened to coincide with the turning of the calendar. And I’m discovering the need to be more flexible; my morning prayers are sometimes said on the bus into school. And already I’m thinking about revising my rubric since I put confession in the morning prayer, but it feels more natural for the evening. Yet I want to somehow preserve my numerical structure of seven in the morning, three at noon, and seven in the evening…
Anyways, I’m working on my prayer. That ancient discipline of consciously saying words to turn ourselves towards where we should be facing, to give us the awareness of eternity in the present moment. I’ve been faithful to it (mostly) and by now have my rubric memorized. It’s encouraging to think I could also train myself to memorize other things to pray with, like the Psalms of Ascent. I am praying. More than that, by getting up with the words “To You, O Lord, I lift my heart; in You, O God, I trust” and by going to bed with “He leads me beside the waters of rest; He restores my life”, I’m slowly orienting myself and my day in a way that gives me more peace than I usually seem to have.
Sometimes returning to something old is better than starting something new.
So Long and Thanks For All the Soup
By Ian Gilbert
As Australia seems to be in the news for so many sad reasons at the moment, perhaps you may have thought of that Aussie guy Ian. Well I couldn’t think of a better way to say goodbye then by writing to its ever-popular paper, the Et Cetera. As many of you are aware, my wife and I relocated down under a term earlier than expected due to wanting some time to settle before the birth of our little daughter. My original title for this article was, “RCSA VP External resigns amid pregnancy scandal” but I can’t pass up a Douglas Adams pun.
So, we have been here just under a week, navigating that strange world that awaits all who leave Regent. Dinner with family, familiar sights and sounds and smells. It feels as if someone hit pause when we left Australia and now has hit play again. Life went on without us and it will in your own hometowns.
But one thing has changed and that is our joy in the Lord. On our first Sunday back Elyse and I took a 25-minute drive through drought ridden paddocks and dust to a tiny Baptist church. We sang songs we sung in Vancouver, the minister even dropped a reference to Origen and Augustine and we took Communion. It felt more like home to us then a BBQ at the rellies. The same God we learnt to love in Vancouver is the same God who roams the Aussie Outback, the same God who roams the cities of China and the plains of Africa. Suddenly we didn’t feel so far from nowhere. We are simply in a different backyard, but still in the neighbourhood of God’s kingdom.
And for this insight I can only thank Regent College. I want to thank its staff, for being so approachable, honest and thoughtful. I recall struggling with a particular church teaching in a theology class and speaking with the professor. Rather than pointing me to a single verse that backed up this particular professor’s view, he recommended two books of opposing views and encouraged me to read both and think it through. Just a small example that I think represents Regent well. It is a place that allows space to ask questions without being slammed down with a single verse or passage, with unhelpful comments such as “Don’t you just trust what God says?”
It is a patient place. And a joyful place. And I will miss it dearly.
So I want to publish a massive thanks to all who work here but also all who study there, for the conversations with students on endless subjects have impacted me, caused me to rethink issues and encouraged me. The teaching I received at Regent College has breathed new life into me. My wife and I pray it continues to do so for many more of you. I will thank God whenever I think of you.
Stay classy, Regent.
A Canticle For Brother Soil
By Andrea Ramos Santos
A prayer inspired by The Canticle for Brother Sun by Saint Francis of Assisi.
Almighty God, good Creator,
All praise, glory, honour, and blessing are yours.
To you alone, God almighty, they belong,
And no creature is worthy to say your name.
Be praised, my Lord, with all your creatures,
Especially for Brother Soil,
Who gives us every good vegetable, flower, and fruit. Who is so powerful and humble. Who creates abundantly life from the death of many. May we give him rest and care to continue to work on behalf of all creatures.
Be praised, my lord, for Sister Cow,
Who gives us her meat and milk to feed our infants, and our cravings for warm food.
Who gives us her skin to keep us warm. May we give her a good life of running and playing in the fields, and of eating grass.
Be praised, my lord, for Sister Chicken,
Who gives us eggs and meat, and stock for our soups. May we give her a happy life of scratching around and climbing bushes and hen houses. May we give her the possibility of taking care of her chicks.
Be praised, my Lord, for Brother Pig,
Who gives us meat and bacon and fills our houses with hearty food. May we give him a happy dirt life to dive in the mud and play, and rest. May we give him a really piggy life.
Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Tree,
Who serves us with leaves, flowers, fruit and wood. Who shelters many living creatures in her branches. When we cut her down to build a house or anything else, may we remember the death of our Lord Jesus, who rendered his life for us on a cross made of her.
Be praised, my Lord, for Sister Death,
Who surprises and scares us. She reminds us that life is a gift that we do not control. May we remember that we encounter her in every living creature that we eat to give us life, that through her we have a table full of food and richness and friends. And when we encounter her at the end of our lives or at the end of lives of our beloved ones, may we remember that she does not have the last word.
Be praised, Our Lord Jesus, who won against Sister Death on that wooden cross, to remind us everyday that our lives are saved in You. But also remind us that our Sister Death teaches us about our limits, how powerless we are in our creatureliness. May we accept her as another gift coming from You.
Apologetics in Two Paragraphs
By David Raimundo
Man does not exist. I have weighed all the pros and cons, all the arguments that favor the existence of man and those that sustain the opposite hypothesis. I must now announce that I have reached an easy and surprising conclusion. The belief in the existence of man constitutes a mere consolation myth, a kind of delusional palliative that helps us to endure our hopeless condition. But this belief must be thoroughly challenged, for it belongs to the weak ones, to those who refuse to face the truth with due pragmatism. This is a belief that maintains the false hope of a life beyond immediate, palpable reality…a terrible lie.
If man existed, there wouldn’t be so much suffering in the world. If man existed, there wouldn’t be so many tears, so much misery, so much tragedy. Man would certainly stand up to intervene. Those who most strongly believe in the existence of man have repeatedly claimed that justice, cooperation and solidarity are his main attributes. Therefore, justice, cooperation and solidarity would spread throughout the world if only man existed. Since the world remains largely untouched by these much needed virtues, my conclusion is empirical and stands beyond any reasonable doubt: man does not exist.
I am still examining the evidence for the existence of women.
The Ache of Ekklesia
By Abigail Stocker
After “The Ache of Marriage” by Denise Levertov
The ache of ekklesia:
bread and wine, dear ones,
are heavy with it,
it sighs as we eat
We look for transcendence
and are unsettled, dear ones,
peace by peace
It is a pasture and we
roam its edges
looking for love, some love
not to be known outside it
fasting and feasting in
the aria-ache of it.