2022 Winter Issue 1
““If Jesus stood on a flowing river,
would he stay in the same place or
would the water move him along
like a conveyor belt?””
Click here for a PDF download of this week’s issueClick here for this week’s GreensheetThe Burrow: House of the Resurrection
Daniel Melvill-Jones
In contrast to the many expansive homes which surround it, The Burrow’s low-slung blue bungalow seems fairly nondescript. Perhaps its one defining feature is the old church pew that sits in its front yard, as if it were already welcoming visitors a place to stay and rest. Ten people, including two toddlers, live in this community house. Since most of them attend St. Thomas Mission, a small Anglican church a short walk away, the church’s life of worship intersects with the community life of The Burrow, together cultivating a culture of open hospitality.
Although Annie and I live in our own apartment, The Burrow has become our second home. When Annie sliced open her finger while cooking a stubborn squash, friends at The Burrow took her to emergency, fed her, and kept her company while I biked home through the rain. On a dark evening when we were too tired and overwhelmed to think about supper, an invitation to come over for a plate of lentil nachos made the evening one of fellowship and warmth. When friends from out of town came to visit us in Vancouver for the first time, we made sure to bring them over to The Burrow where they were warmly welcomed.
Not all visits are a relief from the weary realities of life. Often their living room is covered in the chaos of many loads of laundry. Toddler tantrums regularly interrupt conversation. Yet because it is a place where their tears, disagreements, burdens, and anxieties are not hidden away, we know it is a place were our own tears, disagreements, burdens, and anxieties can be shared. This transparency, rooted in a shared life of worship, has given us permission to reveal our own vulnerabilities. In a city where loneliness is palpable, the shared life cultivated by The Burrow has been a source of deep and joyful nourishment.
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This Christmas, The Burrow learned that they are being evicted. While the details are complicated and its future unknown, the weight of uncertainty has hung heavy over the home, making the annual Christmas traditions feel unusually exhausting. On New Year’s Eve, some of the household gathered to wait for midnight. I asked if I could read aloud Hilaire Belloc 1928 essay “A Remaining Christmas”, not anticipating how appropriate Belloc’s words would be for our situation.
Belloc describes the Christmas rituals of a generations-old home in England and while some of these traditions (such as burning a wood log so big that it required two men to carry it) were foreign to us, we all noticed the ways The Burrow’s still-young traditions (including the fire we had lit that evening) echoed those of that much older home. After describing these traditions, Belloc says they offer “substance, permanence and stability… without which… the vast increasing burden of life might at last conquer us and be no longer borne.” He then goes on to list a litany of ways that his home, “where such good things are done year by year” has nonetheless “suffered all the things that every age has suffered.” Although his list is specific to the events of his time, we nodded along, adding our own twenty-first century details to those which Belloc described. Yet he insists that his Christmas traditions do something to this house: they “bind it to its own past and promises its future; making the house an undying thing of which those subject to mortality within it are members, sharing in its continuous survival.”
Then Belloc transcends the individual practices of his own house when he equates it with the House of the Church. He concludes his essay by breaking into verse:
“Stand thou for ever among human Houses,
House of the Resurrection, House of Birth;
House of the rooted hearts and long carouses,
Stand, and be famous over all the Earth.”
As I read those words to The Burrow, a thrill ran through the room, for we knew it was true of us too. We do not know what shape The Burrow will take after this eviction, just as I don’t know if the house Belloc described so lovingly exists today. But the specifics of both those homes matter, for they are where hearts are indeed “rooted” and where ”carouses” are long. They are where our individual lives are woven into the eternal life of the House of the Resurrection. The Burrow has given us a glimpse into the life of that eternal House. May it, and other houses like it, long endure.
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The Truth About Rachel Hart
Anonymous
The Apostle Paul famously reminds in Romans 3 that all of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Though we may cognitively acknowledge this fact as Christians, it is never comfortable when this truth is made brutally apparent to us in the lives of those we admire, especially the lives of our leaders. I am aware of the pain that these revelations may be capable of causing, and it is with no shortage of existential despair that I present these findings to my fellow students at Regent college. Nonetheless, I hold fast to the promise of our Lord that the truth shall set us free. Though I type these words with fingers still quivering in grief, on a keyboard still stained with tears, I maintain that the truth must prevail so that freedom can be realized.
My suspicions toward the RCSA’s Ms. Rachel Hart began late one night as I made my way out of the library just prior to closing. Upon exiting the library, I was struck by the noise of four small feet frantically scampering down the staircase joined by anxious whispers of “quick! Quick! Someone will see us!”. Much to my surprise, two small Anglican children (one of whom bore a shocking facial resemblance to our own Rachel Hart, in hindsight) dashed off the stairs in front of me and into the adjacent bathroom, slamming the door shut behind them. This incident piqued my curiosity, and I relayed the event to my friend Rachel (who, at the time, bore no connection to the incident in my mind) the following day. I found Rachel’s response peculiar, as she proceeded to scream at me in an uncomfortable volume a series of defenses:
“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING, EXACTLY? ARE YOU SAYING THAT I AM ACTUALLY TWO CHILDREN INSIDE A TRENCH COAT? IS THAT WHAT YOU’RE SAYING? DO YOU REALIZE HOW STUPID THAT SOUNDS? I AM DEFINITELY NOT TWO VERY INTELLIGENT CHILDREN INSIDE A TRENCH COAT. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT. I AM LEAVING. GOODBYE.”
The event left me perplexed, as I had not in any way intended to suggest that she was herself two Anglican children inside a trench coat, and yet I could not help but notice the peculiar way in which she walked away from the interaction. Her legs seemed to move much faster than the rest of her body, and she seemed to be lacking balance in her torso. Her stride resembled one of those inflatable wavy arm figures that one might see outside of a used car dealership. It was this incident that led me to examine all my prior interactions with Rachel Hart, and a few shocking commonalities emerged.
Firstly, I realized that I have never seen Rachel Hart wearing anything other than a comically oversized trench coat. I suppose this fact has been easy to justify considering the perpetual precipitation in which we live here in Vancouver, though I admit now that Rachel Hart strikes me as someone who would at least choose a more stylish option of rain attire than an absurdly large men’s trench coat which dates at least back to the 1950’s. Secondly, I have noticed that Rachel Hart often appears to be giving commands to herself. She can often be heard shouting such instructions as “SLOW DOWN, I’M GONNA FALL”, “TURN LEFT, TURN LEFT”, or even “CAREFUL ON THE STAIRS” to herself as she makes her way around campus. This phenomenon is closely related to my third realization: Rachel Hart is perpetually in a state of almost losing her balance as she walks. She runs into walls, she bumps into people, she plunges down Regent’s staircases headfirst on a near daily basis, and she is almost always standing with her torso at a near 45-degree angle to the rest of her body. I suppose this tendency of hers is one that nobody has ever felt comfortable commenting on, as we are mature adults who no longer feel the need to tease our peers for clumsiness, though when the phenomena of Rachel Hart’s perpetual lack of physical stability is taken into consideration alongside the previously discussed factors, a vile truth begins to emerge.
We have all assumed that Rachel’s trench coat serves only to keep her dry and warm in the rainy climate of the PNW, though I am now under the conviction that this jacket covers a much more sinister truth than any of us have previously wanted to admit: the person of Rachel Hart that we have all come to know and love is actually two Anglican children inside a trench coat. Where we go from here is a task for wiser minds than I, but I present these findings to the student body of Regent College as I have found that I could not in good conscious keep this truth covered up; Rachel’s trench coat has been doing just that for long enough.
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Persimmons
Joyce Wong
persimmons—
their sweet and humble summons
in the winter,
ripening scent of sun and
promise held in your palm
spring will come,
winter will not have the last word
yes, you say,
slowly coming home to your body,
and gently bite into the sweet flesh
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Ephesians: Invited Into a Story of Belonging
Steven Gomez
Years ago, before I was a Regent student, I discovered that you could read the books of Scripture as if they were books rather than compilations of memory verses or the checklist of an annual plan. Nowadays, certain translations are available in “reader’s editions” where the chapters and verses are removed, but back then I had to do it myself using BibleGateway and a word processor.
I vividly remember being on the bus and reading the letter to the Ephesians in just fifteen minutes. It was like lightning had struck from a clear sky. Being drawn into the whole sweep of the letter helped me discover an entirely new world. Certain paragraphs were familiar—but I discovered they aren’t paragraphs; they’re threads woven into a charismatic portrait of God’s family and our life together.
I’ve developed quite a fondness for Ephesians and a strong desire to talk about why. A book will probably materialize one day. But until then Brother Dryden, our noble editor, has given me permission to share this with all of you over a few issues. There is one thing I’m going to ask you to do first.
Stop reading this and go read Ephesians. In one sitting, whenever you have a spare fifteen minutes. I’ll wait.
Done? Good.
Paul opens this letter with the most effusive outpouring of blessing I’ve ever seen. He launches right into it, sparing no adjective, withholding nothing. His cup runneth over. It becomes clear that what’s inspired this plenitude of love is his deep and abiding compassion for the people to whom he writes, “the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.” They are not unchurched pagans who’ve never heard of Jesus. But an undercurrent begins to slowly reveal itself to us as he goes on; they’re clearly in some need of these comforting words. “I pray,” he says, “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints…”
A little later, he hints at what’s put them in need of comfort and revelation: they are Gentiles who’ve become Christians, and they’re derisively called “the uncircumcision” by the Christians (presumably Jewish) who believe you have to come to Jesus through Judaism and the Torah. Paul goes on for a chapter and a half about the mysterious grace he and the other apostles have learned: that “the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Every Christian belongs to God’s household, His family, regardless of whether or not they were formerly Jews. None of that matters anymore. They belong to God.
In re-reading and reflecting, the truly remarkable thing about this is that Paul doesn’t do what he might certainly be expected to do. He doesn’t spew invectives towards these Jewish believers. He doesn’t reject them as enemies, rain burning coals on their heads, or cast them into the outer darkness to weep and gnash their teeth. Instead he pours out grace on his beloved church and praise on the God who called them into His home and promises them full rights of inheritance, all with wild abandon and apostolic fire.
There are any number of themes that come out of this opening, which the letter itself develops and which I hope to talk about in future, not least of which is realizing the mess we’ve often made of ourselves even while trying to perfect our theology or practice. One hopes that those who had been trying to maintain the dividing wall of hostility by insisting on circumcision came to see how wrong they were, that all who heard this letter read aloud came to understand “what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love for all His people.
Every Christian who reads this letter is invited into a story of belonging. You were invited when you read it just now. It’s hard for me, when I dive into this ancient message to an ancient church, to not feel some measure of kinship with these fellow believers—divided from me in time and space, but united in Jesus. And it’s hard to avoid finding myself caught up in Paul’s heartfelt praise of the Christ who invites us all, the Christ who wrote the story, and the Christ who brings us home where we belong.
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Ecce Homo
Dryden Demchuk
“Christ with me,”
Babylon’s blood-stained tongue undone / speech of fire from above / bombs on rooftops / bullets through skulls/ kingdom with me / nothing alien if adam /...bless the mercy
“Christ before me,”
to death?
to death?
to death?
“Christ behind me,”
scorched earth / kerosene fields of salt / growing trees bearing fruit that reeks of life / like the words of the soldiers mocking the tree for its crown of glory / it is written
And “what I have written, I have written”
“Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,”
heroin needle / climate change / starving children interrupting a white man’s character arc / machine-gun-gallows worship stamped with prophecy /
“Christ in the eye that sees me, Christ in the ear that hears me,”
eyes and ears bleeding / Christ like sulphur in the air of power / like fire on the martyr / “to the lion!” “to the lion!”
“Christ on my right, Christ on my left,”
health and wealth pierced in sickness not-unto-death / dethroned in thorns and final breath / “ecce homo” / and the Word was good /
to death?
to death?
to death?
“Christ before me.”
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Dad Joke of the Week*
There once was a king who was exactly 12 inches tall.
He was a terrible king, but a great ruler.
*Et Cetera gaurantees that its Dad Jokes are authentic samples of paternal humour provided on a regular basis by the Editor’s own father.
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Winter 2022 Et Cetera Team:
Senior Editor: Dryden Demchuk
Co-Editor: Katrina Steckle
Co-Editor: John Davies
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Articles, fiction, artwork, and poetry are all welcome.
Submissions must be in Word format. Maximum length for prose is 1000 words. Longer stories or articles may be serialized over multiple issues. All submissions are subject to proofreading edits and may be returned for more substantial revision. Visual art must be submitted in digital format. No promises can be made about the quality of printing, but black and white line art will reproduce best. Please submit all prose, poetry, and artwork to etcetera@regent-college.edu. Classifieds for the Greensheet must be submitted to greensheet@regent-college.edu. No guarantees that submissions will be printed. Et Cetera is published on a fortnightly basis. Deadline for the upcoming issue is 11:59 PM on the Friday preceding publication on Tuesday. Submissions later than this may be considered for future issues. Current students, faculty, staff, and spouses are preferred, but exceptions may be made. Views expressed in the Et Cetera do not necessarily represent the views of Regent College, the RCSA or the Et Cetera staff. The Et Cetera can be viewed online at etcetera.regent-college.edu.
Printed at Regent College
Published by the Regent College Student Association