Sermon From December 17, 2006

So, finally I have done something else worthy of publication... or at least easy to publish. Today I delivered a sermon from a manuscript, which makes for easy bloggering. So here it is!

My usual caveat: the manuscript is not the sermon. It is the visual cue that gives the sermon its structure and flow; the sermon is what is spoken and heard, not what is written. I invite your comments and feedback!

Sermon - Murray Speer
December 17, 2006
First United Church, Corner Brook

Luke 3:7-18

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our ancestor”; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.’

And the crowds asked him, ‘What then should we do?’ In reply he said to them, ‘Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.’ Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, ‘Teacher, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.’ Soldiers also asked him, ‘And we, what should we do?’ He said to them, ‘Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.’

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, ‘I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’

So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.

---

What are we going to do with John? The Baptizer? Here he is, larger than life, staring us in the face. Challenging us. What are we going to do with him?

He’s a strange, strange man, isn’t he? In “The Last Temptation of Christ” Martin Scorcese portrays John as skeleton-thin, wild-eyed, an ecstatic shaman who burned with an inner fire. He certainly wasn’t a calm person. He certainly wasn’t a very nice person, either.

But he had his following, didn’t he? There had to be something to what he was saying. I mean, crazy people doing crazy things have their appeal. You’re going to draw some gawkers when you do stuff like this. But there were more than gawkers there. The writer of Luke records in his second volume, the book of Acts, that 20 years after the death of Jesus, Paul was still finding little pockets of people who remembered John and followed him. Those aren’t gawkers. Those are disciples.

So he had his following. Even though he wasn’t a very nice person. Which means these words of his, these words that we just read in the gospel of Luke, found an audience.

Who was his audience? Aside from the gawkers, I mean. Were they really people who appreciated being berated by a crazy man? Were they that masochistic, that they would stand around and consent to being called names?

I think they were people who desperately wanted something new to happen in their lives. Something different. They were people who understood that their lives were somehow incomplete. They looked around at the world and the life that was being offered to them, and they found it ultimately unsatisfying. They were crying out for God to do a new thing in their lives.

And John called them names. What are we going to do with this guy? Can you imagine if I were to climb up into this pulpit today and start haranguing all y’all, calling you all snakes in the grass, who eat each other for breakfast, trees that are going to be chopped down, chaff that is going to be burned in an unquenchable fire? Can you imagine if you were to come here, desperately wanting something new to happen in your life, tired of an unsatisfying world, crying out for God to do a new thing, and I did that to you?

There’s not much we like about John. He’s rude, he’s ugly, he smells bad (remember, he wears coats made of camel hair and lives in the wilderness… in a time and place when everybody smelled pretty funky, he would have stood out as smelling really bad)… he’s abrasive and offensive and judgemental… and he’s right.

Damn him for it, but he’s right.

One thing I’ve learned is that if we want God to do a new thing in our lives, we need to clear out some of the old stuff to make room. Some of the stuff that doesn’t really matter anymore. Often we cling on to the old stuff, all of our garbage, all of our baggage, all of our stuff. Because it’s ours. We think somehow it makes us who we are, and if we let go of it, we’ll be in big trouble. But we’re wrong. If something is more of a burden than a blessing, even if it’s ours, even if it was important at one time, if it’s weighing us down, holding us back, then we need to let go. And let God do something new.

John wanted people to let go of their reliance on the “normal” way of doing things. The normal way of doing things was to take what you could get. Remember, that Jerusalem was the capital of an occupied territory. The soldiers in today’s story were not Israelite soldiers but Roman. The tax collectors were not gathering money for a local self-government, but for an Imperial governor. The Jewish officials were collaborators with the Empire. The people had no sense of security. They had no vision for the future. And so they had fallen into a “take what you can get, everyone for themselves” kind of attitude.

But they were desparate for something different. They were hungry and thirsty for righteousness, as well as for food. So when John called them a brood of vipers, a family of snakes that according to folk wisdom, devoured one another in the nest, the people knew what he was talking about. They felt that injustice on a visceral level. But they were confused. From inside the belly of such a beast, they lacked the perspective to understand what was going on.

And John came from outside. John was not involved in any of it. He had never engaged in commerce. He had never paid taxes. He had never worshipped at the temple or attended a Roman celebration. He had eaten only what could be gathered in the wilderness. He was as outside as you can possibly imagine. And he saw clearly.

John is an intimidating figure. For a preacher, John is a very intimidating figure. What are we going to do with him? Because he is SO outside. And he sees SO clearly. And as a preacher, compared to John, I am inside the systems that can be so unjust. And I see only dimly. Where John had nothing invested in any institutions, I am heavily invested. What are we going to do with him? This strange, strange man? I’m going to suggest, that we listen to him.

The people who came to him listened to him, and they asked him what they should do. You see, if you take that leap of faith, if you let go of all the old stuff that’s holding you back, if you commit yourself to being other than you were and letting God do a new thing in your life… you still need to know what that new thing will be. And he said, “Bear fruits worthy of repentance…”

Repentance in English means to feel sorry. But in Greek, the word used here is “metanoia.” It means something more like “changing your mind.” John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said that true religious faith consisted two things. The first of them was “the human heart transformed in the image of God.” That’s metanoia. That’s repentance.

Repentance means transforming your thoughts and attitudes so that you are a different person. Transforming your life so that God can work through you in the world. Letting go of everything that weighs you down and holds you back. That’s the good news that John is proclaiming: by letting go and doing a new thing you can be set free. By clearing out the baggage, and responding to God’s call in your life, you can turn your feelings of incompleteness and dissatisfaction into true joy and inner peace. This is what God offers to those who ‘repent.’

And what are the fruits worthy of repentance? Very realistic things indeed. Use your power responsibly. Make sure others have clothes, food, and shelter.

The second part of Wesley’s definition of true religious faith is “God’s love shed abroad.” The human heart transformed in the image of God, and God’s love shed abroad.

Now that you have been baptised, says John, bear fruits worthy of repentance.

These were people who were so involved in a “take all you can” culture that they couldn’t find their own way out. John is calling them to “change” their minds, to become a whole different kind of person. Just this summer I took a course with another John, John Dominic Crossan. One thing he said that stuck with me is relevant to this story. He said, “The normalcy of civilization is How can I keep mine and get yours?” That’s what’s normal. In the history of civilization, that is just the normal way of thinking. It was normal for the people who came to John. It’s been normal ever since. It’s still normal now.

But John the Baptist is anything but normal. He was as outside as you can get. There’s not much we like about him, and frankly, there’s not much he likes about us. But he’s right. Damn him, but he’s right.

Church Hill (St. John's Photos)

In Alberta, when we have streets named "Churchill" they're named after Winston. But in St. John's, they have an actual Church Hill.



One thing about St. John's is they have some incredibly beautiful churches. I took some photos of some of the most beautiful downtown churches, representing four of the mainline denominations (I don't think I've seen a Lutheran church since I got to Newfoundland... probably longer than that.) I didn't worship in any of these churches; I went to George Street United when I was there, and I didn't get a photo of that one (alas). Enjoy!

This is the Anglican church on Church Hill (I tried to remember the name, but I forgot).

Gower Street United Church - this is taken from almost the same spot as the previous (Ang.) photo.

St. Andrew's Presbyterian (The Kirk) - A little ways up the slope; we're not on Church Hill anymore.

Basilica of St. John the Baptist (RC) - The oldest RC parish in North America

All photos by Murray Speer (c) 2006

First United Church

This is a picture of the church that I'm working at until April. This is the church's website.

I've stopped putting my sermons up on the blog because it seems I've stopped (for the most part) writing manuscripts ahead of time.

I'm considering getting a digital recorder so that I can podcast my sermons, but that hasn't happened yet. We'll see.

Anyway, blessings to all.
Murray

Wondercafe...

I have to add my endorsement to the apparent flood of bloggers supporting the new website Wondercafe.ca.

I don't have much else to say about it... Set aside some time and check it out. I think I'll probably be getting more involved with it as time goes by (even though I'm not in their target demographic).

Yay Wondercafe! Yay E-Z Answer Squirrel! Yay United Church!



(Though I am disappointed that they don't pronounce it "Ee-zed Answer Squirrel" - we've become so Americanized with their Ee-zee this and Ee-zee that.)

Some Photos From My Recent Trip

Last week, my dad came to Corner Brook for 10 days, and during that time we did some touring around the island, including a multi-day trip to St. John's. I'm posting a few select photos of that trip. They were chosen to accompany the "Reflections on Water" piece from a couple of days ago, but I'm only managing to put them up now. So they get their own post! I'm quite pleased with the photography on these. I took the three that don't have me in them, and my dad took the other one.

This is a shot of the landscape around the Bay of Islands,
which is the body of water that Corner Brook sits on.
This is on the way out to the mouth of the bay,
which empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

This is me at Cape Spear, the easternmost point in
North America. I hadn't seen the Atlantic Ocean in
over 16 years. It looked the same.

This is Rocky Harbour, which is on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
and in Gros Morne National Park. There's a cute little lighthouse right
behind me as I snap this. We hit Gros Morne on a cold, rainy day.

This is a shot of St. John's Harbour from inside "The Rooms",
which is the provincial museum, art gallery, and archives
for Newfoundland and Labrador. Signal Hill is on the left,
where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal.
Off to the right is Cape Spear. The figure in the foreground is my father.

Leader Test

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Hmm... I followed the link from Carmen's blog and took the test. I like the humourous explanations. Hers was JFK and said, "You like power because it increases your sexual options." Apparently, I will either save the world or destroy it.

I already knew that Einstein and I have the same Enneagram type, which made me wonder about this test. I checked out the list of possible results, and it turns out that the "Leader Test" is in fact an Enneagram test. They are arranged in numerical order, and I like that because it puts my type (Five) right smack in the middle. Check it out; if you know your Enneagram Type, you don't have to go through the test. Although you might want to take the test and lie if you're a Six or an Eight and don't want to be told that you're Hitler or Saddam.

Reflections on Water

Kerry Child, the Associate Minister at Gilmore Park United Church in Richmond, BC, recently asked people to send her their thoughts and memories about water, from a Canadian perspective, to be used at the upcoming BC Junior Youth Conference of the United Church of Canada. What follows is the two-page reflection that I sent her, with the invitation to use it or excerpt it as she saw fit. I'll post it here in its entirety.

Reflections on Water
From the personal experience of Murray Speer

I grew up in a farming family on the Prairies. In Edmonton, water arrives in three forms: rain, snow, and the river. In the Spring, rain washes the land clean and brings the smell of ozone. Spring rain on the prairie for me is a symbol of freshness and opportunity. However, in the Summer months, rain comes in the form of thunder storms. When cumulonimbus clouds tower over the rolling prairie, I am reminded of the immense size and incredibly beauty of God’s world. And when the towering clouds turn dark, they become images of the power and danger that are present in nature. A single hail shower can destroy an entire Summer worth of growth in the grain fields, and a tornado can destroy even more than that.

In Winter comes the snow, which for me has become a symbol of waiting. As the Earth points its northern pole away from the warmth and life of the Sun, we withdraw into our caves of steel and stone and wood, emerging for few reasons. One of these reasons is to play in the snow, in the wonderful miracle of water in solid form, covering everything as far as the eye can see. As feet trudge through it, bodies roll in it, and tongues taste it, we delight in a wonderful paradox. The world seems dead, yet we live a third of the year – a third of our lives – in this time of deadness. For us, snow is not something that happens to water; it is not something that water does. For us, this is water in its natural state. But still, we wait, for the return of the sun, and the cleansing Spring rain.

And there is the river. I have often thought that if I had grown up near the banks of the North Saskatchewan River with no knowledge of the rest of the world – if I had never seen the vast fields of ice and snow in the Rocky Mountains, or seen the vast oceans themselves – then I might have believed that the river had no beginning and no end. It is just water itself: broad and deep and slow for half the year, white and smooth for the other half, but always permanent. The deep channel that the river follows through Edmonton, which is home to wildlife and nature lovers, downhill skiers, and the longest continuous expanse of urban parkland in North America, was carved by the runoff of the glaciers at the end of the last ice age: an amount of water virtually unimaginable to a prairie-born farmboy.

When I was young, my family often vacationed in the mountains of British Columbia. In the months of May, June, and July, water seems to endlessly cavort down the sides of these tree-clad hills, in trickles, rivulets, streams, and occasionally outright cascades. I remember riding in the backseat of the family station wagon as my father negotiated the winding mountain roads, and every waterfall he saw (every one!) would be met with an exclamation: “there’s a waterfall,” or, “look at the water coming down that hill.” It became such a refrain with him that my sister and I began on one particular trip to tease him about it, saying, “Whoop-de-doo!” every time he would point out yet another waterfall; which to us, of course, looked just like every waterfall he had pointed out that morning, and for the last two days. It took me much longer to realize how those waterfalls appeared to him, a prairie-born grain farmer, whose livelihood depended on water falling from the sky at precisely the right time. From that perspective, every single waterfall on the side of every single mountain along that highway becomes a little miracle. Whoop-de-doo, indeed.

I recently had the opportunity to drive across Canada for the first time. Even after having lived in Vancouver for two years, on the shores of the Strait of Georgia, I’m still impressed by large amounts of water. For me, if I have to move my head to see all of it, then it’s an incredible amount of water. So I hope you can imagine how powerful an experience it was for me to drive along the Trans-Canada Highway along the shore of Lake Superior. I went halfway around the lake, and it took me eight hours of driving. For long stretches, the water would be out of view as the highway curved behind stony peaks and patches of woodland. Then, a harbour or bay would emerge into view, in an absolutely stunning shade of blue-green, and a second or two would pass as I admired the view before I realized: this is still the same lake that I have been driving around all day!

I have seen the icefields of the Rocky Mountains, which feed the prairie rivers. I have seen the Pacific Ocean from both sides, and just last week I visited both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I have seen the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the happiest memories of my early life include swimming in lakes and oceans around Canada and the world. And it is only now that I realize how my stories of water are stories of blessing and abundance. Other people’s water stories will include drought and pollution, pain and concern.

The call that I am hearing, out of this time of thinking about water, is toward a greater attitude of sharing. Just as there is one Earth, there is also one Water. But I don’t mean sharing our water – as though Canada’s water could be sent elsewhere and thus solve all our problems – I mean sharing our stories, so that my stories of blessing and abundance can become real for people who do not have similar experiences, and the stories that other people have of drought and pollution can become real for me.

So that whether we are in the Georgia Strait or the Bay of Islands, the North or the South, the snow or the drought, we have all of it in mind, so that we are truly living with respect in Creation, loving and serving others, seeking justice, resisting evil, and being faithful stewards of our resources, and so that water can continue to mean all that it has meant, in all of its wonderful variety and miraculous power.

The Connection Between Love And Death: A Rant

So here's something that's been rattling around in my head for several months now. When I take a close, diagnostic look at the culture around me, I see a certain preoccupation with love and death.

The problem is, I think in general we have a flawed perspective on both.

My general experience is that when someone mentions 'love', the images that come to mind (for me and for others) are images of romance and eroticism, and these primarily in the context of one-to-one relationships (ie. intimacy).

So when putative 'love' songs are played (some examples: U2's "When Love Comes To Town", Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life", Enrique Iglesias' "Hero") the imagination jumps to romantic and erotic conclusions.

However, there is nothing in any of these songs (and many others) to indicate that they are actually about romance or eroticism (leaving aside the issue of music videos, which often introduce themes that are not obviously present in the songs - this is the case with "Hero"). They may, in fact, be about Love.

Scott Peck defines Love as "the willingness to extend oneself for the sake of one's own or another's spiritual growth" (paraphrased, The Road Less Taken).

And the apostle Paul wrote the following:

The Gift of Love

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This chapter is often read at weddings, which is fine, but again, it shifts Paul's love discourse into the context of romantic and erotic love, instead of Love.

On the other hand, we avoid death, treating it like an enemy. What if Love and Death are more connected than many of us like to imagine?

The experience that got me thinking about this question was seeing the promotional wrapping for the DVD collection of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 5. You see, in one particular episode of that season (the episode "Intervention"), Buffy, the superpowered guardian of her world, takes a vision quest in an attempt to better understand her power, her calling, and her duty.

The message she receives from her spirit guide is troubling to her. For almost five years, she has been immersed in death. She fights undead vampires, she kills demons and sorcerers, she has herself been drowned and revived, and shortly before the episode in question, her mother died of complications due to brain surgery.

The message is two-fold:
"Love will lead you to your Gift."
"Death is your Gift."

Buffy's response is resolute: "Death," she says, "is not a gift."

But this message throws her into self-doubt. She has spent a lot of energy convincing herself that a Slayer is something more than just a killer; that she has a calling above and beyond the blood-and-guts of nightly patrols and demon fighting. How can death be her gift?

What she neglects is the first portion of the message: "Love will lead you to your Gift."

How can a Love, which leads to a Death, be a Gift? In a Christian context, this concept is not difficult to understand. And Buffy understands as well, when the time comes. In the final episode of the season (the episode is called "The Gift") she sacrifices herself in an act of love, saving the world from an onslaught of evil and destructive forces.

So that's all well and good. Kudos to Joss Whedon for portraying a character who does not see a link between Love and Death, but discovers it when the time is right.

But that promotional packaging... do you know what it said? It said, "Buffy learns that love is the greatest gift of all."

Love is the Gift? What? At first glance, it seems to be connected to the chapter from 1 Corinthians that I quoted above. The NRSV, of course, calls this chapter "The Gift of Love." Love is the greatest spiritual gift, says Paul. Love is the greatest gift, says the packaging from the Buffy Season 5 DVD set. But the Love that Paul writes of is intimately connected with death. And the love that Buffy discovers in her journey is intimately connected with death, also.

When you just throw that statement out there - Love is the greatest gift of all - without any explanation, you have to assume that people are going to be thinking of mushy, sentimental love. Paul writes an entire chapter explaining what he means when he says "love." Scott Peck wrote an entire book. It took Buffy five episodes to figure it out.

When love is framed as a romantic, erotic, or sentimental condition, it is easy to convince ourselves that we are satisfying the Great Commandment, to love God, neighbour, and self. It's easy to have mushy feelings about everyone, and if that is the greatest gift, then we're all doing okay. But love isn't the greatest gift. Love, if you remember, will lead you to your gift.

So what is it? Death? For Buffy, at that point in her life, it was. But I don't think that's true for everyone. Love will lead you to your Gift, whatever it might be. And your Gift is not something that you will receive... it is something that you already have, and that you are being called to give away. What will it be? Love will show you the way.

But not a romantic or erotic love. This is another kind of Love.

Why would they write that on the promotional packaging? Love is the greatest gift of all. A charitable view would be that they didn't want to reveal the secret, so they said something ambiguous and (somewhat) intriguing. A cynical view would be that they thought their audience would not understand or be 'turned-off' if they wrote what really happened. A pessimistic view would be that they are so wrapped up in the fluffy bubblegum culture that they actually can't see the difference between what they wrote and what happened.

Which of these is accurate? There's no way to know. But I am convinced that it reveals a deeper problem in our culture, namely our unhealthy concepts of love and death as simple, unconnected, and easy. Because when I hear the songs that I named above, I hear something very different. I hear them talking about a love that is hard. A love that takes us deep. A love that calls us to our greatest gift.

And when people say something like, "Jesus was all about love," how are we to take that? Was he all about being nice? A careful reading of the stories about him would say no, he was not primarily interested in being nice to people. No, if he was all about love, then it was a different kind of love than is most commonly discussed in our culture.

But he also wasn't primarily interested in dying, which seems to be the focus of a lot of Christians these days. That he was "here to go," in the sense that his purpose and calling in life were to die.

No, the meaning only comes when the two are connected. For Buffy, and for Jesus, the significance of their deaths is that they are acts of love... not romantic love; not mushy sentimental love; but the spiritual gift of love described by Paul.

Without their willingness to extend themselves even to the point of death for the sake of others growth and 'salvation', their Love would be empty or incomplete. And without the Love that showed them the way, their deaths would be meaningless.

That is the meaning of the cross.

Image credit: www.screencap-paradise.com

Photo From Orientation

Last week I attended Internship Orientation in Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland. It was a wonderful experience, and I thought I would share this photo from that event. From left to right, we have the Conference Personnel Minister, Rev. Faith March-MacCuish, myself, and three members of my Lay Supervision Team, Judy Spracklin, Donna Hollett, and Keith Mercer. Not pictured are my supervisor, Rev. Wayne Cole, and the fourth member of my team, Roy Warren, who were unable to make it to the event.

There is one other Intern Minister in Newfoundland & Labrador Conference right now, and she was also present, with her supervisor and one member of her lay team (her supervisor took the photo; that is her finger in the top corner.) The other Intern's name is Wendy, and she is from Ontario, studying in Montreal, and doing her Internship in St. John's.

We had a lovely two days together. I drove down to Grand Falls with my team and we got to know each other in the car. The orientation was held at a former convent, that is now a retreat center operated by the sisters. Apparently, NL Conference does most of its orientations and retreats there, because of its central location on the TCH between Port-aux-Basques and St. John's. The accommodations were wonderful and the sisters were very friendly and supportive. Plus, there was a laundry chute that kept Judy very amused.

I think often of all the folks in my first four homes of Fort Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Richmond who I have left behind for this fifth home, and I enjoy hearing from everyone via e-mail, IM, and phone.

Love and blessings,
Murray

Sermon from September 10, 2006

Wow! It's been a month and a half and so much has happened. It's taken some time to process everything, and now that I've gained some perspective I should be able to start telling stories again for you folk... but we'll start with something I've already written.

July 30 was my last Sunday at Gilmore Park United Church, and on September 10 I started at First United Church in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, almost 7000 km away! (Well, I don't kn0w how far it is as the crow flies; that's the distance as the Dodge Caravan drives, though!)

Here is the manuscript of the sermon I delivered last Sunday at First United, on what we called "Rally Day" - the first day back from summer and the start of the church programs for the year.

Once again, I am making this caveat: the manuscript is not the sermon. It is the visual cue that gives the sermon its structure and flow; the sermon is what is spoken and heard, not what is written. I invite your comments and feedback!

September 10, 2006
Sermon
Murray Speer

Mark 12:28-34

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”; and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.

So here we are. Here I am. Reverend Cole suggested that I should take this opportunity to tell you something about myself, here on Rally Day and on my first Sunday morning in leadership here. So here I am.

I’m not really accustomed to talking about myself. I usually think that folks will learn about me what they need to know, and I am more than willing to share personal details when the situation calls for it, or when someone asks… but to stand up and intentionally talk about myself is not something I’m used to doing. For one thing, when I’m preaching the gospel, it’s really not about me. I am called by God and given certain gifts to do this task… but it’s not about me.

So preparing to talk about myself has been more difficult than I imagined it would be when I agreed to it. On the one hand, mine is just the same old story, of a young man traveling from Alberta to Newfoundland… for work. I grew up near Edmonton, Alberta where my family grows canola, wheat, and peas. Edmonton is the northernmost metropolis in the western hemisphere, and when you live there, you know it. The winter lasts six months, and the schools don’t close until the temperature reaches -50. But in the summer, at midnight on midsummer day, the horizon due north glows with the light of a sun which you almost believe is hiding just out of sight, waiting to burst forth only a few hours later.

I worked on the farm when I was a teenager, but I was never really a farmer. After high school I moved into Edmonton to attend University. I worked in various jobs during my degree… I worked at a living history site called Fort Edmonton Park, where I wore period costume and operating the penny arcade, shooting gallery, and miniature golf course. In the summer of 2001, when the UK and Europe suffered major outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease in their livestock, I worked for the federal government at the Edmonton Airport in Plant and Animal Health, interviewing arriving travelers and protecting Canada’s plants and animals. I was a blackjack dealer at a local casino, and I did telephone interviews for a market research company. But with all of these jobs, I knew that I was biding my time, getting ready for what I was supposed to be doing, which was this. Preaching, leading worship, and caring for people.

In the meantime, I was involved at my local church, First United in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta. My mother had been a member there when she was young, and I started attending there when I was 19, eventually becoming both the Chair of the Congregation and the Chair of the Church Council, and being confirmed as a member when I was 21. I did my discernment for ministry there, and I am a candidate for ordination in Yellowhead Presbytery in Alberta.

Two years ago, I left Edmonton and started my Master of Divinity degree at the Vancouver School of Theology. VST is a multi-denominational school, with three different sponsoring churches and several others who recognize its programs, so I have studied alongside students from the United, Anglican, Presbyterian, Catholic, Lutheran, Unitarian, Reformed, and Baptist streams. It also has the only Divinity program in North America that is specifically tailored for First Nations students and communities.

I did my first and second-year field placement work at a congregation called Gilmore Park United in Richmond, British Columbia. Gilmore Park is one of many churches in BC and Alberta (and across the country) that are working very hard to answer the questions of what it means to be church in today’s world, and what that will look like. As a group, they have experienced the ending of an old paradigm and committed themselves to faithfully embodying Christian principles in whatever new paradigm is emerging. It was a very special experience for me to work with them in this endeavour, and I hope the things I saw and did there have something to offer to us here at First United.

So these are the places I have been, and now I have driven across the country and arrived here. At each step along the way, I have tried to trust the call of God, show up where I am needed, and do my best with what I had, and I am committed to continuing to show up and do my best with all of you folk. I know that I will make mistakes, and I know that there will be many of you who are also trusting the call of God, showing up where you are needed, and doing your best with what you have. Together, maybe we can get some things done.

This morning, I was up putting the finishing touches on my words for you all, and on CBC radio they played an old Beatles song… “Love is all you need.” Do you know that one? It’s a favourite of mine… there are some words in that song that always give me the shivers. Have you ever paid attention to the words in that song?

“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done… Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung… Nothing you can make that can’t be made… No one you can saved that can’t be saved…”

“Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time. It’s easy.”

Well, learning how to be me has not been easy. I’m not asking for sympathy or pity or even attention… after all, when I’m up here in front of you, it’s not about me. But so often, life has seemed so difficult. And IS, so difficult. But here we have John telling us… sorry, not the gospel of John; John Lennon… telling us that it’s easy. Has it really been easy for any of us?

Well, I can tell you this. It’s a lot easier when you do it in a community of faithful and caring people. And I don’t think John means that it’s “easy” in the sense that it doesn’t take work, because it does. And I don’t think he means “easy” in the sense that it doesn’t hurt, because it does.

I think he means it’s a simple process. Hard, yes. Painful, yes. But simple. Because every time he says, “it’s easy” he follows it with all the instructions you need: all you need is love.

And Jesus said, the greatest commandment is “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: love your neighbour as yourself. There is no greater commandment than these.”

Love. It’s difficult. It’s painful. It was difficult and painful for Christ; why should it not be for us? But it’s simple. It’s easy.

And it calls us to show up, trust the call of God, and do the best we can with what we have.

Here we are. Here I am.

“There’s nothing you can know that can’t be known… Nothing you can see that isn’t shown… There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.”

It’s easy. All you need is love.

With mediocre power comes mediocre responsibility...

I think we often forget this important corrolary to the more famous expression.

It might be better to say, "Our responsibility is in direct relation to our power..."

But that opens people up to saying that they were 'powerless' in a given situation, which I don't accept. At least, not in the sense that it abrogates any level of personal responsibility.

It might be worth it, though, if it means liberating people from crippling themselves with guilt when they really weren't 'responsible' (ie. they had only mediocre or negligible power).

Reminds me of a joke: A person applies for a job, and is asked if he is a responsible worker. He says, "Oh, definitely. At my last job, whenever something went wrong, my boss would tell me I was responsible."

For prospective Buffy viewers...

About a year ago, the electronics retailer BEST BUY offered an exclusive DVD set called "Buffy: Curse of the Hellmouth." I recommend this set for anyone who has taken Sharon Betcher's Post-Modernism and Pop Culture course at VST and wants greater exposure to the world of the Vampire Slayers. It is an affordable, high-quality introduction to many of the key themes and appealing characteristics of the series.

It's now being offered in a wider release, including Amazon.ca. The set includes eight episodes from across the series (though seasons 5 and 6 are not represented, season 7 is), and includes five episodes that I recently described in my personal TOP 30.

The Amazon edition becomes available in a little over a month.

Other exclusive collections offered by stores such as Best Buy and Futureshop focus on a particular character or story arc, and are less effective as introductions to the series in general.

The episodes contained in this collection are "The Pack," "Halloween," "Passion," "The Wish," "Helpless," "Fear, Itself," "Hush," and "Same Time, Same Place."

Sermon from July 23, 2006

Here is the sermon I delivered at Gilmore Park United Church in Richmond, British Columbia yesterday morning (7th after Pentecost). I think it turned out pretty well, though it doesn't follow a clear homiletic pattern that I can see. Maybe it follows a pattern that I'm developing for myself. If that's the case, then it's emerging gradually and I'll have to see a few more examples of it before I can extract the principles of it.

Once again, I ended up extemporizing a fair bit of the sermon, adding material and expressing some thoughts in different ways than appear in the written version. So I am making this caveat: the manuscript is not the sermon. It is the visual cue that gives the sermon its structure and flow; the sermon is what is spoken and heard, not what is written.

"Is 'sin' a four-letter word?"
July 23, 2006

2 Samuel 7:1-14a

Now when the king was settled in his house, and the Lord had given him rest from all his enemies around him, the king said to the prophet Nathan, ‘See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent.’ Nathan said to the king, ‘Go, do all that you have in mind; for the Lord is with you.’ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan: Go and tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord: Are you the one to build me a house to live in? I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle. Wherever I have moved about among all the people of Israel, did I ever speak a word with any of the tribal leaders of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’ Now therefore thus you shall say to my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts: I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep to be prince over my people Israel; and I have been with you wherever you went, and have cut off all your enemies from before you; and I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may live in their own place, and be disturbed no more; and evildoers shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel; and I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

I was eighteen when I heard the call to ministry. We refer to it as “hearing” the call, and sometimes it is a lot like hearing. I think it has something to do with the parts of our brain that are involved... like the call of God is something that needs to be interpreted before we can understand it. Sometimes it’s interpreted in the “hearing” part of our brain, I think. Other times we might have a vision, and I guess that’s a case of the call of God being interpreted through the seeing part of the brain. That’s my guess.

But when I was eighteen I heard the call of God, to go into the ministry. And I agreed. I made a commitment, that I would go where I was led. BUT! I said, you have to give me time. I’m not ready to pursue this fully, I said. I was eighteen, for one thing. But also, it was kind of scary. So I kept it to myself for a while. And then I moved slowly on that end of things for quite some time.

I couldn’t get away from it, though. Not that I really wanted to... but I did sort of wish that I could delay the call. Just sort of put God on hold until I felt more ready to move in that direction. I tried. I tried all the tricks I knew to avoid the call... voice mail... call waiting... *69... I screened those calls for a long time. But I had already made a commitment. And that was my personal experience of God’s dogged persistence.

I had already made a commitment. But in some sense, that didn’t matter so much. You see, I had heard the call, loud and clear. And even that is enough. Once you hear the call, whether it seems like hearing, or like seeing, or like feeling, or I suppose it could seem like smelling or tasting but I don’t know what that would be like... once you hear the call, whatever it might be, whether it has to do with vocation, as in my example, or maybe it has to do with relationships or other behaviours... once you hear the call, your options are limited.

It seems to me that we have at least two options: we can try to be faithful, or we can try to pretend we didn’t hear. I guess I tried to mix the two: I agreed to be faithful, but not right now. But I did agree, and eventually I had to live up to that.

But sometimes I think I had a good idea with that approach. Because once I agreed to be faithful to the call (and once God’s dogged persistance had broken through my avoidance methods) I had to keep listening for the darn thing. As soon as you answer the call once, the phone starts ringing off the hook, let me tell you. It’s not like you’re given a mission and then allowed to do your work... God is a micro-manager, I guess.

So I find it helps to check with God before I do anything new, or big. Like, you know, building a temple. Now, to be fair to David, he did take some steps along those lines... he checked with Nathan, which I guess is the next best thing to checking with God. But back when Saul died, David didn’t have Nathan around, and so when he thought he should maybe go to Judah, he checked with God directly, and that worked out pretty well. But this time, he has a prophet handy, so he just asks him. And Nathan says, “Dude, you’re the king. Go for it.”

Then Nathan gets a late night call on the hotline. And God sets up a covenant with the house of David.

Ancient Israel had something called a “covenant history”, which they recorded in their Holy Scriptures. You’ll recognize the language, I’m sure. God made a covenant with Adam and Eve when they left the garden. God made a covenant with Noah after the flood. God made a covenant with Abraham and Sarah, that their descendents would be numerous and would prosper. God made a covenant with Moses and the entire people of Israel, and that’s the one we probably think of most often, if we think of it at all. God said, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. I will be your God, and you will be my people.” That sentence is at the heart of covenant theology. Everything else that came out of that experience, like the book of Leviticus, is commentary and reflection on that single understanding. “I will be your God, and you will be my people.”

And now, that covenant language is used to establish a direct relationship with the house of David. Do you see how these other covenants are echoed in this one?
“I am the Lord, who brought you up out of Egypt.”
“I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep...”
To Abraham: “I will make of you a great nation...”
To David: “the Lord will make you a house...”
“I will be your God, and you will be my people.”
“I will be a father to him, and he will be a son to me.”

The son of David who builds the temple is Solomon, who has not yet been born at this point. So what we have here is a covenant moment, in the covenant history of Israel.

Covenant is an interesting concept, I think. It seems to me that often we connect covenant with the idea of a contract. Party A will do thus and such and Party B will do this and the other, and if either party breaks the contract there are penalties and it can be rendered null and void. And the scriptures support this understanding, too. Did you notice how today’s reading ended halfway through a verse? The verse in its entirety reads, “I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings.” So this covenant, the way it’s written, includes punishment for sin. (By the way, I don’t really read Hebrew, but I’m resourceful enough to know that it could also be translated, “I will rebuke him with the tribes of men, with the plague of the sons of Adam.” But either way, it includes punishment for sin.)

Which becomes problematic for us. We have a hard time with the idea of punishment for sin, don’t we? I think Gilmore Park is a bit unusual in the United Church, because in a lot of places I might feel the need to apologize for even bringing sin up in a sermon... even here, I need to explain what I mean by it. Which means it’s probably very important that we talk about it and at least try to figure it out.

We have a hard time with the idea of punishment for sin. And it goes deeper than a dislike of pain or discomfort. It’s not that we want to sin freely without consequence. It’s something about the sense of retribution, that goes against our ideas of what God is like and how God behaves. That there is a Criminal Code of Heaven like there is a Criminal Code of Canada, where the punishments are laid down next to the definitions of crimes...

So how do we deal with this question of sin? I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that folks who are in church on a morning like this one, a sunny morning in July, are at least somewhat aware of the presence of sin in their lives. If you’re aware of sin in your life, how do you define it? How can we reconcile our own awareness of our sin with our definition of God?

You might have your own understanding of sin already worked out, and that’s great. I’ve been helped by a writer named Gordon Jackson, who wrote a book called Creating Something of Beauty. For Jackson, sin can only happen within the dialogue of covenant.

Sin can only happen within the dialogue of covenant.

And God’s covenant isn’t like a contract. God’s legal system isn’t like our legal system. There is no tit for tat. There is no bargaining. God does not say, “If you remain faithful, then I will also.” God’s covenant starts with God’s faithfulness toward us, as a revelation of God’s character. “I am the Lord, who brought you from following the sheep.” What is left up to us, is our response.

Once we hear the call, our options are limited. We can be faithful, or we can pretend we didn’t hear. And God’s covenant talks about that as well. I’ve been trying to listen to the call for quite a few years now, and I can tell you this: in my experience, the worst times in my life are the times when I didn’t follow it. And the best times in my life are the times when I did. And the scripture makes that clear, I think.

Sin is only possible within the dialogue of covenant. But it is only within the dialogue of covenant that we find the blessings that come with living well, and being what God would have us be... if we can only trust that when God is calling, it’s always good news.

What's Murray Watching?

So, today in class (I'm in Week 3 of a four week summer school marathon) -- actually, during the coffee break -- Mary asked me if there was some way she could know what I'm watching. I sent her to my blog, which gives me a feeling of responsibility, that now I should put up some sort of "highlights" of my cultural consumption recently. So here goes.

First, I'm going to list things that I'm watching/listening to/reading that I haven't seen/heard before (mostly). Little of this stuff is actually current or "new", but it does reflect my current and 'new' interests. Then I'll say a few words about old favourites.

TV:

• South Park
• Smallville
• Canadian Idol
• CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
• Firefly
• Grey's Anatomy
• Criminal Minds
• The Ultimate Fighter
  

Movies:

• Priest (1994)
• Goodfellas (1990)
• Superman Returns (2006)
  
• Gattaca (1997)
• The Station Agent (2003)
• Jesus Christ Superstar (2000)
• The Apostle (1997)
  
• Nacho Libre (2006)
  

Music:

• Leonard Cohen
• Neil Young
• U2
• Don McLean
  
• Songs featured on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel"

Books (extracurricular):

• "Red Mars," "Green Mars," "Blue Mars," and "The Martians" by Kim Stanley Robinson
• "Iterations" by Robert J. Sawyer
  
• "Fray: Future Slayer" (graphic novel) by Joss Whedon
• "A Theology For Ministry: Creating Something Of Beauty" by Gordon Jackson

So, that's about it... There might be one or two things I'm forgetting. In terms of old favourites, I have given ratings for 310 different films on the Internet Movie Database, and folks can view my voting history by following this link. It may seem like my voting is top heavy (ie. I'm giving more high scores than low scores) but that's because I'm more motivated to vote for movies that I like. There are four or five hundred movies that I've seen and not voted for, and most of them would receive lower scores.

As for old favourites in the TV category, I should of course mention Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff series Angel, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is a personal classic, as is Star Trek: The Next Generation. As I've gotten older, though, I find I prefer DS9 to TNG. I guess I have a fair amount of The Simpsons in my background, too, though I haven't really watched it in years. Also The Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live, which I still tune in to from time to time.

My musical standbys include REM, Barenaked Ladies, Queen, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, CCR, Jann Arden, Simon & Garfunkel, and The Tragically Hip.

My favourite books are mostly graphic novels. By series: The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman, Preacher, by Garth Ennis, Strangers in Paradise, by Terry Moore, and Transmetropolitan, by Warren Ellis. Also The Watchmen, Top Ten, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, by Alan Moore, and Powers, by Brian Michael Bendis (I feel like this list isn't complete without Frank Miller and Grant Morrison, so I'll just mention them). Robert J. Sawyer is my current favourite novelist, and I recommend his books Factoring Humanity and Frameshift, and his two trilogies, "The Neanderthal Parallax" and "The Quintaglio Ascension," plus all of his other works.

So, far from an exhaustive list, this is a sense of what sort of voices are looking for attention in my mind right now. In a month or two, much of this will have changed, I'm sure. Maybe I'll do this again down the road? We'll see.

Ursula K Le Guin Just Made Me Cry

As I was waiting for my laundry to be finished, I picked up a book off the shelf in the common lounge of my building. There is a small collection of books there, vagrant books, abandoned books, surrounded by a vast wall of empty shelves. One of them is called The Compass Rose and is a collection of short science fiction by the legendary author Ursula K Le Guin.

I've long been a fan of short science fiction. I think the challenge of creating a speculative or imaginative thought-world AND saying something important, within the confines of short literature, takes a certain economy of language and creativity of imagination that I find appealing. It also requires a high level of trust in the reader. You can not write a good sci fi short story without leaving lots of room for the reader to fill in the blanks, and that takes trust.

The first piece in The Compass Rose is called "The Author of the Acacia Seeds, and Other Extracts From The Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics." Le Guin sets up a world in which the science of linguistics has been extended so that it encompasses messages left by ants and the kinetic performances of penguins. Those first two articles from the "journal" (the ants and the penguins) are brilliant, but it was the third article, an editorial, that brought tears to my eyes with its sheer beauty and potential.

The editorial begins with a basis for linguistics: language is communication. And, following Tolstoy, art is also communication. Therefore, any creature that communicates has language (such as ants and penguins).

Plants don't communicate, so they do not have language. But do they have art? Is there an art that is not communicative, but something else?

"Ourselves animals, active, predators, we look (naturally enough) for an active, predatory, communicative art; and when we find it, we recognize it... The art [of the Plant], if it exists, is a non-communicative art: and probably a non-kinetic one... We do not know. All we can guess is that the putative Art of the Plant is entirely different from the Art of the Animal. What it is we cannot say; we have not yet discovered it. Yet I predict with some certainty that it exists, and that when it is found it will prove to be, not an action, but a reaction: not a communication, but a reception. It will be exactly the opposite of the art we know and recognize. It will be the first passive art known to us... and after [that], may there not come... the first geolinguist, who, ignoring the delicate, transient lyrics of the lichen, will read beneath it the still less communicative, still more passive, wholly atemporal, cold, volcanic poetry of the rocks: each one a word spoken, how long ago, by the earth itself, in the immense solitude, the immenser community, of space."

There are a number of places where I resonate very strongly with this passage. I hold both the word and art as sacred, and to imbue the plants and rocks with these qualities is to give them a portion of the great sacred reality that has always been theirs but which we have tragically failed to respect. Could models of Christian leadership have something to learn from the Art of the Plants? Might we be seeking a receptive, non-predatory, art of our own? To be still and silent is not to be disengaged or disinterested. To be atemporal is not to be amoral.

The art of the plant is an art that I will be studying further. I invite you to join me.

The Physics of Superman Returns

I'm no expert in theoretical interstellar travel, but I do know some stuff, and here's something that's bugging me about the movie Superman Returns.

The movie asks us to believe a number of things, including:
1. Superman departed the planet Krypton as an infant and flew to Earth, arriving as a small child.
2. Krypton has been demolished for millenia, in subjective Earth years.
3. Superman recently travelled to Krypton in the same spacecraft, and returned five years later.

Can you see the problem? As I understand the theory of near-lightspeed travel, the subjective time of the space traveller stretches out, so that a journey seems to take less time from the point of view of the traveller than it does from the point of view of someone who remains at the departure or arrival points (ie. Lois Lane).

Points (1) and (2) above support the hypothesis that Superman's ship travels at near-light speed. He arrives on Earth having aged only a few years, while the planet that blew up behind him has been dead for many thousands of years. However, if the ship travels at near-light speed, his more recent journey back to Krypton, while it may have seemed to him (as the traveller) to take only five years, should have allowed many thousands of years to pass back on Earth (from Lois Lane's perspective) before he could return.

Now, if we assume faster-than-lightspeed travel (positing some technique that we don't have an actual theoretical basis for yet), it is acceptable to presume that the same amount of time has passed for both the traveller (Superman) and for the stationary observer (Lois Lane). The trip that from his perspective lasted five years also lasted five years from her perspective, because he was travelling by some non-linear or non-relativistic method. If this is the case, though, then the destruction of Krypton should have taken place more like 25-30 years ago, instead of 100 times that long. Krypton's star should still be visible from Earth as though nothing has happened to it yet.

A third possibility would be if he was travelling at speeds within such a tiny fraction of lightspeed that the return journey would take only five years from Lois Lane's perspective, in which case it would be almost instantaneous from Superman's perspective. He would arrive there in virtually no time at all. This would make sense with the way the movie is made, as Superman seems surprised by the amount of change that has taken place in his absence. It's also consistent with point (3) above. If the journey was instantaneous from his point of view, he would be unprepared for the five-year lapse back on Earth.

But this possibility, like the previous one, is negated by the fact that he was using the same ship (or at least the same technology) for his adult journey as he did for his infant one. Because if this journey took no time at all, then that one should also have been immediate. Yet we see that the child has aged at least a couple of years between his departure and his arrival. Also, this would mean that Krypton is within a few light years of Earth, which is clearly not the case in the movies.

In summary, there is no way the same technology was used for both trips and all three of the premises above are true. If the journey took millenia (from Lois' perspective) the first time, then it should take millenia (from Lois' perspective) the second time, too. If it took five years the second time, then it should have taken five years the first time, in which case he would have arrived as an infant, who had hardly aged on the journey.

Sloppy.

But I liked the movie, and had a great time seeing it with Clara.

Miscellany from a Holiday

• I like driving all day long because I get to listen to music and be by myself the whole time, and sometimes see pretty things, and it still feels like I'm accomplishing something.

• I thought the Tragically Hip's album "Road Apples" was replete with references to William Shakespeare, but it turns out there are only six references in three different songs. Still, more than your average album these days.

• I miss the sky around Edmonton. Vancouver has mountains and ocean, which are beautfiul and special, but the sky is always sort of hazy or cloudy over the mountains, and over the ocean it's either clear or overcast. You don't get the sort of vast skyscapes that I associate with Alberta (and especially with my family's farm, which is elevated above the surrounding countryside). Imagine rank upon rank of cumulus clouds, each one of them distinct and unique but surrounded on all sides by others of their own kind, stretching away as far as the eye can see. Or a sky filled with four different kinds of clouds at different elevations and distances, challenging the brain's ability to make sense of it all. Then, at sunset, imagine the colours of the rainbow stretched out until they fill 30 degrees of sky above the horizon, with deepest red showing where the sun has just disappeared, and the spectrum slowly giving itself over to a rich violet directly overhead. At the farm, on a clear night in the spring, you can see the Milky Way spread across the sky like a highway. But in midsummer, as it is now, there are so few stars at night, because the sky never gets dark. The sunset stops at about 11:30 pm, and the warm glow of the sun spends the rest of the night moving across the northern horizon until the light begins to return about three hours later. At 1 am, the brightest part of the sky is always due north.

• Too many people were trying to get into Vancouver last night. The overturned truck on Hwy 1 at Surrey wasn't helping, and I had already been driving for over twelve hours.

• I said goodbye to my car, Kenobi, on this trip. She was a good car when I got her two years ago, and could be decent for a while more with some TLC, but was definitely starting to show her age. I switched not because of need but because of opportunity. My sister wanted to sell her '99 Caravan SE, and I saw real potential in that, in terms of cargo space, comfort for my back, and features like power locks and air conditioning. I realized that it's been over four years since I had a car with all the comfort features and no malfunctions. It's very, very nice. Although, on my way into Vancouver I snapped the little hook that holds the sun visor in place (looks like you sold at the right time, Michelle! It's falling apart!) If anyone knows of a Caravan that's been written off or whatever, let me know because I'm in the market for a tiny piece of molded plastic. My new car's name is Isaac.

• I had some insight into my philosophy of blogging, particularly compared to my good friend Kristen. You see, we are opposites on the Introvert-Extravert scale (as defined in the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator). I am an "I", while Kristen is an "E". I think this explains our different approaches to blogging. I need to have my topic and 'point' worked out ahead of time, whereas she manages to externalize her thoughts onto the blog itself. Neither is better (though I would never do it the other way!), just different.

• I'm an Enneagram Type Five. Click the image to learn more about the Enneagram:

• I saw Jenn and Wendy in Calgary, as well as my sister and her family, and my dad and Jill in Edmonton. It was great to see everybody. I also met with the Education & Students Committee from my Presbytery, which is the regional oversight body in the United Church of Canada. I have to meet with them every year to maintain my status as a Candidate for Ministry. It was a fine meeting, with some new people and some familiar faces. I didn't get any specific feedback from them at the end, but the general feedback was very positive, so I think it went well. I went to worship at the church in Fort Saskatchewan, too, and it was great to see everyone there. I had a chance to visit with my Grandma and Charlie too, and that was good.

• Whenever I'm back at the farm I tend to start reading comics, because I didn't bring any with me to Vancouver. This time I read volumes 6 & 7 of Neil Gaiman's "The Sandman." They're called "Fables & Reflections" and "Brief Lives." I also read the start of volume 8, "World's End." The Sandman is one of the few pieces of literature that I can read over and over and over, and it remains virtually perfect. In an entire ten-year run of comics, there are maybe one or two panels that I would change if I had the chance. It's always a breathtaking experience. I also reread "Calculating God," which is a novel by Canadian science fiction writer Robert Sawyer. It's not my favourite of his books, but it was still interesting enough for a second read. He's my current must-buy author. The other things I read were for school; I'm doing four week-long intensives in July. I read "The Last Week" by Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, and started on "Excavating Jesus" by Crossan and Jonathan Reed. I'm doing a course with Crossan at the end of the month; he's this summer's Visiting Distinguished Scholar at VST.

• I have to get to work on worship planning. I'm filling in for my former supervisor, Anna, at Gilmore Park United Church in Richmond, BC, while she's on vacation in July. I'll be in classes all month during the week, so I want to get started on choosing music and writing prayers and stuff like that today. If you're around, come check it out. Every Sunday in July at 10:30 am, on the corner of 1 Rd and Blundell in Richmond.

80's Futurist/Fantasy Action Movies

I just watched John Carpenter's "Escape from New York" (1981) and it got me thinking about the sort of futurist action movies that were made in the 80's, and what they had in common. For example, we have Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" (1982), James Cameron's "The Terminator" (1984), "The Running Man" (1987), and to some extent Russell Mulcahy's "Highlander" (1986), and possibly "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" (1981). Does Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead" (1981) belong on this list as well? I haven't seen it.

I didn't see any of these movies when they came out, being a bit too young to deal with the content. But I was watching movies in the 80's, and I've seen these ones in the years since. The films on this list strike me as having some things in common, and I would be interested in doing some comparisons and trying to see if there's some aspect of the social (or "collective") consciousness of the time that is being expressed here.

For instance, I can list some things that they seem, offhand, to have in common:

1. A hero who does not belong in his milieu;
2. Official authorities who are in some way untrustworthy or morally unsound;
3. A general sense of bleakness or pessimism about the future, that often gives way to specific sources of hope or possibility;
4. A resort to violence and/or militarism in service of "nobler" causes and missions;
5. The importance of the hero's use of his own judgement and self-discipline, compared to the anarchy and anxiety of those around him.

I might never go further into this, but if anyone has any thoughts (particularly if there are other movies that fit this pattern that I haven't mentioned, or if there are points that might be added to the list) I'd be really keen to hear them.

I think the links to the early-mid 1980's political and cultural situation are pretty clear. The Cold War and threat of nuclear armageddon, the rise of leaders like Thatcher and Reagan, and the increase (particularly in the US) of drug-related and poverty-related crime all shed light on the cultural background of these films.

Send me an e-mail or post a comment if you have any thoughts.

Blessings,
Murr

King David and the RCL

I spent today doing exegesis for the series of five sermons I'll be preaching at Gilmore Park United in July. I've decided to follow the Revised Common Lectionary and preach on the assigned passage from 2 Samuel each week.

Today my issues with the RCL were seriously triggered, not only based on what they have chosen to skip over from week to week, but also what they have excluded within the passage for a given Sunday.

Namely, all of the violence, all of the political intrigue, all of the murder and war. It suggests that the ascendancy of David to the throne was peaceful and unopposed, that his transfer of the ark from its resting place to the new royal city went off without a hitch, after taking up residence there without having to conquer its previous inhabitants (the Jebusites).

Some of the richest theological material in this portion of Samuel (2 Samuel 1-11) is in the bits that are left out of the RCL. CONSTERNATION!!!!!1111one

I think one of my sermons will have to be about all of the stuff that's left out. Friggin' RCL, making life easier with one hand and more difficult with the other. I guess that's the situation with most disciplines and practices. They result in blessings but they require effort.




Okay, so, for your edification, here are the bits that are in and out of the RCL, so you can check it out for yourself if you're as much of a geek as I am. Especially check out the gaps that are indicated by asterisks in the second list. These are verses that have been pulled out of the middle of a passage that is the assigned reading for the week.

2 SAMUEL

IN

1:1, 17-27
5:1-5, 9-10
6:1-5, 12b-19
7:1-14a
11:1-15

OUT

1:2-16
2:1-4:12
5:6-8*
5:11-25
6:6-12a*
6:20-23
7:14b-10:19
11:16-25

Movie Review: "Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room"

I just watched this movie, which was Oscar nominated in the Documentary Feature category. It's interesting as recent documentaries go because it seems to resist making any kind of "point" - which I suppose could be seen as the basis of documentary film-making but to me seems more like an abdication of responsibility. There is no "outsider" point of view, after all... no Archimedean "fulcrum" point at which we can stand and see things in their entirety. If one is going to present this information, there is an inherent responsibility to also present an interpretation of it. There is no need to assert one's interpretation as the only possible or valid one, but to fail to present one at all is to leave the viewer adrift and unchanged.

And so, I was a bit disappointed. The filmmaker (Alex Gibney) seems to rely on his various clips and interviews to tell the story, which is quite well constructed and easy to follow. What is most disappointing to me, however, is that at various points in the movie, the people who have been interviewed deliver an important question that is never examined by the film itself, namely, "Was the Enron fraud and bankruptcy the result of the misdeeds of bad people, or by the corporate profit-driven culture itself?" By failing to examine the question, Gibney implies very clearly that his answer is the former.

This question is asked or implied at least three times by different figures in the movie, but is apparently dropped in favour of the choice to indict the top executives of the company. The final screens of the film show comparative numbers in terms of the monetary losses of various groups of employees and pensioners compared to the individual profits of the top executives, and one of the last spoken words is given to a reporter from Fortune magazine (Bethany McLean) who contributed to the exposure of the Enron fraud, who theorizes that it was the misguided, immoral complicity of the Enron executives, their attorneys, accountants, and bankers that led to the scandalous outcome (the accounting and law firms that served Enron were each being paid approximately $1M per week for their services).

This, then, would seem to be the thesis of the argument: that the checks and balances that are supposed to protect investors from corporate fraud failed due to the individual greed and pride of the people involved. The alternative suggestion, made by a few different figures in the movie, is not given any scrutiny.

But, when I watch the footage of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling as he is brought to account for what happened (he resigned four months before the bankruptcy) I do not see the face of a man who was caught doing something immoral or that he knew was wrong.

Rather, it is the face of a man who is beginning to realize that the values and priorities on which he has based his life and his definitions of success are not shared by everyone who has power, and who is being asked to defend himself on the basis of an ethical system that is entirely alien to him. And it is here that I think the movie fails to look closely enough at its subject.

The values and priorities of the corporate world in which Skilling and Chairperson Ken Lay lived and breathed said that the only 'good' is to make as much profit as possible in as short a time as possible, and to keep the company's stock value rising. Anything that is done to pursue that solitary 'good' is the right thing to do. In embodying this value of corporate culture, Enron and its eventual collapse demonstrated the fundamental incorrectness of its basic philosophy.

In other words, it's not that Enron was a bad company, or that it was run by bad people. Rather, it was based on bad philosophy. The problem is that it is the philosophy on which so much of our North American culture is similarly based. The witchhunts of people like Lay, Skilling, and their CFO Andy Fastow therefore serve to shift the focus off of the cultural systems that promoted them, encouraged them, and gave them the keys to the kingdom. Did these men do illegal and immoral things? Almost certainly. But where is the community that created them and supported them? It's the entire society.

When you tell corporations that their ultimate goal is "higher profits, sooner" and then, as an afterthought, encourage them to practice sustainability, ethical bookkeeping, and honesty, you deliver a mixed message. And when the organizations that are meant to supervise and provide "checks and balances" are simply other corporations whose own goal is also "higher profits, sooner" and when the Legislators, Presidents, and Bureaucrats who administer the Government have their eyes on their own personal bottom-lines, Enron is what you get.

It wasn't bad people doing bad things. It was corporate people doing what they do, and doing it well. And this is what happened.

The documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" doesn't say any of this... at best, it hints to it. Even the title of the film reveals its perspective - this was a nickname used to refer to Lay and Skilling. The incident, in the view of Alex Gibney, boils down to these two men and their misdeeds. And that, in my view, reflects a lack of perspective, integrity, or boldness on the part of Gibney as a filmmaker. And causes me to wonder what his profit-motive is, and where he draws the bottom line.

Dream about home...

I had a dream the other night... I was at the farm (where I grew up, on the northern outskirts of Edmonton, Alberta, near the city of Fort Saskatchewan) but instead of rolling prairie, the landscape was dominated by mountains to the north and east. I was walking, about to start climbing the eastern mountain range because... I don't know why.

But it makes me suspect that I now consider Vancouver to be my home, at least as much as the Fort. And that I'm eager to head to Newfoundland for new experiences.

The awareness of "home" has been an important one for me, tied in with some of the greatest hurts and struggles in my life. At one point a few years ago, I came up with the idea that my entire post-adolescent life had been spent in the search for a secure sense of home, and that it was a series of failures in this quest that led to my great depression. I have from time to time been "satisfied" with my situation, only to watch it change and disappear from beneath me.

I decided at that point that I needed to reconcile myself to the possibility (and perhaps the certainty?) that I would never be in a place that would satisfy both the sense of home and the sense of security. But how to do this without becoming paranoid and insular? Every time my situation became "satisfactory" would I begin to question its longevity? In other words, would I be saying to myself, "This is so good, it can never last?"

It was clear to me, that I would have to work and pay attention in order to find a better way. I once read a book (I believe it was called "The Gender Knot") that presented the image of a person who lives in the woods and mountains with no set place to call home. And though he rarely knows exactly where he is (relative to any permanent reference point) he is never lost, because he is so familiar with his surroundings and their processes that he is comfortable and "at-home" wherever he goes.

This became a vision for me in my work around my sense of home and security. To be "homeless" in some sort of constructive sense - to find security and home in something other than physical locations or other people. And yet, we must be "emplaced" and connected with others to be complete. How to negotiate the boundaries of self and home and be meaningfully connected with our surroundings and our community, without overinvesting emotionally?

And it is the "overinvesting" part that is key, rather than "investing" - I have to invest emotionally in my friends and in the place where I live. But I have come to terms with the fact that things will change, and it will hurt. I'm okay with the hurt. Because it means that I was engaged with something, involved with something, present to something. And instead of cutting off, closing down, numbing out when I hurt, I can instead open up, reach out, and get in touch, and know that I will hurt again.

So am I a person who is at home wherever I go? Maybe my dream says something like that. Maybe I have found a secure home in something other than people and places, like I had hoped to do. What I know for sure, is that I love Vancouver, and Edmonton, and I love my friends and my family, and I'm ready to go other places and love other people, and even if I don't know exactly where I am, I don't expect I'll feel quite so lost ever again.

Amen.

For Jenn...

This is the transcript of a (one-sided) msn convo I just had with Jenn, in which she didn't receive the whole thing. So I'm recording it here, in its entirety, for posterity.

well, something I've been thinking about recently is the Christian approach to anticipation and gratification...

it seems to me, the way the calendar is set up, and the way we do worship, it's designed to dwell in both states. We dwell in the state of anticipation, and we dwell in the state of gratification...

which is in counterpoint to the messages of the consumer culture, which tell us to move as quickly as possible through both. it demands not only instant gratification, but also that we immediately move on afterward...

I think it can be an act of devotion to focus on something that we know is coming up... it isn't denying the Now, to acknowledge that we are feeling expectant and to live in that feeling. In fact, it means we are being MORE present to ourselves...

than if we deny or reject the feeling.

As long as our expectations are realistic and non-selfish, in the sense that we aren't using our thoughts about the future to deceive, repress, or distract ourselves from the real issues that are happening to us.

If the real issue that is happening to you right now is that you're excited for the future, that's where you should be. It seems to me.

Okay, I'm done.

Top Buffy Episodes

Alright,

I am a Buffy fan. Sometimes I don't want to admit it, because I have spent quite a bit of time on this pursuit, and it seems that there are potentially better ways to spend your time. However, the fact remains that I am a Buffy fan.

I mentioned to my friend Kristen that I had been obsessing about Buffy episodes and had put together a list of my favourites, and she told me to post the list. Being the geek that I am, I couldn't just list them... so I had to include a brief commentary and analysis of each episode, too.

So, these are my personal preferences. Thirty episodes are listed (thirty-two if you count two-parters as two). The first twenty are in order of preference, more-or-less. The last ten are in series order as Honourable Mentions. If you're interested in checking out the series, putting together a night with a few of these episodes would be a good idea.

If you also are a fan of the series, I'm interested to hear if you have any comments on my analysis of these episodes.

Blessings,
Murr

TOP 20

20 Lie To Me (Season 2, Episode 7)

An early great Spike episode, "Lie To Me" focuses on a grade-school flame of Buffy's who arrives in Sunnydale with shady motives. It also features the first appearance of Julia Lee as the character who would eventually be known as "Annie" on Angel.

19 Fool For Love (Season 5, Episode 7)

Another great Spike episode, originally titled "Love's Bitch." It's a semi-crossover with the Angel episode "Darla" and includes flashbacks of Spike's timeline. It also develops his unhealthy obsession with Buffy, and digs under his big-bad facade to reveal the poet/lover beneath. The original title comes from a line he utters in another episode, where he says, 'I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it.'

18 The Harsh Light of Day (Season 4, Episode 3)

I first heard about this episode when a friend (LQ) described it as the "don't have sex" episode. Three different sexual encounters result in confusion and/or heartbreak for the women involved (Anya, Harmony, and Buffy). I'm a sucker for episodes that end in a tableau with a strong musical accompaniment. This one features Bif Naked.

17 Graduation Day (Season 3, Episodes 21 & 22)

The finale of Season 3. The death of Mayor Wilkins and Principal Snyder, not to mention Larry and Harmony, and the ultimate Slayer vs. Slayer showdown (guess who wins!). Willow loses something important, and Angel walks away at the end without looking back.

16 Passion (Season 2, Episode 17)

This episode is, I believe, the first in the Buffyverse to effectively use the voice-over framing sequence as David Boreanaz' chilling narration introduces the theme of "passion." We realize the seriousness of the situation, as Buffy's little problem apparently isn't going away anytime soon. We see the depth of Angelus' sadistic hatred when he kills someone from the Slayer's inner circle.

15 Villains (Season 6, Episode 20)

In this episode, our expectations are turned upside down as the chief "bad guy" of season 6 is dispatched before we even reach the finale. All of the grief and disharmony that has characterized season 6 reaches a head, and the question that has been building for almost four years is answered: does Willow have the maturity and integrity to handle her power responsibly?

14 The Body (Season 5, Episode 16)

An entire episode with no incidental music whatsoever. A relentless barrage of imagery and a cinematic surreality make this episode as captivating as it is emotionally difficult. The unfortunate need to include a fight with a vampire (was this the network's influence?) and thus disrupt the otherwise hyper-real episode with an intrusion of fantasy keeps this one off the top 10.

13 Restless (Season 4, Episode 22)

As the denouement of Season 4 (it's not really the 'finale' - more of a follow-up) this episode may seem like pure fun, except it sets up some important elements for Season 5. Namely, it helps to inspire Buffy to become more sincere and committed to her calling. A dangerous entity threatens the gang within their dreams. Too many brilliant moments to list.

12 Once More, With Feeling (Season 6, Episode 7)

The infamous musical episode. The music isn't anything special; it's as derivative and generic as you would expect from a musical theatre fan and television writer. However, it is decent, and the lyrics and rhymes are delightful. Joss makes sure that this episode is a key moment in the grand narrative of the series, because they are not only magically compelled to sing and dance, but also to reveal to one another what is really in their hearts.

11 The Pack (Season 1, Episode 6)

I have a weakness for evil Xander, and this is the first of two episodes where we see that side of him (the other is also on this list). It's a perfect example of the three-act teleplay, and shows a disciplined hand from Joss and his creative teams. It also plays perfectly into the central metaphor of BTVS, which is the world of demons and magic as a metaphor for the life of the young person. At one point Giles describes Xander's strange behaviour: dressing differently, picking on weaker students, hanging out with a new crowd, being rude and mean, and then says, "It appears he's transformed into a sixteen year-old boy."

TOP 10

10 Prophecy Girl (Season 1, Episode 12)

Buffy must accept her destiny before she can overcome it. So much of what is great about the series, the concept, and the character is embodied by this episode. She lives in between the world of demons and the world of high school, operating in both but belonging to neither. She transcends her 'roles' as both 'teenager' and 'Slayer' by integrating them together. In other words, she kicks ass and looks pretty doing it. The difference between Buffy and other Slayers is her refusal to sacrifice her 'life' (both in the literal and the figurative sense) for the sake of her calling. What makes her a great teenager is that when it counts, she also refuses to sacrifice her calling for the sake of her 'life.' Her relationships with her friends keep her grounded, balanced, and focused. Without them, she would burn bright and hot, and die young like all of the Slayers that preceded her. And without them, she wouldn't be nearly as effective at saving the world. And it's all in this episode, which is the finale of season 1.

9 The Prom (Season 3, Episode 20)

The quiet before the storm that is "Graduation Day," this episode is relatively low on action and high on emotion. The ending of the Cordelia/Xander feud, the break-up of Buffy and Angel, and the public recognition of Buffy's contribution to the students at Sunnydale High, (apparently they have the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history) make this a significant moment that prepares Angel and Cordy to depart for their spin-off series and prepares Buffy for the transition to college life. It also features Giles telling off Wesley in an extremely British way: "For God's sake, man, she's eighteen. And you have the emotional maturity of a blueberry scone. Just ask her to dance."

8 Conversations With Dead People (Season 7, Episode 7)

This is the episode that really gets things going in Season 7. Four separate stories featuring four separate conversations (with four separate dead people). Buffy, Dawn, and Willow each encounter people from their pasts who give them disturbing messages, and we see the return to Sunnydale of the Geek Trio, including the apparent ghost of Warren Meers.

7 Lies My Parents Told Me (Season 7, Episode 17)

Another great Spike episode. The First Evil has been taking advantage of Spike since his return; even though he has a soul, he still has "demons" to exorcise. One of them is the question of his mother's love for him. We see the poet/lover even more, and we learn that when Spike is in touch with his inner poet, he becomes even more dangerous.

6 The Gift (Season 5, Episode 22)

Some wonderful theological/christological implications here. Earlier in season 5, Buffy was given a message from the spirit world: Love will lead you to your gift; Death is your gift. She thinks it means killing, but her gift is something else...

5 Tabula Rasa (Season 6, Episode 8)

In the midst of the emotional turmoil and trauma of Season 6, we have this gem that mixes pure comedy with the harshest irony and, ultimately, tragic heartbreak as everyone loses their memories and things revert to a simpler, funnier dynamic. Then, once we're really into it, it all comes crashing back. This is another episode with a strong musical finish, this time with Michelle Branch's "Goodbye to You."

4 Hush (Season 4, Episode 10)

Widely regarded as the number one episode of the series, it's hard to disagree from any perspective other than personal preference. After three years of solid viewership, Whedon et al. were facing some harsh criticisms that their series was all style and no substance... "Nothing but clever dialogue..." So Joss decided to tell a story without any dialogue, and the middle two-thirds of this episode does exactly that, to great effect. One of the scariest episodes in the series, it also manages to include humour, romance, and action in an almost perfect balance. Not only does it tell its story without the benefit of dialogue, but in the opening scenes where the characters can talk, almost everything they say has something to do with speech, communication, or language. The final image of the episode has Buffy and her love interest, Riley Finn (once they have their voices restored) sitting across from each other, deciding that they "should talk..." and then sitting silently for several moments until the credits begin to roll. Tremendous unity of theme and expert execution make this a must-see episode.

3 The Wish (Season 3, Episode 9)

The events of this episode are not remembered by any of the characters (with one exception) but they echo through the rest of the series in undeniable ways. It takes place in an alternate dimension, in which Buffy never came to Sunnydale. She moved to the Midwest instead, the Master rose, Xander and Willow were killed and transformed into vampires, whose greatest opponents in town are Giles, Oz, and Larry who fight a losing battle with no Slayer in sight. Vampire Xander is a throwback to feral Xander from episode "The Pack," and Vampire Willow (who would return in episode "Doppelgangland") prefigures in many ways the Willow that we see at the end of season 6. Without her friends, Buffy is eerily similar to Faith, providing an argument that environment and experience are important contributors to character. This episode also introduces Anya to the Buffyverse, and the climactic scene in which we see Xander, Willow, Angel, and Buffy die one by one is highlighted by Anya's question, "How do you know that reality will be any better than this one?" and Giles' answer: "Because it has to be."

2 Selfless (Season 7, Episode 5)

Anya reaches a crisis point. After more than a millenium of existence, and twice being transformed into a demon, she no longer knows where she fits in. The theme of the episode is almost buried in the rich and powerful storytelling, but it shines through: she has spent her entire life giving herself away, and has nothing to show for it. Includes a "lost" scene from the musical episode, the sudden ending of which gives me goosebumps every time.

1 Becoming (Season 2, Episodes 21 & 22)

My number one episode is the closer of season 2... actually a two-parter, the first and second portions are quite distinct in their storytelling styles. However, because they share a title, I'm including them together as one episode. This episode prefigures what would become some of the storytelling conventions of the Angel spin-off series over a year later, including frequent flashbacks to Angel's past and a focus on character development, not to mention the sage-like demon who brings Angel his mission and purpose (here, a demon named Whistler, on Angel, it is Doyle). One by one the constants in Buffy's life disappear... her mother discovers her secret and banishes her from their home; her fellow-Slayer Kendra who, even at a distance, gave Buffy a sense that she was not alone in the world, dies, and Buffy is pursued as a suspect in her killing; she is expelled from school, and at the urging of her closest friends, is forced to send her lover to hell. Though she learns from Whistler that even when you strip everything else away, you are still left with your sense of self, she takes the lesson too far and decides to leave behind everything that has already been at least partially taken from her. Another episode that finishes with a moving tableau and music combination, this time it's Sarah McLachlan's "Full of Grace" and a sign saying, "You Are Now Leaving Sunnydale."

Honourable Mention

Band Candy (Season 3, Episode 6)

Adults acting like kids? Kids having to act like grown-ups? What's not to love? Armin Shimerman steals the show with his portrayal of a teenaged Snyder, and the third appearance of Ethan Rayne is more than welcome.

The Zeppo (Season 3, Episode 13)

Xander finds his cool as the gang fights against the end of the world. The humour of this might not be fully realized by non-fans, as the end of the world becomes the sub-plot to Xander's teen-movie adventures. The sharp cuts out of Xander's predicament and into the middle of a high-drama, high-romance Buffy/Angel scene, for instance, are just jarring enough to grab your attention, and the music, dialogue, and acting in the subplot are cliched and melodramatic. In the end, they save the world, he saves the day, and Oz eats a re-animated dead guy. Good fun, and great character study.

Doppelgangland (Season 3, Episode 16)

The quality of this episode rests on the dual performance of Aly Hannigan as both Willow and Vampire Willow, and on the strength of the two characters as opposite sides of one coin. Willow is transfigured in her own eyes and, to some extent, the eyes of her friends as they see what she is capable of in different circumstances. It's also the second appearance of Anya in the series.

Fear, Itself (Season 4, Episode 4)

This one is just good fun and some good frights; but it also gives us some insight into the characters as their greatest fears are revealed. The "horrifying" climax is so anticlimactic that it becomes hilarious, and the "one last scare" at the end accomplishes the same feat only moments later.

Who Are You? (Season 4, Episode 16)

Eliza Dushku plays Buffy and Sarah Gellar plays Faith, and they both do an absolutely stunning job of it. Eventually, the way they are perceived and treated by others begins to affect their behaviours, once again providing an argument that the differences between the two Slayers are more about environment and experience than anything else.

As You Were (Season 6, Episode 15)

The turning point of season 6, in this episode Buffy is forced to take herself seriously after an old friend suddenly reappears in Sunnydale. She regains a measure of self-esteem and starts to see her situation for what it is, helping her put an end to her masochistic and self-pitying behaviours.

Normal Again (Season 6, Episode 17)

The ending of this episode remains ambiguous: is Buffy a superhero with a nagging suspicion that she might just be a catatonic asylum inmate, or is she a schizophrenic mental patient who retreats into dreams of fighting evil? We may never know.

Entropy (Season 6, Episode 18)

The jilted Spike takes comfort in the arms of another rebounding Scooby gang member; Anya attempts to curse Xander for leaving her at the altar, and Willow and Tara reconcile at last.

Sleeper (Season 7, Episode 8)

Ensouled Spike has been killing innocent people but doesn't remember doing it. His "insane in the school basement" phase may have had more to it than just insanity... but when Buffy confronts him, he begs her to kill him, because he doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

Dirty Girls (Season 7, Episode 18)

There's a new bad guy in town, and he's pretty bad: a former serial-killing southern preacher who has become the apostle of the First Evil, and who hates everything female. Featuring the return of Faith after her transition to the good side over on Angel, this episode was initially supposed to include the death of Xander. Instead, he suffers a permanent injury that destroys the morale of Buffy's army, on the eve of their greatest battle.