My existential church crisis

This is a really long post, and yet, I feel that there is so much more that I should say.  But this will have to suffice.

It’s Sunday morning, and it’s a little overcast.  For the vast majority of my life, Sundays at this time would find me sitting in a pew in a church somewhere.  But today, like most Sunday mornings over the past couple of years, I am not in a church.  I am not having a crisis of faith; I hold to the tenets of faith that I believe define Christianity; I just don’t see those tenets being reflected in “worship” and “church.”   I guess you could say that I am having a bit of an existential church crisis.

I think about church and faith a lot lately.  My dad was a Baptist minister, and I was born and raised in a tradition of church and faith.  If you know much about me, you know that my faith is a significant part of who I want to be, how I want to act, and how I want to live, even if most times, I fail spectacularly at living and acting the way that I want to (I'm in good company there: even the apostle Paul complained that he was not always able to do what is right and that he kept on doing the things that he knew were wrong!).  I was brought up believing that church – going to church and being part of a church community – was an important part of faith.  I am proud of my traditional Baptist beliefs (even if denominational theology and practice have veered away from what I believe), and my peace-making Mennonite heritage.

Until recently, I would not have been able to imagine my life without church.  My relationship with the church and the people in it has shaped me unimaginably.  I have had innumerable life-affirming and life-changing experiences through the church.  I have also faced the downside of Christian community, through betrayals and small-mindedness.  All of these experiences are a part of who I am today, warts and all.

My positive memories of “church” growing up are a mash-up of music, food, families, community.  Church choirs since I was about 10.  Professional and amateur musicians in churches sharing their gifts of music.  Invitations to share in family meals and events, both happy and sad, ordinary and extraordinary, with individual church families, and the collective church family.  An instant sense of “belonging” to a community, even if we had never been in that particular church before, based on a set of common traditions.  Camping, in a variety of settings, from lavish Keats to primitive Shänti, and everything in between (literally: as a kid, I spent time at almost every Baptist camp between BC and Manitoba).  And always, food.  So much food.  Breaking bread together, a biblical act of living as community that breaks down barriers and fosters intimacy.  Potluck suppers, so much a part of church life growing up, especially in Baptist circles, and always wonderful, but probably more so in Kitimat Baptist Church, largely populated by German immigrants, with some Portuguese families thrown in for good measure (I wrote about Kitimat here).

I attended a Baptist college for a year.  We had classes in faith, Baptist principles, church history and basic theology, and learned about leadership and faith.  It was a lived experience in community-building, getting along with others, growing and learning together.  We shared intense grief when we lost a classmate in a car accident.  And most of us rebelled and questioned.

I also had bitter experiences in church.  One instance that affected me deeply occurred when I was an adolescent. The church where my dad ministered voted to fire him after a congregational meeting, apparently because some people (who didn’t even attend the church) demanded that he preach fire, brimstone and damnation sermons; he refused.  Ironically, this meeting took place while I was innocently babysitting some of their children in the basement of the church.  My parents hardly ever talked about this incident, so I had to piece it together myself.  It gave me a deep (and I mean deep) distrust of church leadership – deacons, search committees, and so on – which continues today.  Subsequent interactions with other search committees and deacons, now that I am married to a minister, have done little to heal me.  Years later, the congregation asked for my parents’ forgiveness, but they never sought forgiveness from me or my brother.
 

As an adult, I experienced rejection from a congregation because I supposedly had “serious spiritual issues,” after I openly shared that I often question and I don’t believe in easy answers.  At another church I attended, the congregation changed its governance structure to eliminate formal committees because apparently no one wanted to commit to serving for a set period of time.  One committee, which actively led the congregation and the community through issues of social justice, decided to remain a traditional committee.  Instead of celebrating the dedication of these committee members, church leadership labelled this committee “resistant.” 

I have survived discussions about whether Christians should wear charm bracelets, whether Hallowe’en is evil, the Rapture and the Second Coming, the acceptance (or not) of LGBTQ/homeless/divorced/and other marginalized people within the walls of church buildings. I have been a part of congregations who have worked very hard to ensure that nothing would change (in one congregation, a deacon in his 40s often bragged that his hairstyle had not changed since he was in high school... very symbolic of his leadership).  And I have been part of congregations who are always seeking to remain relevant and meaningful in their larger communities. 

Church has changed a lot over my lifetime.  When I was a kid, no one would have dreamt of welcoming openly gay people sitting in the pews, let alone preaching or otherwise leading a congregation.  Women deacons were rare, women ministers even rarer (although Canadian Baptists were a relatively early denomination to support the ordination of women, apparently they did not do a fantastic job of following through with actions; even today, in my informal survey of Maritime Baptist churches, most ordained women ministers are associates, not senior ministers).  Ecumenicism, although historically a strong Christian tradition in Canada, was not overly common anywhere I lived, and I do not recall much active interfaith cooperation.

These changes are good and healthy.

However, I have issues with other changes in North American churches.
 

I recently took a university course called “Religion in Canada.”  It was an interesting reminder that “church” has always suffered from fragmentation and differences of opinions, and that faith has never been a totally effective way of dealing with schism or disagreement.  Churches have been struggling to remain relevant since the beginning of church history.  One of the things we discussed was the conflict between native spirituality and Christianity in the early days of post-contact North America.  To vastly oversimplify, native spirituality assumes that all beings are intrinsically good; the European Christian concept of “original sin” assumes that humans are naturally evil.  If you think about it, you can see how there were bound to be conflicts based on the lack of understanding of each other’s basic beliefs about humans.  I am not a church historian or a theologian, but I am quite sure that Jesus’ ideas about how humans should interact with each other have been vastly corrupted over the centuries by those who were more interested in power and authority than they were about their faith.  I do not think that it is too late for us to learn from some of the precepts of native spirituality about how we should treat each other and what our faith should look like.

Right now, churches represent a diversely wide spectrum.  At one end, there are churches and denominations whose liturgies and worships services have not changed for decades or even centuries.  (There’s that old joke about how many Presbyterians (or whatever) it takes to change a lightbulb.  Answer: CHANGE?!!!???).  At the other end, there are denominations that are trying so hard to be everything to everyone that they end up being nothing to anyone.  They have no theology; some of them even welcome and celebrate avowed atheists as their “ministers.”   “Worship services” now involve guest speakers, who might or might not be Christian, who come and talk about “issues” in our society with small group discussions following their talks.  Evangelical churches sing “worship songs” that are really just nonsense words repeated ad nauseum about how much I love you God over and over and over again that make us feel really good about ourselves and our intimate (in some cases, even creepy) relationship with Jesus, while their worship bands perform on the stage at the front of the auditorium.  Our attempts to be “relevant” have made us ridiculous; Disney themes as choir anthems, and pizza and beer instead of bread and wine make a joke of our faith and our commitment. 

Frankly, at this point in my life, I get nothing out of attending worship services.  I almost always leave feeling frustrated and alienated and sometimes even angry.  I have spent a fair bit of energy asking myself if I am just whining because church and worship no longer fulfill me.  Maybe I just need to be less traditional and more open to new ways of doing things.  But the drastically dropping attendance rates in North American churches, along with the rise of people who say they are not Christian make it abundantly clear that I am not the only person who feels alienated from the church community. 

Millennials are to blame for falling church attendance, according to much that I have read. Their parents were already beginning to have a lackadaisical attitude towards church, and now millennials are too busy, too lazy, too self-centred, and too focused on things like social media and self-care to attend church.  Much energy is being put into trying to bring millennials back to church, which is maybe part of the reason that some churches are becoming much less church-like and less Christian, and more like  social clubs.  Except that it isn’t working.  Churches are, by and large, failing in their weak attempts at being relevant.

Rachel Held Evans was a millennial, evangelical rebel, a popular cultural icon among young Christians, who died suddenly several months ago.  In the introduction to her book Searching for Sunday, she outlined issues that millennials have with church.  She wrote:

“We’re tired of the culture wars, tired of Christianity getting entangled with party politics and power.  Millennials want to be known by what we’re for... not just for what we’re against. We don’t want to choose between science and religion or between our intellectual integrity and our faith.  Instead, we long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.  We want to talk about the tough stuff – biblical interpretation, religious pluralism, sexuality, racial reconciliation, and social justice – but without predetermined conclusions or simplistic answers....

… when our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered friends aren’t welcome at the table, then we don’t feel welcome either, and... not every young adult gets married or has children, so we need to stop building our churches around categories and start building them around people.... [C]ontrary to popular belief, we can’t be won back with hipper worship bands, fancy coffee shops, or pastors who wear skinny jeans....

… Millennials aren’t looking for a hipper Christianity... we’re looking for a truer Christianity, and more authentic Christianity.” (xiii-xiv – emphasis is mine)

I’m not a millennial, but that sounds like the kind of church community that I want to be part of.  A church that is authentically and unapologetically Christian, with space to explore the deeper questions of life. 

We need to re-evaluate what “church” and “worship” should mean.  Worship is the very heart of our understanding and practice of our Christian beliefs.  We need to rediscover the sacred, the mystery and the value of worship.  We can and should learn from other faiths and spiritual practices, and in fact, Christians throughout history have adopted and adapted many practices from other faiths.  We should work together with other faith groups to create a world of respect and love and acceptance.  But I am Christian, and I want to worship regularly in a Christian church that upholds Christian faith traditions.  I want a church that teaches what it means to live authentically.  I want a church that takes its worship seriously and expects its congregation to take it seriously.  I want a church where the leaders are unapologetically Christians, not atheists or wishy washy spiritualists, who are dedicated to helping other Christians learn about the faith and live out their faith. 

I don’t think I’m the only one. 

Who was Julia Martha Batterbee?

A few years ago, my aunt, knowing my interest in both history and needlework, gave me an old sampler.  It is not an heirloom created by a previous family member, but was given to her many years ago by a family friend who bought up old samplers at yard and estate sales in England.  Apparently, she had a drawer full of them, and when my mom and her sisters were visiting her at some point, she told them to each pick a sampler to take home.

The Victoria and Albert Museum’s website has a fascinating history of samplers.  They began as records, or samples, of different embroidery stitches before there were printed patterns.  Embroiderers would see a motif or a stitch that they wanted to remember and would embroider it onto a piece of fabric for future reference; or they would experiment with effects created by using different threads, colour combinations or stitches.  Most of the early samplers were created by adult women and even professional embroiderers.  Much later, samplers evolved into learning tools for young girls.  The needlework that they used when stitching their samplers taught them skills that they would use as adult women, mistresses of their own households.  Today, samplers are still used to develop those abilities, but mostly they are created by a variety of girls and women for decorative purposes. 

One day, I was looking at my sampler, and on a whim, I decided to Google the name of the girl who made the sampler.  Maybe I would find out where she was born and lived, where her descendants lived now, and what kind of life she had.

What I discovered, much to my shock, was that the young girl who stitched the sampler grew up to become the victim of one of the most notorious murder cases in Victorian England.

Her name was Julia Martha Batterbee, and when she stitched her sampler in 1833, she was ten years old.

The historian in me took over full force, and I had to know more.  I wanted to know more about her murder but also her life.  Who killed her?  And why?  So I dug a little deeper, using genealogical sites, reading a book that was written about the murder and the trial, and checking some historical research databases for contemporary newspaper accounts.  There is not a lot of information about Julia; as is typical, the public was much more interested in the murderer than the victim, but I did fill in a few gaps.

Julia Martha Batterbee was born on April 16, 1823 and baptized on July 23, 1823 in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, Middlesex.  Her father, Barnabas, was a printer who was born around 1796 and her mother Martha was born ca 1797.  Julia had a least one brother, named Charles, born October 2, 1817 and baptized November 18 at Westminster.  The family tree seems to extend only through Charles, at least online; he married a woman named Martha and had 5 children.  In the 1861 British Census, Charles, Martha and 3 of their children (one of who, incidentally, was named Julia Martha) were living in Shoreham, Sussex, and Charles was listed as a glass and china dealer. Ten years later, presumably Martha had died, as Charles and his new wife Elizabeth were living in Brighton, Sussex with the two youngest children, William and Rhoda.  Charles and Julia might have had at least one other brother named Joseph, but I could not find any link to connect them definitively.

Julia married a Scotsman, James Murray, probably in March 1847 at St. James.  There is no mention of any children, but there is a record of a James Murray born in 1849 who lived only a year, and who was buried at St. James.  I suspect this was an infant son of Julia and James; perhaps there were others who were miscarried or died as infants, fairly typical in that era.

In any case, Julia was widowed fairly young.  The 1861 census recorded Julia, a widow, living in Winchester, Surrey with her mother Martha, who was also a widow by then, and two of Martha’s young granddaughters.  These granddaughters might have been the daughters of an unknown brother of Julia and Charles (maybe Joseph?), as their names and ages do not match any of the offspring of Charles and his wife.  Julia is listed as a schoolmistress.

In 1862, Julia’s fortunes appear to have taken a turn for the better, as she married again, this time a man named James Thomas.  James Thomas was born and baptized on September 21, 1823 at Christ Church in Southwark, Surrey.  In 1841, he was an apprentice printer living with his cousin Francis Robert Thomas and his aunt Elizabeth Scott (née Thomas) in Middlesex.   By 1871, he and Julia were living at 1 Montague Place on Seven Sisters Road in Islington, Middlesex, and Mr. Thomas was a printer's reader.  They were reportedly staunch Presbyterians, and until her death, Julia attended the local Presbyterian church.  Sadly, by 1873, he also had died, and Julia was again a widow.

At some point, Julia Thomas moved to 2 Vine Cottages, around the corner from the Hole-in-the-Wall public house, in Park Road, Richmond. 2 Vine Cottages was a semi-detached “villa” with gardens in the back and front, and is still standing today.  Her landlady, Mrs. Ives, lived in the other half.  Julia took in the occasional boarder, and appeared to live the life of a genteel widow.  In January 1879, she hired a housekeeper named Kate Webster.

We do not know very much more about Julia.  After her sensational murder, many people gave testimony (both in court and in the newspaper accounts) as to her personality, and naturally, much of the testimony is contradictory.  She was described by some as someone who was easily excited, eccentric and a difficult employer.  Others described her as a “pleasant, lively lady,” “amiable and good-natured,” and an accomplished piano player. At a height of approximately 5'3" she was not a large woman, and seemed to be in reasonably good health. Some people suggested that Julia’s desire to have live-in help and the care that she took with her appearance were part of an effort to appear more prosperous than she was.

What do we know about Kate Webster?  She was Irish, taller than Julia and stout, with an impressive criminal record.  She reportedly had been married and had four children, but her husband and all of their children mysteriously died.  Kate was portrayed as a “loose woman,” and at the time of her employment with Julia, had a small son who lived with a friend.  She identified different men as the father of the child, but it was largely believed that a man named Strong, who was her partner in several crimes, was the father.  She had many aliases, and claimed that her life of crime (mostly petty crimes such as theft and larceny) was an attempt to look after her child, after being abandoned by all those who should have cared for her. 

Remarkably, Julia did not ask for a reference before she hired Kate.  Almost immediately, there was dissatisfaction with the quality of Kate’s work, and within a week, Julia had given Kate her notice.  Kate convinced Julia to allow her to stay until the end of February, a fatal decision.

Matters between Kate and Julia deteriorated quickly.  Julia became fearful of Kate, and tried to convince friends to come and stay with her until Kate had left her employ.  Ultimately, however, by the end of February, the only two people living in the house were Kate Webster and her employer, Julia Thomas.  Inexplicably, Julia agreed to let Kate stay on for several additional days.

On Sunday morning, March 2, 1879, Julia went to church as usual.  Kate was in the habit of taking Sunday afternoons to spend with her son, with the understanding that she would be back at Vine Cottages in time to help Julia prepare for the evening service.  On this day, however, she was late returning, and Julia and Kate argued.  Julia arrived at the church late, sitting in a back pew instead of her usual place, and was visibly agitated.  That is the last time she was seen alive.

Warning: if you don’t like blood and gore, perhaps the next part isn’t for you....

When Julia arrived home from church, the argument between Julia and Kate escalated.  Kate, in a fit of temper, pushed Julia down the stairs. When she realized what she had done, and saw her employer lying on the ground moaning, Kate, in her own words, “lost all control,” and choked her to death.  She spent the night cutting up the body with a razor, a meat saw and a carving knife, and, in an attempt to prevent the remains from being identified, boiled some of the body parts in a large copper kettle.  She burned other parts of the body, including the stomach contents.  Later, neighbourhood children claimed that in the following days, Kate fed them lard made from the body, but this particularly gruesome rumour was never mentioned in evidence or in her confessions, so I am assuming that the sensationalism surrounding the trial encouraged the children’s active imaginations. 

Meanwhile, on that fateful evening, Mrs. Ives, the landlady who lived next door, heard noises coming from 2 Vine Cottages which continued all day Monday, consistent with a heavy fall, which she attributed to moving a heavy chair, and frantic cleaning.  Several people noticed a particularly foul odour coming from Mrs. Thomas’s house, but probably the occasional unpleasant smell wasn’t terribly unusual.

Early on Wednesday, March 5, a coal porter who was driving along the Thames about a mile away from 2 Vine Cottages spotted a wooden bonnet box tied with cords drifting in shallow water.  Opening it, he found body parts wrapped in brown paper.  Further investigation by the police confirmed that the body parts were the trunk, legs and one foot of a woman.  On March 10, a foot and ankle were found in Twickenham in a dunghill.

At Kate’s trial, testimony from Dr. Thomas Bond, a forensic surgeon, described his examination of the remains.  He found the upper part of the chest with part of the ribs, the heart and part of 1 lung attached, the right shoulder and part of the right upper arm, the left upper arm, the right thigh cut off below the joint, the right leg which had been separated from the thigh at the knee joint, part of the pelvis with the uterus attached, and the left foot cut off above the ankle.  He described most parts of the body as dry, shrivelled, shrunken and very brown, consistent with having been boiled.  One thigh, however, was in a “natural state” and had not been boiled.  The bones had been sawed roughly without any consideration of anatomical structure.  Only 1 bone was complete, and that was the arm bone, which measured 11½ inches.  He extrapolated from that measurement, and from the smallish foot, that the body belonged to a woman over 50, just a little over 5 feet in height.  He also noted brown hair under the armpits. 

In the meantime, Kate was busy trying to pretend that everything was normal.  She shooed away visitors to the house but ordered provisions as usual.  On Tuesday, two days after the murder, she visited some friends of hers with whom she had lived previously, but hadn’t seen for several years. She was dressed in Julia Thomas’s clothing and wearing her jewellery, and told her friends, the Porters, that since she had seen them last, she had been married to a Mr. Thomas and then widowed, that her “aunt” had died and left her property in Richmond, and that she was planning to move to Ireland with her young son.  When she arrived at the Porter house, she was carrying a black bag, which she placed at her feet under the table while she had tea.  She later admitted that the bag contained the head of Julia Thomas, as well as some other body parts.  She asked Mr. Porter if his son could go back to Richmond with her and help her deliver a large box, which he did; this box was the same one later pulled out of the Thames with the remains of Julia Thomas.  Kate later used the involvement of the Porters to try to implicate them in Julia’s murder, but upon investigation, they were found to be innocent participants in Kate’s schemes.

Over the next few days, Kate enlisted the help of Porter and a friend of his, Mr. Church, to dispose of the contents and possessions of her “aunt’s” house.  They made various trips back and forth between the Porter home and Richmond, and when Porter and Church began to empty the house on Monday, March 17 and Tuesday, March 18, the landlady, Mrs. Ives, began to get suspicious.  Realizing that she had not seen Mrs. Thomas in quite some time, she asked Kate where Mrs. Thomas was, and why her belongings were being removed.  Kate became visibly nervous, and Church, who was watching the interaction between Kate and Mrs. Ives, also became alarmed, and told Kate he would not take the goods as he believed that she had deceived him.

At this point, Kate must have realized that she was in danger.  She borrowed some money from Church’s wife, picked up her child, and was not seen again until March 28, when she was arrested at her uncle’s home in Ireland. 

Church and Porter were somewhat perturbed by Kate’s disappearance, and started to make inquiries.  Mrs. Church went through the pockets of some clothing that Kate had left behind, and found a letter addressed to Mrs. Thomas from a friend named Mrs. Menhennick.  Church and Porter went to the Menhennick home, and described the “Mrs. Thomas” they knew as a big, tall woman with a strong Irish accent.  The Menhennicks confirmed that this was not the Julia Thomas that they had known for several years, and advised Porter and Church to consult with Mrs. Thomas’s executor, Mr. Hughes, who had known her for thirty years.  Mr. Hughes was ill, so they consulted with his brother, who also knew Julia Thomas. 

Hughes also confirmed that the woman that Church and Porter had been acquainted with was not Julia Martha Thomas, and they immediately went to the police station in Richmond.  Accompanied by Inspector Pearman, a preliminary search was made of 2 Vine Cottages, where a photograph that “Mrs. Thomas” had identified as her solicitor father was identified by Mr. Hughes as actually portraying his father.  Around this time, based on evidence given by Porter and his son about the box they had helped Kate move, connections were made between the disappearance of Julia Thomas and the body parts that had been discovered in the Thames and in other parts of the area.

When Inspector Pearman returned to 2 Vine Cottages for an intensive search of the property, he discovered charred bones and dress buttons in the kitchen grate and underneath the copper kettle, several bloodstains throughout the house, and “fatty substances” on the copper kettle. He also found the tools that Kate used to dismember the body.  A handle which fit the box found in the Thames was discovered as well as the same type of cord used to tie the box.  The Inspector also found a bonnet which was identified has having been made for Mrs. Thomas; it had a thick clot of blood on it as well as several smaller blood spots.  And he discovered correspondence belonging to Kate Webster which included her address in Ireland.  The one thing that was not found was the bag containing Julia Thomas’s head.

Dr. Bond examined the remains that had been brought to him after the police search of 2 Vine Cottages.  He found a variety of bones that had been burned, none of which were duplicates of the bones he had examined previously, and concluded that they were part of the same body. All of these body parts were eventually buried in an unmarked grave in a nearby cemetery.

Irish police arrested Kate Webster for the murder of Julia Martha Thomas at her uncle’s home in Killane on Friday, March 28 and she was brought back to London.  After a hearing, Kate was committed for trial in the murder of Julia Martha Thomas.  The trial commenced on Wednesday, July 2, 1879 and ended on July 8 with a guilty verdict. At the trial, despite her portrayal of the murder occurring in a moment of passionate anger, evidence pointing to premeditation was presented, with witnesses stating that as early as Shrove Tuesday (February 25), Kate was talking about coming into an inheritance from an aunt, and her plan to move home to Ireland. 

Kate gave a final confession in Wandsworth Prison on July 28, which she swore was the truthful version of events.  She had made several previous statements to authorities in the time between her arrest and execution, which she also swore were the true account of events.  All of her confessions and statements had highly differing accounts of what had happened, but the presumption is that the final confession was likely the most accurate. 

Kate Webster was hanged at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, July 29.

And that, my friends, was the end of the story.

Until 2010, when Sir David Attenborough decided to do some renovations to an old pub known as the Hole-in-the-Wall beside his house which he had purchased to save it from the hands of developers. The location of his house?  Right next door to 2 Vine Cottages, in now-upscale Richmond-upon-Thames. 

Remember Julia’s missing skull?  Well, during the renovations to Sir David’s yard, a skull was uncovered.  Unfortunately, because there was no record of the location where Julia’s remains were buried, and no relatives could be traced, DNA testing could not be done.  However, it was determined through carbon dating and forensic testing that the location of the skull and its injuries were consistent with the testimony of Kate Webster, and that it was the skull of Julia Martha Thomas, murdered 130 years earlier.

From Google maps; Julia Thomas's house on the left, Sir David Attenborough's house in the centre, and Hole-in-the-Wall pub on the Right.

Although Julia herself was not famous and there is not very much information about her, the sensational coverage in the newspapers of Victorian England ensured that her murder became infamous.  According to that source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, there were ballads written about the trial.  Mme Tussaud created a wax figure of Kate.  The fact that the murderer was a woman, and that it was so gruesome, caused even more of a sensation, and the case has been studied by scholars into the present day.  The discovery of Julia’s skull and the connection with the Attenborough family no doubt revived interest in the murder, as the TV series “Deadly Women” included it in one of their episodes. 

And THAT is the end of the story.  Except that I have the sampler that little Julia Martha Batterbee stitched.  I have touched the fabric and examined the stitches that she made, a young girl innocently contemplating her future, perhaps picturing a house full of children, a nice house, and a kind husband, or maybe, thinking about her next social outing, with absolutely no inkling of the gruesome end that awaited her.

My sources of information were: Wikipedia, The Trial of Kate Webster edited by Elliot O’Donnell which includes the trial transcript and the texts of Kate Webster’s various confessions, ancestry.com, Google maps, and various contemporary British newspapers.  There is still part of the story to discover; the trial transcript mentions that a diary belonging to Julia Thomas was found during one of the searches.  WHAT HAPPENED TO IT???

Cycles of Life

Yesterday, I went to Moncton for my annual follow-up appointment with my oncologist.  

It was a beautiful day, my favourite kind of spring day – sunny, blue sky, with the most amazing huge puffy white clouds.  Two straight days of sunshine (I know!!) have brought out the snowy blossoms on the wild shrubs against the backdrop of the fresh light green of the budding trees and the lushness of the new grass.  My “favourites” playlist was cycling through on the radio.  All was good.

Without warning, a thought popped into my head that caused sheer panic.  What if my oncologist had bad news for me?

This feeling was not just a random feeling of dread.  At the moment, I know at least a half a dozen women, all younger than I am, who have recently been diagnosed with breast cancer, and countless others who are at various stages of their breast cancer journey. 

Usually, I see the oncologist in the Cancer Clinic in Moncton.  But a few days ago, the appointment was moved to the doctor’s office.  I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but yesterday, I was convinced that the reason it had been moved was because he had bad news, and he wanted to break it to me in the more personal space of his office.  Although I spent the rest of the drive trying to present myself with all the reasons that it could not be bad news, it was with a great deal of trepidation that I sat in the waiting area of the office.

Fortunately, it was not bad news.  In fact, it was great news.  All of my test results continue to be normal, I am having no serious adverse effects from the medication, and he told me he never wanted to see me again (well, maybe not in those exact words, but still...).  He discharged me from my annual checkups and told me my family doctor would be following me from now on. 

When you are diagnosed with cancer, it changes the cycle of your life.  The rhythms of normal life now also revolve around cycles of annual appointments.  For the first years after my diagnosis, I had annual mammograms, ultrasounds, MRIs, and appointments with my radiation oncologist, the general oncologist, family doctor, and my surgeon.  After a couple of years, the radiation oncologist discharged me, then at 5 years, my surgeon did too.  Until yesterday, the appointment cycle had decreased to just mammos, MRIs, family doc and oncologist.  Now there is one less annual appointment.

I was reflecting on this cycle yesterday on the drive home, and how it is a seemingly never ending reminder of the disease that invaded me.  I am reminded every night when I take my medication that I am a “cancer survivor” (a term which I dislike, as it implies that there is something weak about those who do not survive).  To some extent, taking medication becomes a normalized activity.  But every time a follow up test or appointment approaches, it increases the stress levels just a bit, and brings forward those “what if...?” questions that reside in the back of my mind for the rest of the year, along with all those meaningless resolutions to exercise more and eat better.  Once the appointment is over, and the news is received, “normal” life continues until the next appointment.  The years are defined by these peaks and valleys, and counted down as the cycle completes itself: One year cancer-free, two years cancer-free, and so on, until you get to the magical place of being officially declared cancer-free.  The next milestone for me will be in 3 years when I will complete my 10 year medication regimen.  I am not sure I will feel completely easy even then, but I know I will definitely be celebrating that moment when I take the very last tablet.

When I heard the news yesterday, I was so relieved that I shed a few tears.  To celebrate, I decided to take the “long way” home, on the back roads, so I could truly appreciate the beauty of the day.  I made a spontaneous decision to travel an extra few kilometres to the Beaumont Chapel, where I could settle my soul and revel in a peaceful setting.The road to Beaumont travels through Acadian and traditional Mi’kmaq country.  It winds along the mighty Petitcodiac River, past the Belliveau Orchards and old wharves which are no longer in use.  The scenery is breathtaking in places, and it is one of my favourite routes to take, although it is significantly slower than the highway.  

Beaumont Chapel is a historic church that was built by Mi’kmaq and Acadians together in 1842.  I thought about this fact, and how it symbolizes a part of early Canadian history that we often overlook.  Here in the Maritimes, and in the fur trade of the North West, there was often a spirit of cooperation and community between early Europeans and Indigenous peoples, and in some cases, they lived together peaceably; this seems to have been the case at Beaumont for well over a century at least.  Historically, this was an area of quarries and brickworks, as well as fishing, farming, hunting, and all of the occupations that a busy community would require. 
                      
It is a sacred site for the Mi’kmaq people, and the feast of Ste. Anne, their patron saint, is still celebrated annually.  It also hosts community concerts during the summer.  There is a cemetery beside the Chapel, which notably contains the remains of Mi’kmaq people who died during an epidemic, and a grotto in the woods.  My original intention was to walk up to the grotto, but I chickened out, as I was alone, and it is about a 5 minute walk into the forest (images of bears flashed through my mind).  So instead, I sat at a picnic table beside the church, and, to the background of the tidal flowing of the Petitcodiac, and a gentle breeze on my face, with the birds singing and the trees rustling, in the presence of the spirits of those who have gone before, I reflected on all that is good and beautiful in the world, and I breathed in the sweet spring air.

And I gave thanks. 

Weighed down by the world

Today, it seems as if the weight of the world is pressing in on us. The bombings in New Zealand and Sri Lanka (which interestingly have not received nearly the attention that the bombings in New Zealand did, not that it's a contest, but I'm wondering why, though I think I know the answer, and that's pretty depressing too), and the continuing violence in other parts of the world. The political climate in the US, which is spreading frighteningly quickly into our country, making a mockery of the pride that Canadians have felt about our differences from American values and culture; it seems that after all, we are not any different from Americans. The anniversary of the Toronto van attack.  Ecological disasters and ecological doom and gloom.  Earthquakes, floods, plagues and locusts, figuratively and, in some cases, literally.  Closer to home, the loss of 4 young lives to add to the running total of the Boys in Red, the Humboldt accident, the house fire in Halifax, and so many more young lives lost. Government cutbacks to education, health care, social services, refugee programmes, senior care, cuts to all of the most vulnerable people in our society at the same time that governments are funneling money and energy to help the rich get richer and the dirty get dirtier.  

And the weather here isn't doing anything to ease that sense of misery -- oppressive, rainy, grey, dreary for the coming week, after a long, difficult, treacherous winter, when all we want is to see and feel the sun.

Maybe it is part of the process of aging, but lately, I find it much easier to feel overwhelmed by all that is wrong with the world.  When I was younger, the world seemed so full of potential and full of hope. But now I feel it draining away.

I think, in the midst of all the doom and gloom, it is more important than ever to reach out to those you love, to be connected to each other, to consciously remember the good that exists in the world too. To take joy where you can find it, in the laughter and imagination and "now-ness" of small children, in a job well done, in a quiet word with a friend, in the beauty and aliveness of a bird, in the emerging plants and tree buds, in a good meal.  To do something or read something or listen to something that inspires you, to be moved by the inspirations of others.  To dance, to sing, to love, to cheer for your favourite hockey team.

It feels like everything is out of control, but all around us, there are signs that the rhythm of life continues. And life is a gift, and it is good.

This is not to say that we should ignore the truly horrible and tragic things that are happening around us.  No, we need to feel this weight and grief and loss.  But we cannot afford to be paralyzed by it, and life without hope and goodness will cripple us and leave us powerless. 

If you are feeling like I am, I wish for you today a small piece of beauty and peace, the assurance that you are loved, laughter, and a sign of the hope we all so desperately need. 

Christmas past and present

Christmas Day 2018 is in the books, but for our family, whose lives are largely governed by the academic calendar, the days following Christmas remain a time of relaxation, loose schedules, eating, sleeping and reading.  It is a restful time, a time of reflection, a time to find space in the slowness of the days to think about the year past, and the days ahead. 

Of all the holidays in our largely Christian-centred society, Christmas seems to be the one with the most emphasis on family and friends, for remembering the past, and for missing those who are not with us.  It is a time of nostalgia, for thinking about Christmases past and traditions handed down through generations.

Preparations for Christmas are full of connections to family and friends.  My first Christmas task is usually writing and mailing our annual Christmas letter, a tradition we started in the first year of our marriage when we lived far away from all of our family and friends.  I look down the list of names and addresses, and think of each person on that list.  There are former students, of course, but there are also a couple of childhood friends, one or two friends from high school days, cousins and distant cousins, members of various churches where my husband ministered before Chaplaincy led us East.  There are a few mentors, although they are not as numerous as they used to be, former colleagues, campers from the summer camp where we worked a lifetime ago, and former roommates.  Each name on that list represents a connection from the past, a story on the timeline of our lives, someone treasured and remembered with love.  And every year, names are removed from the list, people who have moved on, or people who have passed into the next life.  These names are remembered with sadness for their loss and gratitude for their significance in our lives.

The next task is to decorate our tree, another connection to people and places and events as we sort through ornaments that have accumulated over time.  There is the ornament from a former Fine Arts student who suffered a devastating head injury and had to re-learn how to paint; the lovely painted paper pear that she gave us was one of the first things she created after her injury.  There are handmade ornaments and cards from another former student who lived with us for an academic year after her accommodation plans fell through literally at the last possible minute, and truly became part of our every day family life for a time.  My best friend’s mom, recently gone, cross-stitched a small ornament to commemorate our first Christmas as a married couple.  We each have ornaments from childhood.  My husband and I remember our tentative early relationship as we hang the ornaments we bought each other at The Bay in downtown Winnipeg on the spur of the moment; since then, exchanging ornaments at Christmas has become part of our tradition.  There are the lovely little ornaments that we bought together for our very first Christmas tree in Hamilton, glass and wooden ornaments from Sterrman’s, a little store across the street from our apartment in Westdale, and Eaton’s.  Other ornaments remind us of times spent in other places: the bison ornament from Manitoba, the origami paper doll that we brought back from Japan, the glass ball filled with the red sand and tiny beach treasures from Prince Edward Island, wooden lighthouses from Nova Scotia, and a Grey Cup replica to remind us of the excitement of being part of a Grey Cup winning team in 2016.  We have ornaments made by our children in various schools and Sunday schools as they grew, and others that I made with them, memories one of my very favourite traditions with them.  There are ornaments made by my mother and by me, ornaments made by friends, and ornaments made by other children we have watched grow, like the rice trees made by children who were part of our every day lives for a period of 5 years while their father attended Mount A; one of our favourite Christmas memories of them was the year they bought a Christmas lobster that was so large they had a hard time finding a pot to cook it in, and the children led their “pet” lobster around their kitchen on a leash.

I recall traditions we began with our children.  When they were smaller, and we had more people around our home, we started a tradition of asking visitors to draw their hands on a piece of construction paper.  The hands were arranged on the front door in a wreath shape, a visual reminder of our connection to others.  I still have those hands, and look at their sizes and shapes and the names written on them with affection.  Another tradition was decorating a Jesse tree, a young tree that we pulled from our yard and “planted” in a cement base in a juice can.  Every day we would read a story from the Bible, starting with the story of Creation and continuing into Advent, and place an ornament on the Jesse tree to help us remember the traditions of our faith. 

All of these tangible reminders of Christmases past lead to memories of particular Christmases.  When I was a child, my family lived in Kitimat, B.C. for several years, where my father was the minister of a church consisting largely of German immigrants.  My memories of Christmas in Kitimat are filled with deep snow, German food, immense church choirs, pageants, and a beautiful green advent wreath suspended by red ribbons over the communion table.  One special Christmas, my older cousin and her husband, who were expecting their first child, spent Christmas Eve with us.  That might have been the same Christmas when we went in search of a Christmas tree along the highway leading out of Kitimat.  The snow was so deep that we were able to cut the top off of a spruce tree in the ditch.  It was filthy from being beside the highway and had to be washed and dried before we could decorate it.

Because my dad was a minister and we lived great distances from any extended family, the few Christmases that we were able to share with family were extra special.  One memorable Christmas, we took the train from Manitoba to Mission, B.C. to spend Christmas with my grandparents.  The train trip was spectacular and a lot of fun.  My grandparents, who did not read English well, bought me a book because they knew I loved to read; it was a romance novel, highly inappropriate for a 13-year-old girl.  I’m sure my grandmother would have been mortified if she knew what kind of book it was, but I loved its illicitness.  Another Christmas, when we lived in Kamloops, my mother’s entire family came to spend the holiday with us in our small bungalow.  We walked the hills around Kamloops, ate a lot of food, and enjoyed the time spent together.   

When I got married, Christmases changed.  My husband is also a minister, and we lived in Hamilton, in between my parents in Manitoba and my in-laws in Nova Scotia.  We spent our first Christmas by ourselves in our little apartment, and ate Christmas dinner at the home of an elderly couple who were friends of our families.  Christmases in southern Ontario were filled with Hamilton Philharmonic performances of “Messiah,” the occasional professional performance of “The Nutcracker,” and other “big city” events. 

One of my favourite southern Ontario Christmases was when I was pregnant with my first child.  We decided to fly to Nova Scotia to spend part of Christmas with my husband’s family.  My husband had services on Christmas Eve and our flight was booked for late Christmas afternoon.  A neighbouring extended family who became our “family” invited us for Christmas breakfast.  We spent a lovely, relaxed, happy day with them, highlighted by a nap in front of their fireplace for my husband, and a peaceful walk through their snowy woods for me.  It was so pleasant that it was with great reluctance that we left them to go to the airport. 

Once our children were born, Christmas changed again.  My parents and brother joined us for our first Christmas in Sackville when I was pregnant with our second child.  Our 3-1/2 year old son, who woke very early on Christmas morning, saw the light on under the door of the downstairs washroom while my father was using it, and ran into our room to tell us that Santa was in our washroom.  Christmases were filled with the excitement and awe and enthusiasm of children, eventually evolving into slightly calmer holidays as they grew to adulthood (although this year was only the 2nd year that our now-24-year old daughter slept past 6 a.m.). 

Our Christmases for the past 25 years have been shared with various family members and students.  For several years, we had a small group of students from Africa who variously spent Christmas Day with us.  In my daughter’s Grade 12 year, we added an exchange student from Denmark who was in her class.  My nephews, who are younger than my children, re-introduced the joy of young children to our Christmas celebrations.  More recently, a young Syrian family has shared Christmas dinner with us; this year, with the addition of twin girls to their family last January, there were three small children in our gathering.

Food reminds us of people and days gone by.  Our traditional Christmas baking recipes include my best friend’s Cranberry White Chocolate Chip cookies, Nuts & Bolts from the  family of the former Baptist minister we knew from Brandon, Manitoba who later became my husband’s supervisor in St. Catharines, Ontario (we spent a lovely Christmas Eve with them one year complete with their Dutch tradition of lighting real candles on the tree, but only for a moment!), and of course, traditional Christmas cake and shortbread from my Nana and mother, and fruitcake recipes from both sides of our family which are very similar except that my family’s fruitcake is soaked in Jamaican rum which reflects their history there, and my husband’s family’s fruitcake in brandy. 

The spiritual remembrances of Advent and Christmas connect us on a whole other level to those who have gone before over centuries.  The carols we sing, the scriptures we read, the special services and cantatas we attend all remind us that we are part of a much larger tradition.

As we grow older, inevitably, there are bigger holes in our celebrations.  Both of our fathers are gone, and for me, Christmas is not as complete without my dad.  He loved children, and loved Christmas, and I think of him a lot at this time of year.  One day we will inevitably face Christmas without one or both of our children as they pursue their lives; perhaps they will have families of their own, or perhaps they (or we) will relocate to homes which make it more difficult for us to be together.  As the life cycle continues to evolve, and we become more secure in our own identities and strengths, we become mentors ourselves, names hopefully to be recalled with fondness and gratitude. 

Traditions can become meaningless or onerous, and for many people, the traditions of Christmas create stress.  But I find peace and connection in the continuity of the traditions of our family that remind me of times past, of gentler days, of friends and people we love. The memories and inspiration we find in the traditions and people of times past help us create a more meaningful and kind present, and possibly even a more meaningful and hopeful future.  I  hope that our traditions and celebrations will continue to inspire and encourage us, and that in turn, our lives might become a source of encouragement and inspiration for others in the years that lie ahead, whether or not we are together at Christmas.

Home sweet home

Sometimes, important anniversaries pass us by without notice, and we are reminded by random things like someone else’s Facebook post about a seemingly unrelated event.  That happened to me this morning, when I saw the notice from a friend that their son had celebrated his 25th birthday.

Twenty-five years ago, we sent off a moving van full of furniture and treasured possessions, and finished cleaning the Baptist manse in Paris (Ontario).  We realized that all of the things we had set aside to transport ourselves in our Ford Tempo were definitely not going to fit in the car if we hoped to be in the car as well.  So we drove to several Canadian Tires in neighbouring towns in search of a rooftop carrier.  We finally found an unassembled carrier, which we struggled to put together in the parking lot, right in front of one of those signs you’ve all seen informing consumers that they are not permitted to use the parking lots to assemble things that have been bought at the store.  I’m pretty sure we had no other option... how on earth does one transport an unassembled car top carrier if not on top of the car?

We finished packing up, and spent the night with friends in Paris who were imminently expecting their second child.  While we were eating supper, I noticed that she was grimacing, and I said, "You're in labour, aren't you?"  She assured me she was okay, but halfway through the night, she and her husband left for the hospital.  At some point during the night, their son was born.  We stopped for a visit on our way out of town, and spent the next night with our adopted family on their farm in Mountsberg.

The next day we travelled to Ottawa, where we crashed at my brother's apartment.  While he was at work, my husband fell asleep in the bedroom, and our 3-year-old son and I fell asleep on the sofa in the living room.  We must have been exhausted, because when my brother arrived some several hours later, he walked in to an apartment of sleeping people absolutely covered in concrete dust.  We had left the balcony doors open to try to get some air circulating (because it was Ottawa and it was hot).  We had all slept through workers jackhammering the concrete balcony above his apartment, and the dust billowed in.

After we left Ottawa, with our Tempo so loaded down with plants and other items that our son had to crawl through the front seat to get into his car seat, we drove through the night, until we got a flat tire between Edmundston and Grand Falls at about 5 a.m. We had to unpack our entire trunk at the side of the road in order to get to the donut tire, then repack it and continue on to Grand Falls.  We found a garage, which didn’t open until 6, so we waited around, unpacking the trunk yet again to get out the damaged tire, only to be to be told that they could not repair the tire, and we would have to purchase a new one.  Unfortunately, they did not have the tire we needed, so they advised us to go to the local Canadian Tire.

We finally found the tire we needed.  After, you guessed it, unpacking our previously carefully packed trunk yet again to put the donut tire back in its space, we were on our way, arriving at our new home in Sackville later that day.  The adventures continued; we became first-time home owners, the basement in our 4-year-old house started to collapse and had to be replaced (that’s another story for another day), and we eventually had another baby. 

Twenty-five years.... a lifetime for our kids, and a very long time in any circumstance.  I moved around so much when I was a child that I always told my husband that I could live anywhere, as long as it wasn’t forever.  This starts to feel a lot like “forever.”  Some days, that’s a good thing.

How does one reflect meaningfully on twenty-five years of life in the same place?  When we arrived here, we were a young, growing family, and we figured we would be here for 3-4 years max.  Now we are heading towards retirement and the so-called “sunset years.”  Our kids have grown up here, and so have we.  My husband has had an extremely challenging and rewarding career.  We live in the same house we originally bought, warts and all (although it has a new-er basement).  We have experienced birth and death in this place, joy and anger, frustration and satisfaction, belonging and betrayal.  We have lived our lives here, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer and, definitely after our basement incident, for poorer.  I think we mostly feel that we belong here, that we have a place in the community.  Many happy memories have been made in this home and this community, with all kinds of people.  We have created a home where I hope everyone feels that they have a place and where they won’t be turned away.

I do not know what the next few years hold for us, whether we will choose to stay here or go off in search of different adventures.  But for now, this is home sweet home.