More than Just Chocolate…

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Once every year, billions of people around the world pause to remember the mystery of Easter. Most people love Easter: bunnies, chocolate, eggs, bonnets, lilies, flower crosses, and joyful singing. In the air, you can sense victory and resurrection and new life. No wonder that churches have many visitors on Easter Sunday.

 

For sixty-six years, the St. Simon’s NV family has been celebrating Easter.  I have always enjoyed Easter, especially for the chocolate.  Just like Christmas, Easter has its food connection and its spiritual connection.  Most people love to eat.  Easter family gatherings invariably involve lots of delicious food, especially those wonderful hot cross buns.

Good Friday is a traditional fast day where many choose not to eat in order to remember Jesus’ death on the cross for our sins.  Easter Sunday is a traditional feast day where families celebrate with delicious feasts.   Without Good Friday, Easter Sunday makes no sense.  Without Easter Sunday, Good Friday is just a terrible tragedy.  Good Friday shows that God can turn everything that is against us to our advantage. God transformed Good Friday (the most evil day in history) into Easter Sunday (the most beautiful day in history).

 

Many of us steer clear of Good Friday because it reminds us of death, of pain, and of our own personal mortality. Sometimes we may question: what on earth is Good about Good Friday? What’s so good about someone going through the worst suffering and most excruciating death ever imagined?  Good Friday seems too morbid, too deadly, too bloody.

 

Modern medical science is wonderful in the way that it can prolong life that would often otherwise be over.  But medicine can only postpone the inevitable facing all of us.  We are mortals here on earth.  In my mid-teen period, I lost sight of the power of Easter, and concluded that there was no life after death. Death was final, and that was the end of it.  Nothing was waiting for me but the grave.  What was it all about, I wondered?  Was life really worth the effort? I began to fear the power of death and the meaninglessness and emptiness of life. I even secretly wondered if life itself was worth living.

 

In the midst of my teenage self-doubt,  I still loved Easter, but I didn’t get it.  The flowers, the food, the fun and even Easter worship were enjoyable, but somehow I missed the message.  It is funny how you can celebrate something that you grow up with, and yet the real meaning can be missed.  When the penny finally dropped, when the light came on, it was like waking up from the dead.  I finally understood that Jesus solved the unsolvable death problem, and that by faith in him, the future is bright and unstoppable.

 

My prayer for those of you who love the Easter season is that you may realize that at the end of the day, love is stronger than death, and love has the final word.

 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St Simon’s North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-an article for the April 2012 Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mailed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

The Old Rugged Cross

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Once every year, billions of people on every continent of the globe stop whatever they are doing and remember the mystery of Easter.  At the heart of that mystery is the old rugged cross.  For those of us who have a soft spot for Western movies, the ‘Old Rugged Cross’ song invariably turns up somewhere, often by a windblown graveside.

“On a hill far away stood an Old Rugged Cross,

 The emblem of suffering and shame;

And I love that old cross where the dearest and best

For a world of lost sinners was slain.”

 

‘The Old Rugged Cross’ song was written by George Bennard, who lived from 1873-1958.  “The Old Rugged Cross” is still the most frequently requested hymn; and the most popular spiritual song of the past 100 years.  Within thirty years of its original publication in 1913, more than twenty million copies of “The Old Rugged Cross” had been sold, outselling every other musical composition of any kind! What is it that makes this gospel song so popular?

 

‘The Old Rugged Cross’ was written in response to a deep personal need in Bennard’s own life.  Born in Youngstown, Ohio, on February 4, 1873, George Bennard was raised in a loving coalminer family, the only son among four daughters.  When George was only sixteen years old, his father died, leaving George to care for his mother and four sisters. After a period of time with the Salvation Army, George became a traveling speaker for the Methodist church, holding meetings in Canada and in the northern and central United States.

After a very painful time in New York, Bennard went back home in 1913 to Michigan.  His mind returned again and again to Christ’s agony on the cross.  During this time, Bennard read Galatians 6:14 in which the Apostle Paul states: “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”  Bennard became convinced that the cross was not merely a symbol of Christianity, but the very heart of it. He realized that the cross was not gold-covered, but rather a rough, splintery thing, stained with gore.

The words, “the old rugged cross,” came into his mind and then the notes of a melody ran through his head.  Several weeks later, after a period of prayer, the poetry of the verses began to flow from his pen almost unbidden.   “I saw the Christ of the Cross as if I were seeing John 3:16 leave the printed page, take form and act out the meaning of redemption,” he said later.

After writing this hymn, George Bennard went on to travel and preach for another forty years..  Thanks to being chosen by Billy Sunday (the Billy Graham of those days), everyone began singing this unforgettable song.  Years later, Johny Cash himself recorded this song.  Although Bennard wrote 300 other hymns, none of them became as popular as his first.

Dr. Alistair McGrath of Oxford comments, “Those great old hymns — such as Rock of Ages, The Old Rugged Cross and When I survey — remain wonderful statements of the centrality of the cross…They express the power of the cross so much better than I can ever hope to do. As George Bennard put it in 1913:

“To the old rugged cross I will ever be true;

Its shame and reproach gladly bear;

Then he’ll call me some day to my home far away,

Where his glory forever I’ll share.”

 

 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

 -previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

Fit for the Master

 By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Many homes have beautiful dining rooms specially set apart for guests.  My family always uses the dining room for Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays.  I have noticed that the dining room for most families has its own traditions.  “Go to a fine home”, says Dr. Thomas Oden, “and you will see that there are two types of silverware- the good silver and the utensils for daily use. There are the beautiful articles that have been kept for generations and will be passed on as heirlooms…”

 

This distinction between utensils seems to be hardwired into us.  To illustrate this point, just try your family’s silver punchbowl for scrubbing the floor, and see if you have any reaction from your wife or mother.

 The Good Book says in 2nd Timothy 2:20 that ‘in a large house there are vessels not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble.”  The Good Book also teaches that we can choose what kind of vessels that we are going to be, whether we are used for the dining room or scrubbing the floor

The key to being used in the dining room is catharsis, the Greek word for cleansing.  The Hebrew word ‘Kosher’ simply means ‘clean’.  Like my father, I actually enjoy cleaning the dishes, one of my few kitchen abilities!  Raymond Collins commented that a person is like a dish insofar as both have to be clean in order to be put to another use.  Have you ever been served food on a dish that was not cleansed from the last person who used it?

 

In the East African/Rwandan revival, people were thought of as each holding a water pot.  Our heavenly Father wants to fill us with the water of life, but cannot or will not do so if our water pots are defiled by sin, anger, self-pity or impurity.  As the famous song puts it, “Fill my cup Lord, I lift it up, Lord! Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.”  The Good Book says in 2nd Timothy 2:21 that if a person cleanses himself, he will be fit for the Master.

 

Now is a great time to cleanse ourselves from anything that will keep us from being fit for the Master.  Keeping fit is God’s better way, physically, mentally and spiritually.  Many people go to Fitness classes.  Have you ever thought of going to church as God’s fitness class, as God’s gym?  Our congregation of St. Simon’s even worships in a gym!  God wants you fit as a fiddle, fit for the master, useful for every good work.

 

If each of us are willing to do the work of catharsis, cleansing ourselves from bitterness, self-pity, anger, guilt, shame, and fear, then God will invite us into his dining room and make use of us at his family meals.  Can you think of a more fitting place to be?

 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

-previously published in the North Shore News

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

In search of Aslan

By the Rev. Dr.  Ed Hird

With CS Lewis’ Voyage of the Dawntreader having come out, Aslan Fever again swept the globe.

Who is Aslan anyways, and why are so many children of all ages so fascinated with him?  Having thoroughly enjoyed watching Disney’s ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’, I was motivated to go back and re-read the Narnia Chronicles series. My family, when they were younger, eagerly watched the cartoon version of ‘The Narnia Chronicles’, and gained much from it.  But with the breakthrough in CGI technology, Aslan has taken on a new visual depth.

When the four Pevensie children in Narnia first hear Aslan’s name, they immediately feel powerful sensations that they cannot comprehend.  Peter, Susan, and Lucy experience an unfathomable joy. Edmund the double-crosser was strangely dismayed.  Either way Aslan evoked a strong response.

In the Narnia Chronicles “The Horse and His Boy”, Aslan reveals himself as the one who keeps us from going over the edge, the one who stays with us day and night.  The young prince Shasta looked back after entering Narnia: “I must have gone through the pass in the night.  What luck that I hit it!  At least it wasn’t luck at all really, it was Him (Aslan). And Now I’m in Narnia.”  “Who are you?” asked Shasta.  “Myself”, said the voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook; and again “Myself”, loud and clear and gay; and then the third time “Myself”, whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all around you as if the leaves rustled with it.”  Aslan was Himself, no more, no less.

 

In Narnia Chronicle’s “The Magician’s Nephew”, we learn that Aslan sang creation into existence at the beginning of time: “The Voice rose and rose, till the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled into the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose…The Lion was pacing to and fro about that empty land and singing his new song…And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool…Soon there were other things besides grass…’Trees,’ Digory exclaimed.”

CS Lewis ‘created’ a world of endless snow in the Narnia Chronicles.  Only when Aslan was slain for others by the White Witch did the snow start melting.  CS Lewis described his own spiritual breakthrough the same way: “I felt as if I were a man of snow at long last beginning to melt. The melting was starting in my back – drip-drip and presently trickle-trickle.  I rather disliked the feeling.”

Many people don’t realize that CS Lewis, a confirmed old bachelor, ended up becoming married because of Aslan.  Joy Davidman, a self-declared atheistic communist of Jewish heritage, loved to read the Narnia Chronicles to her sons.   In the process, she came to faith in Aslan, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5).  Looking back, Joy Davidman commented: “My first published poem was called “Resurrection” — a sort of private argument with Jesus, attempting to convince him (and myself) that he had never risen. I wrote it at Easter, of all possible seasons, and never guessed why.”

 

As Joy Davidman wrote in ‘The Longest Way Round’, God “had been stalking me for a very long time, waiting for his moment; he crept nearer so silently that I never knew he was there. Then, all at once, he sprang.  For the first time in my life I felt helpless; for the first time my pride was forced to admit that I was not, after all, ‘the master of my fate’. All my defenses — the walls of arrogance and cocksureness and self-love behind which I  had hid from God — went down momentarily. And God came in.  Since childhood, I had been pouring half my energy into the task of keeping him out.  When it was over I found myself on my knees, praying. I think I must have been the world’s most astonished atheist.”

 

After coming to faith in Aslan the Lion of Judah, Joy escaped to England from her alcoholic, adulterous, wife-beating husband.  As told in the ‘Shadowlands’ movie, it was there that Joy met her Narnia hero, CS Lewis.  As a favour to a good friend, CS Lewis married Joy Davidman to keep her from being thrown out of the country because of her former communist background. As Joy began to battle terminal cancer, CS Lewis then fell in love with Joy for real and married her a second time in a Church wedding,.  Romantically CS Lewis adopted Joy Davidman’s children, one of whom, Douglas Gresham, is co-producer of the Narnia Chronicles movie blockbuster.

 

So who is this Aslan who transformed Joy Davidman’s life?

CS Lewis wrote to some Maryland fifth graders in 1954: “I did not say to myself ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’; I said, ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as he became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.’”.  In the letter, sent to a child fan in 1961, Lewis writes: “The whole Narnian story is about Christ.” CS Lewis commented: “Since Narnia is a world of talking beasts, I thought he would become a talking beast there as he became a man here. I pictured him becoming a lion there because a) the lion is supposed to be the king of beasts; b) Christ is called ‘the lion of Judah’ in the Bible.”

 

My prayer for those reading this article  is that each of us, like CS Lewis and Joy Davidman, may open our hearts to the mysterious Aslan.

 

 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, BSW, MDiv, DMin

Rector, St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

My Father the Family Historian

By Rev Ed Hird

 

I share my father’s fascination with history.  My father loves to read, research, and learn. ‘Like Father, like Son’ is true in so many unexpected ways.  Like my father, I want to keep learning and growing until I leave this planet earth.  I believe that we either grow or shrink. You can’t remain static.

 

Like my dad, I have become involved in the area of writing and journalism.  My father was a writer and then the editor of the Telecom Advisor  for over 15 years.  Since 1988, I have been privileged over the past 22 years to write over 270 articles for the Deep Cove Crier, and for the past ten years co-ordinated the ‘Spiritually Speaking’ column for the North Shore News.

 

It is wonderful to have a father who models helpful skills.  Whether it was helping my father to cut wood with his skillsaw or to cut the grass, my dad has always been a coach, a mentor, and an equipper who loves to help me discover new abilities.  If my dad is excited about a new book or a new movie, he eagerly shares his enthusiasm and invites our participation.  I also find myself being that way with my own three sons!

 

One of my father’s trademarks is that whenever the family gathered for holidays or birthdays, out comes his video camera!  In the early days, video cameras required painfully bright backdrop lights.  We would all groan when the bright lights came out, but later be thrilled by the immortalized visual memories.

 

My family and my father are wonderful gifts that I appreciate more and more as I become older.  Family for me is inextricably connected with thousands of unforgettable and often hilarious memories.  It is also connected with times of great sorrow and loss, great joy and celebration.  Family is birthdays, weddings, funerals, baptisms, anniversaries, graduations, Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, and yes, Father’s Day.  My life would be much less rich without the gift of my family and my father.

 

One of my father’s most memorable projects has been his family memoirs.  The term ‘memoir’ comes from the French ‘memoire’ for memory.  We as Canadians are a nation that often suffers from cultural and spiritual amnesia.  We so quickly forget the wonderful stories of our pioneering ancestors who helped make Canada what it is today.  My dad often comments how he wished that he had listened more closely as a teenager when his now deceased aunts and uncles would talk about family history.

 

Just like the famous Afro-American ‘Roots’ Book & TV –mini-series, my father’s memoirs are helping me understand better who I am and where I have come from.  My Dad, as an electrical engineer, loves anything to do with computers and telecommunications. 

 

Through the use of a scanner and PhotoShop, my Dad has incorporated in his memoirs over a hundred pictures that capture the essence of our family life.

 

So much family history functions as oral tradition that can easily be lost or muddled within one generation.  Much of Canada’s rich Christian heritage is being lost precisely that way.  Psalm 102 says: ‘Let this be written for a future generation…’.  By my father’s writing down his memoirs, I will be able to pass this gift of history onto my children and future grandchildren.  They too will be able to learn the exploits of their grandfather being raised in a coal-mining town outside of Edmonton, helping his blacksmith father shoe horses, serving as an Air Force WWII wireless radio mechanic in the Queen Charlotte Islands, becoming an electrical Engineer at UBC, becoming President of Lenkurt Electric, before becoming a hi-tech communications consultant.  The inspiring thing about my father is that he has always been able to ‘re-invent’ himself.  When one door closed in his life, he would always find another door that would open.  Like my hero Winston Churchill, my father never, never, ever gives up!  He also hasn’t given up on writing his memoirs. 

 

The Good Book says: ‘What we have heard and known, what our fathers have told us, we will not hide them from our children; we will tell the next generation…’ (Psalm 78).  My Father Day prayer for fathers reading this article is that each of us will have the courage to never give up, and the wisdom to transmit the cultural and spiritual gifts of our family history to the emerging generation.

 

The Reverend Ed Hird, Rector

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca 

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

 http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada 

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

T.G.I.F.

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

 

I vividly remember my father coming home from work on Fridays, and calling out ‘TGIF!!’  Often such announcements would be followed by our whole family going out to celebrate at Nat Bailey’s White Spot restaurant.  The White Spot, like A&W, used to be famous for its tradition of eating dinner in one’s car.  No self-respecting Vancouverite would dream of eating fish and chips anywhere else.

 

TGIF was also a pressure that I experienced as an older teenager: a pressure to make my Friday nights very exciting and sensational.  If I wasn’t experiencing an adrenaline rush on Friday night, I would feel guilty as if I had failed the invisible TGIF law of the universe.

 

More recently, I have discovered another meaning to TGIF. TGIF also means facing our fears, facing our anxieties, facing our grief.  Friday is a symbol of the ending of the week and also the ending of life.  Friday is both an ending and a new beginning, a dying and a potential rising.  Very few of us want to face our own personal mortality.  Yet our fears of dying are actually our fears of living.

 

TGIF also makes me think of the most important Friday in the year: Good Friday.  Thank God It’s (Good) Friday!  Many of us avoid Good Friday like the plague, because like a plague, Good Friday reminds us of death, of pain, and of our own personal mortality.  Sometimes we wonder: what in the world is Good about Good Friday?  What’s so good about someone going through the worst torture and most agonizing death ever invented?

 

Many of us are tempted to switch TGIF to TGIS: Thank God It’s Sunday (Easter Sunday in particular).  Everybody loves Easter: bunnies, chocolate, eggs, bonnets, lilies, flower crosses, and joyful singing.  Everybody loves victory and resurrection and new life.  No wonder every church is packed with visitors on Resurrection Sunday.  But very few of us love Good Friday.  Good Friday just seems too morbid, too deadly, too bloody.  It just seems too hard to say TGIF about Good Friday.

 

I remember as a boy when I first watched a movie about Good Friday.  I was struck by the hatred of the soldiers towards Jesus, the brutality that he endured, the whippings and the nails driven in his hands and feet.  It all seemed so unfair, so unnecessary.  What in the world was good about such a Good Friday?  I wanted to drag Jesus down from the cross and save him from his agony.  I knew that he had the power to call a legion of angels to save him.  Yet he didn’t.  I felt very disappointed in Jesus.  My other hero Superman always got away when the green Kryptonite was about to kill him.  But Jesus let me down and ‘wimped out’ by dying on me.  For years, Easter made no sense to me, because I thought it was about remembering a dead Jesus.  I had no idea that Jesus was alive and well, and just waiting to change my life.

 

As a teenager, I became convinced that there was no life after death, and that nothing awaited me but extinction and returning to dust.  I began to fear the power of death and the meaninglessness and emptiness of life.  I even began to secretly wonder if life itself was worth living.  TGIF began to lose its effect on me.

 

One day in Grade 12, I met some fellow students who seemed different: happier, more peaceful, more focused in their life.  They had a joy that seemed to bubble over.  I knew that whatever they had, I wanted it too.  So I asked them what made them ‘tick’.  They said with a smile that their secret was a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  They told me that Jesus had broken the power of death on the Cross, that he had taken my sin and guilt on Good Friday, and rose to new life on Resurrection Sunday.  They told me that I could live forever if I would turn from my self-centeredness and let Jesus become the centre of my life.

 

I was hungry and curious.  So I ‘opened the door of my life’ and let Jesus come in.  It felt like rivers of liquid love filling me from the inside out.  I experienced joy in a whole new way.  I felt whole and peaceful in an unexpected way.  Most importantly, I lost my fear of death.  I knew that my life had meaning and purpose because of Jesus taking my place on Good Friday 2000 years ago.  TGIF!

 

 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca 

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada 

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

The Treadmill of Life

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

My wife, like many loving wives, wants her husband healthy.  She had been encouraging me to get back on the treadmill.  I enjoy walking, especially throughout the spectacular trails interwoven through our local community.  But I had a lot of prejudice towards the idea of spending time on a seemingly never-ending treadmill at the local gym.

Even though I don’t want to be controlled by my wife, I do want to be healthy.  So I took the ‘plunge’ and became a ‘convert’ regarding the benefits of Rec Centre treadmills.  As a result, I feel healthier, stronger, and more peaceful inside.  I actually look forward now to doing the very thing that I once dreaded.  Lifting weights, maybe.  Stretching, perhaps.  But working out on the treadmill, never!

Part of what changed my mind was being ‘reared ended’ by a taxi.  I started going for various treatments to loosen up my neck and shoulders, but nothing seemed to really last.  The neck spasms and headaches had a nasty habit of sapping a lot of my energy needed for work and family.  Finally Dr. Paul Wiggins, while adjusting my aching back, said to me: ‘You need a personal trainer’.  My immediate reaction was to try to graciously change the subject.  Paul however is very persistent in a kindly way, and the next thing I knew, I was meeting with a personal trainer at the local Rec Centre.  I have been involved in many sports and exercise programs over the years.  Sooner or later I usually would push it too far and too fast, and injure myself.  Once injured and ‘humbled’, I often thought twice before ‘getting back in the ring’.

Thanks to six sessions with a personal trainer, I have finally learned how to pace myself, and as a result, I have only injured myself once since getting back to the gym.  I have learnt that the secret to virtually all the gym equipment is going ‘one step at a time’.  Patience, while not my strongest characteristic, is definitely a virtue in the weight room!

Sometimes the daily routines of life like work, taking our children to school, etc, can seem like a never-ending treadmill.  Many suffer from exhaustion and feel like crying out: ‘Stop the treadmill! I want to get off.’  Those of us who work out on Rec Centre treadmills know how dangerous it can be to get off a treadmill before it actually stops.  As I was working out this morning on a Rec Centre treadmill, I sensed that perhaps there are two different treadmills in our lives: treadmills of life and treadmills of death.  Treadmills of life bring strength, encouragement and renewed hope. Treadmills of death bring weariness, discouragement, and monotony.  Many medieval treadmills were even designed as punishment for prisoners who would be given no rest.

What helps me keep going on the Rec Centre treadmill is the practice of silently lifting up names of people I care for.  Rather than worry about these people, I have been learning how to give them back to the Lord, and trust that they are safe in his hands.  Working out on the treadmill teaches me that I am not called to worry about tomorrow, but rather to just take one step at a time, one day at a time.  Even though it may feel like my time on the treadmill is endless, experience has taught me that sooner or later it comes to an end.  So too, the treadmill of life is over far more suddenly than many of us expect.  Every funeral that I attend reminds me that even the best vitamins, the best sports workout, the best vacations can only delay temporarily the inevitable day of my last step on the treadmill of planet earth.

Jesus dismantled the treadmill of death by his death and resurrection on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  As a result, I no longer am chained to that ‘medieval treadmill’ of decay.  I choose to take ‘one step at a time’ on the treadmill of life, life that is abundant, exciting, and eternal.  See you at God’s Gym!

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

-award-winning author of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

A Greeting from the five Bishops of BC

 

We greet you, being together as BC Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America.  The context for our meeting is the visit by Rev William Beasley for Renewal Mission 2010.  We are working together on the Anglican 1000 Church Planting Initiative.

 

We give thanks for your congregations in the Anglican Church in North America as you prepare for Easter.  We pass on our blessings to each congregation.

 

With love in the Lord,

 

The Right Reverend Charles Dorrington, Reformed Episcopal Church

The Right Reverend Dr Ron Ferris, Anglican Network in Canada

The Right Reverend Dr Stephen Leung, Anglican Network in Canada

The Right Reverend Silas Ng, Anglican Coalition in Canada/AMiA

The Right Reverend Dr Trevor Walters, Anglican Network in Canada

 

Why Me? – When bad things happen to good people

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Have you ever heard of someone described as having the patience of Job? The person referred to is often either the long suffering wife of an alcoholic or the mother of a large family of nonstop high energy boys. Job, of course, is the most world famous sufferer of inexplicable illness.

Do you know when I have most needed the patience of Job? In 1980, I lost my voice for 18 months. That was a very painful time. But in a strange way, almost equally painful are the times when our car breaks down. I feel very attached to our Chevy Minivan, and whenever it breaks down, I feel personally insulted (can anyone reading this relate??). I’m a very ‘up” person, but one of the few times that I feel depressed (usually for about an hour) is when our car becomes unfaithful.

It’s times like that, when I start to really appreciate Job. Like Job, I ask: ‘Why me??” I mean, couldn’t my car break down at a more convenient time? Have you ever noticed how much car Mechanics resemble doctors? You go to them for One problem, and invariably they find two others. I tell you, it’s enough to drive you to God.

Epic Poetry

The book of Job is a powerful and challenging 42 chapter long poem. it is a true poem, but a poem none the less. Job is a heartfelt poem about the mystery of evil and suffering. This mystery is something that all of us will struggle with, sooner or later.

 

Regardless of whether we go to church or not, whether we are religious or not, whether we believe in God or not, all of us either have been or will be personally faced with this mystery. There is a best selling book by Rabbi Harold Kushner entitled: ‘When Bad Things Happen To Good People’. That best seller reminds us that sooner or later a tragedy will land at our doorstep, and life will feel very unfair.

The 18 Month Syndrome

Studies show that most of us go through some type of crisis once In every 18 months. When serious illness, like cancer, strikes our family, our whole world may feel turned upside down. Why me??’ … Why them ??”, we may say.

 

Sometimes in those situations, God may seem a long way away. Job’s wife had some practical advice to her very ill husband. She said: “Curse God and die., In other words, she told him to just give up. Job, however, was a fighter. No matter how tough it got, he would never throw In the towel. Job said at one point: “Though God slay me, yet will I hope In Him.’

No matter how unfair life seemed, Job never lost his faith in his Higher Power. Job was powerless over his illness, but he knew that there was a Higher Power who had the answers to all his struggles. That is why Job said In that midst of prolonged suffering: I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth.

 

Job had a faith in God that not even tragedy, sickness, and death could shake. He’d lost everything  his children, his business, his fortune, his reputation, his health. He had lost everything, everything except his faith In God.

With Friends Like This …

On top of all this, Job had to suffer through the well meaning, but horribly insensitive advice of his four friends. instead of listening to Job and showing that they cared, they blasted him with endless lectures. Their basic message was: “You got what you deserve. It’s your own fault. Anyone who Is sick has done It to himself. God is obviously condemning you for some secret sin. So hurry up and ‘fess up.” The 42 chapter poem made it very clear by the end that Job was not to blame for his sickness, and that we too should not blame others when they are sick.

 

The unfair and mysterious suffering of Job points ultimately to the unfair and mysterious suffering of Jesus on the cross. The cross shows that God can take everything that is against us and turn it to our advantage. God took Good Friday (the most evil day in history) and turned it into Easter Sunday (the most beautiful day in history).

 

My prayer for those reading this article is that each of us, like Job, will find the courage to keep on struggling, even when life seems unfair.

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://stsimonschurch.ca

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

Embracing Handel’s Messiah

By the Rev. Dr. Ed Hird

Beethoven once said: “Handel was the greatest composer that ever lived.  I would uncover my head, and kneel before his tomb.”  King George III called Handel “the Shakespeare of Music.”  George Bernard Shaw commented that “Handel is not a mere composer in England: he is an institution.  What is more, he is a sacred institution.”

In North America and England, at the very least, Handel’s Messiah has become the most popular and performed and recorded and listened to choral work.  Many people stereotype Handel’s Messiah as Christmas music, but in earlier years, Messiah performances were more likely to occur at Easter.  For Handel, the Messiah was an Easter event that told not merely of birth but also of death and resurrection.

 

George Frideric Handel was born in Halle, Germany within a month of Johanne Sebastian Bach (1685).  Handel’s father was a barber-surgeon who hated music and wanted his son to become a successful lawyer.  His aunt Anna gave Handel a spinet harpsichord that they hid in Handel’s attic, wrapping each string with thin strips of cloth, so that Handel could play undetected.

 

When George was eight or nine, the Duke of Weissenfels heard him play the postlude to a church service and he summoned the boy’s father and told him he ought to encourage such talent.  His only teacher was Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, a most learned and imaginative musician and teacher, who instilled in his young pupil a lifelong intellectual curiosity.  At age 11, Handel entered a musical contest at the Berlin court of the Elector with the famous composer Buononcini, and won.

 

When Handel moved to England in 1712, it was a beehive of musical activity with Italian opera ruling the day.  Within the next 30 year period in England, Handel wrote about 40 operas and 26 oratorios.  Handel did not play to easy audiences.  If opera attenders felt bored in Handel’s day, they would often start loud conversations, and walk around freely.  It was also a custom for them to play cards, and eat snacks right during the opera.

 

As Smith/Carlson put it, Handel “…was an inviting target for critics and for satire.  He was a foreigner, and an individual no one could help noticing.  He had large hands, large feet, a large appetite, and he wore a huge white wig with curls rippling over his shoulders.  He spoke English rather loudly in a colourful blending of Italian, German, and French.  He was temperamental, he loved freedom, and he hated restrictions which placed limits on his art…”

 

 Charles Burney, who later sang and played under him, told how Handel once raged at him when he made a mistake, “a circumstance very terrific to a young musician.”  But when Handel found that his mistake was caused by a copying error, he apologized generously (“I pec your parton – I am a very odd tog”, he said in Germanic English).

 

Handel also struggled with his weight, a problem about which critics mercilessly teased him.  His London years were up and down, and unbelievably down at times.  As Romain Rolland has tried to explain it: “He was surrounded by a crowd of bulldogs with terrible fangs, by unmusical men of letters who were likewise able to bite, by jealous colleagues, arrogant virtuosos, cannibalistic theatrical companies, fashionable cliques, feminine plots, and nationalistic leagues…Twice he was bankrupt, and once he was stricken by apoplexy amid the ruin of his company.  But he always found his feet again; he never gave in.”

The situation was so bleak in 1741 that just before he wrote the Messiah, he had seriously considered going back to Germany.  But instead of giving up, he turned more strongly to God.  Handel composed the Messiah in 24 days without once leaving his house.  During this time, his servant brought him food, and when he returned, the meal was often left uneaten.  While writing the “Hallelujah Chorus”, his servant discovered him with tears in his eyes.  He exclaimed, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself!!”  As Newman Flower observes, “Considering the immensity of the work, and the short time involved in putting it to paper, it will remain, perhaps forever, the greatest feat in the whole history of musical composition.”

 

At a Messiah performance in 1759, honouring his seventy-fourth birthday, Handel responded to enthusiastic applause with these words: “Not from me – but from Heaven- comes all.”  In his last years he worshipped twice every day at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, near his home.

 

The Messiah was first performed in Dublin in 1742, and immediately won huge popular success.  In order to have room enough for the people,  a request was sent afar and wide, asking, “The favour of the Ladies not to come with hoops this day to the Music Hall in Fishamble Street.  The Gentlemen are desired to come without their swords.”  This is how the Dublin Newspaper reported the event: “…The best Judges allowed it to be the most finished work of Musick.  Words are wanting to express the exquisite Delight it afforded to the admiring crowded Audience.  The Sublime, the Grand, and the Tender, adapted to the most elevated, majestic, and moving Words, conspired to transport and charm the ravished Heart and Ear…”  Handel could have made a financial killing from the Messiah, but instead he designated that all the proceeds would go to charities.

 

In contrast to the Irish, the English did not initially like the Messiah.  This oratorio, after all, had no story.  The soloists had too little to do, and the chorus too much.  It was different, and the audience wasn’t ready for it.  Jennens who wrote the script didn’t like it either.  He commented: “Handel’s Messiah has disappointed me, being set in great haste, though he said he would be a year about it, and make it the best of all his Compositions.  I shall put no more Sacred Works into his hands, thus to be abused.”

 

Twenty-five years later, Handel’s Messiah was so popular with the English that they almost rioted, while waiting to hear it at Westminster Abbey.  People screamed, as they feared being trampled.  Others fainted.  Some threatened to break down the church doors.

 

Handel’s use of biblical words in a theatre was revolutionary, and those who opposed Handel went to great extremes to keep his oratorios from being successful.  For example, certain self-righteous women gave large teas or sponsored other theatrical performances on the days when Handel’s concerts were to take place in order to rob him of an audience.  As well, his enemies hired boys to tear down the advertisements about Handel’s Messiah.  One opponent wrote to a newspaper asking “if the Playhouse is a fit Temple…or a Company of Players fit Ministers of God’s Word.”  This person saw the Messiah as “prostituting sacred things to the perverse humour of a Set of obstinate people.”

 

In contrast, the famous preacher John Wesley liked Handel’s Messiah.  He wrote: “In many parts, especially several of the choruses, it exceeded my expectation.”  One clergy William Hanbury in 1759 said that you could hardly find an eye without tears in the whole audience.

The King was so deeply stirred with the exultant music, that when the first Hallelujah rang through the hall, he rose to his feet and remained standing until the last note of the chorus echoed through the house.  From this began the custom of standing for the Hallelujah chorus.  When a nobleman praised Handel as to how entertaining the Messiah was, Handel replied, “My Lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better.”

 

What is it about the Messiah that makes it so popular?  Many scholars point to the spaciousness in Handel’s music, the dramatic silences, and the stirring contrast.  Sadie commented that the music of Handel’s, is a blend of different styles: English church music (especially the choruses), the German Passion-music tradition, the Italian melodic style.  In fact, three of the choruses are arranged from Italian love-duets which Handel had written thirty years before.  Handel’s genius was in bringing new and dramatic twists to the familiar and mundane.

 

In 1759 the almost blind Handel conducted a series of 10 concerts.  After performing the Messiah, he told some friends that he had one desire –to die on Good Friday.  “I want to die on Good Friday,” he said, “in the hope of rejoining the good God, my sweet Lord and Saviour, on the day of His resurrection.”

 

On Good Friday, he bid good-bye to his friends and dies the very next day on Holy Saturday, April 14th, 1759.  Handel was fittingly buried in Poet’s Corner at Westminster Abbey.  A close friend of Handel’s, James Smyth, said: “Handel died as he lived –as a good Christian, with a true sense of his duty to God and man, and in perfect charity with all the world…”

 

My prayer is that the words and music of Handel’s Messiah may help us experience the intimacy of Handel’s relationship with His Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.

 

 

The Rev. Dr. Ed Hird, Rector, BSW, MDiv, DMin

St. Simon’s Church, North Vancouver

Anglican Mission in the Americas (Canada)

http://www.stsimonschurch.ca

-author of the award-winning book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com

p.s. In order to obtain a copy of the book ‘Battle for the Soul of Canada’, please send a $18.50 cheque to ‘Ed Hird’, #1008-555 West 28th Street, North Vancouver, BC V7N 2J7. For mailing the book to the USA, please send $20.00 USD.  This can also be done by PAYPAL using the e-mail ed_hird@telus.net . Be sure to list your mailing address. The Battle for the Soul of Canada e-book can be obtained for $9.99 CDN/USD.

-Click to download a complimentary PDF copy of the Battle for the Soul study guide :  Seeking God’s Solution for a Spirit-Filled Canada

You can also download the complimentary Leader’s Guide PDF: Battle for the Soul Leaders Guide

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier