Madonna and Child Project Book

Gallery

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Donald Wilson

This gallery contains 2 photos.

http://madonnaandchildproject.chipin.com/the-madonna-and-child-project-book Vancouver Island painter Kate Hanson, who painted the series Madonna and Child, which was displayed in a number of successful gallery exhibitions on Vancouver Island over the past two years, is undertaking the publication of her works in a … Continue reading →

Putting down new roots…

Aside

United Church of Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last fall I wrote a blog about leaving my church. At the time I thought it was about leaving The Church, that is withdrawing from the United Church of Canada, and maybe even revoking my membership in the worldwide Christian faith group, otherwise known as Christians.

My kids didn’t really believe me, because for as long as they have known Katherine and me, we have been active members of the United Church, but especially members of Highlands United, a congregation in North Vancouver, where I have lived, off and on, for more that 40 years. I first was confirmed at Highlands in 1967, at the age of 14 years old. So, although I left for a while in my twenties, I have been a member of that church for a very long time.

For most of the years I have been a reasonable committed member of the congregation, and have participated in the choir, as a youth leader, on the refugee committee. Well, you get the drift. Much of my life outside of work has been involved in the church as an active participant.

So our leaving the church as pretty big. Really Big. I essential recanted most of my Christian affirmations in my blog and in my heart when I left. I even left town and moved to Langley.

Well, folks, so much for that….. On Easter Sunday Katherine and I are joining the United Churches of Langley. Wow! I never saw that coming, although my kids saw it coming before I even finished saying that I was leaving.

So what in the devil is going on? How can I eat my own words and recant my recantation of faith.

Actually I don’t have to. In this new congregation my views are welcome as am I as a “Skeptic” and they look forward to engaging in a dialogue about our faith community. My sense of spirituality is awakened anew by their refreshing openness and courage in acknowledging and supporting the difficulty of being a part of a church in transformation.

The Very Reverend George C. Pidgeon, first Moderator of The United Church of Canada, dedicates the cornerstone of the new Christian Education wing of Royal York Road United Church, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April 7, 1958. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I feel like I’m coming home, but to a home looking for the return of its prodigal son.

Nude Photography – Sex and Art and Love and Lust

Gallery

Posted on September 17, 2011 by Donald Wilson

This gallery contains 1 photo.

A close friend of mine, a photographer in Vancouver, with well-developed skills and a wonderful eye, is struggling with a major conflict between his intimate relationship with a long-term woman partner and his even longer term artistic exploration of the … Continue reading →

Shredding roots – Goodbye Highlands

Posted on September 5, 2011 by Donald Wilson

Image via Wikipedia

: Leaving but not grieving

So Katherine and I have made it official. We quit! Not with anger but still with a little wistfulness we are leaving our church of more than twenty-five years.

I’ve been a member of the United Church family since my baptism shortly after my birth more than fifty-eight years ago , and with more conviction since my Confirmation in my early teens. This feels gigantic, but I’ve postponed it for years. It’s time for me. Katherine, also.

I remember walking to Gilmour United Church in Richmond, BC with my brother and sisters. To avoid having to walk along Number One Road , which was a pretty busy street, even in the late fifties, we used to walk through the back streets and newly constructed roads between 334 Francis Road near the dike and the Church at the corner of Number One and Blundell Road. It seemed a very long walk on Sunday mornings when we were expected to get ourselves up and to church in time for Sunday School.

My eldest sister, Elaine, used to push and cajole me and my brother. We like to play in the empty lots we’d pass along the way, throwing things at each other. Kathryn, my youngest sister, used to pout to get Douglas and I to play with her as well. Judith, my second eldest sister, would simply walk along reading her book, trusting to the rest of us that we wouldn’t allow her to walk into any ditches along the way.

I don’t exactly know how the five of us managed to arrive at the church, either on time, or in any condition to attend Sunday School, since by that time we were often covered in dirt or grass streaks on our pants. But they never turned us away, and Mom never said too much when she met up with us after Sunday School.

Mom used to come to the service, but not every week. My father was not a church person at all, although his family was Anglican, he was resistant. There were reasons for that… mostly that his father was a tyrant and an evangelistic overbearing pompous ass. A lot like my Dad, as I remember from those days, but there you have it.

But religion started early for me and my siblings, and two out of my five siblings continue to have a relationship with a Christian tradition, although my sisters have fled the United Church, years ago, back to the Anglican church. Don’t really know why they went to the Anglican church, and I don’t really know how they feel about their religious beliefs and experience today.

In some respects it’s almost as difficult to explain why I returned to the church in the mid 1980’s after not attending church from the time I was in my late teens. During my twenties I would self-identify with Taoism or Shintoism, but mostly to explain that I didn’t consider myself a Christian.

I was mad at God, and at the United Church. When I returned to the church it was because I realized that my anger had always been misdirected, and I wasn’t so much angry at God and the church, as I was disconnected.

I had a simple revelation in my thirties that changed all that and came to believe that the world I live in is spiritually alive, and I began to find it difficult to imagine a world without God in it. I interpreted my divine experience through the lens of my childhood religion, and I returned to the faith of my childhood, I did so by rejoining the United Church through the ministry of Don Robertson, the minister at Highlands United in the mid 1980’s. I returned home by returning to the faith of my mother and her family. My Mom still didn’t go to church regularly, although she considered herself a member of the church to her dying day.

My wife, Katherine, followed me to Highlands, with our kids in tow. She explained to me that for her church was more about the social relationships and service to others than about God, and she felt most comfortable at the United Church, mostly because at Highlands she never felt that she was forced into any particular interpretation of religious values. She liked that it was more of a journey than a destination, and for the most part, felt that it served our family well.

We have both been very active at Highlands, especially with the Spirit Singers along with the Highlanders. Recently I have been involved with the Refugee Committee, although I would like to have been able to be more involved than I have been. This year Cheryl asked for my advice on Facebook and the Social Media world, and for a few months I’ve contributed my thoughts from time to time in that forum.

So what happened to us? Why have we decided to call it quits after so many years, and such deep involvement for such a long time?

I think our reasons for leaving are different in some ways, but not so much different as were our reasons for staying for so long.

For me it comes as a result of realizing that not only did I no longer truly believe in the Bible and stories of Jesus and his followers, as Gospel, but that continuing to say the words and sing the words has begun to feel dishonest and spiritually flawed. I may not be sure what I do believe, or how I would describe my vision of God, but it’s no longer the God of my ancestors.

I simply don’t believe in the many articles of faith as passed down through the Bible and my church.

The Virgin birth – No
Walking on water – No
Reincarnation of Jesus after the crucifixion – No
The sacrament of the body and the blood
Heaven – Not so much
Hell – Hell no
Personal redemption though confession of sin – No
Being born in sin – No
Intermediation with God through Jesus or the church – No
Angels – Imaginary
Demons – Imaginary

And so on, and so forth. When first my serious doubts began to crowd out my litany of faith and repeated prayers I began to wonder exactly to whom or what I was praying. I then realized that many of my fellow Christians seem to have the same or similar doubts and thought. I began to wonder if any of us had the courage to stand in our own truths and demand that our church respond.

Eventually, I came to realize that my loss of faith in the church makes my continuing participation in it totally bogus and false, and I can’t do it any more without being false to myself and others.

I don’t know any more what I do believe, although I still believe that there is some eternal presence in the universe, which I still choose to call God. I intend to spend some time revisiting the journey I began as a young man, exploring Taoism and other religious explorations. I also want to more fully explore Karma and why the idea of Karma appeals to me far more than do Christian concepts of good and evil. The truest part of the Bible for me has always been the Golden Rule. Somehow it just feels right. I also feel that I can follow the simple principle without conflicting values.

Kath and I are going to find some other way to engage with our community on a regular basis, although we’re going to take our time about it, and find something that we can completely get behind before we commit to it.

I’m going to miss going to church at Highlands, and am going to miss seeing our friends every week. I’m also going to miss the ongoing discourse in the church about the nature of faith and faithfulness.

Hopefully our friends at Highlands will understand why we are leaving, or maybe not, but still accept that we are going with somewhat heavy hearts, but with clear heads. And we still love you, all of you. Even if we no longer feel like we belong as a part of you.

A letter from mother on my birthday

Posted on September 4, 2011 by Donald Wilson

3511 Mahon Ave. North Vancouver,B.C.

June 25,1984. Dear Bruce,

Ready to try again

So you are thirty-one years old today. It hardly seems possible because the events of the day you were born are still as vivid in my mind as if the whole thing had happened just a year or so ago.

Your dad was out of town, on the road, and his father and stepmother had agreed to come and get your two sisters and look after them when it was time for me to go to the hospital. However, their understanding of when they should come obviously did not square with mine. I phoned them at about eight o’clock in the morning to tell them that I was having labor pains and would like them to come for the girls. They said they would come as soon as Art got home from work … after five o’clock.

Naturally this caused me some concern because the only person that was available to look after the girls on an interim basis was the new tenant in the other half of our duplex, a who I scarcely knew. So I waited, and waited, becoming more and more frightened, until about four o’clock, at which point my pains were scarcely one minute apart. I can still remember the frightened faces of your two sisters as I left, with them crying, and the new neighbor obviously unhappy about this turn of events.

It was a good thing that I did not delay any longer, because as it turned out, you were the only one of my children who would not have been born easily without assistance. You were a frontal delivery, and required some expert manipulation in order to be born without any damage. The procedure is also rather painful, and my concern for my two older children probably added an extra level of tension.

When you finally arrived about 8.30 P.M., you were just fine …no severe bruising, just a slightly elongated head, which the doctor assured me would shortly resume its normal shape (which it did.)

Your dad did not get to see you until you were almost two days old, although he did come back early on the Friday. (You were born on a Wednesday.) He also reclaimed our little girls from their relieved grandparents, and looked after them until I returned home when you were five days old.

During the weekend while I was in the hospital I was deluged with flowers and gifts for you from
all your dad’s relatives, who were absolutely delighted that we had finally managed to produce a boy. They arrived in droves to inspect you and declared that you were very nice. However, once I returned home they disappeared into whatever limbo they had occupied before …many of them I didn’t see again for years.

However, you certainly were given a royal reception to the clan!