Zion Calendar

Tuesday 30 July 2013

General Secretary's Weekly Letter



July 26, 2013 

Dear Friends,

I didn’t get a weekly letter written last week because I was on study leave working on my writing.

There are so many aspects to my work, you could begin almost anywhere in picking a topic for self- improvement. I guess this weekly letter, and an occasional sermon, formed the basis for my suggestion to my supervisory committee that I might take a writing class. That was back in June when the committee met last, and they were supportive. They had been encouraging me to take some study leave time because I had informed them earlier of my intention to defer plans for a sabbatical, given all that is happening in the church these days.

It happened that on the same day, I walked into my colleague Ann Perry’s office and she told me that she would like to take a writing course this summer. My thought was that in Ann’s case there is little left for her to learn – she is a great writer – but of course I recognized that there is always more to be learned. Often it is those who know the most already who are most aware of how much more there is to know.

That’s how Ann and I found ourselves last week taking the same class in “narrative non-fiction” at the University of Toronto. Before the class began, we received writing samples from all of the students. I didn’t have time to write something new ahead of time (we would do more writing during the course), so I sent along a couple of my weekly letters, and Ann submitted a piece she wrote in her newspaper days. Reading the offerings of the other students, I formed images of them based on what they had written about, and, I have to admit, their writing standards. No doubt they also formed an image of me, based on my pieces.

As the students gathered the first morning, I sorted them in my mind: this is the bus driver, this is the one writing about his uncle’s experiences during the war, this is the dog lover, this is the one who told an edgy story about Toronto’s mayor...and so on. As we started out, the stories were more real than the people. As the conversation progressed that first day and through the week, my perceptions of each of my classmates shifted. Yes, their writing defined them in a way, but as they talked, told about themselves, respectfully critiqued each other’s work, and produced funny or insightful on-the-spot pieces for our class assignments, I realized that I was sharing the week with a most interesting group. Sitting there with them, I found myself less concerned about quirks in writing style and increasingly drawn into the stories of each of these people, and the stories behind their stories.

I still don’t know whether this was a particularly interesting group of people, or if the reality is that when we take time to listen and learn from people beyond the superficial level, everyone is interesting. The Bible tells us that God knows every human heart, and I marvel once again at the wonderful diversity of God’s creation.

After last week’s pleasant and stimulating shift in gears, I’m back in the office this week, catching up on things and getting ready for a meeting with the Comprehensive Review Task Group next week. One of the high points of my week was attending a meeting at the KAIROS offices with Fr. Michel Jalakh, General Secretary of the Middle East Council of Churches. It was humbling to hear him speak with such hope and commitment about his work in very challenging circumstances. With more than a million Syrians in refugee camps in Lebanon, and Christians seeking to flee from persecution in fundamentalist countries in the region, Fr. Jalakh spoke of the council’s work for ecumenical and interfaith understanding and protection of religious freedoms for all.

In the midst of my reflections on the stories from last week and this week, I received an email from the Rev. Brian Nicholson, whom I first met at the Arnprior Assembly in 2005. Brian remembered that I talked there about the importance of story. I think I must have spoken then about my view that we learn most about one another, about the world, and about God, by sharing stories. Facts and figures, no matter how compelling, are not enough. It’s the stories that make them come alive, the stories that inspire.

May you be blessed by the sharing of stories, around campfires or wherever you are this summer.

Nora