Monarchs

The Monarchs are on the move! On Saturday, at Family and Friends weekend at Erie Beach campground, the trees were laden with Monarch butterflies, clinging, resting, and probably waiting out the wind blowing from the wrong direction. By Sunday morning, they were on their way, and from the auditorium window, we could watch as butterfly after butterfly flew past, heading out over the lake. In the afternoon, I couldn’t help but notice how many monarchs were visibe flying down the 401 corridor, perhaps heading towards the very place from whence we had just come.

Somehow it seems appropriate that they choose this place to rest before the next step on their long, long journey. This is a place that we humans look to in order to accumulate the strength to continue our own life’s journey. Like the butterflies, we come here to rest under the trees, to gaze out over the water, to gain spiritual and physical nourishment, and to flex our metaphorical wings.

But there is another, perhaps less obvious parallel between us and the butterflies that come to this place. It is here, or to places like this one, that we bring our children and grandchildren so they too can be fed and nourished. It is here that the hope is expressed over and over again that our children will continue to bring their children for generations to come, so they too can experience that special bond with the grounds and the Spirit we experience here. This tradition has now continues for over 100 years, and many generations. But the pattern is even more dramatically illustrated in the experience of the Monarchs; the only species of butterfly that undertakes the the long migration from Canada and Northern USA to Mexico and back every year. The truth is that the butterflies who leave here this fall have never rested here before, but their ancestors have. Further more, they will never come again, although their descendants will. In fact, when the Monarchs return next summer, it will probably be the great, great, grandchildren of those we watched fly away this fall. Yet somehow they remember where to come.

Whether the co-habitation of this sacred space by these two species is an accidental or deliberate blessing makes no difference to me. The fact is that we share this space, and we know we are blessed both by God’s grace and by the graceful presence of God’s other remarkable creatures.

So on we journey, filled with wonder and awe, as we watch these remarkable Monarchs continue theirs. Farewell, little ones. We will watch for your children to return, even as we bring ours to this special place.

Posted by Carman

Momentum

If one were going to sail across the universe on a voyage of discovery, the journey would begin with several years of activity before the ship ever left the gravitational confines of earth. There would be the need to design and build an appropriate space craft, or at the very least modify and fit an existing one. A crew or staff would need to be recruited, trained, and prepared. We would need to make lists of the tools required. We might even need to create those tools, and then teach the crew how to use them. A long list of supplies would be formulated, collected, and stored. Test flights would need to be taken to see if the vehicle was really up to the rigors of the journey. The list of things needing to be done would go on and on.

It feels like an apt metaphor for CEM. The past week saw several important steps in preparing for that kind of voyage for Canada East Mission of Community of Christ. We are preparing for a journey of discovery and transformation; a courageous trip into the future. Once we embark, the voyage will change us, and there will be no going back to the old and familiar.

A lot has happened in the past week. The twelve pastors in our first CEM CPI cohort met together for a week of formation studies in order to prepare and equip themselves to be better ministers and leaders. The directors of our camps, reunions, and retreats met together for a weekend to talk about how to design safer, better, more effective camps. Our new Camping Commission met together for the first time to begin discussing how our training programs might be able to go to the next level. The “Merrie Bande of Bishops” met with CEM leaders to begin creating a map that will take us where we need to go. There is activity. There is building momentum.

In President Grant McMurray’s famous sermon a decade ago when he launched Transformation 2000, he challenged us with the following words. “We are packed and ready for the journey. Will you come?” In CEM we are not yet packed, but we are preparing. Workers are needed for the crew. Would you like to come aboard?