Eleven and a half years ago, a friend gave us a dog.  Her name was Checkers and she needed a new home.  When we first met Checkers, Kristy and I were not long married and still living in the first home we had together.   We were waiting for our new house to be built and with a new home came our first opportunity to consider a pet.  Enter Checkers and she stole our hearts.   She officially joined the family when she moved in with us to our new house.

Checkers fast became a comfortable and much loved part of our family, always finding new and creative ways to sprawl out on the furniture and make herself comfortable in our lives.  Her version of comfort, as you can see, is different than ours, but it made for some great photos.

She was well behaved but not without the occasional mischief.  Harmless stuff mainly. I remember one time when Kristy and I were preparing to eat wings and watch a movie only to find Checkers had beat us to it.  The wings at least.  She cleared the entire plate of wings; hot sauce, bones, and all.  She probably ate 20 wings to herself that evening.  We braced for the worst after that, but she didn’t seem to suffer in the least.  I on the other hand needed some wings…

She loved rodents! Even alerting us on two different occasions that a mouse had found its way in to the house.  If she could explain things herself I might imagine she would say that her life’s work revolved around catching a rodent.  Be it a squirrel, a mouse, or a chipmunk, she would have her day!  Alas, she did not get her day after all.  She could smell them and she could see them, but catching them would have to be for the cats.

Checkers was a sweetheart. A gentle soul.  Lovingly nick-named Big Soft Dog by my dad.  She was the perfect dog to have when our kids came along.  She would tolerate the kids along with their mistreatment of her like a second mother.  So patient and so aware of her role as a protector and friend.

Neither of the kids have ever known a time without Checkers.

Checkers turned 15 in September of 2016.  The vet said that considering her size she had done extraordinarily well over the years, and he was very supportive of her as she aged.  Her last years were still happy, but we could see the pain starting to bother her.  She was getting old.  She had trouble standing.  Often she couldn’t get outside soon enough when she needed to go to the bathroom.  And so today the time had come for us to let her go and say our goodbyes.  This morning, racked with grief, we took her to the vet as a family.  There we were able to be with her as she peacefully went on her way, now free from pain.

We now begin to work through it.  Grief is like thick and heavy mud.  You can try and reject it, but it clings.  Time is the only antidote.  In the end it dries up (in a number of ways) and you are okay again.  Still though you can see that dirty spot on the ground where you were when the mud had you.  And if you think about it a little too long, dirt becomes mud again.  And so we work through it.

You were a great dog, Checkers.  A really great dog.  Levi has been saying that there could never be another dog just like her.  I think he might be right.

More Checkers photos…

Sing us out, Checkers…

The reality of it though is that on November 13th, 2015 I was attending a funeral and it was a piece of music that affected me so significantly.  Some friends from our church had just had their world rocked with the news of their eldest son’s passing. The funeral was that of Mackenzie May.

As some of you may know, I have been a musician for many years.   I’ve always loved the power music can have in making us feel something.  Songs combine music and lyrics to do this, but there is other music out there of course where the music alone conveys the feeling.  I just love this aspect of music.  And in the case of the funeral on November 13th, I expected it to be emotional, but I didn’t expect the encounter we were to have with something so powerful and so real.

My wife and I have always felt a connection to Mackenzie’s parents even despite the fact that the friendship is still young there hasn’t been time to live much life around one another yet.  We’ve been like magnets that are not quite close enough to move one another in closer.  Still, there is a pulling.  Bevan, Mackenzie’s father, and I have lots in common.  Almost a creepy amount actually.  We both think similar ways about things, and we approach the things we do with the same kind of full-on commitment.  Because of this, Kristy and Rhonda, Mackenzie’s mother, have a common distinction in that they have to live with someone who is like Bevan and I.  Always going big.  Never going home.  And so because of this and other good connections there is a kinship of sorts.  A relationship significant enough that the news of Mackenzie’s death was heart breaking for Kristy and I as it was for so many others.  We were, and are, so sad for the May family.

Bevan and Rhonda had told me a number of times that I reminded them of their son, Mackenzie, who was living in Edmonton at the time of his death.  I believe that I did eventually meet him, but only once I think.  I resemble him and of course there’s the music connection.  At 23 years old, he was a student at the University of Alberta studying music. More than this he is obviously much loved by many friends and family. The funeral was a full house.  Many expressions of love poured out, including a beautiful and poignant poem by Mackenzie’s aunt.  And of course there was lots of music.  Mackenzie had the music bug having been involved with music in one way or another for most of his youth.  Mackenzie was a member of The Calgary Stampede Showband a number of years ago, and it was clear he had left his mark as a trumpet player and was fast becoming a true performer.  It was these connections from his past though that brought about a profound moment on the day of Mackenzie May’s funeral.

Mackinley, Mackenzie’s younger brother, had an inspired idea.  Having also been involved in the Stampede Showband, he arranged for some 26 alumni from The Calgary Stampede Showband brass section to play a tribute to Mackenzie.  For over ten years the band has played a particular piece as a welcome to new members and well as to thank existing members for their dedication.  This piece is also played to remember past members as the ones who laid the foundation for what the band has been able to achieve.  It was with this sentiment that Mackinley had his idea to honour his brother.  At the funeral this group of alumni performed over Mackenzie a most fitting send-off in a very powerful way.

When the time came in the service, the 26 members of the band stood around the perimeter of the room facing inward towards Mackenzie’s casket which was in turn surrounded by his family and friends.  The piece they would play was introduced by two members of the band.  The piece that was played was beautiful and powerful.  As the piece began, music filled the room as these young people played their sad goodbye to one of their own.  Their conductor stood in the centre of the room conducting with her arms and slowly turning in place so as to be able to periodically face all of the players.  She gracefully lead them in their solemn last post for Mackenzie.  A send-off that soared with increasing intensity until it was deafening at it’s climax.  This was no typical musical high point either.  Brass has power.  It was as though every atom in the room was vibrating it’s own individual harmony.  A climax that made us all take notice.  We were all carried somewhere in that profound moment of greatest crescendo.  It was a visceral and tangible sense of Mackenzie being lifted in the music and sent off, and in this lifting, we were all lifted and moved.  Much in the way one might follow a guest who is departing to the door on their way out, the music ushered us all to the door to say our good byes and safe journeys, but only Mackenzie would pass through.  As for the rest of us, we were left wrecked.  Splintered edges showing, it was in this moment that caused for many an undoing of our composure. Tears flooding in as all of the life in the room realized the significance of the moment.   As the music faded, the space was filled with sobs of release and such abject grief.  And of course the music had to end.  And of course it did.  Leaving us all somehow more alive than before.

Upon leaving the church at the end of the funeral I had a very unusual feeling of honour.  Honour to have been able to be a part of that event and this moment I experienced.  After the service some of us spoke of it and even the thought of it brought more tears to some of us.  It has since struck me, when was the last time the mere thought of a moving song or musical piece was enough to bring back the actual emotion of hearing it?  Usually you have to experience it again to feel it again.  It might sound odd but I was almost glad I got to experience this moment.   Though I wish it could have happened without our friends losing their son.  Even though I didn’t have much of a relationship with Mackenzie, I will forever remember his funeral, and therefore him.  All because of an inspired idea his younger brother had.  Upon discussing this moment with Bevan, he shared that there have been a number of people since the funeral who have mentioned the brass piece.  I know it was profound for me, but I hear it was profound for others as well.  I’m not surprised.  It was one of those moments in life that you can’t really expect or plan on exactly, but when they happen you just know it’s important that you hold on and remember.

The funeral was recorded and video taped.  I got a hold of these recordings and re-mastered the audio from the brass piece.  The recording equipment was almost overwhelmed by the volume of the performance, but I was able to refine it somewhat and replace the original audio on the video to create the below excerpt so you can experience this moment I have written about in some way.  It’s true that the video might not be able to do it justice.  Oh to be able to package a moment like that…  My recommendation is to listen loud on the best audio listening system or device you can round up.  In my opinion this is the only way to come close to being able to experience the kind of power that was there that day.

I share this with you all today, on May 25th, 2016, which is Mackenzie’s birthday.  He would have been 24 today.

In a Christian context the very best example of gracefulness comes from the Master.  God is graceful.  Through Jesus, He is willing to accept you and wash away even the most heinous wrong.

Even without a Christian belief systems, grace still exists and proves itself a better way of living than judgement.  Consider the least judgmental person you have ever heard of or known.  Consider the most loving and accepting person.  Consider the person who will openly take in anyone; sometimes even at their own personal risk.  This person you consider is likely quite graceful.  This person is also quite Christ-like by the way.  Even if they don’t identify with this fact.

Do you choose to take on grace as one of your ways?  If so, do you think it shows?  How would you know?  Here’s a thought.  Do you think people understand more about the list of things you accept and tolerate about people, or do they know more about what you reject and hate about people?  If the former, you may be quite graceful.  If the latter, you simply can’t be considered graceful if your list of issues about people goes on and on.

Choose grace.  Accept grace when people extend it to you.  Embrace it when you consider others.  You will be better for it, and so will the world.  It’s what we need.

First, a poem…

I see thee. I see thee.
I see thee in onesies.
I taste thee. I taste thee.
I see now in threesies.

On this Easter weekend, I think on the meaning of the season and I wonder about my question from my last post, How can a person today decide to want to emulate a man from 2000 years ago? Easter marks the time Christians remember the death and resurrection of Jesus, one of the two key events in the Christian year. The other event of course being the birth of Jesus. Anyone looking at this belief system from afar would obviously say that the main point of this Christian thing is Jesus. He is the reason for it all, but why?

Here’s my thing. When I think about the events that have occurred in my past in and in the past of my family, some of those we tend to attribute to God. If I think back, I have never really thought of Jesus doing these things. My mind just says God, not really Jesus. I know Jesus is in the mix but I’m not sure the PERSON I relate to is the Jesus person. Feels more like the Father person. The mystery of the trinity comes on the scene here as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one and distinct all at once. So maybe the fact that I don’t really relate personally too much to the Son part of the trinity, is not an offense really. After all, the are one.

But this does appear to mean that I might not have a relationship with Jesus, but instead just a belief in God. Maybe I was meant to live during Old Testament times. Back then believing and understanding a resurrected Jesus was not an issue. It hadn’t happened yet. There was one less miracle to doubt on. Easier, no?

Many accept the resurrection as being a part of the story. But I wonder how many today, on Easter Sunday, are identifying with a real visceral Jesus person that they know and can get their head around? So on this Easter, I ask you to join with me in an honest moment.

What does Easter and the resurrection of Jesus mean to you? Just a dramatic story you are told is what you are meant to believe? An intensely personal time for you? Do you feel you are relating to a resurrected Jesus, or do you just kinda relate to the idea of a God? I’m interested in what you all think.

And what of discipline?  I think when cultural immersion might only be getting you so far, discipline might get you the rest of the way.  Discipline is like a more intentional and overt way of teaching ourselves a behavior or a belief.  Where immersion kind of says, I will allow myself to be assimilated into the beliefs and values of the community, discipline is deciding to build yourself into something based on your own desire.  That desire however, could be coming from a value that really came from one of the cultures you are a part of.  So in a way discipline is the self-assimilation into a value or belief we ourselves have.

So how about this?  What if it is the case that if you invoke disciplinary rules for yourself, you are just leveraging this same mechanism as cultural immersion triggers but through a self-controlled lever?  That is to say, discipline is the set of actions we use to execute upon our personal decision to conform.  You decide on an end state, and you engage in the tasks that will get you there.  I’m sure some bristle when I use the word conform in this context, but I use the word conform in the sense that when it comes to discipline, you choose what you want to conform to.  In a paradoxical kind of way, you might even say that what you want to conform to is to be completely original.  So in this case you conform to non-conformity.  It’s kind of like groups of non-conformists – how can they exists as a group, right??? 

Is it hurting yet?

I guess I raise this because I recognize that the choice to be disciplined in anything, is like a choice to change yourself.  And so if you want to know what to believe and how to change yourself, what discipline would you exercise?  Perhaps you could decide to be disciplined in a study of those you wish to emulate?  After all, this is why Christians try and invest so much time in studying Jesus and his teachings.  To work at being Christ-like is to be Christian.  But what if you aren’t sure about Christianity?  In that case you should only choose to study Jesus if you decide of your own accord that he is someone worth emulating.  From a non-believer’s perspective you would have to choose that Jesus was worth emulating regardless of whether he was God or just a man.

Man, how do you decide that the life of a man that lived over 2000 years ago is worth emulating?  Just because there are many people who say he’s worth it?  That would be more of a cultural conformity.  Which I don’t mean to say is a bad thing.  I don’t think it’s a bad thing.  I just think this process for me these days is about making my own decision on all this.  So how do I decide this?  What information can even really be gathered in order to make this choice?

I go around and around and I come back in my mind to something I’ve always said about why people believe in God.  The decision to believe is a pretty individual thing.  Not that it isn’t informed by culture and discipline, but that the decision comes out of a personal encounter.  More to the point, it comes down to you deciding (consciously or not) that an experience you’ve had was something that was caused by an interaction with the spirit world.  It comes from a faith-based decision.

So maybe all I need is an encounter.  If and when this encounter occurs, maybe I can attribute it to God or maybe I won’t be convinced.  I can try and be open minded though.  Maybe that’s enough.  And maybe its not up to me to engineer anything at all, but rather it’s up to God to convince me.

It looked awesome.  It smelled awesome.  It even tasted great.  I would have done a few things differently though.  More on that later.  For now I will let you feast your eyes as I describe what you see before you.

I decided I didn’t want too much smoke in the meat.  So I did a short smoke and then a short BBQ.  The end result had the looks of anything out of a magazine.  I brined the legs first but only for around 2 hours.  They really needed an overnight brining.  I think that would have improved things.  I also found that the skin on the legs became kind of like leather.  The skin looks so yummy with the spices and the sauce and in the end, we kind of just had to leave it alone.  That part was more than just a little sad.  Next time I’ll pull the skin off, or google how to make the skin more edible and less like jerky.

Another thing I might try is to do a full on cold smoke for like 45 minutes and then do all the cooking on the BBQ.  I think that would end up with a better flavour profile.

One last learning for me was all about the tendons.  Most of you probably know this.  I’m kind of surprised I had no idea how many tendons are in a leg of turkey.  Turkey legs have something like 8 tendons in them.  Unlike a chicken leg, where I have never really noticed much with their tendons as they must render down during cooking more, the turkey has tendons that don’t render and can be best likened to being like huge fish bones.  No one likes picking through fish bones when they eat.

I learned that there is a right way and wrong way to deal with these tendons.  Doing nothing is the wrong way I think.  That’s what I did.  I read a few posts about removing them while the legs were still raw.  I also saw posts about how to remove them after they are cooked.  This is what I tried to do, but there is really no easy way that I could see of doing a full removal of tendons on a fully cooked leg before you serve it.  I suppose you could carve the legs up and serve just meat, but I kind of liked the caveman experience.  In reality there is no really issue with removing them as you eat.  They are too big to choke on.  Still, they are just kind of…irritating.  So next time, I’ll try a raw leg tendon removal.

All in all, it was delicious.

One of the systems I notice is a human one surrounding the concept of culture and immersion.  I’ve noticed that if you surround yourself with people who have a particular way of thinking or acting, your humanness tends to make you adopt that way of thinking.  It seems really logical when I just say it, but I think we often underestimate just how unintentional this mechanism is.  People conform in this way to different degrees of course.  The least conformist person still conforms in this way, only they do it maybe less and maybe it takes longer.  I think it’s safe to say that this conforming trait is part of what we are as a species.  It’s not really an observation of the age we live in or the society we are in.  I think its a matter of human nature.  Its related to our survival instinct.  Conformity will drive you into communities and communities are safer.

Culture’s affect on us is this very system at play.  Why else would it be that a species have such different behaviours and values depending on where on the planet you live?  It’s not the where that matters, its the who.  More than the who it’s the cultural history that shapes our cultures and in turn our cultural values.  A people’s cultural mind learns through it’s past much like an individual does.  Out of our cuture’s history come ideas that attempt to explain what has happened to us.  We form structures, rules, and values, based on our past.  Some rules that limit and others that protect.  We develop taboos and norms.  We create outcasts.  We create heroes.

When an individual is associated with a people group, the process of conformation begins.  Maybe only slowly and subtly, but it happens.

Lets look at the big picture.  In reality we are all apart of many cultures.  Each is like a blanket we layer onto ourselves.  First we are apart of our ethnicity and our country.  Culture that comes with that.  I am Canadian.  My parents ethnicity affects me as well.  They are Kiwis (not the bird, but the people from New Zealand )  My parent’s culture is another layer for me.  Then there is also local culture.  Every city and place has a certain culture, so layer that on there.  Next you probably go to school or work somewhere.  More and different cultures there.  Layer them on!  It’s like a cultural lasagna!  What else?  Do you go to church?  Church culture is a powerful one.  Layer it on.  You are in a relationship here and there, right?  Your major relationships each have a sort of culture to them and they affect us.  Even non-major relationships have a sort of micro-culture.  This is the kind of cultural layer that you can put on and take off depending on who you are with.

Now finally, out of all those layers, you get all the cultural rules, values, and norms that mix and mingle.  You may hold some of them closure than others and allow them to shape you more directly.  And here you are in the midst of it all trying to make the right choices… about life…  Not… easy…  You might even consider yourself to be lost in it all.  You are under all those layers somewhere just trying to be yourself.

How does this relate to my other faith posts, you say?  Well here’s the conundrum.  How do you make room to contemplate the validity of a belief structure that has a strong community focus (like Christianity), while not accidentally engaging that part of our human nature that suggests we be like those around us?  Isn’t there a risk of drawing false conclusions under cultural influence?  Would that matter?

Here’s the thing.  I know this cultural immersion system exists and I know it has a power over me that is beyond my full control.  As far as faith goes, a big part of this for me as been about stepping outside of it all for a time and kind of just… watching.  I almost imagine myself as not a part of the Christian culture.  I consider what it might feel like to be an agnostic or even an atheist.  I do this because in order to think objectively, I think I need the cultural distance.  I think I need to disengage the part of my human nature that will direct me to conform due to my immersion in it all.  I need to try and not tempt my own human instincts.  Or maybe knowing is enough.  Maybe being willing to acknowledge that all this is going on under the covers will provide enough context to help me be objective with myself.

What I don’t really want is to realize in another 25 years that once again, maybe I didn’t choose this Christian life for myself.  Maybe I will have accidentally let others choose it for me.

It’s a funny thought because most of the time you will hear statements in a church like, “If you don’t feel close to God, get closer to God’s people.  Let them teach you.  Let Him transform your doubt into faith.”  Is this really a spiritual thing that happens?  Or is this a human thing that happens when we add a cultural layer?  I have a hard time accepting this kind of immersion as a viable way through what I’m experiencing because I don’t want to be culturally rendered back away form this spiritual ledge.  I want to step away from it by way of a genuine decision, or better yet, a genuine invitation or spiritual experience.

The fact is, Jesus is not the only trans-formative power.  Culture is a power we simply don’t escape from.  What if you mistake a church culture for Jesus and come to believe that Jesus transformed you, when it was actually nothing more than a cultural adoption that occurred?  Is that really all that bad from a Christian context?  When Jesus says to “know” him, does knowing the cultures that speak of him count?  Is that really knowing him?

Some side thoughts related to this… 

If you find that you are intolerant of something and if you can objectively see that your opinion of intolerance may be partly informed by one of the cultures you are a part of, consider what you can do to affect the way your culture shapes your thinking.  Know that your cultures shape your values and the way you think.  Maybe the way to deal with that intolerance is not to separate yourself from those whom you are intolerant of.  Maybe it’s not best to be surrounding yourself with only those who agree with you.  Instead try getting closer to those who best embody that which you do not tolerate.  Take a risk for the sake of another person.  Some immersion in that different culture may serve to help you to see another perspective.  Maybe you’ll gain insight and understanding.  After all, all you’re doing is engaging a natural part of you that will try and think the way those around you think.  In the case of most kinds of intolerance, it might not be such a bad thing to try thinking like someone else for a while.  This idea you don’t tolerate is held by people who live under different cultural layers than you.  Without your cultural layers at play, you are no different than anyone you disagree with.  For me, tolerance probably should be a trigger for people getting closer together so they can understand one another.  Intolerance shouldn’t be a trigger for pushing other people further away.

Basically I’m saying that if you don’t tolerate something, don’t build your defensive philosophical and theological walls before first addressing the human element.  Draw close to one another.  Learn to see things from other perspectives.  Your human nature will kick in and you will soften and be more accepting of others.  I’m pretty sure.

If you are in a culture that says that seeking understanding with another human being is something we should not do if that human being doesn’t already agree with us, I would seriously consider the worth of that culture you are a part of.