Pop 89: Longing & Belonging
By Madonna Hamel
Yesterday was the first day of summer. To celebrate, I ventured up Eagle Butte to gawk at the blooming cacti. There is nothing more exciting than spotting a clutch of pink and yellow flowers shocking the desert landscape. Just being back on the land reminded me how the wide open skies and ever-expanding horizon calms a body down. It’s easy to see the land as the church of the 21st century. The poet Mary Oliver wrote: “For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.” And, often these days, I hear people say: Why go to church when I can walk under the cathedral of the sky and be inspired by the choirs of songbirds and coyotes?
Why indeed. I do feel that Saskatchewan’s wild places, empty spaces, and the far reaches of farm fields are all temples of mystery. Here, more than any other place (except perhaps the red dust of the Mississippi shoreline. And the fall colours of a Quebec autumn. And the view of orchards leading down to the Okanagan Lake ) do I feel an intense sense of familiarity - as if I’ve returned to a kind of home situated deep inside me. As if everything I’ve searched for has always been patiently waiting inside, waiting for me to just be silent so I can surrender into its very quiet whispers. So, yes, I too find it takes unmediated-by-technology, un-jumbled by algorithms, un-advertised terrain to bring forth that drop-to-your-knees reverence for Creation.
But church was never about a deep connection with Mystery and Reverence, at least, not for me. Like so many kids, I groaned at having to get up early for mass on Sundays. I hated having to wear that “itchy” dress and would slip a t-shirt between me and the woollen material. I would sit up straight and, along with my siblings, stifle yawns and the occasional eye-roll during the sermon. Eventually, we girls grew up to be a singing family. I made a joke on the Von Trapp family of Sound of Music fame, calling us the Big Trap Family. But in truth, it was the act of singing together that helped me feel a sense of Wonder in those chapels and churches of my youth. Mom saved the church-going experience for me by throwing her whole heart into the songs and hymns of the era. And yes, the incense and candles helped too.
Later, after I began going to church with dad after mom died, I understood the power of collective prayer and how it could also be inspiring - if it didn’t sound like everyone was on automatic pilot, droning on and on at a glacial pace. Sometimes mass wasn’t so much a gift, but a penance, a form of suffering I should offer up once a week and, for three years, once a day. Frustrating as it was, it would hopefully make me a more patient and tolerant person. Not the noblest of attitudes, but it worked.
Later, I met Fr. Pat, who showed me how he turned last year’s Palm Sunday palms into this year’s Easter Sunday ashes by burning them in his hibachi. And then I met Fr. Joe, who drew me in with his parallels between the ranching and farming world and the fishing and labouring world of the bible. At coffee, after a wedding or a funeral, he tabled all my complaints and questions. Often I would want a theological answer to a question about the Mysteries of Faith, and he would segue into other mysteries- murder mysteries or the mystery of the combustion engine - because he loved cars. Being a German who loved the Autobahn with its no speed limit, he was a fast driver. He hit his share of deer. He also spun donuts in the church parking lot, with the parish kids laughing in the back seat.
Nothing can replace the religious feeling - the Holy Longing - I experience alone in the wild. And I do mean “religious,” though perhaps not in the way most people perceive it. The etymological roots of the word “religion” come from the Latin “religio,” which means to “re-link,” in this case, with the Divine, the Sacred, the Holy. And, also worth noting, the word “catholic” comes from the 14th-century Greek “katho” meaning “about” and “likos” meaning “whole.” So, while I do experience a deeply religious feeling on the buttes and in the coulees of the great Saskatchewan South-West, it’s not a doctrinal nor institutional Catholic religiousness, but a small “c” catholic sense of belonging.
I thought about these things before returning to the stage with “Mother’s Apron,” which I recently performed with great glee at Grand Coteau Museum in Shaunavon. I wanted to expand on a section about a Jesuit who knew early in his life he would not be able to uphold many aspects of his duties - the primary one being the subjugation of Indigenous people. For the most part, the church carried out what it believed was its right, according to the arbitrarily titled Doctrine of Discovery- to “invade, capture, vanquish and subdue” native peoples, but this Jesuit witnessed a profound connection to Spirit. And he came to understand that life on the land was, for the indigenous, a collective religious experience.
However, he also saw that immigrants were not living with the same reverence. Partly because they did not live communally - except in church. “It is one thing to say you love humanity, “ I had him say to the narrator, wary of his presence. “But it’s another to love the next person who walks through that door. That is why we have church: because we are forced to sit beside each other, each so fearfully and wonderfully made.” Our narrator responds: “Psalm 139. My favourite psalm.” “Yes,” he says. “We all long, and we all belong.” “So, “ she responds: “Everything Matters. It’s all medicine.”
Madonna can be reached at madonnahamel@hotmail.com