Author: Roland De Vries

Some years ago, I was introduced to a remarkable piece of music composed by J.S. Bach – the fifth movement of his Partita in D minor for solo violin (called the Chaconne). As with so many of Bach’s works, the Chaconne easily captures your heart; it has a way of lodging itself in mind and imagination. The piece is by turns pained and playful; dissonant and melodic. It sometimes rushes on almost to the point of stumbling and at other times strides smoothly towards its resolution.

Praise to you, O living Word, for you give the gift of our world. You are the creating one through whom ancient Laurentian mountains have their craggy existence. By your imaginative power, forests of black spruce, larch and balsam grow along ridges of granite and gneiss. By your gracious creativity, lynx and porcupine make their fleet-footed or lumbering way through habitats long called home. “All, at a Word, has become this almost overwhelming loveliness” (Margaret Avison).

The #MeToo movement is having an unsettling effect across Canada – we might go as far as to say that it has been a source of some turmoil. To refer to this turmoil, however, is not to criticize the movement or to undermine its importance. Indeed, we can only be grateful to those women who have wrestled with the question whether to publicly disclose the sexual abuse they have experienced – grateful to those who have faced personal turmoil in the wake of such disclosures. Their willingness to take this step has been in the service of constructive, cultural change.

In these few paragraphs I have said both a great deal and also almost nothing at all: We can say that man is, but we cannot say much of what he is or might become. I’d venture that the most important thing to be said about man, and to each man, is along these lines: “Your life is hidden with Christ in God. Become the man you are in his compassion, joy, strength and service.” What more important thing could be said?

Woman is not and cannot be defined by, or in relation to, man. As Luce Irigaray would put it, throughout history woman has become his opposite, his helper, his complement – defined by and in relation to him. She has thereby been prevented from becoming her own self.

To be the church is to live confidently in Christ; it is to know who we are in him. But to be alive in Christ is also to dwell at precisely the point of intersection between God and the world that God is redeeming in Christ.

My days of posting, commenting, liking and sharing on Facebook are over. My account has been deleted, the app is gone from my iPhone, and the social media site is almost nowhere in my life. After years of almost daily engagement on Facebook, there is little regret, and almost no looking back.