Building physical and spiritual homes in God’s world
Review of "A Sort of Homecoming."
In the 1960s and 70s, Calvin Theological Seminary counted among future Christian Reformed Church pastors not a few who ranked anti-Vietnam War demonstrations higher than class attendance. We wanted to “change the world.” I remember how Professor Henry Stob did not oppose social justice, but often sternly criticized public protests that could turn people into thoughtless mobs. Thus, his oft repeated admonition, “If you want to change the world, first plant a garden.”
It seems impossible to quantify how much Brian Walsh has changed the numerous worlds he inhabits. A Sort of Homecoming, though, eloquently witnesses to colleagues’ recollections of and appreciation for the fruitful gardens of local and societal biblical justice that Brian has planted over the decades. Together with a still-growing cloud of witnesses, Brian has envisioned, planted and nourished gardens of hope and action far from his and partner Sylvia Keesmaat’s home in Cameron, Ontario.
A unique FestsChrift
Homecoming is a lovely and unique Festschrift, a genre normally given entirely to scholarly essays in a specific academic discipline. Since Brian has inhabited and encouraged numerous homes in his life and career, Homecoming fittingly mixes academic articles with personal reflections on a few of the homes which the authors have found or founded, all the while inviting the spiritually or physically homeless to settle in and welcome others.
Brian did not merely plant gardens. Instead, he and Sylvia, along with many apprentice gardeners, have planted an entire FARM near Cameron. They continue to restore the ecosystem in that part of God’s world they have stewarded for the last 17 plus years. Such mega-gardening eloquently testifies to Genesis 2:15’s mandate to “serve” Eden. Not unlike Brian and Sylvia’s life and work, this seriously whimsical collection of essays, memories and stories winsomely breaks the rules of the Festschrift genre.
Sampling the garden’s fruits
Choosing which of Homecoming’s chapters to discuss meant ignoring many of the book’s gems – and each is a gem of compassion, insight and continuing devotion to Walsh’s vision of our true home of biblical proclamation. Twenty-one authors offer an astonishing variety of experience from different vocations and places on the planet. Their ages span some 60 years, fitting confirmation of Walsh’s multi-generational reach.
The late Hendrik Hart’s opening essay, “Jesus as the Face of God,” takes readers on a tour of persons’ encounters with Jesus in John’s Gospel. Hart briefly analyzes the responses to Jesus of: his mother at Cana; the paralytic healed at Bethzat’ha; the rescue of the adulterous woman; Jesus’ post-resurrection, Spirit-breathed commissioning of his disciples to forgive sins; his three questions of denier Peter and his restoration at the Galilee shore breakfast; and Nicodemus’s wonderment upon meeting Jesus. Hart pulls those episodes together to show “the unqualified fullness of God’s glory incarnate in Jesus: full of forgiveness . . . . [for Jesus’ followers to experience] that God pursues us with nothing but goodness and mercy with grace upon grace.”
Anglican Priest-Missioner Jamie Howison of Winnipeg evocatively recalls his disruptive move from the century-old house that was home for 18 years. Though he loved the new condominium near Winnipeg’s historic industrial district, leaving the old home brought tears after purging some 500 books from his library; later he realized that he missed only two of them. I recalled late Christian Courier editor Bert Witvoet’s response, after asking him how the move was going from his and Alice’s home for 40 years to a smaller condominium. “Once we started picking books, we realized we hadn’t touched most for years. Our attachment to all manner of other stuff soon melted away.”
Howison notes that Jesus had no place to lay his head and depended on others for hospitality. Thus, opening Howison’s new home to others became a foundational duty. Our family moved often through six nations over 50 years. Concerned about our daughters feeling like vagabonds, we intentionally made each neighbourhood a home. Whether we lived in a place for a one year or 21, as now in St. Catharines, we planted gardens, invited neighbours and were invited back. Brian and Sylvia have done that on a grand scale at Russet House Farm.
Former Toronto City Councillor Joe Mihevc’s experience-based essay examines the demographic changes that the city continues to plow through. He cites burgeoning ethnic and religious groups changing the city’s (literal) complexion and spiritual loyalties. Because these changes are occurring during an unprecedented housing crisis, Mihevc challenges religious leaders to engage deeply in inter-faith dialogue and to work with Toronto’s underfunded Community Housing Corporation for affordable social housing. As is common to all the essays in Homecoming, Mihevc clearly articulates that finding “home” is a deep-seated spiritual need and continuing challenge for faith leaders.
Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin and Jonathan Chaplin’s essay “The Power of Public Art” highlights another area corresponding to Walsh’s vision. They examine the murals in once violence-ridden Bogside neighbourhood of Derry, Northern Ireland. This “People’s Gallery” is an intentional collection of often disturbing subjects, aimed at keeping “The Troubles’” history from social amnesia, though some politicians disapprove.
The Chaplins dig deep into England’s history in Northern Ireland, focussing on Protestant economic control that contributed to oppression and poverty of the majority Catholic population, who were “worried less about territories and borders than about housing, work and food.” They hope the murals will provide a communal “space of safety and open conversation to deal with the past.” There too, serious conversations among community and faith leaders might help build the road to lasting peace and reconciliation.
Homecoming’s final essay by Sylvia Keesmaat rehearses the history of the Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg (aka “Mississauga”) people on whose ancestral land Russet House Farm sits. In “Home Is Where the Wild Rice Is,” Keesmaat tells how “the harvest of wild rice is crucial for creating the bonds of kinship and community.” In a bold re-imagining of Daniel 1’s story of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, she links Nishnaabeg history to Judah’s Babylonian captivity. Her compelling analogy of the Trent-Severn Waterway construction harks back to Nebuchadnezzar’s order that the young men eat Babylon’s food. That waterway brought dredges, locks and dams, depriving Indigenous people of salmon and wild rice (manoomin). Today’s cottagers, while claiming to respect native rights, intentionally destroy swaths of wild rice tediously reseeded over decades.
Keesmaat offers no easy solution, but re-phrases Leviticus 25’s Jubilee commands. She relates that to Zacchaeus’s salvation, when he recognized in Jesus’ self-invitation to dinner his own need to repudiate the Roman Empire he served to exploit fellow Jews.
I’ve touched only a few of Homecoming’s fine essays. Readers, buy the book, read the pieces by Rod Clapp, N.T. Wright, James Olthuis, Beth Carlson-Malena et al. to help find your own Home before and when Jesus returns.
