Book Review: The Watch That Ends the Night

The Watch That Ends the Night

Author: Hugh MacLennan

Publisher: Macmillan of Canada, paperback, 373 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author

John Hugh MacLennan (1907-1990), was a reputable Canadian author and professor of English at McGill University, winner of 5 Governor General’s Awards, and a Royal Bank Award. He was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. He wrote several novels and non-fiction works. 

The novel’s title comes from the hymn by Isaac Watts, “O God, our help in ages past,” which Watts based on Psalm 90:4. 

The novel begins during the first winter of the Korean War. The place is Montreal. The main characters are George and Catherine Stewart. George was a political commentator on the radio, and a freelance writer. Now he lectured part-time at the university. Catherine was a painter. She had been married before to a surgeon, Jerome Martell, and they had one daughter, Sally. He had been a close friend of George. After not hearing from Jerome for around a decade, George and Catherine believed he had died in a Nazi prison camp.

Catherine had been handicapped since childhood with a rheumatic heart. In the last few years, she had almost died from it. So each day George and Catherine were aware of the sobering reality that it could be Catherine’s last. 

In Part One of the novel, one day George received a phone call at the university from Jerome Martell, whom he believed had died around ten years earlier. However, Jerome’s life was spared because he was a surgeon. He spent time detained by the Russians, and later was sent to China. Eventually he was freed, and now he arrived back in Montreal. Jerome told George he wanted to see Catherine and Sally. 

Part Two goes back in time, when George was seventeen, and he has just come home from a long canoe trip from Port Arthur to Georgian Bay. He then introduces his parents, sister and aunt Agnes, as well as when he and Catherine fell in love with each other. They both decide to study at McGill. However, because of Aunt Agnes’s influence and deliberations, George did not go to McGill; and his relationship with Catherine ended until several years later.

Part Three fast forwards the reader to Montreal again. George is hobnobbing with federal politicians in Ottawa. George, reflecting on the meaning of time has these thoughts: “What is time anyway? The past seemed part of the present today. Time had lost its shape. Time is a cloud in which we live while the breath is in us” (p. 90).

As Part Four begins, George tells of his past, when he lived and worked in Toronto in a bank and studied and obtained a degree. During those ten years, George states: “I lost my faith in religion; I lost my faith in myself; I lost my faith in the integrity of human society” (p. 107).

With an honours degree in history from the University of Toronto, George was able to find work teaching at Waterloo school for boys. He describes the backgrounds of the other teachers.

Part Four also focusses on George’s relationship with both Catherine and Jerome Martell. Both of them share personal details about themselves with George. Jerome, having fought in World War I, has this to say about the capitalist system: “Wars are the inevitable products of the capitalist system. We’re all compelled by the capitalist system to become murderers” (pp. 167-168). Jerome confessed to George that he had killed eleven men with a bayonet. In a state of psychological shock (likely post traumatic stress disorder), Jerome couldn’t speak for several weeks. 

Part Five consists mainly of Jerome telling George about his childhood. After his biological mother was killed, he was adopted and raised by the Reverend Giles and Josephine Martell in Halifax.

Part Six describes the demise of Jerome as a reputable surgeon, thanks in large part to the press’s negative coverage of a riot Jerome participated in; the exposure of his affair with nurse Norah Blackwell; and his subsequent resignation from the hospital.

One of the impressive features of this novel is MacLennan’s creative, poetic and mystical descriptions of the natural world. For example: “April had turned into May and the world was bright and clear: cool air and warm sun, a powder of buds on the hardwoods, fields skunk-cabbage green against the heavy viridian of spruce and fir, the muscles and bones of the land visible as an athlete’s under the light dust of its first verdure. All the waters were cold, and crossing the bridge at Sainte-Rose I saw the wash of the river coming around the northern curve of Montreal Island with eddies as smooth as the backs of enormous jellyfish” (p. 262). 

Also in Part Six, Jerome leaves Montreal for Spain because of his communist-leaning political convictions, and the loss of his reputation as a surgeon, and the unlikelihood of finding another job.

In Part Seven, Jerome returns to Montreal after twelve years of being tortured by the Nazis and imprisoned in concentration camps in Poland, Russia and China. Everyone had thought he had died, but he had survived all of his sufferings. He has one last visit with Catherine, and tells her that he was most likely going out west, and would not see her again.

After Jerome’s visit, Catherine ends up in the hospital. George is beside himself, and goes into a long monologue lament about God’s seeming lack of justice, theodicy, and the meaning and meaninglessness of life. He interestingly cites portions of the Genesis creation account, 1 Corinthians 13, and Job. Catherine seems to be lingering between life and death.

In the Epilogue, Catherine after taking a long time to recover from a surgery, has a second surgery, and recovered from it as well—although it had weakened her and she was slowly dying. George eventually becomes more peaceful and content. Both George and Catherine come to view life as a gift. The novel ends with the Latin phrase: nunc requiesce in me (now rest in me).

Overall, this novel is somewhat autobiographical: for example, in real life MacLennan was not happy teaching at Lower Canada College, nor is George happy in the novel teaching at Waterloo School.

In this review, I have left out a detailed description of several of the rather intense and lengthy conversations involving the main characters concerning several personal, political, philosophical and theological, etc. subjects of the day. I therefore commend the novel to readers to discover them. 

Book Review: Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life

Nine Essential Things I’ve Learned About Life

Author: Harold S. Kushner

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf, hardcover, 171 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

At the time this volume was published, Harold S. Kushner was rabbi laureate of Temple Israel in Natick, Massachusetts, having long served that congregation. He is best known as the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In 1995, he was honoured by the Christophers, a Roman Catholic organization, as one of the fifty people who have made the world a better place in the past half century, and in 1999, the national organization Religion in American Life honoured him as their clergyman of the year. Rabbi Kushner is the author of a number of other popular books. 

Contents

This volume consists of a Preface, nine chapters—the titles of which reveal the themes addressed—and “A Love Letter to a World That May or May Not Deserve It.”

In his first chapter, Lessons Learned Along the Way, Rabbi Kushner states that even though he enjoyed studying and learning the centuries-old Jewish traditions at Jewish Theological Seminary; he realized that his congregants’ questions could not be answered by what he learned in seminary. He learned that traditional Jewish theology needed to be reformulated to address questions about God, suffering and the meaning of life and forgiveness. “When I was ordained a rabbi at age twenty-five, they told me I was ready to go forth and teach. The truth was, I was at best ready to go forth and learn” (p. 16). 

In God Is Not a Man Who Lives in the Sky, Rabbi Kushner goes into some detail about the God he does and does not believe in. When he prays the traditional prayer that God is one, he believes that “God embraces all polarities, male and female, young and old, scolding and forgiving. Everything—all polarities—finds its place in God. “God is one” means something like “God is all” (p. 24). He does not believe that one has to beg or bargain with God. Rather, God is with us to help us do what we need to do as we journey through life. 

According to Kushner, God Does Not Send the Problem; God Sends Us the Strength to Deal with the Problem, genetics, chance, and bad luck are the cause of problems. “And God cannot make the problem go away, no matter how many prayers and good deeds we offer. What God does is promise us, I will be with you; you will feel burdened but you will never feel abandoned” (pp. 48-49). I do not completely agree with the rabbi on this. Sometimes God answers prayer, and works miracles. Sometimes our problems are due to/caused by our or others’ sins and evil in the world. Sometimes we do feel abandoned. 

Rabbi Kushner, in his chapter titled, Forgiveness Is a Favor You Do Yourself, cites examples of the necessity of forgiving in order to prevent the offending party from continuing to victimize and having power over the one who is offended. He cites the story of Joseph as an example. Forgiving someone does not mean you are excusing the offending party for what they have done. Rather, the person who forgives does not have to live as an angry victim for the rest of their life. 

In his chapter, Some Things Are Just Wrong; Knowing That Makes Us Human, the author makes the case against Original Sin, and for Original Virtue: “...the uniquely human gift and burden of being able to know right from wrong, good from bad” (p. 94). He is sceptical of the Christian view of inherited guilt and shame from Adam and Eve. Rather, he claims that human babies are born with a sense of good and bad, fairness and empathy. 

According to Kushner’s chapter Religion Is What You Do, Not What You Believe, unlike Jesus who taught that sin comes from the heart, the rabbi states that lustful thoughts and feelings are not sinful until they are carried out in deeds. 

In his chapter, Leave Room for Doubt and Anger in Your Religious Outlook, Rabbi Kushner emphasizes that doubt and anger are not expressions of the lack of faith. Rather, they are expressions of faith, citing Jeremiah and Moses as examples.

In his chapter, To Feel Better About Yourself, Find Someone to Help, Kushner, commenting on Hagar and Ishmael in the wilderness, renders Genesis 21:18 as follows: “make your hand strong in his.” He adds, “You will make yourself feel stronger by reaching out to someone else” (p. 137). 

In this chapter, Kushner cites Dr. Sherwin Nuland’s insight that he learned from his grandmother: “Knowledge refers to know how to do something; wisdom means knowing when and whether to do it” (p. 139). 

In his chapter, Give God the Benefit of the Doubt, the author provides a comparison of several translations of Genesis 15:6, and then offers his interpretation of it. He favours the rendering Abraham trusted or believed God rather than trusted in or believed in God. Abraham trusted God’s promise that God would fulfil it in the future. According to Kushner, because Abraham trusted that God would keep his promise, Abraham was able to offer Isaac as a sacrifice in Genesis 22. 

Out of Abraham’s trust of giving God the benefit of the doubt, Kushner suggests there is a “theology of not-yet” (p. 162). For Kushner, this not-yet theology is one where the world is not as God intended it to be. However, when people of faith work together: “...to bring about the day when what should be, will be” (p. 169). 

I leave it up to readers of this review to read this volume, if they wish to discover the contents of Rabbi Kushner’s love letter. 

Although I differ from Rabbi Kushner on a few subjects, I do appreciate his many insights, wisdom, knowledge and compassion, which have grown out of five decades of faithful ministry. 

Book Review: Rediscovering The Celts

Rediscovering The Celts: The True Witness from Western Shores

Author: Martin Robinson

Publisher: Fount an Imprint of HarperCollinsReligious part of HarperCollinsPublishers, paperback, 204 pages

The Author

At the time of publication, Dr. Martin Robinson was Director of Mission and Theology for the British and Foreign Bible Society. He also authored Sacred Places, Pilgrim Paths and numerous other books.

Contents

This volume consists of a Preface, twelve chapters, as well as a helpful Glossary, and Select Bibliography. 

Brief Observations

Dr. Robinson’s interest in the Celts began when he was 10 years-old, while visiting the Isle of Iona, and later when holidaying in Wales, encountering Celtic place names along with the spiritual history there. 

The author provides a history of the origins of the Celts from various European nations, and their migration to France, Britain, and Ireland. “We can say with some certainty that by approximately 1,000 BC the Celtic peoples migrated from east of the Danube into central and western Europe. 

Between 450 to 600 AD, the Celtic nations were converted, which laid the foundations of Celtic Christianity. Celtic missionaries influenced England. 

Martin of Tours established the first monastery in the West at Poitiers around 360, and at Tours in 372. The Celtic monasteries in Britain and Ireland were modelled after those established by Martin of Tours.

Celibacy was not compulsory for monks, nuns, priests, bishops and abbots. An abbot’s son or nephew sometimes succeeded their father or uncle. Monasteries emphasised caring for the poor and offering hospitality. Children of kings and the nobility became monks and nuns. They were respected by the nobility, and Christianized pagan traditions. 

Druids lost their influence in Celtic society because it was based on oral tradition, whereas the monasteries introduced written tradition. Columba was a Druid prior to becoming a Christian. 

The Romans never conquered northern Scotland and Ireland. There were differences in the ways the Celtic and Roman churches worshipped. The Celtic church baptized by immersion, the Roman church by pouring. At first, adults were baptized in the Celtic church, and later infants. The Celtic church celebrated the Lord’s Supper with both kinds, the Romans with bread only. Church year festivals were observed differently. Fasting was observed 3 times a year in the Celtic church, in the Roman church only once—during Lent. The tradition of saints and sacred places developed in the Celtic church. Blessings were important for every aspect of life. In the Celtic church, abbots at times had more authority than bishops, and bishops relied on abbots as their advisors. 

“From the earliest days of Celtic Christianity, holy men and women have been inextricably connected with the role of scholar.” (p. 88) Study, intellectual learning, and preaching were all an integral part of missionary work. The Celtic methods of biblical study and their regard of the Bible’s authority led to a biblical theology affirming: the unity of the canonical scriptures, interpreting the Hebrew Bible in light of the New Testament, understanding the scriptures in light of the Trinity, the practical application of the Bible, and more literalistic approach to the Bible, as opposed to an allegorical or symbolic one. 

Celtic Christianity encountered God in creation in similar ways as Eastern Christianity, and the Celts were inspired and influenced by the Psalms. Miraculous events in relation to creation also influenced and inspired Celtic Christianity. For example, Columba was believed to have calmed the sea. 

Women in Irish law were given rights (not in the twenty-first century sense) that do not seem to be prevalent in some Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. For example, they had inheritance rights. 

Dr. Robinson discusses ‘what if’ scenarios concerning the waning of Celtic Christianity, and ‘what if’ Celtic Christianity had been more successful than Roman Christianity. He emphasises the importance of Celtic missionaries and missions, especially in rural, pagan Europe. He also assesses the issue of romanticizing the Celts as well as such events as the victory of the Romans at Whitby. He concludes by reflecting on what can be learned from the Celts.

There have, of course, been many books written on the Celts over the last few decades. This one is, for the most part, an attempt to present a balanced view of Celtic Christianity. 

The Weekend in Black and White - June 3, 2022

 

                                  The river in spring

                        For Weekend in Black & White

Book Review: 100 Views from This Seat

Author: Leroy Seat

Publisher: 4-L Publications, paperback, x, + 200 pages

Reviewed by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson

The Author 

The Rev. Dr. Leroy Seat served as a Baptist pastor, he earned his PhD in theology from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and was a Baptist missionary in Japan from 1966 to 2004. His doctoral dissertation was titled “The Meaning of ‘Paradox’: A Study of the Use of the Word ‘Paradox’ in Contemporary Theological and Philosophical Writings with Special Reference to Søren Kierkegaard.” He was full-time professor at Seinan Gakuin University in Fukuoka, Japan from 1968 until his retirement in 2004. Professor Seat served as Chancellor of Seinan Gakuin from 1996 to 2004. He also taught as an adjunct professor at Rockhurst University from 2006 to 2014. In his retirement years, since 2009, Dr. Seat has been a blogger at: The View from This Seat: Reflections about Life, Love, Light, and Liberty (the 4-Ls).

Contents

100 Views from This Seat contains a selection of 100 out of his 800 blog posts, with a wide variety of topics, dating from 2010 to 2020. Indeed, as a blogger myself, that is how I came upon Professor Seat’s blog, occasionally leaving comments on his blog posts. The book is divided into the twelve months of the year, each month includes eight or nine blog posts that were not chosen in any particular order. The blog posts address serious religious, ethical and political subjects. 

In Appreciation

One of the factors that has always annoyed me about the academic world is, among some academics—certainly not all of them!--a sense of superiority and snobbery. In reading Professor Seat’s blog posts, I have been delighted to learn that that is not the case! I truly appreciate his clear, concise and hospitable prose, which reflect his academic learning as well as his faith. Even though he, at times, addresses controversial issues, he avoids engagement in character assassination and other disrespectful commentary. 

In this review, I have chosen to focus on three blog posts, which hopefully stimulate readers to purchase this volume, and/or visit Professor Seat’s blog. 

One of his blog posts is titled Baptist with a Small “b,” (pp. 29-30). He cites the Schleitheim Confession, which, among other things, referred to a rejection of violence and capital punishment. Over the years, Dr. Seat grew increasingly uncomfortable within the Baptist denomination because of their movement further to the right politically. In July 2012 he and his wife became Mennonites. 

A second, informative blog post, titled In Praise of Toyohiko Kagawa (pp. 101-102), is one of my favourites. Even though I have previously read about Kagawa several years ago, I found it interesting that he, among other things, developed trachoma while living among the poor, was involved in founding the first Japanese labour unions, and visited the U.S. in 1941 as a peace activist, attempting to avert war in the Pacific. 

The third blog post I appreciated was titled, Remembering Søren Kierkegaard, who influenced Professor Seat. He mentions Vernard Eller’s book, who “emphasized that real Christianity must include “radical discipleship,” to use Eller’s words.” (p. 170) Professor Seat highly recommends Charles E. Moore’s book, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, which highlights Kierkegaard’s thought, is a compilation of certain exerpts and aphorisms, and enlightens readers on the practical living out of the Christian faith. 

Conclusion

As a “retired” pastor and professor, Leroy Seat continues to be an active blogger, writing about a variety of contemporary issues. I encourage readers of this review to purchase this volume at Amazon for the reasonable price of $5.95, and to visit his blogsite here.

The SingAble Elements Participatory Performance Art Project

 

                          Four of the original members of SingAble-Yours Truly wearing beard

From the beginning, four years ago now, I’ve enjoyed singing in our local SingAble Choir, conducted by Dr. Ardelle Ries, and accompanied by Dr. Roger Admiral on piano (an excellent husband and wife team). We were also accompanied by The SingAble Elements Band. SingAble members passionately celebrate diversity, inclusion and collaborative creativity. We meet every Tuesday evening, at the Faith & Life Chapel, Augustana Campus, and sing for about seven or eight months of the year. 

Our most recent concert called, “The SingAble Elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air,” was free of charge, although those attending were encouraged to bring a donation for our local food bank. The SingAble Elements included music compositions, songs, poetry, movement, improvisation, photographs (three of mine were included in the project), and oil pastels on canvas. It was a celebration of and appreciation for Earth Month-April. 

The exploration of the four classical elements: Fire, Earth, Water, Air was influenced by one of Canada's esteemed composers R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021). He achieved an international reputation as a composer, an educator, environmentalist, scholar and visual artist. At Simon Fraser University, with grants from UNESCO and the Donner Canadian Foundation, he set up the World Soundscape Project for the study of the relationships between people and their acoustic environment. Readers can visit his Soundscape Composition Portfolio here: and learn more about soundscapes here: and read more about the composer here.

I was quite inspired and amazed at how well our program came together on the night of the Participatory Performance. The program consisted of four soundscape compositions for each of the four elements by local composer, Thomas Merklinger, and twenty songs. The photographs and paintings were also displayed. The audience seemed quite willing to participate in singing the songs along with the SingAble Choir. All-in-all, it made for a wonderful, joy-filled, inspiring evening! We love to sing because we are able! 

Wordless Wednesday: April 6, 2022

 

                                                                                        Underpass mural

                                      For Wordless Wednesday