On Sunday afternoon as Carolyn was offering leadership during the Sunday Gathering I was behind the scenes making sure that the livestream was functioning well. I was scanning the stream stats, the bitrate and bandwidth meters and watching the message box for messages about the quality of the sound and video. As I was doing this Chris Meaney was bent over the soundboard moving sliders, turning knobs and pushing buttons working to improve the quality of that which we cannot see but has significant impact on our experience: sound.
Chris doing his magic…
Jennie and I have a running joke: I sit at the soundboard to do a soundcheck and say to Jennie, ‘There is a deaf guy at the sound board.’ That’s me.
Jennie and Chris hear things that I’ve never heard and as I listen to them I am learning a new vocabulary: fader, DCI, EQ, treble and reverb and list goes on… so much that I don’t know!
And I wonder, if this is true, that there is so much I don’t know in respect to a soundboard, something manufactured in mass quantity, how much more true is it, that that there is so much I don’t know about lives lived in different cultures, in skin of different colours?
On Monday morning I attempted to post an ad on Facebook about our service on June 21st during which we would highlight National Indigenous Peoples Day #NIPDCanada. The ad included the hashtag for the event, an image from a government of Canada website and the words racism, colonialism and white privilege as it is my intention to explore these topics in the service and the reflection. The ad was rejected with the following explanation “Your ad may have been rejected if it mentions politicians, topics that could influence the outcome of an election, or existing or proposed legislation.” I requested a review of the decision and was informed that I would need to complete an ID confirmation to run an ad about social issues, elections or politics. I’ve begun the process for the necessary ID confirmation, and in doing so, I gained another level of appreciation for the experience of those, who because of the colour of their skin, are stopped with greater frequency, questioned at greater length and assaulted and killed more often, by the structures and systems that are supposed to protect them.
And still, there is so much that I don’t know… maybe the best thing I can do is shut up and listen?
Faithfully,
Lloyd
Looking Ahead
Yesterday was divided between working with Chris in the sanctuary as he continues to refine the sound in the sanctuary and on the livestream, responding to a couple of pastoral concerns that began on Sunday afternoon (and kept me from the last Seekers group) and beginning to work on the liturgy for this coming Sunday. I also managed to squeeze in a couple of pastoral visits and a Zoom meeting.
Today I am in the office this morning and have two Zoom meetings before heading to the hospital to do pastoral visits. Rasta is looking forward to this morning as he has a walking date with Geoffrey Patridge!
Wednesday will see me back in the office in the morning working on the reflection for Sunday with pastoral visits scheduled in the afternoon followed by the regular Grounding Meeting for the Executive at 6:30PM. Thursday will be more of the same.
Friday and Saturday will be days off punctuated with a special meeting of the 43rd General Council on Saturday afternoon. The primary purpose of this special meeting is to consider a recommendation to delay the meeting of the 44th General Council for a year due to COVID-19.
And on Sunday I look forward to joining with all of you and others from across the country to mark National Indigenous Peoples Day and welcome Rogan and Sarah as new members. Carolyn will preside at the service, I will preach, the Harper Family is lighting the candle and changing the light for us, Andrea Beverley will be offering a Godly Play story and I am confident that Jennie and Edward will bring music to uplift and sustain us all! See you at 10AM on Facebook Live!
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