I am not sure if it was all the unresolved pastoral concerns we were leaving behind, or if we were all burned out from months of preparation, or if it was some kind of spiritual premonition. But whatever it was, on the morning that we left for our two-week Ontario deputation tour and cross-Canada voyage last April, we were all in tears.
Neither Linda, Chelsea, nor I wanted to leave the morning of April 27. We all felt terribly vulnerable. In much trepidation, we packed the last of the stuff for the trip on the morning of our departure. I was checking the house for any last bits of musical equipment that we might need and I passed by Chelsea's piano. Somehow I knocked an item off the top of the piano and it fell behind. I crawled up on the piano, wedged my head up against the wall and tried to peer between the piano and the wall to see what it was that I had knocked off. Wedged between the piano and the wall was Great Grandpa Charlie's little old Haida basket. One of his parishioners had given it to him about a hundred years ago when he was a missionary amongst these coastal people. Knowing if I left it there I might well forget where it was when I got back from our journey, I went through considerable antics to retrieve it. That being done, I placed it back in its place on the piano top and turned to get
back to my sorrowful and reluctant packing.
Something stopped me dead and seemed to say: “Go back to the little basket.” Not being one who is particularly prone to spiritual nudges, it was strange and out of character for me to comply. But I did, and stared at the little basket.
It was like an inner voice said, “See?” And I did, almost instantly, See. I began to giggle. Linda and Chelsea came from where they were doing their last-minute preparations and stared at me.
“What's wrong with you?” Linda said. “Get on with it, man. We've got to get on the road.”
“Right,” I chortled, “I'll tell you as we drive.” About an hour later, after some prayers and tears, we started down the road. As we drove, I said: “So, do you want to hear what had me giggling back there?”
“Do we have a choice?” Linda said, her eyes still blinking back tears.
“Probably not,” I said. I proceeded to tell how I had knocked off Great Grandpa Charlie's Haida basket from the top of the piano, and how after I retrieved it, it seemed to communicate something to me. I told how I stood there gawking at the basket remembering how God had led my great-grandparents to leave their safe homes in merry old England and drag their family to live as missionaries at Cape Scott on the most northern tip of Vancouver Island amongst a few Scandinavians and a whole mess of cougars (this time I didn't tease Linda, who is Norwegian, about the cougars being the friendly residents). I told how I realized how God had been with Charlie and Agnes through it all, most notably Charlie's frequent mission trips up and down the treacherous coast of B.C., which included one sinking off Haida-Quay and a thousand near misses as he ministered amongst the isolated coastal communities, including the Haida people where the basket had come from. I told how it came to me,
clear as a bell, clear as spoken word, as I stared at the little basket, that God was saying to me, “David, if I could handle all of that journeying for Charles and Agnes in the days of horse and sail, I quite possibly can handle your little trip across Canada in your day of high-tech diesel pickups and fancy travel trailers. Get over it, get on with it, I am with you.”
God speaking to my trepid little heart as I stared at that Haida basket not only encouraged my faith greatly, but the way it did made me giggle. I felt my story so connected to the likes of Joshua and numerous others in the biblical story. Over and over again, God calls people to take some simple thing and set it apart as a memorial. For Joshua, it is stones from the middle of the Jordan River (Josh. 4:22ff). For others it's an altar perhaps, or broken bread and poured-out wine. The point is not in the memorial itself, but that the memorial would cause the deeds of God to come to life again on the lips of His people. The memorial was about telling. And so spoken, these deeds of God, with and on behalf of his people of the past, would speak powerfully into the lives of his current children to give them courage and hope and faith to go on.
And so we went on, all the way to Ontario and then to the Maritimes. My best friend Jim died suddenly and unexpectedly while we were away on our trip. We found out about it via cell phone. The shock of Jim's death was devastating, but to find out about it in the middle of Montreal traffic, a city I had never been in before, whilst dragging a 26-foot travel trailer, dealing with traffic signs in a language I don't speak and drivers who like to signal with both hands; well, it defies description. But what defies description more than anything else was that in all the years of our friendship, one in which we talked at least two or three times a week, I had never taken the time to clearly tell Jim about God and me; about what God was doing with me and for me and through me. Yes, he knew I was a Christian, of course he knew that. And he even knew quite well what I believed as a Christian, the theology and doctrine of it all. But I never really and clearly told him why I
believed what Christ had done and was doing in my life. For some reason this personal telling seemed too difficult for me. The occasion just never seemed right.
And you know, it would have made such a difference at so many levels to tell that story. I wonder now if a few stones or a basket or something would have helped? Some kind of talking memorial thing that would have caused Jim to say, “Dave, what do these stones mean?” Something that would have given me the occasion and reminder to say, “Jim, do you want to know what these stones mean?” I am sure it would have been the catalyst for telling the story about God and me, a kind of talking memorial. It would have meant the world to me to tell that story. I am pretty sure that it would have meant the world to Jim too.
