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Four Topics that Challenged Me in 2023

I can hardly believe that we are about to end a year and launch a new one. As I reflect on 2023, four topics stood out as ones that consistently challenged me.

THE MESSY MIDDLE 

In this increasingly polarized world, there are very few spaces where people can dialogue across difference. This can quickly lead to the de-humanization of the ‘other’. Though it can be uncomfortable, I want to spend time in the messy middle. I want to co-create opportunities for us to learn from one another, to understand what informs our choices, and to develop empathy for the challenges and trauma experienced by others. I believe this helps to remind me/us of our common humanity. I also hope that this can lead to increased advocacy and support for the people and places that desperately need it.

CHANGE IS HARD AND GOOD

I have been reminded in 2023 that change, even the best kind, is hard. For example, after years of doing The Dale’s Monday lunch as a meal-to-go, we got a space to move back indoors and re-launch our drop-in. For some members of the community this was a return to something they knew well, except in a very different location; for others it was a first, knowing The Dale only through the pandemic; for the staff team it was both exhilarating and exhausting, a dramatic shift from our well-established routine of the last 3.5 years. What became clear very quickly was that we couldn’t just replicate what was in the past, not because we changed our values or vision, but because this was a new time and a new place. Change for us required being gentle with ourselves, and the community. We are still settling in, each week feeling better and better. Change, though hard, is also very good. 

NO ONE CAN DO EVERYTHING

This is a lesson I have been learning my whole life. There were days in my teens and early twenties when I tried to do too much because I thought it was required, not just to be “successful”, but to be loved. I have learned along the way (through struggle, crisis, therapy and my faith) that I am beloved not because of what I do, but simply because of who I am: a child of God. It’s not always easy, especially when there are so many things to do and battles to fight. The Dale team will attest to the fact that I talk a lot about choosing what we can do, and then working really hard to do it well. One of the greatest gifts has also been discovering the gift of partnership and community: when we rely on and support the gifts of one another, so much more happens.

SABBATH IS A GIFT 

To some the notion of Sabbath (in order words, intentional rest) feels either like a punishment to self or to others. If I stop, then I won’t get through my to-do list. Or, if I stop it will potentially come at a cost to the person who relies on me. Or, if I stop [fill in the blank]. Stopping can be scary- at least it has been for me. After years of practicing Sabbath, I have discovered that all of the things that made me worry about it have not been the issue. Stopping actually enables me to get through the to-do lists. Developing a plan for the people who rely on me has meant we both learn to rely on a broader community, and we both learn of our capabilities. So, what is the issue? It goes back to that basic fear that I have to earn love by doing. Sabbath reminds me that I am no one’s saviour and that life carries on without me, both humbling and freeing truths. 

On the cusp of a new year, I am challenged by these words of Henri Nouwen, “Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love?’ These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will be many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” As I consider these questions, I also hope for more opportunity to sit in the messy middle with people who want to do the same (let’s get another Story Day happening friends!), to navigate change with gentleness and persistence, to work hard at the things I can do and remember that we can do more together than on our own, and to rest. May we all be strengthened with hope for peace this coming year. 

Posted on by erinnoxford · 2 Comments

Beatrice

My mother-in-law Beatrice died this morning. She hadn’t been well for much of this year, but we also didn’t expect her death this weekend. I know that Dion and his two sisters Joy and June feel relief that she is out of pain, while being very sad about her parting. No matter how familiar death has become to me, it always initially takes my breath away. It’s hard to believe that Beatrice is gone. 

I remember first meeting Beatrice. I was nervous. Dion and I were dating and while he’d met nearly all of my family, I had not met much of his as they were mostly in Newfoundland. I wondered how she would feel about this “mainlander” girl from Toronto. Dion and I arrived at his childhood home and waited for his mom, who needed to leave work and come home for lunch. She immediately greeted me with a hug, admitting that she was likely as nervous as me. We shared our first cup of tea that day- Tetley, with canned carnation milk- just the way she liked it. 

I learned very quickly that Beatrice was meticulous in the way she kept her home. She had different tea towels for different dishes (“Erinn, you have to use a cup towel for that my love”). Twice a year she would empty out every kitchen cupboard and carefully wash each item. She would even clean the underside of her kitchen table by crawling underneath it. We would tease her about all of this, to which she would laugh and promise that she was never going to change. 

In the 25+ years that I knew Beatrice, I always got a birthday card (early) in the mail, signed “with love and prayers”. She would send us a big box of things every Christmas in the mail too, which included, among other things, jars of homemade jam and her baked goods (she knew each of our favourites). When Cate came along, the mail only increased. Beatrice loved being Nanny to her granddaughter and often lamented that we didn’t live closer.

Faith was a fundamental part of Beatrice’s life, a life that was accompanied by a lot of challenge and loss. I know that Dion’s illness broke her heart. She faced all of it by clinging to Jesus. I remember the way that she and my mom connected about this. They knew hardship, and they knew what it was like to have God draw close. Beatrice loved to sing at church, regularly telling me how the music would lift her up. Just yesterday Dion, Cate, Joy and her husband Max (they are actually visiting us and helping Dion to feel not so far away) and I sang her Great is Thy Faithfulness via a video call, a song that was her testimony.

After my mom died, Beatrice told me that while she knew there was no replacing Elaine, I would have a mother in her. It is a sad thing for me that she is now gone too. I also feel so much for Dion and his sisters, knowing what it is like to lose a parent, and for the rest of Beatrice’s family including her own sisters. As I’m always reminded, grief is not a linear journey. It can force us to examine the complexity of our relationship with the one who is now gone, accompanies us even when we don’t want it to, and though it changes, doesn’t go away. What a relief though that hope can permeate it all. 

Beatrice, I will miss you. Thank you for bringing Dion into the world. Thank you for welcoming me into your family and even making me an honourary Newfoundlander. Thank you for the countless meals. Thank you for your thoughtful gift-giving, which included many things that you made by hand. Thank you for the walks along the river in Springdale and through the ravine in Toronto. Thank you for your faith. Thank you for our shared laughter. Thank you for loving Cate deeply. And thank you for loving me. I look forward to one day sharing another cup of tea.