‘We rise again’
Traveling all the way to Ontario for a bean supper may seem a bit much. But Emily and I, with daughters Joan and Patricia, did just that.
This was no ordinary bean supper. For the past several years the Lund/Murray clan residing in Ontario have gathered annually for an old-fashioned Maritime bean upper, storytelling, and general conversation and hilarity. It provides a great opportunity to keep in touch, bond family connections, and introduce new partners and children to the clan and its connections.
Our flight was not without excitement. All went well until the Porter turboprop was landing at the Island, Billy Bishop Airport.
The wind was high and gusty. The plane bobbed up and down, side to side, and tilted this way then that in sudden, jerky, motions.
As it neared the runway the wing tip seemed only a few feet from the ground with the plane at a precarious angle. However, somehow it straightened out enough to stay on the runway. The pilot stepped through the cockpit doorway as we were going out. He seemed unflustered and raised his hand when I congratulated him. I guess it is everyday stuff for pilots.
The bean supper has mostly to do with the history and customs of the Murray offspring of Anderson and Anetta Murray, of whom I am a son. Here the lore of the old days is remembered and passed on. Of the four original children, only my brother and I are left. Mary Violet and Lois, our two sisters, have died, much too young at 50 and 63. Lois was married to Kenneth Lund who, with his present wife, Mary, carries the family banner and is the chief push in keeping the several generations in touch and together.
They were behind the bean supper idea.
Twenty-two of us gathered in the Lund cottage on a beautiful lake near Bobcaygeon, where my brother Walter and his wife Juanita live. Walter is the main lore-keeper and storyteller of the family.
When all were gathered, and before the din of the gleeful conversations got out of hand, Walter introduced a story from our childhood days, and on it goes from there. We trigger one another’s memories, and story upon story pours forth. And all have their stories – some from the cousins of happenings that we parents, thankfully, never knew about. The grand meal, with which all the locals had a hand in preparing, was enjoyed, libations flowed, and on it went into the night. Ten of the 12 cousins were there.
The only two missing were my daughter, Deborah, minister in Winnipeg – too busy a time to come – and John, working with the UN in Vienna – too far. Two of Juanita and Walter’s grandchildren, Charles and Laura, added another generation. We had a fun, and soul-sustaining time.
As the Rankin Family song says, “We rise again in the faces of our children.” Gathered in the Lund cottage, we were quite aware of that. My generation is in the “dangerously old” stage. We will pass on and the next generation will take over talk of the olden days when they were young.
Families, clans, communities, countries gather to celebrate who they are, where they have come from, with perhaps a glance at where they might be going. Canada, for example, is celebrating her 150th anniversary – and I’ve been around for over half that time.
It is gatherings and celebrations of all kinds that carry on the flow of human life, and give us energy and vigour for the future.
This is resurrection time in the Christian tradition. Last Sunday was Easter. Many of us have given up the idea that a dead body got up and walked around again. That is a carryover from our traditional belief in magical and supernatural happenings. There is nothing supernatural about Jesus’ resurrection.
His resurrection is a psychic/ spiritual happening, a powerful model of how the influence and reality of a person carries on. Christians carry on his spirit and presence every Sunday. Even if he is not the supernatural, divine, figure of our traditional understanding, he is the supremely human model of the influence a human life can have.
As with all our communal gatherings, we enjoy and celebrate our common humanity. We are part of the great flow of the human venture, and in larger view, we belong to and are part of a grand evolving Universe.
I’ll drink to that.