And just like that...here we are....

​It is Sunday afternoon and I am sitting on the couch, watching a youtube video of a dog sleeping in front of a fire. The dog looks pretty darn content in their massive bed that features a prominent LL Bean logo, so I can only assume it is an advertisement for dog beds, and LL Bean in general.  Thanks algorithm!  We got a puppy the day before Thanksgiving Sunday (which is the Sunday before ​Thanksgiving if you are in church) and I have been looking up vids to help her get settled. The dog on the video is some kind of labrador retriever. The puppy is half-lab.  Maybe she will take some lying down lessons...

Of course it isn't Thanksgiving anymore. Advent started this very day!  I have to say that it took me a bit by surprise this year. We had that extra Sunday--November 26--which our church went ahead and cancelled.  However, I didn't rest exactly. There was that puppy,...and work...and the usual drama of life that left me almost completely unaware of the looming crisis of December holidays.  

What snapped me out of it was an invitation to a party on December 1.  This important date is, of course, the beginning of secular Advent. We mark the first of December by opening the first door on our calendars to get our daily chocolate or scotch, or whatever the person who gives us the calendars chose this year.  Anyway, a clergy friend held a party on December 1 to kick things off and I had to bring something.  This meant that--between dog walks--I was forced to turn on the Christmas music and make my first fruitcake of the season. This bake included the very last of the cranberry compote from Thanksgiving dinner.  The loaf I saved and "tested" for the party was pretty OK. I hope people liked the other one.

I don't have much to say about the holiday today.  However, I wanted to check in.  Advent is one of my favorite times of year and I try to give it the respect it deserves by not lurching directly to Christmas.  It is ironic, but being a church person means less Christmas, not more.  I like it that way.  It keeps everything in its time.

That said I have some Advent "gifts" for you.  Don't get excited!  They are all virtual. Also, it includes the "Yule Dog" which I didn't make and don't really endorse in any meaningful sense.

So here is the link to my "fruitcake" recipe.  I use it every year and give them away as much as possible.  Then I stop when I feel like it.  That moment usually arrives before Epiphany.  Also, below you will find my "Advent prayer" from this morning.  It is really kind of a meditation, but whatever. We had our annual sanctuary lighting today--which involves lots of readings and open flame--then we had communion.  The meditation here closed communion, which was fine.

So the video of the dog by the fire continues.  While I was writing this, the bottom half of a person came in with a classy LL Bean log-carrier, stoked the fire, and returned to pet the dog and drop off their snowy boots.  The boots, of course, are those super-ugly-and-uncomfortable "Bean Boots" that were the bane of my childhood.  I bet the dog is named after the Chesapeake Bay.  I remember lots of "Chessies" growing up.  This is the sort of set-up they would like. It kinda makes me wish I had a fireplace...and a scratchy wool blanket...and that it was snowing.

OMG!  The "dog owner" is back wearing LL Bean slippers and stoking the fire with a bespoke fire poker!  This is about as much excitement as I can handle on a Sunday afternoon in the rain.

Anyway, here is the prayer.  I need to walk my dog, who is named after a mountain in New Hampshire, which is totally different from being named after a bay in Maryland...

Advent Prayer 2023
Adam Tierney-Eliot

It doesn't start with a star
It doesn't start with hallelujahs
        and amens
It starts with stumbling through
         the dark
It starts all too frequently with loss
         oppression and
         the rocky road to nothing

Then we begin
         with a moment of desperation
         on our knees
With  crying out and  wondering if
         if our cries will be heard at all

And then it starts
        with the hands that lift us up
         brush us off
         feed us, even, and walk us into the day
We may be too tired to notice
         these hands but
         they are there
Each caring hand
         the hand of God and
         the human hands
​                        of human hope
We shudder to turn these hands to violence
We resist using them
         for selfish ends

​Advent does not begin with a star
         or an angel
         or a hymn
but begins with us
        in communion with humanity
Advent begins as stillness
  In the chaos and
                 then the stillness grows

This morning I started my pies.  You probably know why. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and there is lots to do.  We have hosted for years and--as the primary-but-no-longer-sole cook--I have a system.  With certain exceptions, the preparation for the meal goes in reverse order of consumption, which means desert first.  

Anyway, my son--who will be ultimately responsible for this dish--brought home a splendid butternut squash and some sweet potatoes from the farm where he works.  My task this morning was to reduce them to a puree for later assembly.  I have the Christmas music on.  It's somebody's attempt to reconstruct the Grant's Department Store albums on Spotify. I am mindful of the peeling and the roasting.  I am making a list of things we forgot to get in the first (and second and third) run to the grocery store.  Johnny Mathis is singing O Holy Night. I am inhabiting the holidays...yet I am also not.

I am not entirely feeling festive this year.  You see, it is a dark time in the world and it seems weird in some way to be grateful when so much is going to Hell in a hand basket.  The holidays are like that.  Even in times that seem somewhat better than this one, there is conflict.  There is pain. There is the fact ​that not everything works out the way we would hope.

Now, there is actually a way to celebrate what we have and to mourn what is missing at the same time. It takes courage, like so many things, but it's worth trying. An act of thanks in a time of oppression and evil--in a time of crises and conflict--is an act of resistance.  It is a moment where we contemplate the vastness and decide that "the Man"--those principalities and powers of our society--isn't going to get us this time.  We are stating that in the midst of struggles--whatever they may be--we will be broad-minded and open-hearted against the forces of fearful self-interest.

There is strength in looking at the vastness.  There is strength in prayer, which is really what we are talking about.
There is strength in understanding our role as part of the ecosystem writ large. This practice encourages us to set aside our own issues.  Nan Merrill's translation of Psalm 146 tell us to "Put not your trust in riches, in illusory things that fade away. For when our day comes to depart this world, at that very time, we carry only the love imprinted on our soul." That is what all this holiday-making--all this risk taking--is about.

Or, at least, that is the goal. It requires some practice. It also requires some higher order thinking to say “yes, I am grateful…but”. We are grateful but…not all is right in the world. Not all is right in our lives. We are grateful but…when we look over this broken earth, the blessings are imbalanced. Though we may be pleased with what we have, we see that there is work to be done. 

This “yes, but” is as much a “yes and” approach familiar to anyone who has ever done improv.  For in our gratitude, we are motivated to action.  This is an essential element of the move, actually.  So many people want to escape during the holidays.  So many center their own narrative and miss the opportunity to reach out.  Thanksgiving in particular is susceptible to this. As is perhaps inevitable in a secular holiday with a religious theme, our “attitude of gratitude” has too often been an act of self-congratulation masquerading as humility.

For example, as children we learned the holiday’s creation myth--all that stuff about the Pilgrims and the Native-Americans gathering together in peace--as history.  At best it is a white-washed mashup of complex events in the midst of a clash of cultures.  That “First Thanksgiving” myth was--and still is--used to prop a distinctly American theology.  It is used to privilege and elevate the story of European Americans and legitimate colonialism in the so-called “New” World.  Now, theoretically, we know better.  Still, we feel the impact of this story and of how we learned it every day.

Here is another example. It is also hard not to veer into self-congratulation in a celebration of the ability to lay out a table of more food than we can eat. When we do this, we are celebrating our riches in gratitude for a harvest that we did not bring about. We celebrate our ability to store up food for a winter that–thanks to the trappings of our suburban society–will not be a time of scarcity for most of us, after all.

We don’t want to be like that. We also know that we don’t have to be. There is a way--through honest prayer--to be grateful and still acknowledge the depth of pain in the world, in our bodies, and in our hearts. There is a way to atone, somewhat, and commit to the struggle. There is a way to bring about a better life and a better world that we can celebrate next holiday season.

Every year I share a prayer by Theodore Parker with the church.  It is called "Trials". It may not be the best prayer ever–At least artistically–but it is an authentic one. Parker was a transcendentalist, 
and a Unitarian minister who was ostracized by his fellow Unitarian clergy because of his radicalism. He had personal struggles, too. Many of those struggles had to do with his health.  He died young at 50 years of age, right before the Civil War.

In this prayer he mixed his gratefulness with the reality of his situation, facing imperfection and acknowledging responsibility. In it he speaks into where he feels he has failed. He notes the suffering he has endured but…he still ends in thanks.  He still finds reasons for gratitude.

For all the trials of my earlier day
I thank thee that they all have been
That darkness lay about the rugged way
Which I must tread alone.  For all I’ve seen
Of disappointment, sorrow, pain, and loss
I thank thee for them all. And did I sin,
I grieve not I’ve been tried; for e’en the cross
Of penitience has taught me how to win.
Yet of ills as child or man I’ve borne--
My hopes laid waste, or friends sent off by death,--
Remorse has most of all my boson torn
For time misspent ill deeds or evil breath.
But yet, for every grief my heart has worn,
God I thank thee still, trusting with a hearty faith.

So that is where we are this year. In a world of trouble and pain. We live in a world in need of our humility and our strength.  We live in a world in need of our joy and our gratitude. We need to give these things even in the face of all that has happened and all that will happen in the quest for the just and peaceful Kin-dom.

Today, I am done with the squash. I have the turducken almost thawed out. I am making plans in future days to eat both of these dishes and more besides until they are gone.  We will not wear ties to dinner tomorrow.  Things will be more casual.  Maybe--for a little while--we might talk about religion and politics until we can't deal anymore. Then next week, having been grateful for the many things we should be grateful for and having acknowledged the hard truths--or as many as we can--we will turn back to the dream of making a better world.  After all, we will have Advent to remind us, right?

May we see the imperfect world and resist despair by giving thanks for the victories, the love, and the tools for the new journey that empower us to good work and enable us to move forward once again.

A couple months ago I had to admit that my sabbatical is over. All the signs are there.  I am not zipping off to go climb mountains.  I am not writing for my own enjoyment. I am not in some expensive training. I haven't made a video in some time--though I did experiment with Tik-Tok and might go back...I guess. 

Mostly it is work now.  Church work is good work, of course, and I love being a pastor.  Still...my energy is going into that work instead of where I have put it for discreet blocks of my time over the past year. Now it is going into programs and preaching prep.  It is going into integrating what I have learned about myself and about the ministry.  Honestly the spare time that I could use for writing is spent staring out the window or watching TV.  My brain is full.  It needs time to digest.

Still, things did happen over the summer.  There was a great deal of hiking in July.  It was carefully scheduled and arranged between floods and rain.  Some of the hikes were epic and grand.  Others were pedestrian and brief...but better than being indoors.  Allison finished her NH 48 4,000 footers in July...and I have only one left.  I will say that I didn't do much filming on those hikes.  Again, my brain is full enough and I just wanted to experience them.  I didn't even really take many pictures.

Now we are back.  I am getting back to church and preparing for the big fall opening as I have for two decades at Eliot Church and half a decade elsewhere before that. However, it is hitting differently this time around. I have become a creature of habit.  I hit the gym more than I did before.  I still get out on walks whenever I can.  My garden is the best it has ever been. 

Every day there is a project. I harvest, plant, and re-pot frequently.  Occasionally I mend things. This is new. I have never been a handy person.  Now I sometimes repair, re-string and play cheap instruments at the shed table where I take care of garden needs.

The church has a great deal to figure out.  I do too.  Not the least of these "figuring" has to do with this Sabbath Walks blog.  I do not know what it will become.  I have many potential posts, though...if I can find the time. Some are about hiking.  Some about the garden.  Some are about the spiritual life.  Some about folk music. I guess we shall see won't we?  I have to do some emptying first.

Professional: This process obviously impacts my professional life. These skills are not what they taught me in seminary! Back then we were preparing for the 20th Century church. We even paused every once in a while to look back to the 19th Century with its battles both intellectual and literal.  I remember being vaguely discontented much of the time.  We were prepared for a world that was already over, but people didn't really believe it.

These are different 21st Century skills. There are plenty of areas for growth as we realize some of the "old ways" left the stage a while ago. In this case, I am learning about sound, picture, lighting, and technology. Also, I am learning different ways to put together a story. Since the life of a clergyperson has a lot to do with living into and interpreting stories--personal and scriptural--this is no small thing. We can become stagnant, after all. The new techniques and new lenses have influenced how I use the many remaining familiar tools of my trade.

​Congregational: This interest of mine is not new. I have had some kind of weblog for decades. I have made YouTube videos for years. Most of these were of sermons or the performance of various iterations of our music ministry. If you want to know who took this work seriously, just look at who is in the music vids. Otherwise it seemed that most people thought of this as a "hobby" that detracted from more sober activities.

Then March of 2020 occurred. On March 11 we decided to cancel in person church for March 15 of that year. Yep. That first online-only worship service was exactly three years ago today.

Things changed then, didn't they? Our little side-ministry gave us the ability as well as the confidence to pivot immediately. It took us minutes to form the plan that became the foundations--or the spine, or the trunk--of church life for the next 18 months. Within a couple days we had our first service "in the can" and ready to go live that Sunday morning.

We kept learning through that period, but we did not scramble. We didn't need to. Now we have moved back to "normal" and it is easy to forget what we did.

​However, we should not forget. It was our finest hour.

​These podcasts, videos, and blog posts are insurance against another time where we need them.  Yet they are more than that.  They are an imperfect window into what will come next. Increasingly, in fact, we will find that spiritual seekers will start their quest online rather than in person. These interactive technological tidbits are our front door.

Spiritual: Yes, I am doing this for spiritual reasons, too. Partly the needs are my own. However, I believe that the sharing of my own quest and questions helps to enrich a ministry. Each "platform" connects to the others in order to form a whole:

In person worship feeds our souls in real time and brings us together as a community in ways that are just not possible otherwise. Our services and events are designed to create both formal and informal settings to gather, to explore life's questions, and just to hang out without the demands of a busy world.

The Sabbath Walks Podcasts are designed to augment this experience. Most of them are under half an hour long. The goal is to put them on headphones or a speaker in order to connect once again to the spiritual element of life. We can take time for these topics while driving to work, or cleaning the house, or (even) hiking or walking around town.

While The Sabbath Walks YouTube videos are relatively new, this technology has always been a popular extra for us. We used to share the musical performances quite a bit in the before times. Most of them did double duty as hymns during the plague. We reached the peak with weekly worship. Now I am trying out some other topics and styles. Each is an attempt, though, to reach out and show how the spiritual interacts with our everyday existence.

Finally, we are steering our way toward workshops and walks. These will be--and have been--in person. There are many ways to worship and be worshipful. The "future church" whatever it may be, will need all the ways we can muster.

That is all for now. Feel free to explore the links to our online resources. In the next few days I will try to curate them a bit for another post here. I have no illusion as to how often they now are or ultimately will be visited. The various counters and measuring sticks tell me that even when they get "liked" in a Facebook post, they aren't always interacted with.
​
They are there, however, for when you need them. Perhaps that isn't today. Just remember that they might help you out some time. The Sabbath Walk isn't just for Sunday, after all.

​This sabbatical year is a good time to experiment with these things. In fact, we have already started. There are lay readers and guest preachers who change the sound and look of who we think a worship leader can be. We have experimented a little with different forms and rituals, too. Still..there is more to do.

As you know, I am a big fan of inclusive language, for example. During my time away from leading worship I will be looking at some of the words we still use in this place. How can we broaden the Lord’s Prayer so that everyone can see themselves in God? How can we find and sing hymns that speak to our own experience? How can we pray our prayers, responsive or otherwise in a way that reflects our own broad theology?

We must also ask how we include people whose busy lives do not fit the time or form of Sunday morning.  We are ​not going to “win” a battle against youth sports and family ski trips. People are busy.  They feel the pressures of the lives they–we–have fallen into and a change of lifestyle or schedule that frees up Sunday morning is too much to ask for a first step.  Our job is not to close doors through our perceived judgment and disappointment–and that is how many see it–but instead to open doors that they can find their way to enter. Therefore, we will be thinking once again about Dinner Church, Sabbath Walks, and Pub Theology.  We need to find a path for ourselves to understand that these are not “add-ons” we do as well as worship, but forms of worship themselves.

So... promised some links.  Here is this sermon in the form of a podcast.

This sermon worked of the previous one.  Here is the podcast for "The Church is Dying...and Being Reborn"

Hiked on February 14, 2023

This was a spontaneous hike.  Thursday's weather looked hideous as usual and I wanted to see the sun!  I decided, therefore, to hit Route 2 and head over to the High Ledges Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary on a Tuesday to catch the view.  I had been saving it for a perfect day...and this was pretty close.  The loop I chose was around 5 miles and featured an undulating landscape with a small mountain, a fire tower, a valley, and some hills.  The snow was fairly compact to start and then it got loose as the air warmed it up.  This made footing a bit of a challenge...and I brought out the micro spikes.

I could use the workout though.  There has been quite a bit going on.  The church is wrestling with some big questions.  Finally, I have a few weeks of sabbatical starting soon.  I will give thought to the church's questions then and add in a few of my own....

I say all this now because hikes like this are a series of small decisions.  This week on a Tuesday I decided to get up and get going.  I decided where to go.  There were all kinds of micro decisions that helped me to focus on the day. How would I get there? Would I do both the out-and-back to the tower or just the ledges themselves? Was this a good use of my time? How would I deal with the vagaries of weather?

Also, on this trip, I decided to do some more extensive filming.  It has been a while.  Many of you are aware of my interest in 21st century communication.  This weblog is part of that.  My podcasts are as well. For a long time I was into making youtube videos of sermons, church news, meditations, music and--during the plague--entire worship services.  Sometimes this meant collaboration.  At other times I worked on them by myself.  I got into it through a series of small decisions that brought me joy.  A series of small decisions may bring me back...or maybe they come to nothing.  It is too early to tell.

If we use the model of "Sabbath Walks" that I write and talk about here and elsewhere, all of these endeavors--these choices made and sometime pursued--fall into the category or "frame" of dialogue or creativity. On this hike, for example, the choice to film meant stopping and starting; recording sections of trail, talking to the camera while imagining future viewers, editing after getting home while re-living the excursion, and improvising a soundtrack.  I had to make decisions about equipment.  If I keep doing this there will be more decisions to make as some things may need replacing.

There are many little steps. After all to even get to the point of recording there was research. There were skills that could use some improvement through repetition.  That said, I am learning. While this decision may not lead to anything more, it just might...probably in surprising ways.  After all, nobody thought the skills I learned from my "hobby" would help hold online worship together during the early months of Covid.  Ultimately we found somebody more skilled. Of course, nobody thought that the skilled person we found would be a beloved former member of the D&D Club and the Snow Posse who had moved away.  Decisions keep on rippling out, don't they?

Anyway, I have included the video.  I think it is pretty good for a first attempt!  I also started a Sabbath Walks YouTube page that you can subscribe to to get notifications.  Just click on the video above and hit "subscribe." I may decide make more of these moving pictures.  We shall see.  Both I and the church are looking for ways to communicate.  Perhaps this is the way.

Here is to your decisions and dialogues.  I hope you have found something to bring the sabbath "walk" to life regardless of what it is or how you go about it.  Many blessings on your travels until next time.  I will see you out on the trail.

Hiked on February 2, 2023

Somewhere along the way of this project, it appears that at least a few people got the impression that I am particularly rugged or outdoorsy.  I am not of course. I am just a suburban dad transitioning to empty-nester with a bad back and sore knees.  I prefer a room and a bed--preferably my own--to a tent or sleeping platform. It is just that I find the Transcendent in nature, and that helps get me through the week.

I have been doing some workshops on Sabbath Walks.  I have been pitching them as "mindful walking" workshops because the word "sabbath" appears to make some folk uncomfortable.  Maybe it is because "sabbath" is a religion-word.  I like it better, though, "mindful" is way too broad.

Anyway, It is at these events--and the conversation around them--that I have noticed this disconnect.  People will come up me to say it is all very interesting...but they cannot go on a big hike.  Usually this is for physical reasons, which I totally get.  The only issue is that I am not talking about hiking.  I am talking about walking and even that has more to do with sitting.  The process is all about perspective and intention.  Are you paying attention to the world around you?  Are you letting your experience influence your understanding through reflecting on your context?  Then you are more than good.

Actually I haven't gone on many big hikes lately.  Work has gotten in the way.  So has the weather.  I do get out every week but all of my Sabbath Walks in 2023 have been in Massachusetts.  It is a good thing that we have so many great opportunities to get out in nature here!  Yes, it will be hard to cultivate "likes" in the same way when the views are less dramatic and the physical effort may also be.  That said, I have enjoyed immersing myself in the land close to home. 

Some of the best hikes lately have been repeats.  I trundled up Mount Watatic again and again.  The Graces and the Crow Hill Ledges still stand out.  One of the best walks I had was my usual four-mile round-trip stroll downtown...but at night.  This made all the difference. 

What I really want to talk to you about though, is the Assabet River Wildlife Refuge.

I have to say that ​I only recently really clued into its existence.  I went over there because the weather in New Hampshire was turning dangerous and I also had the need to find something more accessible for a group Sabbath Walk in the spring.  As I mentioned earlier, people think that these walks need to be challenging.  They do not.  I was--and am--searching for places where a person could walk a few feet to find a pretty place to sit. If they wished, they could move on for a more challenging workout...but they wouldn't have to.  When you are in a group you need both "easyish" and "hardish" options, so everybody gets what they want or need.

Now, on this hike  I had expected to see wildlife...and I did.  What was surprising, though, was the large amount of evidence of previous human habitation! Many of the trails were unusually wide and there were patches of old, cracked pavement in places.  Also, right where I parked was the foundation of an old tavern dating back to 1700.  However,  the most remarkable thing was the proliferation of immense concrete bunkers tucked away in the forest.  Each had a massive metal door that was barred and locked like some dystopian Hobbit hole.  Since my trip I heard from friends who had been in one.  The description seems to fit as they appear bigger on the inside. The one they visited was vast, cold, and oppressive.

Now, I later learned that there were 50 of these bunkers in the park.  Therein lies a story. First, of course, this land was wilderness. Then it was occupied by native Americans. Then, as Europeans came to this continent, it was a neighborhood for a long time.  That is where the old tavern came in. Later Henry David Thoreau would pass through to visit friends.  In fact, it stayed a agricultural community until 1942.

Then, as the Second World War heated up, the land was seized by eminent domain.  The people were moved. There were about 100 of them and they claim their compensation was 10 cents on the dollar. Their houses and the tavern were destroyed.  In their place were  those big bunkers, to store ammunition for Fort Devens.  After a while this annex was sealed off and abandoned. Finally, in 2005, it was opened to the public.  When I told this story in church and asked if anyone had been there only my eldest son raised his hand.  His high school cross-country team ran there.  Otherwise it is a new park to pretty much everyone I know.

As you walk along its trails today there is all this evidence of the past.  There are so many layers of humanity.  Some of those layers tell peaceful stories of life lived in the usual ways.  Others tell stories of fear, displacement, and violence. 

Now, the story of this refuge can be read as a parable. With any good parable we have choices to make about how we approach it and where we see ourselves in it. We can imagine ourselves in the position of The Native Americans, or the early colonists, or the neighborhood right before the war...all of them swept away.  Perhaps instead we could see with the eyes of those massive bunkers stubbornly demanding our place in the midst of the wilderness. They are solid, powerful, obnoxious even…but largely irrelevant to the world moving around them.

Or…we could see ourselves in the refuge, itself; adapting to our current context to serve current needs and connecting to the ecosystem that sustains us.  Whatever we choose--and at times we have probably felt ourselves in all these categories with more besides--this walk reminds us of the fullness of time and the power of creation to alter our understanding of what "truth" is. 

It is a thoughtful place for a walk, or a sit, or a stand. I spent a couple of hours there.  Then I went to a bar and wrote the beginnings of a sermon--here is the podcast version--with this story as its inspiration.  That is what is supposed to happen on a sabbath walk.  There should be a physical and mental challenge, then a new insight gained and a dialogue created.  We make sense of our reality through reflection, after all.

\My step counter says I walked 8.5 miles and there was much more to explore. I will definitely be back there soon.

Thoreau actually wrote a poem about travelling though this area.  The Old Marlborough Road exists as a road outside the preserve, but inside it continues as a perimeter road to the park.  I hiked it.  It was mostly quiet, with a few strollers and fat bikers.  Anyway...here is the poem. It isn't necessarily one of his best, but it helps to give life to the people who used to live there. Also the page describes the area a bit. In my sermon I said the refuge is in Sudbury and Wayland.  Of course it is actually in Sudbury and Maynard. After twenty years living here my geographical references are still those of a Mainer.  By way of reparation, the link is to a Maynard historical site.

Update: ​I finally got around to making a video of my most recent hike here.  So if you are interested...here it is!

Hiked On January 12, 2023

One of my mentors in ministry told us that on his sabbath days he would put his canoe on top of his truck and drive it through the middle of town. Sometimes he would take his canoe fishing, which is what everyone assumed he was doing. Sometimes he would just paddle around and go home. Sometimes, though, he would drive his canoe to Bangor for a bagel and a coffee with friends...and maybe a trip to the seminary library.

He told this story to convey four things. First, that the people of Maine are all pantheists at heart. As a Mainer born and raised I can confirm that this is true. Second, that people may not always respect your "off" time but will do their darndest to respect your sabbath time. Third--and this is where the canoe comes in--in a town of pantheists, a canoe on your truck means you are fishing...and fishing is sacred. Finally, the lesson was that you are best off leaving the parish come sabbath-time.  That way folks will not be able to get in touch with you as easily.  Also--more importantly--you will be away from the things that draw you back to your labors.