Category: “BRIGUS MY BRIGUS”

MAY THE BLESSINGS OF CHRISTMAS FILL YOUR HOMES, AND MAY BRIGUS CONTINUE  TO BE ‘ A LITTLE TOWN’ THAT  WELCOMES  THE SAVIOUR’S BIRTH.

I have wanted to make this post available for a long time, but I have deliberately put off doing so. There is a lingering fear that makes writing difficult for me. Because the I’s,  of necessity, must come so close together, I fear that it may be easy to reach conclusions, not at all my intention. But I must try now, nonetheless.

Tell me, if you possibly can, what it is about any place, pinpointed on a map with precise latitude and longitude markings, that makes claims of ownership on a person, thousands of miles from its center.

There is profound wisdom embedded in the Newfoundland Quip: ” You can take a boy from the bay, but you can never take the bay out of the boy.” But it is more than the salt spray and the unique perfume of the sea. It is the mystique of the people who lived there,  in days long gone and to this present.   Their unique essence, they pass on to others. There are things in that place a person calls home, which is more precious than all the money resulting from any journey far afield.
An observation abroad is that Newfoundlanders can be quickly identified in a crowd because their conversation soon expresses a longing for home.

I recall a line from Jack London’s famous short adventure novel “The Call Of The Wild,” which I believe comes into play in this conversation.
” There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which, life cannot rise.” Accordingly, I attribute the ecstasy of my own life to have had its origin in that place I call ‘ Home,’ Brigus, the place where I was born!

It seems to me that as a town, Brigus has that unique quality of topography, which from earliest times, sapped up the richness of good people’s lives, and in ways not entirely dependent upon human ingenuity, preserved it for future generations to know, and never permit to be forgotten.
It is at this point in my narrative that fears of being altogether too personal come into being. But as corroboration to what I have already written about the spirit of communities in Newfoundland that people call ‘Home,’ I can now do no other but to continue.

As is true in the vast majority of situations, the very first impact of the community, one calls’ home’, is transmitted by the parents to their children. In my case, it was exclusively from my mom that the first impressions of Brigus came. My mom was left a widow at 35 when my dad died after his ship, the ” SS EMPIRE BISON, was torpedoed by a German submarine somewhere in the North Atlantic. I am the youngest of seven children.

There are mainly two impacting factors that contribute to
” the ecstasy that marks the eventual summit of life,” for me. The first is my mom’s faith, and the second is the spirit of gentleness and grateful understanding of the residents of Brigus.
Let me very briefly mention a memory that I carry with me from my earliest childhood. It reveals something of my mom’s love of Brigus,  as well as her deep faith, both of which she shared with us.

A quarter of a mile, or so, from our house in Rattleyrow is a garden, consisting of slightly more than a couple of acres. This land was grandfather Curtis’s and became my dad’s inheritance. It ran north, away from all dwellings, to the foot of the Cupids Hils. Those Hills seemed always to provide a welcoming and peaceful embrace. Follow a narrow path from the top of the garden for about a mile, then loop down to join the road that leads to home again. I seem to hear my mom, even now, although I was, at that time, a child, suggest, usually on a sunny Sunday afternoon,” Come, my children, let’s walk around Jerusalem.” And away the four of us would go, two of my older siblings and me, my mom leading the way! To the best of my knowledge, this walk was known to her, alone, and then, of course to us, as “The walk around Jerusalem.”    I  know that my mom found comfort and strength in Brigus during what must have been the most frightening experience in a young woman’s life. I understand how the hills that surround this town reminded her that she was always in the embrace of God’s everlasting arms. And that she imagined the Cupids Hills to resemble in her mind the “‘Hills of Galilee’ where Jesus loved so much to be”! And, reading Psalm 48, I discovered what might well be the suggestion for the naming of our Sunday walks;
(Psalm 48: 12 – 14) reads:
” Walk around Jerusalem, go around her, count her towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation, For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to the end.

The understanding hearts and the empathy from within the boundaries of Brigus will never fade away as something ordinary. I remain eternally grateful for the encouragement the people of Brigus extended my mom and the whole family over the years.

Upon returning from school many a day, I experienced an afternoon tea in progress. Ladies from the community and various churches gathered to empathize and support the woman I was so blessed to call my mom.

The ecstasy that marks life and beyond which life cannot go‘ was not fully realized until some years following my boyhood in Brigus. That came the evening I, along with six other fellow Newfoundlanders, were ordained to the Ministry Of The Word, Sacrament and Pastoral Care at Wesley United Church in St. John’s. That evening with Vera, the love of my life, and two of our three beautiful daughters ( the third, Vicki Joy, barely one-year-old, was with the best babysitter in the world, Mrs. Ethel Rose, mom’s wonderful friend ), and in the presence of my mom, and my five sisters and my brother, I dedicated myself to the service of “The King”  for the duration of my journey. That was the ecstasy beyond which my life can never go!
It was” The Walk Around Jerusalem” and the people from home and my wife, Vera, and Vera’s wonderful family, my in-laws ( Pierce and Emma Rowsell), that helped determine my final destiny.

At the age of sixteen, I was wrestling with my future career choice. Would I be an engineer, or a teacher, or somehow learn how to deal with a persistent nagging in my spirit to be a minister?
Following summer school and completing the provincial Department of Education requirements, I began teaching the seventh grade at Clarenville Elementary School. While the experience was most satisfying, I decided not to continue in that profession. In the darkness of the night, when sleep just would not come “The Hound Of Heaven” would be in hot pursuit as I lay there.
Exposure to an entirely different academic discipline may “slow the hurrying pace of those feet that followed after!” For example, at Mount Allison University, I explored the possibility of an engineering degree! But even in the whisper of the wind, I felt the breath of God, and to feel the wind blowing my hair felt to me like the touch of His Hand!
Reluctantly, I postponed my dream of becoming an engineer for the immediate future and took the necessary steps to substantiate my claim that I was not meant to become a Minister.
At eighteen, I offered myself as a lay pastoral minister in the United Church Of Canada. I accepted an appointment to serve three far-flung congregations on the Pilley’s Island Pastoral Charge under the supervision of the Rev. Dr. A.J. Barrett of the Grand Falls United Church. I was all alone and scared, yet all the time, a haunting thought persisted that I was not alone! And I never felt more contented than I did now serving that incredible Pastoral Charge. Although I stayed with the congregations for a couple of extra years, I kept assuring myself that in the end,” this too will pass,” and engineering might yet be “the most satisfying of the three’ the presenting options.’

And then, one close, muggy evening in mid-spring, I had a more profound encounter with “The Chief. “I was scheduled to be the guest preacher at an ecumenical service on Good Friday Evening. A large congregation was present that night, contributing more to the church’s stifling atmosphere. With a pounding heart, and copious notes, carefully stacked in perfect order, I stepped into the pulpit to deliver the sermon. I had barely started on the delivery when a choir member somewhere behind me, deciding that a measure of cool, refreshing air might now be in order, proceeded to throw wide a window. In came the breeze, and away went my copious supply of sermon notes, and on came the makings for a severe panic attack. It was severe, particularly for a boy of eighteen years. Nevertheless, that very moment might have been the conclusive evidence I had been awaiting. Engineering loomed large at that moment as my future destiny!
As I stood there in the choking silence, my heart took the swiftest elevator to the soles of my feet. Then the most unforgettable experience of a lifetime was mine! I tell you, I was aware of another Presence in that pulpit with me that night! And in the quiet, I heard,
“My Son, don’t be afraid, we will do this together. Do you think that everything depends on you and your notes.”
“No, Lord, not on me,at all. Let this night be for Your Glory! I surrender all!
Some three years later, utterly unforeseen by me, I, once more, was to Pilley’s Island Pastoral charge. There now, I met the most fantastic person who became the love of my life. During my earlier years as the minister of her home Church’,  she was Nursing in Saskatchewan; therefore, we had never met. Now when I unexpectedly returned, she was there. We married a couple of years after and now have three beautiful daughters. I graduated from the Memorial University Of Newfoundland with a BA. Degree and from the Atlantic School of Theology, three years later, with the M.Div Degree. A Post Graduate degree in Divinity.
For over thirty years now, I have been honoured to serve as an ordained minister of the United Church of Canada, supported by the most wonderful family one could ever ask. This Ministry has always been a family adventure from the beginning.

To this latest hour, I cannot stand in the pulpit or perform the responsibilities entrusted to me without the knowledge that I never stand alone. “The Chief”, who so demonstratively rescued me that night so many years ago, still assures me: “Don’t be afraid, we will do this together.”
That journey is almost over now, but if I could, I would do it again without hesitation.

“The Hound Of Heaven” reference, I owe to the poet Francis Thompson and his poem of that same title.