Retirement has brought me the challenge of time and space in which to confront undone things from my youth; so, I appreciate singing, which occupies much of my heart, mind, and time this fall.
On Tuesday September 6, I started singing with the Richard Eaton Singers; and I hope people in Edmonton will come to the Winspear Centre on November 12 for our first performance – The Music of Vaughan Williams.
Then on Thursday September 8, I joined Kim to sing with the choir of SSUC (Spiritual Seekers United Community/Southminster-Steinhauer United Church); and although we have yet to sing on a Sunday morning, I love this group as well.
Finally, on Monday September 12, Kim and I started another season with Edmonton Metropolitan Chorus, and we invite everyone to come on November 27 to First Presbyterian Church in Edmonton for The Genius of Gordon Lightfoot.
I also wonder if I will arrive some Tuesday evening at the Fine Arts Building at the University of Alberta for an RES rehearsal to learn that 30 or more of the 120 of us are sick with COVID-19 and that our performances with the symphony – Vaughan Williams in November, The Messiah on December 9 and 10, a Christmas Pops concert on December 22 and 23, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah on March 31 – have been cancelled due to an utter collapse of the health system. Like most everyone else, I am hoping for OK news with the pandemic even as I fear the opposite.
I am grateful that Kim and I have had four vaccine shots, and we will take a bivalent shot as soon as we are eligible. But no one really seems to know what the future holds.
I loved the past summer. On a recent Friday evening, I dropped Kim off downtown for an art class and then headed to a west-end gathering of members new to the RES choir; and I loved the drive. First I drove through Old Strathcona — past Holy Trinity church, where I had attended an Anglican-Lutheran worship conference in 2014; to Saskatchewan Drive and the QE II park, where I had done so much hiking this year; down the valley towards the North Saskatchewan River; over the wondrous new Walterdale Bridge; along River Road, where Kim, Catherine, and I had hiked this past summer; up Groat Ravine to 107 Avenue, and west to where the orientation was held. It was a warm and glorious evening — the last Friday of the summer — and after a wet spring and a dry and glorious summer, the city looked fabulous.
Edmonton has had only one third of its normal rain this year, and the fall has begun with brilliant sunshine and heat. In the hottest summer in human history, Edmonton has seemed to be in a “climate disaster” sweet spot, and I have deeply appreciated it.
Lately, I have changed my walking routine to a 30-minute walk up and down 111 Street around our house. I start out the back door and go one block south in a laneway to two blocks of suburban ordinariness that surrounds us. That takes me to the LRT tracks, which split 111 St.; I cross them to the one high-rise east of us (Southgate Tower); and then north along a bike trail that is wondrously separated from the LRT and 111th St by trees and small hills (see photo of me above, taken by Kim on September 23, the first full day of fall. This only about 300 meters from our house!). At 57 Ave, I continue north into the more interesting neighbourhood of Pleasantview (with boulevards, more deciduous trees, and about 50% of the housing being recent in-fills); turn west towards 111 Street (and where the LRT is blessedly underground), and then behind the Lendrum Place shopping centre, beside several low-rise apartment towers, and back into our neighbourhood.
This walk is varied enough, urban enough, and nature-filled enough to satisfy my soul and to keep my hopes for improved fitness alive. I look forward to seeing how the walk evolves with the seasons.
And I sing, which helps keep my spirits up in this disastrous moment of social history. I am reading less than I thought (although I loved “Immoral, Indecent, and Scurrilous: the Making of an Unrepentant Sex Radical,” which is a memoir of Gerald Hannon, whom I met once in the 80s and who is a friend of my friend Alan Miller), and have instead starting taping programs on PBS – Nova, Nature, and especially “The U.S. and the Holocaust,” a six-hour documentary by Ken Burns et al. Quite rightly, I think, the latter draws parallels between the rise of Hitler in the 1930s and the rise of Trumpism today.
This continues to feel like a challenging time to be alive, as I gave evidence in a letter of mine, which the Edmonton Journal published yesterday morning:
“Don Braid opposes higher gas prices. What he ignores is the need to stop burning fossil fuels. This would require cities like Edmonton to become places where most trips were accomplished by walking, biking, or transit.
I would be happy if gas rose to $2 liter this year, and then doubled in price each subsequent year (rising by 4% each month) until it reached a level where use dropped by 95% — $500 per liter, $5,000 per liter, who knows?
Inflation would be terrible. But the government could get its revenue from carbon fees; rebates could help us cope; and sprawling neighbourhoods with multi-lane roads and parking lots could be replaced by neighbourhoods where people lived close to work, shopping, and friends.
We can fight inflation under the current system and suffer the terrible costs of climate disaster, or we can create a society that is denser, more interesting, and sustainable.
Ian Kellogg, Edmonton, AB”
Reaction will probably be negative. Imagine saying that climate disaster, which comes at the cost of the near-term deaths of billions, is worse than the inflationary effect of radically higher gas prices?
In the midst of intractable social problems, what can we do but sing, I sometimes wonder.
This past week has been particularly eventful. Last Sunday morning, the Rev. Nancy Steeves announced her retirement from SSUC. Her final service will be on January 22, 2023. Although this was hardly surprising given that Nancy will soon turn 65, it has left me feeling sad. On the other hand, I was thrilled with the skill and wisdom with which Chris and Nancy made this announcement. I will miss Nancy’s leadership even as I am excited to see how SSUC evolves.
Most importantly, our wonderful but elderly dog Coco has been sick this week. For some reason, her back right leg stopped working on Sunday. We’ve had Coco for nearly six years, but she is 17-years-old so her time may soon be up. Whenever the end comes, it will break my heart.
Last month, I also presided at a Celebration of Life for Mark Ehrman at Mill Woods United. I don’t want to preside at many such memorials. But given that Mark died while I was still working at the church, I appreciated being asked to lead the service, and I deeply appreciated the work the family did to make this event happen. I hope the service was of help.
Oh, and the Queen died last month. I was surprised by how sad her death left me, probably because it echoed with the deaths of my own parents — in 2007 and 2017 respectively — given that they were born just before and just after ERII.
The occasion of her death also brought to my mind one of my more controversial sermons, which among many things talked about her 90th birthday in 2016 – Past Troubles and Future Dreams.
Until next month,
Ian
The title of this blog is inspired by Holly Near’s song “Singing for Our Lives,” which she wrote after the murder of Harvey Milk in San Francisco in 1978, and which Rev. Dale Johnson brought to my mind via a memorable sermon of his at Mill Woods United on August 24.
Notes and sermons from Edmonton 