Ed Olfert

Recently, another of my old aunts died. Aunt Anne was the oldest of my dad’s sister, but younger then my father, who was the eldest. The Olfert family was a large one, with six boys and six girls. Three sisters and a brother remain.

Aunt Anne was a grand old lady, who carried the Olfert trait of great determination. Her life was often not an easy one. A long time widow, she had also buried two of her children. In an age when farm women usually found enough to do with parenting and raising a large family, Aunt Anne chose to find full time work off the farm, in addition to managing family affairs. She did it all well.

My strongest memories of Anne are of her determination (there’s that word again) to create family. That included the myriad nieces and nephews that filled her home on the weekends that she was free of her town work, and could host extended family on Sunday afternoons. If you shared genes with her, you had a fierce ally.

At Aunt Anne’s funeral service, the large contingency of Olfert cousins, my generation, offered a testimony to her importance in the family. This group, about thirty in number, aged about 50 to 75, are somewhat loud and indecorous, and we enjoy our times together, At the reception, cousin Terry, who has no need of a sound system, suddenly shouted loudly. When attention was turned his way, Terry pointed out that we seem to have the biggest and best reunions at either weddings or funerals. He then asked the hall full of people who was going to volunteer to be next!

The crowd chuckled appropriately, as appropriately as Olferts are able. Then, in the moment that followed, Aunt Tina, Anne’s sister, slowly made it to her feet. Another aged sister, Margaret, joined her. These two grand old ladies stood, with twinkles in their eyes.

I giggled for an hour or so. That’s a testimony to who these sisters are, solid, strong, peaceful women, who take just a little delight in outrageousness.

On the drive home, another reality occurred to me, one that brought comfort. These two old mentors, aside from providing this quirky offer to their family, these two old ladies are living and sharing a spirituality that is strong and good. They are ready to die, when the future goes that way. They have lived well, have loved well, and are simply at peace with whatever lies down the road. Their view of God, of the afterlife, is simply one of confidence and peace. It will be good.

Years ago, I sat at the bedside of a dying man. I didn’t know him well, and had been asked to make a pastoral visit. These are visits that I typically appreciate, offering assurance and hope, listening to important final stories. But this man was not in that space. With great spiritual agony, he recounted to me the children, grandchildren in his family who had not yet made a profession of faith. His guilt was insurmountable; he had failed in his life’s task.

I don’t know if my words of comfort resonated in any way with that anxiety laden soul. I do know that as I left his room, I felt a surge of anger at whatever institution, whatever individual, had filled this haggard man with this bizarre and guilt ridden notion of God.

I’ll go with the plain and practical faith of the old aunts. Aunt Tina was my Sunday School teacher in childhood days. Her understanding of the holy, her version of the Biblical stories, were filled with a theology of “yes.” Yes, God loves you, yes, God loves all people, and living that is what it means to live well, to live faithfully. Tina is loved because her energy is directed to building up, not tearing down.

And Margaret. Her husband told a story of driving down a highway, encountering road construction. Soon he was fuming, why don’t they work differently so they don’t have to disrupt traffic so much! And he recalls Aunt Marg making the gentle observation, “oh, they probably have their reasons for doing it like that.”

Give me gentle. Give me patient. Give me wise. Hopefully. I will approach death with confidence, and maybe with a little twinkle. The ones who come after can party!

The past weekend has been…exhausting. Delightful, enlightening, hilarious, touching. But exhausting.

The stars lined up in such a way that we kept our youngest grandchild here for the weekend, seven-year-old Jaxon. Usually, if he is here, Jaxon is accompanied by his two older brothers. This weekend, eldest was in the mountains, snowmobiling with his dad. Middle son was home, helping mom with a 4H booth at the curling rink. We got Jaxon.

In fact, just now Jaxon meandered down the hall after his shower and asked what I was doing. I told him that I get paid to write stories. Whereupon he excitedly insisted that he could write on the computer, and knew some stories, and would anyone pay him. That’s kind of the way it’s gone.

“Excitedly” is the operative word for the weekend. How that much energy, impishness, and creativity can be packed into Jaxon’s wiry frame astounds me. I have a greater respect for the weariness that I see on his parents’ faces.

When we picked Jaxon up yesterday, it seemed good to head to the Saskatoon Family Fun Expo. Between Jaxon and his grandparents, there’s not a lot of extroversion present, so the huge crowds were a bit overwhelming. But then we found the bouncy castle. On circuit one he shed his coat, circuit two it was the hat, and three meant time to lose his bunny hug. And still his face grew redder.

Every time Jaxon slid down the chute that marked the exit, he made quick eye contact to assure himself that opa was still present and in he charged again. To see our beautiful fair skinned fair haired boy in this massive crush of children of every hue and ethnicity was moving and delightful.

After that, we joined other family for a meal. But Jaxon was restless, eager to head to our home where he could unpack the bag of toys that he had selected for his days here.

To help Jaxon pass time at the restaurant, I gave him my phone to play with, and he quickly found his way to the Kijiji site, and started his teasing about the green tractors that he loved, and the red ones that I am historically connected with. That’s been on going since he was three.

When we finally arrived home, Jaxon defined to us which bags we would carry into the house, and which he would drag in. He chose the toys. A farm was created, with several yards placed in different rooms. He pointed out to me, only a little condescendingly, that he had brought one red tractor.

At one point, Jaxon decided that we should move to the garage to work on the old Snow Cruiser. I was game, but when I picked up the first power tool, he disappeared. Obviously smarter then his opa, Jaxon abhors loud sounds.

The teachings of Jesus make it quite clear that there are important spiritual learnings to be gleaned from children. I tried to hold that in the back of my consciousness as I related to this whirlwind of energy. There is a freshness, a trust, an honesty that knows no bounds in a young one raised in a good place. There is courage to explore new experiences, to offer outrageous observations, to insert wisdom untainted by historical agenda. If you aren’t comfortable with honesty, better not spend time with this boy!

As I write, Jaxon waits for his turn at the keys. He asks if I’m being distracted by the movie he and grandma are watching, because he doesn’t want me to be delayed.

There is wisdom, certainly, in the call to “become like children.” In the innocence, there are gifts of truth, gifts of energy, of creativity, and gifts of trust. All of these gifts are dependant on children being raised in a community of care, of affirmation. It is almost frightening what the sponges in those small brains do soak in. But it’s a good fright, a fright that encourages us to live openly and gently.

The bickering over the red and green tractors Jaxon finds on my phone may lose its charm. But it remains a way to relate, to tease, to delight.

When Jaxon heads home tomorrow, the exhaustion will, as always, be mixed with awe.

In this still new(ish) year, I find myself searching out new(ish) challenges.

My brother and I have been trading off shifts driving a dump truck in Saskatoon, which is still cleaning up after the great Christmas Day ‘22 snowfall. Re-inserting myself into the truck driving culture has been a delight, a culture which mostly communicates with words where only one adjective can describe a shocking variety of nouns. I have moved in and out of trucking culture most of my adult life, and am at peace there. I have relearned that where heavy equipment is involved, walking within a stones throw of said equipment results in your work gloves smelling of diesel for the rest of their natural lives. If you are as charmed by that as I, perhaps there’s a career shift ahead for you.

Besides income, another attraction that draws me into this unique community is to simply be reminded how men relate in the workplace. (We are gender exclusive to this point.) Out of a perhaps peculiar sense of spirituality, I occasionally insert a twist into the conversation around the time clock as the crew gathers in the shop, puffing, drinking their Tim’s, telling tall stories.

A young man stands beside me, lighting his smoke, offering tobacco around, as we wait for the rest of the gang to arrive. He is the skid steer operator on my crew, the one responsible for chasing after the heavy loader and trucks, scraping up any snow that has escaped us. I point out to him that I’m envious of his skill maneuvering his machine in tight quarters around heavy trucks. He is a very good operator. My family culture has taught me that skilled operating of machinery is a highly valued quality. Equally, holding such skill is a reflection on the integrity of the operator. I see by his reaction that this is a highly unusual thing to say in this context. The men are warm and friendly, but offering direct affirmation calls forth a response not dissimilar, perhaps, to striking someone with that diesel infused work glove. There is a look of shock, a slight bit of recoil.

Then my young man reacts warmly. After we exchange names, (his is somewhat unusual and I tell him I have a nephew with a similar name,) he launches into a history of that name, what it means, how it describes him, what the Greek roots suggest. I know that he is my new best friend when he later asks if my brother and I are twins. It’s the highlight of my day. My brother is ten years my junior.

Offering affirmation changes relationships. This is a lesson that was driven home to me in decades of church ministry, decades of prison ministry, decades of relating to marginalized folks everywhere. Offering affirmation lightens conversations, lightens them to provide room for humour, which is always a fine addition to any communication. Affirmation creates spaces between words, spaces where trust can begin.

In the Gospels, as the story is told of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the voice of God comes onto that scene, offering affirmation. “This is my child whom I love.” Though we are well versed in that event, and preach and hear sermons on it, the activity of offering affirmation to another has somehow been largely lost, especially within the male gender. Certainly, in my growing years, I cannot recall hearing affirmation from my father, probably a reason why that relationship always felt complicated. Occasionally, we may step outside that unwritten rule, perhaps in a church setting, but to offer affirmation as one person to another in the context of real life, as in the workplace, is, in my experience rare.

We are created holy. We are gifted beings. We bring unique gifts to every community, every relationship we are a part of. As my partner Holly often reminds me, “Say good things to others before they’re dead!”

We are children of God, beloved by God. Go forth and offer that to others. Include the skid steer guy.