a time for reflection: montreal 2026

We travel to Montreal often: at least twice a year - and sometimes more. Annually, we make a point to spend some time in the Eastern Townships of Quebec as well. It has become a place of refuge and reflection. Our first encounter occurred almost 20 years ago in pursuit of the trip hop band, Cinematic Orchestra. While in London the year before, we heard their brilliant synthesis of rap, jazz, electronica, and rock while browsing a shop at the Camden Market. Their groove blew me away. It was the heart and soul of "genre-bending" in all its transformative power. So, when the band hit Montreal, we joined them at a tiny venue, Club Soda, in a seedy section of town saturated with sex shops and souls who "only come out at night."

Since then, we've regularly returned both for inward and outward exploration. I've gone deep into a spirituality of tenderness here. We renewed our wedding vows with new rings here, explored an extended jazz sabbatical, basked in the brilliance of Lisa Fischer, Wayne Shorter, Alex Bellegarde, and studied the music of both Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. Initially, I planned this pilgrimage to be about the universal consciousness of Fr. Teilhard de Chardin and the apophatic spiritual wisdom of the Eastern Church, with a short break to celebrate our granddaughter Anna's 9th birthday. But as happens so often, especially if you're at all familiar and resonant with the ways the ancient Celtic monks made pilgrimage, a deeper need has emerged: taking another step towards making peace with the mystery of Di's multiple maladies. Those sacred sojourners of old did not have a goal or even a destination for their peregrinations; rather, they wandered freely until they sensed a place of personal resurrection and stopped to enter the real, albeit obscure blessings of that place.

In retrospect, I might have sensed this was coming. Our trip from Massachusetts to Montreal included listening to a podcast about the unexpected death of Glenn Hansard, plodding our way carefully through multiple blinding downpours, and then discovering I'd forgotten a few necessities. Earlier in the week I'd shared a conversation with two of our friends from L'Arche Ottawa about how illness can include a more contemplative rhythm within it. I know this to be true abstractly but continue to find it much more difficult to affirm incarnationally. To be sure, I've long confessed to being a slow learner who shows up late to the party, and once again that truth is taking up residence within. So, what did I read at the start of this morning's quiet time?

Like an artist who is able to make use of a fault or an impurity in the stone they are sculpting or the bronze they are casting so as to produce a more beautiful tone, God, without sparing us the partial deaths, nor the final death, which form a essential part of our lives, transfigures them by integrating them in a better plan - provided we lovingly trust God. (Teilhard de Chardin: A Book of Hours, eds. Kathleen Deignan, CND and Libby Osgood, CND)

And just so that I wouldn't miss this challenging invitation, Fr. Richard Rohr added this from his reflection on Job:

No piece of religious literature teaches the way of “descent” more daringly and effectively than the book of Job. The story cries out against a darkness that refuses to reveal itself—and a path that does not feel at first like life at all. This makes it a challenging but important text for those of us in the West who tend to resist the archetypal and necessary journey of “descent.” We have been able to manufacture a kind of “ascent” unlike that of our ancestors. Reason, medicine, technology, and speed have allowed us to avoid the ordinary “path of the fall.” Now we are unpracticed and afraid of all kinds of suffering—big and small.

And in case I wasn't paying attention, Fr. Richard Rohr adds:

If the postmodern crisis is above all else a crisis of the self, and I think it is, then the story of Job realigns the “self”—correctly, humbly, and truthfully. What both Job and Jesus seem to say is that truth is finally a person and an encounter—much more than a concept that can be argued. It is not quick or easy to encounter the true self or the true God. Both encounters require a gradual unveiling that is both sacred and full of suffering. Every movement toward union with God will feel like a loss of self-importance and self-control. We are realigned with truth when the real person meets the real God—which is exactly the stuff of spirituality, good theology, and transformation.

I guess Sheryl Crow was right...