A
Cogeco Television Program
Profiles: People of Faith
- A
weekly half-hour series of interviews with
men and
women in Kingston about
their spiritual journeys
- 24 episodes
were aired during Fall-Winter 2004-05
Hosted by Prof. Bill James, Profiles: People of Faith is a co-production of TVCogeco and the Department of Religious Studies at Queen's University
Broadcast Schedule:
Fall Series 2004:
15 Sep: Elizabeth Macdonald
22 Sep: David Fiske
29 Sep: Theologos Drakos
6 Oct: Peter Hubert
13 Oct: Justin Lewis
20 Oct: Sylvat Aziz
27 Oct: Chris Walker
3 Nov: Kellye Crockett
10 Nov: Bert Horwood
17 Nov: Vivian Lee
24 Nov: Elizabeth Greene
1 Dec: Alia & Murray Hogben
Winter Series 2005:
26 Jan: Daniel Elkin
2 Feb: Nadene Grieve-Deslippe
9 Feb: Ed Call
23 Feb: Val Michaelson
2 Mar: Anthony Meagher
9 Mar: Joan Fast
16 Mar: Lincoln Bryant
23 Mar: Kamala Narayanan
30 Mar: Fergy Wilson
13 Apr: Georgina Riel
20 Apr: Gen Kelsang Thekchen
27 Apr: Irene Wilson
15 September 2004: Elizabeth Macdonald
The Reverend Elizabeth Macdonald, Sydenham Street United Church, was a broadcast journalist in the Yukon, living a secular life when she returned to the church after experiencing the sacred in nature.
Elizabeth Macdonald discusses her call to the ministry, her concern for issues of social justice, and her experience of being a woman in ministry.
Sydenham Street United Church Website is at http://www.ssuc.org/
22 September 2004: David Fiske
David Fiske, founder of the School of Tai Chi and Esoteric Arts, grew up in South Africa where he studied law.
David Fiske practised Transcendental Meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (guru to the Beatles) for over ten years. Then he turned to Tai Ch ibefore establishing his own school.
David Fiske:
"I found someone who I recognized knew more than me who was a wonderfully warm person, full of fun and after six months of meditation I went to this course in Hofburg, Austria and I had profound experiences there. My kundalini energy burst into my head with an absolute flood of ecstasy. ... I said 'You have to help me' and I collapsed. So [they] carried me up six flights to the Maharishi’s room and I was just chuckling away and they said I was just about weightless. For six flights they could hardly feel the weight of my body."
Go to www.esotericarts.org for further details. Telephone David Fiske at 613-376-3981
29 September 2004: Theologos Drakos
Father Theologos Drakos of Kingston's Greek Orthodox Church shares his upbringing within a Greek family in Canada. His father before him was also an Orthodox priest.
Theo Drakos talks about Greek Orthodox practice and ritual, and reflects on the relation between religion and ethnicity.
Theo Drakos:
"When I was about fifteen I knew that I wanted to be a priest. But before that ... I was struggling in between a priest and a teacher. I enjoyed both but I realized that as a priest first of all you could do both, you could teach, and secondly that as a priest certain things are more important in life and I think that God and the striving towards theosis [i.e., salvation from sin] is very important and being there for your people is very important. Just as being there for your children when you are a teacher is important. But I think on a priestly level it is a different level and I enjoyed that a little bit more."
The website for the Greek Orthodox Church of Kingston is http://www.koimisis.com
Peter Hubert is Assistant Pastor at the Third Day Worship Centre on Sydenham Road, an evangelical and non-denominational church.
Peter Hubert relates his experience of the Christian life growing up in Alberta in a Mennonite Brethren family. His mother's example and her death played a large part in his life in ministry.
Peter Hubert:
"But I made God a promise when I was probably about fourteen or fifteen years old. I remember looking at a blank wall, because that’s how I felt, I felt blank. I couldn’t see purpose and destiny, but I knew that I was trusting God, but I just couldn’t see it. So, I made God a promise. I said: 'God, if you give me a family like I don’t have, I’m going to help as many people as I can.' And when I saw that God was keeping his end of the bargain, with a beautiful wife and beautiful kids–very, very small–at the age of 28 I went full time. And I went full time helping people to the best of my ability."
The website for the Third Day Worship Centre is at www.raisethestandard.org
Rabbi Justin Jaron Lewis is leader of Congregation Iyr Hamelech, the home of Reform Jews in Kingston. He is also Director of the Jewish Studies Program at Queen's University. Born and raised Roman Catholic, Justin discusses his experience as an adult convert to Judaism.
Phone (613) 533-6359. The Iyr Hamelech website may be found at http://cd003.urj.net/
Justin Lewis:
"I had been happy being self-identified as an agnostic, but I had realized ... that I was really a religious person. I hadn’t stopped believing in God and I wanted a context for that–a community. And I had moved ... to Toronto and was meeting Jews really for the first time. I was meeting people–writers, artists, creative people–many of whom happened to be Jewish. So I was drawn to their cultural identity, to what I glimpsed of their religious tradition. I really was looking at a number of religious identities for myself: Wicca, Hinduism. Judaism partly for practical reasons seemed more accessible. I wouldn’t stand out in the Jewish community as I would in, say, Hinduism. I was drawn to the sense of tradition in Judaism and to the strength of the community."
Professor Sylvat Aziz is a practising artist and professor of painting and drawing in the Department of Art at Queen's University.
Sylvat Aziz compares life as a Muslim woman in Pakistan and in Canada, with special reference to a post-9/11 world. She discusses the wearing of the veil and religious identity in relation to her own artwork.
Sylvat Aziz:
"I don’t think any religion would respect my intelligence like Islam does. No religion in my opinion would give me common sense as much as Islam does–in my opinion, of course, in my reality, for my needs. It gives me permission to talk to my God. Absolutely, without any intermediaries. No other religion gives me that option. I am not confined to a place to worship. I am responsible for my own good and bad, completely. I am absolutely independent in that and God gives me, God tells me, "I have given you the ability to do right and wrong–you choose." That can be a little daunting but it’s exhilarating as well."
There is a link to Sylvat Aziz's curriculum vitae from the faculty web page of the Queen's Department of Art, located at http://www.queensu.ca/art/faculty_and_staff.html
The Reverend Chris Walker is Associate Pastor at Bethel Church in downtown Kingston. Though he has been a pastor in larger cities in Canada and the US, he grew up in the Kingston area.
Chris Walker, who has focused his ministry on counselling and pastoral care, explores some of the issues in relating the practices of medicine and psychology to the life of Christian faith.
Chris Walker:
"I never really had a sense of not being a church kid, and really not being a believer, but there came a time when I knew there was a need to move on, to not accept faith on my parent’s say-so, or on the church’s say-so. That I had to come to some kind of personal experience of faith on my own autonomous, thoughtful decision, to either reject or to choose this life of following Jesus. ... I wanted to have a life of meaning and significance and so I made a decision that, yes, I would continue to follow this man Jesus. I was really enthralled that God would become a human being just like us–that caught my attention, and not being conformed caught my attention, and having a life of the mind caught my attention and so I said: 'Yup, this is what I need to do.'"
Bethel Church, an Associated Gospel congregation, has its website at www.bethelkingston.ca
3 November 2005: Kellye Crockett
Kellye Crockett is a PhD candidate in Linguistics at Queen's University. She is also owner of the Sacred Source bookstore on Brock Street, a resource for those interested in contemporary spiritualities.
Kellye Crockett has many areas of expertise, including the teaching of belly dancing. In this interview she explains the origins, symbols, and practice of Wicca, the ancient craft of the wise that honours the goddess and her consort, the horned god.
Sacred Source is located at 73 Brock Street in Kingston, Phone 544-9773.
Kellye Crockett:
"I remember as a child playing priest
as many children liked to play these make- believe games. And I always
ended up being in the priest position, dispensing knowledge and communion
as much as young children like to do. But I was quite disappointed
when I found out that I couldn’t become a priest or a pope because
I was a girl. .... And I remember at a very young age feeling that
that wasn’t fair. ....
[In Wicca] we see divine energy, creative energy all around us and
we can worship this energy in the God form and the Goddess form. So
we see deity– divinity–as
being dual and equal."
10 November 2004: Bert Horwood
Bert Horwood is retired from teaching in the Queen's University Faculty of Education where he specialized in experiential and outdoor education.
Bert Horwood grew up in the United Church in an Ottawa Valley town, and became a biology teacher. In this conversation he shares his experience as a practising Quaker, a tradition he turned to in mid-life, against the backdrop of a lifelong interest in the natural world.
Thousand Islands Meeting
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
Telephone 544-1773
Website: http://kingston.quaker.ca/QuakerLinks.htm
Bert Horwood:
"Quakerism is an experiential religion. It puts our collective experience of the spirit at the center and draws on tradition and sacred writings peripherally to that experience. So everything is filtered through that experience and, having been an experiential educator, it seemed very refreshing and very natural and much at home for me."
Vivian Lee is a graduate student in Religious Studies at Queen's University who might be described as someone still seeking a religion for herself. Vivian grew up in Hong Kong where her Chinese parents practised no religion. She began to attend church as a school-girl, continuing through her teens in evangelical Christianity. Today, after undergraduate studies in religion and philosophy, she has not yet found a religious tradition that adequately meets her needs.
The Department of Religious Studies has a one-year MA Program in Religion and Modernity, outlined at http://rels.queensu.ca/ma.php
Vivian Lee:
"I am very convinced that egalitarianism is a way of approaching a community. And as long as I find Christianity as an institution or as a religion non-egalitarian I can’t see myself, I can’t justify, accepting it. But at the same time I can’t really justify some other religion that doesn’t have God in it. So I think in the future if I were to be religious in a traditional sense and perform whatever beliefs and rituals it has to be in line with an egalitarian god.... I think why I was attracted to Buddhism or even Quakerism is because for me egalitarian is not only between humans, it’s also with nature and with animals. So in a Christian culture, not necessarily in doctrine, but in Christian culture humans are still I think regarded as more superior than a lot of non-human beings. That I find very hard to swallow."
24 November 2004: Elizabeth
Greene
Elizabeth Greene, a PhD in English, has taught medieval and Canadian literature at Queen's University.
Elizabeth Greene, who grew up in a Jewish family, became interested in myth and symbol during her studies in medieval literature. Today she conducts Tarot card readings, a practice partly related to Jewish mystical traditions, as she explains in her interview.
Dr. Elizabeth Greene:
"I was a camp counsellor when I was eighteen and the mother of a friend of mine had the reputation of being a witch and had many tarot decks and read my fortune with this deck, the Waite deck. And I found it very scary, which is probably one of the reasons why I don’t ask for divination, but I found it very riveting. So the minute I got back to Philadelphia I went to the occult bookstore and I got two tarot decks. I got this one, which is quite rare now. Not the pictures, but the box is quite rare–it’s an old tarot deck. And I got the Marseilles deck. And since I’ve bought these decks there have been many, many, many others. So I got into it really through having the writer Shirley Jackson read my cards. And I started reading cards. But I was just dealing them out and looking at the book and they were accurate. It was scary."
1 December 2004: Alia and Murray Hogben
Alia Hogben is president of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women; Murray Hogben is a retired journalist and former lecturer at the Royal Military College.
Alia and Murray Hogben met while they were students at Carleton University in the 1950s. Alia was born and raised in a Muslim family. Murray, whose family background was Presbyterian, converted to Islam. In this conversation they relate their experiences of what it has been like to be Muslim in Canada over several decades.
The website for the Kingston Islamic Centre is located at www.kingstonmuslims.net/ick/ick_main.htm
Murray Hogben:
"Well I, we came to Islam through Alia whom I met at University. We both went to Carleton University at Ottawa and lived really quite nearby. So when I met her we started talking about things, all sorts of things. But I was really interested in–or became more and more interested in–Islam because here was this really remarkable, beautiful woman with this whole different background. I mean she came with an entirely different set of baggage than all the other girls that I knew, etcetera, and all the other people around. And I knew nothing about Islam. There really was no exposure to it; it was really an unknown thing. But I learned a lot of it from Alia and I found it more and more attractive. And then eventually we just sort of fell in love and I decided to become a Muslim, which was necessary, and it really fitted in a whole lot of things that were in the background of my mind I guess. It was a very good fit, as they say. And I have been a very active Muslim ever since. Very committed and very interested. Endlessly interested in it."
Rabbi Daniel Elkin is leader of Beth Israel Congregation, the Orthodox synagogue in Kingston.
Daniel Elkin grew up in Montreal, and has studied and worked in London, Israel, New York, and Seattle. After many years as a teacher and social worker, Beth Israel is his first experience of being a rabbi in a congregation. He shares his experiences of social justice and of meditation, and his understanding of the Jewish view of suffering and evil.
The Beth Israel website may be found at http://members.kingston.net/bethisrl/
2 February 2005: Nadene Grieve-Deslippe
The Reverend Nadene Grieve-Deslippe is minister of Faith United Church, located in the former Pittsburgh Township in the eastern part of the city.
Nadene Grieve-Deslippe grew up in the Evangelical United Brethren Church, before it became part of the United Church. She graduated from Queen's, was ordained in 1981, and, before coming to Faith United, served congregations in Manitoba and Westport. She reflects on the experience of being the minister in a congregation without its own building, and shares the experience of the death of one of her four daughters.
Faith United Church's website is at http://www.faithkingston.ca
Major Ed Call is a Salvation Army officer working with the Army's Correctional and Justice Services. He is the executive director of the Salvation Army's "Freedom Ministries" for ex-offenders and their families.
Ed Call grew up in Montreal, and has worked with the Salvation Army in Halifax (in a Men's Hospice) and Regina (in a Thrift Store) before coming to Kingston. He describes the needs of those who have come in conflict with the law, and the efforts of the Army to assist them. Ed Call discusses the history of the Salvation Army, especially in its role in helping people at the margins of society.
Freedom Ministries is located on Division Street, at the corner of Concession. The phone number is (613) 549-2676.
23 February 2005: Val Michaelson
The Reverend Val Michelson and her partner, Kris, are both in the ministry of the Anglican Church. They are also the parents of pre-school triplet girls. Val is an associate at Saint James, and Anglican Chaplain at Queen's University.
Val Michaelson describes how she came into the Christian faith as a university student and her decision to study for the Anglican priesthood with a focus on youth ministry.
Saint James Anglican Church has its website at http://www.stjameskingston.ca/
Val Michaelson:
"I didn’t grow up in the Church. In my mind it’s all a journey. You’re on a journey towards God and every moment is as significant as any other in this walk toward God. But to me there is a moment where–C.S. Lewis describes it–as you cross through a doorway and you realize that the door has closed and you're on the other side suddenly. And there I was–I had made a commitment."
The Most Rev. Anthony Meagher is archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston. He recounts his growing up in Oshawa, his discernment of his vocation as a priest, his time in seminary and teaching school, and his experiences in the preparations for World Youth Day.
Tony Meagher also shares his understanding of the human relationship to Christ's sufferings and his struggle with cancer.
The website for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kingston is at http://www.romancatholic.kingston.on.ca/
Joan Fast, an instructor of yoga at the Yoga and Relaxation Centre, grew up in a Mennonite Brethren home in the Niagara area. In this interview she relates some of the events of her childhood, her experience with the practice of yoga, and the trauma of suffering serious injury in a fall. For Joan Fast, the spiritual dimension of life is rooted in one's body, an aspect of her practice that she relates in this conversation.
The Yoga and Relaxation Centre has its website at http://www.yogarelax.ca/
Joan Fast:
"So it took me a while to find answers to some of my questions. They came in a sort of round-about way because I moved into a kind of foreigner house. ... And one day this person moved in from Australia. She came in and she just seemed so calm and just went about her day and found work and was always really happy and friendly and we became friends and one day I was really stressed out while I was living in Tokyo. And after a while I started to get quite ill. I think my immune system was having a really hard time with the change of lifestyle–Mennonite girl goes to Tokyo. ... She said, 'All these kind of things that you have going on are to do with stress and you should do yoga with me.' And I put her off for a week or two because I said I found a nice place where I can go run, and stuff like that so. So anyway one day she got me to practise yoga with her one Sunday morning, and we did yoga maybe for two hours. And it was life-transforming for me because I think I just suddenly just relaxed and, that two hours, suddenly just my whole body relaxed."
The Reverend Lincoln Bryant is the eleventh minister at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Kingston, one of Kingston oldest churches. Lincoln Bryant's ministry at St. Andrew's extends back some years, so that today he is among the longest serving of the Christian clergy in the city.
Here Lincoln Bryant traces some of his own journey in the Christian faith, including his teenage and university years, and his life in the business world. His own decision to study theology and to enter the ministry occurred relatively late.
St. Andrew's Presbyterian church is located at 130 Clergy St E, Kingston, ON K7K 3S3. The phone number is (613) 546-6316.
Lincoln Bryant:
"I decided that I would quit my job and take the entire summer to pray and ask God, ‘Okay. You’ve given me what I wanted the first time and it was empty. You gave me what I asked for the second time and it was empty.’ And so the third time I was determined to say, ‘Okay. What is it that you want?’"
23 March 2005: Kamala Narayanan
Kamala Narayanan is the Hindu representative on the Queen's University Interfaith Council. The Council has endeavoured to ensure that religious requirements for Queen's students of differing faith backgrounds are recognized in the University. In addition, Kamala Narayanan has served as a contact person for students from India, or of Indian descent, especially those of Hindu background, arriving at Queen's.
Drawing on her experience of almost thirty years in Kingston, Kamala Narayanan describes Hindu festivals and celebrations, relating as well how Hindus practise their faith locally.
For information on the Queen's University Interfaith Council, please contact the University Chaplain, Rev. Brian Yealland at (613) 533-2186.
Kamala Narayanan on Hinduism in North America:
"They found out that when they were building temples in North America, they could not really just be geared towards any particular deity. In all of North America they probably have a main deity but almost all of the other deities are also present.... When they get priests from India, even the priests are not going to be the same. They come with their various backgrounds too--and with the backgrounds and languages and expertise and everything is all kind of various--so whatever we find now in temples in North America could be quite different from what we are used to back in India."
The Reverend Fergy Wilson is an Anglican priest in association with Saint James Anglican Church. But his principal role is his service as a chaplain in the Regional Treatment Centre, an accredited facility for mentally disordered offenders within the walls of Kington Penitentiary. Fergy Wilson describes his background as a forester in northwestern Ontario's Quetico Provincial Park, his call to ministry within the Anglican Church, and the rewards and challenges of prison chaplaincy.
With its headquarters in Kingston, the Diocese of Ontario for the Anglican Church of Canada has its website at http://www.ontario.anglican.ca/
Fergy Wilson:
"A good friend of ours was
an Anglican priest, a friend of our family's. And he invited us to
come worship in his church
and I can still remember that first service that I attended, the eucharistic
service, and I felt like I’d come home. I don’t recall
ever feeling that way in any other church service that I had attended
before.
... At that time I was what I would call a
'Christmas-and-Easter' Christian. That’s when I would
go to church–to appease my parents actually. I was away from
the organized Church
for seventeen
years."
Georgina Riel is the manager of the Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre at Queen's University. The Four Directions Centre, located on Barrie Street, offers support and resources for both aboriginal and non-aboriginal students.
An Anishnaabe woman from northern Ontario, Georgina Riel had a background in social work before coming to Kingston. In this interview she outlines some of the religious attitudes and practices with which she as a First Nations person is acquainted. In particular, Georgina Riel relates her experience of constructing a drum and the spiritual traditions connected with that drum.
The website for the Four Directions Aboriginal Student Centre is at http://www.queensu.ca/dsao/4dasc/4D-1.htm
20 April 2005: Gen Kelsang Thekchen
Gen Kelsang Thekchen serves as the resident teacher at the Kuluta Buddhist Centre in Kingston, a position he has occupied for about a half-dozen years. The Kuluta Buddhist Centre is in the New Kadampa tradition derived from Tibetan Buddhism.
After graduation from the University of Western Ontario Thekchen spent a year travelling, culminating in his first direct acqaintance with Buddhist practice and teaching in India. In this interview he shares his background, his own spiritual quest, and the experiences that led him eventually into his work as a Buddhist teacher.
The Kuluta Buddhist Centre has its website at http://www.meditateinkingston.org
Sister Irene Wilson is a member of the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul. She is currently a spiritual director within the order, serving at the Providence Spirituality Centre at Heathfield, on Princess Street.
Irene Wilson shares her early background growing up in Perth, and her subsequent work as a teacher at various levels in Trenton, Montreal, and Belleville. Irene Wilson explains how she became a spiritual director, and what that role entails–for instance, in the retreats offered by the Providence Spirituality Centre.
The website for the Sisters of Providence of St. Vincent de Paul is located at http://www.providence.ca/
