An Evangelist named Bill

"Listen to the earth, and it will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.  Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?"  -- Job 12:7-9

A week ago, i attended the Reel Paddling Film Festival in Waterloo.  This four-year-old event is a wonderful opportunity for anyone who loves to paddle.  Over the course of three hours, seven short films were shown as we were introduced to kayaking around Sicily, whitewater canoeing in Washington, kayak fishing in Chesapeake Bay, and a tragic 'almost crossing' of the sea between Australia and New Zealand.  During the intermission, the owner of the theatre came out to award a few lucky patrons with free passes to the movie "Waterwalker."  I was one of those lucky few.

Last Thursday, I took Nathan (in whom I am aspiring to develop a passion for paddling) and we settled into our seats munching tootsie rolls (Nathan) and licorice all sorts (me).  "Waterwalker" is the final film by award winning, National Film Board photographer, artist, and canoer, Bill Mason.  In the paddling community, Bill is a giant, perhaps THE giant Canadian paddler.  You may know him as the Director of the famous "Paddle to the Sea" about a carved toy canoe and Native paddler which makes its way from the shores of Lake Superior, through the Great Lakes and down the St. Lawrence, documenting both the beauty of the landscape and the tragedy of unfettered industry and her potential for destroying natural habitats.  Bill Mason produced a number of other films and books (Path of the Paddle, Song of the Paddle) as well as landscape art in the style of Group of Seven, still available to purchase (even originals!) at www.redcanoes.ca.  But I digress.

"Waterwalker" opens to Canadian icon (and Christian) Bruce Cockburn, picking and crooning the song he wrote for this occassion "Waterwalker."  The 87-minute film documents Bill's love for Lake Superior and canoeing and the land.  And, in the midst of that, his faith.  At one point he quotes the passage from Job above and invites us to share his very God-given passion for nature and what it can teach us.  And then he laments, (and I quote only roughly here) "It's hard to talk about the intersection of my faith and my love for the  great outdoors.  If I speak to my church friends, they feel I am not explicit or direct enough, and if I talk to my paddler friends, they don't want me to preach.  So I can't win."  And then he chuckles.

"Waterwalker" was described by Bill's daughter Becky (present at the film Thursday and signed a poster which is now hanging in my son's room, all part of my subversive plot to help him appreciate paddling :)), as 'my dad's swan song.'  Swan Songs, according to ancient Greek mythology, are the songs which are song just before death of swans who were mute in life.  While mute swans don't actually sing before they die, the myth is perpetuated so that today a Swan Song is the last expressive effort of a person, both a signal that their death is imminent and a summary of all that was important to them.

"Waterwalker" was Bill Mason's Swan Song.  He did die a few years later of cancer and this film was his last.    The movie summarized what was important to Bill -- Lake Superior, canoeing, his 'Baker' tent, painting, and, interspersed throughout, his faith, mostly by way of biblical quotes.

The end of the film revealed Bill at his imaginative, subversive and evangelistic best.   He begins to tell the story of Jesus and Peter, recorded in Matthew 14:22ff, you know it as the story of Peter walking on the water, and then, as his faith falters, so do his feet and he begins to sink.  Mason ends, with a clear reference to the film's title, by suggesting, "Sometimes, I think we have forgotten to walk on water."

I'm guessing that his church friends, upon seeing this, would have wanted him to go further, make it explicit, talk about how the story of Jesus and Peter is all about faith and that therefore Bill's exhortation for us to 'remember how to walk on water' is actually an invitation to faith.  And, I am guessing that some of Bill's paddling friends might have remarked, as they watched the close of his Swan Song, "there goes Bill again, preaching."  Sometimes you can't win.

In addition to a growing love for paddling, what I (am still) learning from Bill is how to be subversive and effective in sharing my faith.  My guess is that Bill, in helping people nurture a love for general revelation has been the kind of tool in the hands of God which he wanted to be since his early days as a camp leader for Pioneer Camps and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.  Bill's biographer, James Raffan, knew this well.  Bill's biography, "Fire in the Bones" finds its titles origin in Scripture as well, from Jeremiah 20:9, "His Word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones."

Oh, that all our friends could say the same of us, both our church friends and others alike.