The Great Out Doors

Today's sermon is about the Great Out Doors, and how easy it is to get right into it, wherever you may be. Even if you live in the middle of downtown Toronto, the Great Out Doors is really only a little effort away. All you need to do is make that effort, and the Great Out Doors is yours to love and appreciate.

For example, there's the Humber River. You can put a canoe in the water beneath the Old Mill subway station, just a few blocks north-west of Jane and Bloor, and casually paddle all the way down to Lake Ontario on a sunny Saturday morning. That's an easy journey into the truth and beauty of the Great Out Doors.

From the second you start to drift between the steep, green, thickly treed riverbanks you're communing with the spirits of the Native peoples who first used the Humber as a major waterway. When you pull the canoe up to the shore to stretch your legs on a grassy spit, you're walking in the footsteps of Etienne Brule and the trappers and traders who trod the banks of the Humber before there was even a Fort York. When you nose into a hidden marsh untouched by roads, trails or fences, you're hearing and watching the descendents of the night-herons, the egret, the swans, the ducks, the turtles and the fish that were once the only inhabitants of this land and these waters. There you are, in the heart of the city - and in the heart of the Great Out Doors, or G.O.D. for short.

The Rouge River, now the border between Scarborough and Pickering, is another swift route to the heart of G.O.D. You actually put your canoe in the water where 16 lanes of Highway 401 and 6 lanes of Kingston Road cross the Rouge on giant concrete and steel overpasses. But the waddling pairs of Canada geese with their fuzzy broods of goslings, the nodding salmon fisherman with his lazy line and friendly wave, the cheerful gurgle of the clear river water beneath the span of those immense works of man are all reminders that this is G.O.D. after all.

As the banks steepen and the river deepens and bends, mighty hemlock and pine stand in mute testimony to the majesty of G.O.D. The darting kingfisher, the hopping toad, the friendly guy in the old cedar and canvas boat with his bare belly and old-fashioned cooler of beer; the young couple holding hands in the shade of a leaning willow, the kids darting along the low dunes of the Lake Ontario shore, the smell of French fries wafting out of the chip truck as the Go train speeds across the low bridge overhead… it's a wild and wondrous mix of sights and sounds and smells that could only be G.O.D.

Sunday morning in Toronto Harbour is G.O.D.'s day. The sun is bright, the water is smooth and soft to the paddle. Catamarans drift, windsurfers zip, fast boats play in the wake of a ship… these are the creatures great and small of G.O.D. A warm Toronto Island beach hosts a fat lady roasting herself pink, a homeless guy washing his socks in the lake, tourists on rented bikes chattering along the boardwalk. More of the children of G.O.D.

A good hot coffee, breakfast in a café garden, strawberries, fried potatoes and toast: food, a gift of G.O.D. There's art on the walls - it's about G.O.D. Everyone's chatting and sharing the day, and there's hardly a care because G.O.D. is everywhere. Even back home in the back yard, idly hosing the mud from the canoe, sharing cool beer by the barbeque, watching toddlers tumble with their toys, the cat clawing the screen, the laughter of neighbours floating over the fences, you're surrounded by G.O.D., embraced by G.O.D., fed, watered, clothed and housed by G.O.D., at ease and in tune and in line and in place in G.O.D., the Great Out Doors, our home and native land…

Amen.