Hope. Vision. Action.

Patricia Richmond [August 6, 1924 - July 27, 2007]

“Hope. Vision. Action.”
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

September 23, 2007
Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
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Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears,so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!

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What was the most painful time in your life?
When was the most desolate time in your life?
How did you cope with it?
What did you learn about yourself and God from your painful experience?
Do you feel that you just got by or were you able to live through it?

These are some of the questions came to my mind as I was reading the passages from Jeremiah that was read today.

Judah, the southern Kingdom of Israel is about to be invaded by Babylon, the new empire in the Middle East. People have turned against Yahweh – God of their ancestors – and Jeremiah speaks to his people of the desolation that is about to befall Judah. It is hard to tell whether it is Jeremiah or God who is lamenting about the hopelessness of the situation the people of Judah are facing.

Is there no balm for those who are hurting? Is there no remedy? Is there no physician? Is there any hope for healing? God appears unable to get the people to change through the prophet’s words. God identifies so closely with the people that their wound is God’s wound.[i] Jeremiah declares that no salve on earth can heal the people’s wounds. The people are looking in the wrong places for their salvation. Their healing will eventually come through their tears, of which Jeremiah is an example.[ii]

Hope. Vision. Action. [iii]

Frank O’Dea is one man who has gone through hell and back again. As he looked back at his life of 62 tumultuous and eventful years, O’Dea realized that three principles have sustained and transformed him to a new life: hope, vision, and action.

Frank O’Dea was born and raised in an upper-middle class family in Montreal-Ouest in 1945. He experienced his father, a business executive, as someone who had difficulty showing compassion to his children. He experienced his mother as one who adored her husband so much that she did not have much love left for her children.

He describes his family in these words.

“My loneliness intensified during my high school days. Other (times) were lonely too, but still, I knew there was something wrong about entering a house where my mother barely acknowledged my presence and my brothers and sisters saw me as I saw them – as an intrusion. We shared neither secrets nor time.”[iv]

Frank was sexually assaulted by an older woman at the age of 13. Alcohol eventually provided a release from the loneliness and alienation he experienced. He was then sexually abused by a policeman who was his father’s acquaintance. While he was telling his father of the abuse, and before he could ask to be protected from further attacks; Frank’s father shook his head and walked out of the room, leaving the boy alone.[v]

Frank’s ordeal did not end there. He was also sexually abused by Catholic priests. His alcohol abuse got worse. He stole money from his family to buy alcohol. He drove drunk and wrecked his parents’ cars. He failed one private school after another.

“For the good of the family, you have to go. … Nobody wants you here, Frank. … We don’t know what your problem is. I hope you identify and solve it. But you’ll have to do it without us,” was what his Dad told him when Frank was in his early 20’s.

In the early 1970s, Frank O’Dea lived in the streets of Toronto in an alcoholic haze. He spent each day panhandling around the Jarvis Street for change for wine and a bed at a flop house.

Then one day – Thursday, December 23, 1971 to be exact – a realization settled on him – “If I don’t change, I will die like this.” He realized that he only had two options left: Die or change.

Frank walked into a social agency and simply uttered, “I need help.” He remembers how the woman at the other side of the desk broke into a radiant smile and said, “You’re home!”

Fast forward thirty years after his decision to become sober and renew himself: Frank O’Dea was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. He had gone on to become a successful businessman and a philanthropist. Frank O’Dea is co-founder of the Second Cup coffee chain, a Canadian business venture that started a revolution of high-end coffee shops in North America.

Frank remembers people’s generosity while he was living on the streets of Toronto. He has been active in raising funds for Street Kids International (SKI), which is devoted to protecting homeless children around the globe from predators. He co-founded the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR) in the 1980s when AIDS was not a popular cause for fundraising. He is founding chair of the Canadian Landmine Foundation. He helped raise over $2 million for the anti-landmine cause.

“An estimated seventy million (live) landmines remain buried in about a third of the world’s countries, awaiting to explode when a person or animal step on them. … Landmines kill or maim almost twenty thousand civilians each year, or more than one every thirty minutes every day. About one of every three mine victims is a child.”[vi]

In his biography, When All You Have is Hope, Frank O’Dea shares the following wisdom:

Street people are faceless.[vii]
No matter where you begin or where you finish, you can do amazing things with your life if you choose to.[viii]
I am what I am today, and I was what I was back then.[ix]
Never give up on anyone.[x]
It’s not the money you make that matters most. It’s the difference you make.[xi]

Frank O’Dea was able to turn his experience of desolation into a source of hope for many. Miraculously, he learned the importance of community service from his father, the same father who could not be present to him in his suffering. And Frank has been able to work on making peace with the rest of his family even if they cannot forgive him. He is at a place where he is able to own up to his own wrong doings rather than just blame his circumstances.

As I was reading about Frank O’Dea’s life, I was touched by this man who not only experienced pain and hopelessness but chose a renewed life. I saw a man moving from hope for a changed life to a vision for renewal to action for healing of himself and others.

Frank O’Dea is a spiritual man. He credits God, a Higher Power, as the source of his healing. A Higher Power who helped and supported him to move on to new ways of being. The same Higher Power, the same God who moves among those of us gathered here.

Today we remember and celebrate the life of Pat Richmond. Pat was born on August 6, 1924 in Stoney Creek and died on July 27, 2007 in Toronto. I remember Pat’s smile. I would see her sitting across from my office waiting for a friend or a ride on Sunday after worship service. When I greet her, she would look up and give me a smile.

Pat leaves five of her daughters – Nancy, Brenda, Holly, Heather and Ruby. This is what Holly Corman, one of Pat’s daughters, wrote to share with us.

“Although Pat lived in the area for just over two years she made many friends at Kingston Road United and in her apartment building. She looked forward to going to Bessie’s Tea and Conversation Group every Wednesday and avidly enjoyed the group’s lively and varied conversation. Her neighbour, Hazel across from her in her apartment building would look in on Pat to see if she was all right and they both would look out for each other.

From her early career as a Registered Nurse at Wellesley Hospital to raising five daughters she always thought of others before herself. In her pocket was always a roll of coins to drop in the hat of a homeless person.

She often enjoyed engaging someone in a political discussion and it was no secret what she thought of George W. Bush and his government. It was much to her daughters’ amusement when they discovered that her initials for her maiden name stood for M.P.P.

She appreciated all things British and enjoyed several trips there with friends and to visit her daughter and grandson in Oxford.

Pat often took all five of her daughters to have “Afternoon Tea” at the Green Room at the top of Eaton’s in Hamilton. Many times we were brought tea in bed whether we were sick or just curled up with a good book, much to the astonishment of our friends who claimed their Mothers never brought them tea in bed!

One love that she did not pass onto her daughters was that of mushy peas!

There were many loves that she did pass onto her daughters and friends and that was her love of flowers and nature itself which is reflected in two hymns that she liked – “All Creatures Great and Small” and “For the Beauty of the Prairies.”

Another love was her care and concern for others. So next time you pass a homeless person, drop a Toonie or two in the hat for Pat.”

To someone like Pat, the homeless Frank O’Dea of 35 years ago would not have been a faceless person on the street.

Nancy, Brenda, Holly, Heather and Ruby, may you remember, cherish, and celebrate your Mom’s life. May you find comfort and solace as you walk with God and your faith communities.

Most of all, may we all be able to turn sorrows and pain into a source of healing for us and those we encounter. And may we also be able to turn to hope and move through vision and action to renew ourselves through God, the Higher Power.

Amen.

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Collect our Tears

by Safiyah Fosua

God,

Collect our tears

Tears of sadness

tears of joy

Tears of anxiety

nervous tears

Tears that don't know why they run like rivers down the face

Gracious God,

collect our tears in your bottle

And pour them back on us as life-giving water!

Safiyah Fosua, "21st Century Africana Liturgy Resources: Collect Our Tears"
Copyright © 2007 General Board of Discipleship, Unite Methodist Church, USA. (www.gbod.org/worship)

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[i] Anna Grant-Henderson, Insights / Messages of Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, http://www.oldtestamentlectionary.unitingchurch.org.au/2007/September/Pent17Jer8_07.htm.
[ii] It Is a Real World, 17th After Pentecost (Year C): September 23, 2007, Whole People of God.
[iii] Frank O’Dea, When All You Have Is Hope, (Viking Canada: Toronto, 2007), 92.
[iv] Ibid., 11-12.
[v] Ibid., 28.
[vi] Ibid., 189-190.
[vii] Ibid., 68.
[viii] Ibid., 45.
[ix] Ibid., 35.
[x] Ibid., 60.
[xi] Ibid., 219.