BOWES PUBLISHING BROTHERS GOT THEIR START AT A SMALL DRESDEN, ONTARIO WEEKLY NEWSPAPER

An early edition of Dresden Times

When I helped my mother Grace fold newspapers in the cramped Brown Street storefront quarters of the hometown Dresden Times in 1949, little did we know that the Bowes brothers ownership team was poised to become a Canadian publishing giant. It is really a unique family success story.

In my memory, Bill Bowes was the family sparkplug in the early days of the newspaper in Dresden and older brother Jim was the guy making it happen behind the scene. Having breathed new life into their first-ever business venture, they were soon joined by younger brothers David and Howard.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves with this story.

The Bowes boys were born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Their father Harold served as principal of Moose Jaw Tech and taught French and German while their mother, Ruth, worked to raise a family of six children. The brothers' early years were touched by the same powerful forces that shaped many of their generation: the Great Depression, the pervasive effects of drought on the prairie landscape and the Second World War.

When the brothers were in or near their teens Harold went overseas to put his language skills to use monitoring enemy transmissions for the Allied Forces. Meanwhile, Ruth and the children moved to Ingersoll, Ontario to be closer to extended family. 

 William "Bill" Bowes

Bill completed his schooling and did whatever he could to earn some money, often taking on hard labour for little pay. With his father stationed in Europe and his elder brother Jim writing for the Canadian military newspaper The Maple Leaf, it wasn’t long before Bill heeded his own call to serve. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was shipped overseas as a navigator with 424 Squadron and flew from a base in England until discharged in 1946.

In addition to a commitment to military service, the Bowes family would certainly go on to enjoy a tradition of publishing. After the war, Jim returned to his work in Ontario as a journalist for the London Free Press and convinced Bill to join him in the profession. Bill set about learning the business aspects of publishing and familiarizing himself with print operations.

The Bowes Publishing chain had modest beginnings. In 1948, Bill and Jim had saved enough money to buy the small weekly newspaper in Dresden, one of two in town at the time (Dresden News being the other). Soon after, Bill heard two travelling salesmen remark that if they were younger, they’d invest in a weekly newspaper that was up for grabs in a small town called Grande Prairie, Alberta. 

The Bowes knew next to nothing about the Grande Prairie region but their curiosity had been piqued. They bought the Grande Prairie Herald Tribune in 1950 and Bill embarked on a journey that would lead him to great success as a business leader and central figure in the development of the growing community.

Meantime Howard, the youngest of the brothers, was left behind to wrap up and sell the business in Dresden, but not before he met and married a local girl, Marilyn Quick, a daughter of Orvil and Ada Quick. The newlyweds subsequently moved to Grande Prairie, and joined the other brothers and their families in the operation of the local Grande Prairie Herald Tribune.

Howard Bowes

In 1965, Howard and Marilyn moved to Leduc, Alberta and launched their own publishing company, Lynard Publishers Ltd., beginning with the purchase of the local newspaper, the Leduc Representative. Their business grew over the years to include weekly newspapers in seven communities in Alberta.

Bill, it seemed, was so busy developing the Bowes dynasty in those days that he had little time to think about getting married. But as fate would have it, from his office window, he would often see Margaret O’Brien on her way to work at a nearby car dealership and made a point of chatting with her whenever possible. They soon discovered that they were a perfect pair and were married in 1952. Over the years they welcomed four boys to their family. A devoted family man, Bill would often take time out from business and community commitments to coach his sons’ hockey and baseball teams and to support his boys in their various activities.

As the family grew so did the roster of newspapers under Bowes management. In time, the chain would expand to include over 100 weekly newspapers from Nova Scotia to the B.C. Interior. Bill would also contribute to the industry as president of the Alberta Weekly Newspaper Association and a director of the Canadian Weekly Newspaper Association. He began to add other business ventures to his publishing holdings, including retail, real estate and self-storage concerns. The Bowes family eventually sold the publishing chain to Sun Media in 1988.

Jim Bowes

Jim Bowes retired in 1988 but remained a Director of the company until 1990. The Toronto Sun became major shareholder with 60% ownership in 1988 then 98% in 1990. Jim passed away in March of 1997 of lung cancer.

In 2001 Sun Media Corporation consolidated its Bowes Publishing division (190 weeklies and community dailies) with those of its metropolitan dailies. Sun Media Corporation is a division of Quebecor Media Inc.

The energy and enthusiasm that Bill devoted to his businesses over the years was equalled by the commitment and generosity he invested in bettering his community. He served as a longstanding leader with a wide range of Grande Prairie organizations, including the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Industrial Development Commission, the local Music Festival Association, the Grande Prairie Regional College Foundation and the Alberta Colleges Commission. He helped to support the preservation of Peace Country history through contributions to the Grande Prairie Museum Regional Heritage Discovery Centre and was honoured for his military background through his longstanding membership in the Royal Canadian Legion and his work to preserve the local armoury as a centre for cadets and other community groups.

Bill also worked to ensure a healthier future for his fellow citizens. His contributions to health care included his service as South Peace chairman for the Provincial First Aid Community Training Program, as a member of the Queen Elizabeth II Hospital Foundation Board and as a generous donor to the hospital’s MRI facility.

Bill’s abilities as a consummate community organizer were particularly useful in his work as co-chairman of the 1995 Canada Winter Games Committee. Grande Prairie’s successful turn as host to the Games was due in no small part to the excellent work Bill and his team did to raise both funds and public enthusiasm for the event. In fact, they were so successful that Grande Prairie set a nation-wide precedent for Canada Games support and still had enough funds remaining to create a $1 million legacy that has been used to foster sports and community development for current and future generations of Peace Country residents. In addition, a significant financial contribution from Jim and Bill Bowes helped spur construction of the Bowes Family Crystal Gardens, a downtown multi-use facility that now forms part of the Canada Games Arena complex.

The tremendous dedication and reliability Bill Bowes demonstrated as a community leader led to numerous awards and honours, including Grande Prairie Citizen of the Year and “Down Towner” of the Year, the Paul Harris Fellowship from Rotary International, the Canada 125 Commemorative Medal and the Board of Governors’ Award of Distinction from Grande Prairie Regional College. He was a Member of the Venerable Order of St. John Ambulance, an Honorary Member of the Grande Prairie and District Chamber of Commerce and was awarded a Life Membership in the Royal Canadian Legion.

Bill passed away shortly after his induction into the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2009.

Marilyn Quick Bowes

Brother Howard of Leduc, died on June 23, 2018 at the age of 87, lovingly remembered by his wife of 64 years, Marilyn, and their three children. Marilyn would pass away a year later.

It is difficult to realize that I remember the hustling young Bowes brothers getting their publishing feet wet during a few short years at the helm of the old Dresden Times and that they were destined to amass a chain of more than one hundred weekly newspapers across Canada before they were finished.

Dresden's loss all those years ago would certainly prove to be Grande Prairies' gain.

A couple of young Dresden born and bred entrepreneurs, Clause and Misselbrook, who eventually took over the business in the 1970s, didn't do bad for themselves either, as it turned out. They became "The Leader" for news in the community for several decades!

The days of making money in the newspaper business are history, much like the fascinating story of the Bowes brothers.

THE GOSPEL AS A WEAPON, THE WAY MY DAD MAY HAVE TOLD IT TO HIS SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS

In preparing lessons for his senior Sunday School class my father Ken relied heavily on a Teachers' Self-Pronouncing Reference Edition of The Holy Bible and to this day the now 90-year-old text with well-worn, delicate pages held together by duct ape, remains my main go-to source of biblical inspiration. Of particular fascination for me are notations left by my father on the blank front and back pages of the bible and I have checked out the scriptures quoted in all cases just for personal edification purposes.

The most intriguing notation, however, has been one referring to Matthew X -- 34 (stet): "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I am come not to send peace but a sword."  On the surface, those words would seem to run counter to everything else we ever learned about Jesus Christ as savior of the world.

How very shocking! Jesus "did not come to bring peace, but a sword"?! Why would He say such a thing? And why would Ken chose this controversial statement as a hook on which to hang a lesson for a group of Sunday School teenagers, 12 to 15 years of age?

Truth be known, ministers of the word and sacraments have been known to purposely avoid Matthew 10:3 in sermons because of the awkwardness in interpreting its true meaning. 

Because I was in an intermediate class, just behind those senior SS kids taught by my dad, I was not privy to how he actually handled the lesson on this particular Sunday (perhaps in 1949 or '50). But what follows will be what I think Ken's message could have been.

Ken Wright
(1899-1952)

Up front, I think he would have explained that what Jesus was doing here was correcting false assumptions about what the Messiah's mission was. According to Isaiah 9:5-7, the Messiah is described as the "Prince of Peace". The interpreters of the Hebrew Scriptures took that to mean that the Messiah would be the "Prince of Peace" ON EARTH. That, however, was not Jesus' mission. The ultimate goal of the Gospel was, and is, not harmony on earth, but PEACE WITH GOD(Rom.5:1).

I think we would all agree that peace does not come easily. Right now, all over the world, war and unrest is rearing its ugly head. And it would be ignorant to suggest that these countries are enjoying what is taking place. Peace is always preferable, but the reality is, when two sides strongly disagree on something, conflict is inevitable.

The same goes for the Gospel. The goal of the Gospel is NOT conflict--with God, or with each other. The goal of the Gospel is "peace with God"(Rom.5:1). The difficulty is that the Gospel presents such a penetrating message that it acts like a "sword". It pierces the consciences of humanity and calls us to love God more than we love ourselves.

That, in essence, is what Jesus was implying. He warned that profound conflict should be expected between those who accept the Gospel and those who reject it.

Likely everyone reading this post today can relate to what Jesus was saying. When you go to work, what do you usually talk about with your co-workers? Sports? Fashion? Home repair? Anything and everything, but not religion.

When your family gathers at Christmas, what do you talk about? Anything and everything, but not religion. Why? Because honest, from the heart, discussions on religious beliefs inevitably causes conflict. We have all been there -- at least I have. Even with fellow Christians, conflicts arise when it comes to getting straight the message of Jesus. It is inevitable.

Nowhere in all of this is there the sense that we should run from this conflict either. It is presented as an inevitability -- "A man's enemies WILL be the members of His household"(v.36). Now that doesn't give us permission to be obnoxious for the sake of the Gospel. This does not give us permission to pick fights with people who don't share our views. We are still required to be gentle, patient, loving, and gracious towards everyone. 

In our impulsive need(?) to often be reactive, the cause of conflict SHOULD NEVER BE our personality or our manner of presentation. The only legitimate cause of conflict is the CONTENT of the message. An abrasive personality should never be the "sword" -- the content delivered is the "sword", albeit subject to knee-jerk misinterpretation, simply because life is like that.

After warning His disciples about the potential the Gospel has for conflict, Jesus reminded them of their need for loyalty. Jesus told them that "he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me"(v.37).

Now Jesus did not call us to dislike our family members. And even though Luke's version would have us "hate" our family, we must conclude this to be relative. Scripture is clear in its command for us to "honour (our) father and (our) mother"(Ex.20:12). And Scripture makes it clear that we should love our spouses (Eph.5:25).

So what is Jesus getting at here? Quite simply, Jesus wants us to prioritize Him. He wants us to make Him our first loyalty, and to emphasize this He names the two things most precious to us: our family and our own life.

Those of you with aging or ailing parents, think about how you devote yourselves to seeing that they are looked after. Those of you with children, think about to what extreme you would go to, to defend, protect, and look after your children. You invest your valuable time and resources in them on a daily basis. Quite frankly, you put your "heart and soul" into your care for them.

Then you read this passage, "he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me".

If you work hard to love, and care for, your parents and children that is terrific. It really is. Jesus would think so too. Jesus is NOT asking anyone to abandon their love and care for family. What Jesus is calling for here is, that you put the same energy and care into your relationship with Him, as you do with the people you love most. In fact, He calls for more. This is the mark of a Christian disciple: ONE WHO PUTS JESUS FIRST.

"Christians should be known as hard workers. Christians should be known as good parents and committed spouses. But above all, Christians should be known as people committed to Christ -- committed to Him above all else."

That, in parenthesis, is precisely the message I think Ken would have left with his Sunday School class all those years ago.

We are extremely blessed here in 21th century North America. Few, if any, of us will ever be in danger because of our belief in Christ. Yet the Word of God still challenges to make sacrifices for the sake of the Gospel. And making sacrifices of time and resources is never easy. In fact, sacrificing may make us quite uncomfortable and cause us distress.

But this is the life of a disciple of Jesus Christ. We stretch ourselves. We think about the vigour we have towards our career, towards supporting our family and we hear the call of God to give even more vigour and more enthusiasm for the sake of the Gospel.

Hope I did it justice dad!

WE ARE REFLECTED IN THE FRUIT WE BEAR

Couldn't let the current Season of Lent skip by without posting at least one item relevant to the subject.

After telling the crowds that unless they repent, they will perish, Jesus told a parable about a fig tree that had not borne fruit for three years. The owner wanted it destroyed. But the worker in charge of cultivating, cutting, and pruning appealed to the owner to spare the tree: "Sir, leave it one more year," he said, "and give me time to dig around it and manure it; it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down" (Luke 13:8-9).

In the "Parable of the Fig Tree," Jesus seems to be assuring us that while repentance is a matter of spiritual life and death, nevertheless, the Lord is patient. The first point is simple: God looks for fruit.

i. The fruit of our lives shows what kind of person we really are. An apple tree will bring forth apples, not watermelons. If our lives have really been touched by the Holy Spirit, it will show in the fruit we bear, even if it takes a while for the fruit to come forth.

ii. What fruit is God looking for? It certainly has to begin with the fruit of the Spirit, mentioned in Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

The message for today is that perhaps God is showing His special care for us right now, but it feels like we are surrounded by proverbial manure. Yet, God's work should not be resisted. Flow with it and bear fruit as He continues to work in our lives.

As illustrated by the farmer in the parable, God is also just in His judgment. There finally will come a day of reckoning. It is not just an endless string of threats.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One morning in 1888, Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, awoke to read his own obituary. The notice was printed because of a simple journalistic error — it was Alfred's brother that had died, and the reporter carelessly reported the death of the wrong Nobel.

To Alfred, the shock was overwhelming because he saw himself as the world saw him: the "Dynamite King," the great industrialist who had made an immense fortune from explosives. This, as far as the public was concerned, was the entire purpose of Alfred's life. None of his true intentions to break down the barriers to world peace were recognized or given serious consideration. He was simply a merchant of death. And for that alone, he would be remembered. For Alfred, this presented an existential crisis -- a matter of spiritual life and death.

As he read the obituary with horror, he resolved to make clear to the world the true meaning and purpose of his life. This could be done through the final disposition of his fortune. His last will and testament would be the expression of his life's ideals and ultimately would be why we would remember him. The result was the most valuable of prizes given to those who had done the most for the cause of world peace. 

Of course, today, that prestigious honor is called the "Nobel Peace Prize."

CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH A FORMER PREMIER'S BODY GUARD WHO FANCIED HIS OWN RUN AT POLITICS

Ontario Premier Mitch Hepburn acknowledging a crowd in 1934.

Back in the fall of 1978, I was sitting at a bar in Brampton's Marlboro Hotel, an all-too-frequent haunt, after putting out all the news of the day that was fit to print in the local Daily Times newspaper. Nothing unusual about that, but on this occasion a funny happenstance was about to unravel.

A rather pugilistic, bombastic, yet decently attired middle-aged character with crew cut hair, plunked himself down on the vacant stool next to me at the bar. It was inevitable that we would eventually strike up a conversation.

My newsman's instinct seemed to tell me that this guy was going to have an interesting story to tell and, what the heck -- I was all ears.

Not too far into our introductory exchange, I mentioned that I had spent a lot of time in St. Thomas in the 1950s and '60s. That's all my new friend apparently needed to hear as he quickly downed his class of beer and promptly ordered another, as if to settle in for the long haul.

"You probably knew Vince Barrie," he said as an opener. Of course I knew Vince Barrie as one of the most popular mayors in the history of St. Thomas and a former Canadian light weight boxing champion. It was also no secret that Vince, who contributed greatly to the economic growth of the city, had a rather checkered past and was implicated in a prostitution ring in the London-St. Thomas area toward the end of his political career.

Vincent Barrie

Sandy (that's what I'll call him for the purposes of this story) said that he too was a boxer but even though he cold have been a "contenda" a la Rocky Balboa of Hollywood movie fame, he didn't go as far in the ring as Vince. He explained that he, instead opted for a job as a body guard for another St. Thomas and Elgin County native in the person of colorful former Premier of Ontario, Mitch Hepburn. (Hepburn is a story unto himself and I'll review some of his complex and controversial history as a wrap up to this post.)

As with Vince Barrie, I was very familiar with the Hepburn era in Ontario politics and, in fact was well acquainted with one of his sons Peter and two daughters Patricia and Helen, who were still prominent in St. Thomas circles as we spoke. Peter took over management of the family farm after the death of his father and Pat who married a chap by the name Hub Dollar, worked with my wife Anne at a Royal Bank branch in downtown St. Thomas.

The more I interrogated Sandy about his days with Hepburn the more physically and vocally animated he became.

"I really learned a lot about politics accompanying Mitch in the 1930s and '40s and developed a taste for that kind of life," he explained before ordering another beer at my expense...and dropping an unexpected bomb on me in the process. He just might run for the office of Mayor in Brampton for the coincidental upcoming municipal election, with an eye to entering provincial politics after that, no less.

"I'm sure I could win," he added in a fit of over confidence and bravado. Whoah!

Jokingly, and ill-advisedly egging him on, I responded by saying "Well if you ever do, keep me in mind as your campaign manager. That apparently was all Sandy needed to hear.

With that, he jumped up from his bar stool and began glad-handing with patrons as he circulated the pre-supper hour crowd, introducing himself as "the next Mayor of Brampton", a city of 100,000 population in those days. Numerous times he pointed over to me, the local newspaper editor, as his newly-appointed campaign manager and loudly instructed me (still wondering what I had I just let myself in for?) to "buy these good folks a drink on me!"

Truthfully, Sandy was pretty adept at what he was doing that night. Perhaps a trait he picked up from his longstanding exposure to the former Premier.

The ensuing 30 minutes cost me a lot of beers, which I guess served me right. But the charade had gone on long enough and I had to find a way out of it.

Finally managing to drag Sandy out of the hotel under the guise of talking campaign strategy, I suggested that we both needed to go home and sleep on what had just transpired. "Great," he said as he hustled off into the darkness of the busy main drag. "I'll be in touch after I file my name at city hall in the morning!"

Luckily, I did not hear from Sandy again but I did get an interesting telephone call from a psychiatrist at my office the next morning.

"I understand you have been talking to one of my patients about running for politics," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Well, yes," I answered rather sheepishly. "It stared out as a joke over a beer and quickly escalated out of control. In the end, the last thing I wanted to do was upset him but I guess he took it out of context as a form of all-too-welcomed encouragement."

Alluding to Sandy's lack of mental stability and with the hint of a chuckle, the doctor said "I understand, but don't worry, you won't be hearing any more from him." I chose not to ask any questions.

To be on the safe side, I did not go back to the Marlboro Hotel after work for several weeks.

I often wondered what happened to good old Sandy though. He was not really a bad guy and I hope they found him a good home someplace where he did not have access to gullible, young newspaper editors who knew about his former boss, Mitch Hepburn.

Incidentally, the incumbent Brampton Mayor Jim Archdeacon was returned to office, unchallenged by any election newcomers that year.

THE MITCH HEPBURN STORY HAD TWO SIDES TO IT

It was his turbulence that rushed Mitchell Hepburn into power in Ontario in the stagnant year of 1934. That made him a popular hero to the depression-weary electorate. Later this same turbulence brought against him accusations of treachery, threats of tar and feathers, insinuations of Nazi leanings.

Hepburn gave the appearance of trying to keep that turbulence tightly buttoned under his double-breasted blue suit. He tried to hold his natural friendliness in check by replacing his amiable smile with a fierce look. He was not good at it. This is partly because he had the wrong kind of face, with twinkly blue eyes, a short dimpled chin and a pair of large impishly fluted ears. His high forehead, topped by downy thinning hair, was more suggestive of extreme youth than terrifying wisdom.

He truly liked people people and he was fond of talking. His resolve to be a strong, silent man could be broken down by the mention of (a) his children and (b) his farm. Anyone ready to hear about either one was welcome to stay till the cleaning women came to sweep out his office.

The children were the previously mentioned Peter, Patsy (Pat) and Helen, all adopted. His own son and daughter died in infancy, but he did not ever mention them publicly. To his credit, he was completely devoted to his adopted family.

The children and their mother Eva Hepburn lived on the farm and the senior Hepburn went home for week ends when he could. Bannockburn Farm, near St. Thomas, was settled by Hepburn’s grandfather more than two hundred years ago. The white brick house the Hepburns lived in was the same house in which he was born. The farm,  1,000 acres in all, was a veritable industry in itself. It had 100 horses, 170 registered Holstein cows, 45 brood sows, 1,250 laying hens, and more than 100 acres of prize Spanish onions and celery marshland. This hundred acres were Mitchell Hepburn’s own achievement and pride. It was an old lake bed, looked upon as a worthless swamp. For 14 years he worked at draining it and the property became the best growing soil in that part of the country.

As a place to live, Bannockburn Farm was idyllic with two beautiful acres of lawn and flowers. With a summer lodge built of logs on the edge of a 9-acre artificial lake stocked with trout and bass. Each member of the family had their own dog and horse.

Premier Mitchell Hepburn (left)
with Lt. Governor of Ontario
Dr. Hebert Bruce.

That was the good side of Mitch Hepburn, but there was another side too, one that out-trumped the likes of American presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton combined.

To put it bluntly, he was noted for his persistent drunkenness and debauchery, despite being married with three children. In fairness, he was often described as a political paradox who in spite of his shortcomings was accepted by the people.

Hepburn represented a type of agrarian democracy that detested Toryism and valued oratory. He once saw a pile of manure situated in a village square, and proceeded to jump on top of it to give a speech, apologizing to the crowd for speaking from a Tory platform. He also used the same line when standing on a manure spreader, only to have a heckler shout, "Well, wind 'er up Mitch, because she's never carried a bigger load!"

Prime Minister William Lyon
MacKenzie King

Hepburn, who led the province from 1934-42, was on a collision course with Liberal Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, who despised Hepburn’s personal life. York University professor the late John Saywell chronicled Hepburn’s riotous living in his 1991 biography, Just Call me Mitch, (U of T Press) recounting how, in 1934, Hepburn had become “very puffy” in appearance.

“King relished the stories of Mitch’s alleged debauchery,” Saywell reported. “He faithfully recorded the story of the morning Annie Odette (the wife of a Hepburn colleague) went to Mitch’s suite and “found three girls there, who greeted her with the words, ‘Well dearie, you’re too late, we’ve been here all night.’”

Saywell also tells of a Caribbean vacation Hepburn spent with two other colleagues (perhaps one of them was a certain body guard?).

“After a night at the Biltmore in New York, the trio boarded the SS Monarch Of Bermuda on Dec. 6. Not long after they cleared the harbour, a young woman approached Mitch at the rail: ‘Hi, remember me?’ Mitch did remember buying the young Hepburn Liberal team member a chocolate malt during the election campaign. There was nothing adolescent about the beautiful, full-bodied, 21-year-old who told Mitch that she and some other young people had won the trip in a competition. When the ship docked in Bermuda two days later they went their separate ways.”

Saywell recounts how the trio sailed from Bermuda to Nassau, where they were to have dinner with the captain and the governor of the Bahamas. All went well until Hepburn and one of his buddies went missing.

“Eventually they were found in a brothel, which they had resorted to as soon as the boat put in.”

Hepburn brazenly flaunted his women in the legislature. “No one expected Mitch Hepburn to be a sophisticated parliamentarian, but there was a crude arrogance about his behaviour that many found disturbing,” writes Saywell.

“One contemporary observer, Dr. George McQuibban, noted that every man ‘on the front row’ (i.e. cabinet) now arrived with a good looking ‘stenographer’ and when drunk boasted about them. Hepburn brought his right into the House with him, although she looked ‘fagged out.’”

“Mitch had not forgotten his shipboard chance meeting with the young Hepburn team supporter and not long after his return he arrived at her father’s farm alone and unannounced. Two weeks later she was working at Queen’s Park. The romance blossomed. The beautiful young woman, robust in body and playful in spirit, became his frequent companion. Strongly independent, she resented the term mistress and would have been outraged if Angela Bruce (wife of the lieutenant-governor) had included her as one of Mitch’s ‘tarts,’” reports Saywell. “She was in love with him. Like most of his entourage, she usually called him ‘Chief,’ but there were times when they both preferred ‘Uncle Dudley.’”

Hepburn’s romps were not reported by the newspapers of the day, although Saywell implies that the Toronto Star may have used them as a nail in ‘Uncle Dudley’s’ political coffin: “His other private life was the stuff of stories in the newsroom of the Toronto Star, where it was said that publisher Joe Atkinson had finally driven Mitch out of politics by threatening to release compromising pictures of him with a girlfriend.”

On his death in January of 1954, the Toronto Star observed:

"It was in the 1934 election campaign that Mr. Hepburn's gift of oratory first impinged on the province at large. He had a free and easy platform manner, his customary attitude being hands plunged in side coat pockets while he wandered about the platform releasing an unfaltering flow of barbed-wire eloquence that no other political speaker could match in rapidity and certainly not in deadliness. He never consulted a note, never appeared to prepare a speech in advance, and delivered an array of astounding facts and figures with such an air of assurance that his audience seldom thought to question them."

I never got to ask Hepburn's old body guard Sandy about any of that in what turned out to be the three longest hours of my life spent with him in the Marlboro Hotel bar one night in 1978. All Sandy offered was: "Mr. Hepburn was a good politician with a lot of good ideas." Some of which he planned to incorporate in the political career of his delusional fantasy, God bless him.

HOPE IS A PRIME MOTIVE FOR CHRISTIAN LIVING. WE CAN FACE ADVERSITY BECAUSE THE PRESENT SITUATION IS NEVER THE LAST CHAPTER FOR NEW BEGINNERS.

What you do in the present -- by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself  -- will last into God's future. Whatever we do to mend the world has lasting value.

Popular theology has not always followed traditional thought.

Some Christian thinkers have extrapolated that death releases an inner divine spark whose battery never runs out and that floats along heavenly streets of gold and other adornments of crystal, halos and white robes. Salvation, tritely referred to as "going to your rest," is pictured as a continuous holiday in a gated community monitored by St. Peter. Background music is supplied by harps. God performs, in theologian Ted Peters' words a "soulectomy," separating soul from body for a nonphysical world. 

So the result is a bodiless person and a worldless God. Caricature or not, some of those notions left me perplexed as I grew up in the church of my youth. Surely God had something far bigger in mind.

N. T. Wright (no relation), a new testament scholar and Anglican bishop, summed it up not long ago when he explained, "What (Jesus) was promising for the future, and is doing in the present, was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity, but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so they could enjoy, already in the present, the renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose -- and so they could thus become colleagues and partner in that larger project."

In other words, a promise of a new creation and an invitation to a new vocation stretches beyond "me and Jesus" to God's worldwide purposes. The Christian life is so much more than one person's long-term survival. It is about the world's future, it is about our hope turning our heads and hearts outward to the world. This, ideally, should be the focus of churches struggling to be relative in the troubling times of the 21st century and beyond. Connecting mission with change.

Mission provides the major standard against which all activities, services, and decisions are valued. Mission is the preserver of congregational integrity. It is about God's love for the world, not about what I like or don't like about my church. 

When talk show host Stephen Colbert interviewed the previously-mentioned N. T. Wright, he said his vision of heaven was a harp, mint julep, and asking former U.S. President Ronald Reagan questions. Farcical as Colbert was and is, it is not to much of a stretch to suggest that far too many people want to go to heaven for similar self-serving and fanciful allusions of eternal bliss. But the biblical final destination is a surprise, not merely a heavenly reward where we see and hear what we want to see and hear. It is a new heaven and a new earth.

All creation has a future. Our journey in life is not a private affair. We are invited to become agents of God's creative work -- seeking the lost, feeding the hungry and befriending the lonely.  

It should be remembered that Israel became a community of hope by refusing to allow the exile to be the epitome of their destiny. They confidently trusted that God would in his own time mend the brokenness. They had no assurances, no natural endowment for rosy expectations, no hope that the law of averages had to play their number eventually -- just "My hope is in you (Ps. 39:7). It all came about because of God's will being done on earth as in heaven.

His promise to renew all things creates hope, not the need for hope. The future is different.

"The dark door of the future has been thrown open," Pope Benedict XV1 declared, "the one who has hope lives differently." We can take our lyres (guitars, drums, tymphonies, tom toms, tambourines and trumpets) off the trees in this time of dislocation and sing our songs of Zion which glorify God's presence, always. 

Every now and then, we and our places of worship need to step back and take a long look forward. God's kingdom is beyond our efforts, even our vision. In a lifetime we participate in only a fraction of God's work. But, while we cannot do everything, we can do something. Incomplete as it may be, it is a step along the way, a beginning.

End results? We may never realize or see them, only hold them trusting in God's future promise of the creation of a new heart in us and a new world out of the old. 

Prayer: God who made us the creatures of time, so that every tomorrow is unknown and every decision a venture of faith, grant us frail children of the day, who are blind to the future, to move toward it with a sure confidence in your love, from which neither life nor death can separate us.