Bat Vespers — Awesome outdoor worship

So what did you do on Saturday, July 27, 2024 when the sun set and the sky turned dark? I was watching a British crime drama on television; others in my Okanagan community enjoyed the warm waters of the lake; some might have been bird watching. I am certain however that no one here was out watching bats. I have learned however that the Okanagan Valley has more species of bats living here than anywhere else in Canada; this is news to me.

This would not be news to the Rev. Dykstra of the Salal and Cedar Watershed Discipleship Community, based in the lower mainland of British Columbia. Salal and Cedar is a church without walls, a community that seeks a deeper engagement with creation in order to encounter God as Creator. And there is no limit to their creativity in living out their vocation, in love with their Creator through creation itself.

Their most recent event, Bat Vespers occurred at Vancouver’s Deas Island Regional Park, a hybrid between a natural history adventure and an ancient daily Christian ritual. The worship notes described the worship service in these words:

Concerning Vespers] Vespers is the Latin word for “evening.” It is one of the prayers of hours that the early church marked the passage of the day from as early as the 3rd C. Lucernarium (lamp or lamp-lighting time) was an early name for vespers and it has roots in the Jewish custom of prayer at the time when daylight faded and the lamps were lit.

[From the Aberdeen Bestiary circa 1200] The bat (vespertilione), a lowly animal, gets its name from vesper, the evening, when it emerges. It is a winged creature but also a four-footed one, and it has teeth, which you would not usually find in birds. It gives birth like a quadruped, not to eggs but to live young. It flies, but not on wings; it supports itself by making a rowing motion with its skin, and, suspended just as on wings, it darts around. There is one thing which these mean creatures do, however: they cling to each other and hang together from one place looking like a cluster of grapes, and if the last lets go, the whole group disintegrate; it [is] a kind of act of love of a sort which is difficult to find among men.

Vancouver’s Deas Island is home to the largest maternal bat colony in BC; several thousand mother bats and their young emerge from the historic Burvilla House at sunset and fly out into the park to feast on mosquitos and other flying insects. And we will be there.

Putting everything together, poof: You get Bat Vespers. The event included a low-key pot luck meal of easy-to-eat finger foods. Attendees celebrated the Solar feast of Lammas or loaf-mass so bread was in abundance. They shared a simple service of Psalms, Prayers and Readings. Then folks  moved into position to watch the bats fly out from under the eaves of the Burvilla House. One participant summed up their experience in a poem.

Our first Bat Vespers celebration was deeply beautiful.

Bat Vespers on Deas Island
I hope there is a photo,
but it could not capture
the lingering, golden sunset
skeining pink across the sky
rippling down the Fraser River,
or the humans, parents and children
all mingling, sharing food, circling for vespers,
eyes lifted midway by another skein above
geese winging home, honking Magnificat
chatting about their day.

We walked, waited, waited, waited,
standing at a backyard fence,
looking up to witness the Burrvilla bat colony,
mothers and offspring all, darting out at last
to their vesper-dance for dinner.

A Great Horned Owl settled atop a tree
to gaze at us as in the darkening light
blinking their three-lidded eyes.
Poem by Adele

For years I facilitated Jazz Vespers, first in the South Okanagan and later in Colwood just outside of Victoria. It was a marvellous fusion of spirit and art. Bat Vespers, and the soon to be announced Crow Vespers make a similar and dynamic connection between spirit and nature. Such liturgies connect with folks never likely to enter a church building for traditional worship. The liturgies created by Salal and Cedar remove the built wall between worshippers and creation. Such endeavours remind me of the early days of COVID where African churches simply moved outside to meet under a tree. Truthfully, the walls just get in our way, in so many ways.

Congratulations Salal and Cedar in your latest worship experience. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Photos by JJ, and Galina