New Year 2025: Respair and Big Naps

 

As we said good riddance to the sufferings and fears of 2024 - and wished happiness and health and peace to friends and family at the turn of year - 2025 began broken with its own terrors, violence, and chaos.

 

However today, this first Sunday of the New Year, you have made a choice. You have chosen to start the New Year gathering in faith community. Coming to a place where the broken is accepted, the broken is redeemed, the broken is loved, the broken is found, and the broken is washed in grace.

 

I invite us to start fresh and for a moment let go of the beginning of 2025 (breath in and loudly breathe out)

Let us BREATHE and start fresh.

 

Instagram content creator Worry_lines, posted this week: “to have big plans, you have to have big dreams, and to have big dreams, you have to have big naps.”

This is what it is to start the New Year gathering as a faith community – we come to hear God’s big plans – to as a community embrace big plans and have big dreams; plans and dreams that contain hope, love of neighbour, welcome of stranger, belief in kindness, faith in commonwealth and the possibility of peace.

While some of us do take naps during the sermon, being here, we all take a big nap from the world and the garbage the world inundates us with. Napping from the world is respite.

Big naps mean big dreams – the kind that are life changing and world changing.

 

You have probably heard the phrase, “In times like these” –

In 1943, Ruth Caye, who was a mother of 5 and a pastor’s wife in Pennsylvania, was deeply affected by the news from the front of WWII, the casualties of war and the seeming lack of progress, the rationing of food making life difficult, and the general malaise among people. After reading 2 Timothy 3: 1 In the last days perilous times shall come…She took to writing down a few thoughts and a tune came to her. Her hymn was later made famous by George Beverly Shea and the Billy Graham crusades. Her words were:

In times like these we need a Saviour/ In times like these we need an anchor/ In times like these we need the Bible/ in times like these O be not idle

Be sure and very sure. Your anchor holds and grips the Solid Rock – Jesus is the rock.

 

Ruth could have stuck her nose into various passages in scripture that speak of last days and perilous times.

I particularly think of the prophets. Jeremiah being a good example. Jeremiah, known as the ‘weeping prophet,’ spends 5 decades speaking big dreams into the doom and gloom of idolatry, social injustice, and the moral decay of his day. He faced opposition, imprisonment, and personal struggles. He must have taken lots of naps, for he had a hope that went beyond human understanding. In the middle of a war, with the enemy army invading and destroying, displacing people and exiling them, he buys a piece of land at full price. Believing God’s big dream of settled living, with abundance of produce, peace among people, love of neighbour, love of God; where everyone has enough, no one has too much; foreigners are welcomed, and the land is respected. That’s a big dream.

 

“In Times Like These” is a phrase older than Ruth Caye. Nellie McClung, a Canadian author, politician, and social activist wrote a book in 1915, titled: “In Times Like These.” This was during WWI. Her chapters: The War that Never Ends, The War that Ends in Exhaustion Sometimes Mistaken for Peace, What Do Women Think of War (Not that It Matters), and War Against Gloom. Before writing her thoughts on the war against gloom, I think she took a big nap, so she could dream big, so she had something to offer that she did not find in the world around her. She wrote an eloquent poem prayer, so suitable for the beginning of a New Year in times like these:

 Not for all sunshine, dear Lord, do we pray-  We know such a prayer would be vain;

But that strength may be ours to keep right on our way, Never minding the rain!

 

The Oxford Junior Dictionary is a condensed dictionary used mostly in schools. Words are chosen for the dictionary as words that the editors think all students should know. Every few years the dictionary editors review the words, removing some and adding others. In 2007, 40 common words of natural things (like dandelion, fern, otter) were left out, and replaced by virtual things (like blog, bullet-point, voicemail). This disturbed author Richard Macfarlane enough that he wrote the book The Lost Words. Using 20 of the 40 words he created a spell-book of sorts to bring magic and mystery and curiosity to the 20 natural item words; to provide a place to dream and imagine an acorn, a wren, a dandelion. Richard must have taken a big nap before putting the book together, to dream of the power of words. He believed that if you don’t have words for something, then it ceases to exist in the imagination.

 

God must have started with a big nap. God certainly rested after the creation of the world, before dreaming again. The opening of John’s Gospel sets before us the mystery, the beauty, and the vastness of creation, of God’s imagination and big dream, of the presence of the Word, woven in, around, and through everything.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s son, full of grace and truth.

From his fullness we have received, grace upon grace.

 

I have taken a nap or two over the past week. My dreams have been filled by one word, RESPAIR.

Respair is an old English word that means new hope; a recovery from despair.

In times like these I believe we need respair. In times like these I believe that new hope and recovery from despair are a big dream, a dream that is dreamed and comes to be by resting here, in faith community, in the Word, in prayer; or in other words taking a nap with God.

In times like these, you have acted boldly coming to a place where we dream big – a place where the broken is accepted, the broken is redeemed, the broken is loved, the broken is found, and the broken is washed in grace upon grace.

This year let us read and listen to poetry – whether a bit from the prophet Jeremiah or the beginning of the Gospel of John, Nellie Mc Clung or Ruth Caye; let their dreams and the Word woven in the writing fuel life and beauty and mystery, and respair.

Take big naps so you have big dreams – and can live out God’s dreams.

And remember to BREATH.

 

Expectant Home: Christmas Eve sermon 2024

 

Expectant Home.

Our first home – everyone’s first home- is snug and warm. It is neutral warmth, meaning the exact right temperature. There is a soothing constant beat of momma’s heart, and white noise of fluid and digestion.

There is a gentle buoyant movement, a rocking, side to side. Best of all there is touch, a deep pressure massage; one is wrapped in an all-day-never-ending hug.

 

Expectant Home.

Through Advent the congregation explored the theme of shelter and continues the theme this evening as we contemplate shelter and the expectant mother Mary, whose womb is home to God. Mary, expectant mother, shelters the saviour of the world. A few months ago Elizabeth, Mary’s cousin, welcomed Mary into her home – she too expectant with a baby – and she expresses being blessed by Mary’s and God’s presence in her home. John the Baptist, Elizabeth’s baby, leaps in her womb, in his first home, acknowledging Emmanuel, God-with-us, Jesus soon to be birthed to a new home on earth. 

 

Expectant Home.

Tonight, we shelter in our thoughts and prayers expectant mothers – we hold expectant hopes and dreams.

We pray for mothers who are housed this night in maternity wards, hospitals, birthing houses; for those sheltering in precarious or emergency places. We give thanks for sheltering hands of doulas, midwifes, nurses, doctors, EMTs, and the occasional taxi driver who assist babies into their second homes. This home we call earth.

 

Expectant Home.

Our second home – where we are met by brightness and expanse, noise and changing temperature; a place where everything is new to us, chaotic, overwhelming. A place where our first few weeks are spent sleeping and eating – growing and processing - to acclimatize to this our second home.

A whole bunch of research has been done on helping babies transition the move from their first home to their second. The thought is that adults – moms, dads, and those who gather around a little one- are the shelter for the baby by imitating a womb-like-home, and this welcomes, settles, and calms babies in their worldly home. The three practices for sheltering infants: swaddling, lullabying, and rocking.

 

Expectant Home.

There comes with each baby welcomed into the world hope, hope wrapped in the miracle of life, hope wrapping potential and possibility. There is hope that the baby will be swaddled, lullabied, and rocked; made to feel at home, to grow into this earthly home. Yet, there is no guarantee that this second home will be home at all.

As we contemplate the expectant birth of Jesus, we consider children without permanent homes, who find shelter in orphanages, foster care homes, or institutional settlings like group homes or treatment facilities. According to the Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada approximately 63,000 children across Canada live in government care. 30,000 of these children are available for adoption. In a given year only 2000 are adopted into homes. In addition, there are another 235,000 children/youth nationwide at risk of entering care due to unstable family situations. On their website the Children’s Aid Foundation boldly states, “We believe every child deserves to live in a safe and loving home.”

 

Expectant Home.

A safe and loving home. For centuries prophets were expectant, waiting for God’s vision of home to come. Home, a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth, where the Messiah would open a door to a home of peace, mercy, and love.

Tonight, we gather to celebrate home: the event where God came to dwell among us. In Bethlehem, which translated is ‘House of Bread,’ embraced the expectant hopes of generations to heal the fears of all the years that night when Jesus was born.

Bp. Azar of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land, writes in his 2024 Christmas Message, “We are approaching another Christmas without peace in our land. Like God’s people in the time of Jesus, we are suffering under the weight of state violence and control. With tens of thousands dead and millions displaced. Christmas in Bethlehem will once again pass without the typical tree lightings, scout marches, and other festivities. As the world prepares to celebrate, our hearts are with our people in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem. We feel the darkness that surrounded the first Christmas. Not a night of parades or Santa Claus, but of the holy family searching for refuge far from home.

Yet, even in these dark days as we wait for the light to come, we find hope in the words of Paul in Hebrews, Chapter 13 Verse 8: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

 

Expectant Home.

Until recently in North America, there was a general expectation that one would leave their second home, not earth, but the house they grew up in, to rent, then buy a starter home, to later buy a bigger home. This is no longer true, everything is not the same today as yesterday. Perhaps we have been deluding ourselves, chasing and building shelter that is not expectant home.

At Christmas we want the shelter of hope and peace. We want joy and love in our dwellings. We are expectant. Jesus, the Word Incarnate, comes to this earthly home. Two thousand years later we shelter in the words, the hope, the faith, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever; especially amid bomb shelters, building rubble, broken homes, no homes, and promises of housing and peace yet to be.

 

Tonight, in community, in singing, in hearing the Christmas story, in candlelight, in communion, we are filled with expectant home: swaddled, lullabied, and rocked. We return to an atmosphere like that of our first home, sheltered in a never-ending-hug. Coming home we are embraced, settled, and calmed.

Expectant Home.

This is our first home, transitioned to our second home. The event of Jesus’ birth, dwelling with us, warms our hearts to be home, to be shelter, to imitate our first home where God creates with expectant hopes filled with love and peace and joy.

We can be home – swaddling - weighted blankets, lots of covers, hugs, holding hands;

We can be home - lullabying, - humming, singing, quiet talking, whispered words of encouragement;

We can be home - rocking – cradling, bouncing on our knee, dancing, walking;

We can be home. We can be home for others.

Swaddling, lullabying, and rocking takes us HOME – returns us to Creator- and a God who chose to become incarnate for the love of all who share this earthly home.

 

Jesus Christ is home, the same yesterday and today and forever.

Expectant Home.

 

Advent Shelter: Devotion #11

SHELTER: The Example of an Innkeeper – by Claire McIlveen

 

‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood

When blackness was a virtue, the road was full of mud

I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form

Come in, she said

I'll give ya

Shelter from the storm                               -Bob Dylan, 1974

These days, when we think of shelter, the first thing that comes to mind is literal shelter: a place of refuge from wind, rain and snow. 

A home.

Or is Dylan’s hero seeking a place of refuge from the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” as Shakespeare’s Hamlet puts it: somewhere away from the challenges, contradictions and occasional strife that can preoccupy us in our daily lives?

Sometimes shelter is warm and comforting: a mother’s hand upon an ailing child’s forehead, a lover’s embrace, the camaraderie of old friends, the neighbour’s gift of a casserole after a death in the family.

It can also be spiritual shelter in the form of a welcoming religious community or even a political philosophy where we can safely explore ideas and live in hope of a better world.

But we can’t find refuge from daily life, human warmth or spiritual enlightenment without a home.

Home is where personality is born and resilience is fostered, dreams are incubated and progress is imagined. Without home, we don’t have much, other than a gnawing anxiety about how to put a roof (or in the case of too many, a tent) over our heads and where our next meal will come from. You can’t imagine a better life if you are hanging on to the present one by non-existent fingernails.

In a society where shelter - an absolute need in Canada - is sold to the highest bidder and many just can’t bid, the outcome is catastrophic.

But as Christians, we have the example of the innkeeper to follow: we can do what we can to help.

We can push the issue of lack of affordable housing to the forefront of public discourse. We can support movements and political parties that offer genuine solutions to the problems of homelessness and push against solutions that seek to move the problem - and the homeless - out of sight and out of mind.

We can donate to movements and charities that help the homeless where they are now and to find homes.

Our church’s investigations into redeveloping the property to provide some low-income housing is an important initiative that we can support.

As we move into Advent and celebrate the innkeeper who gives Mary and Joseph a roof over their heads for the birth of Jesus, let us give thanks for all the kinds of shelter in our lives and work towards a time when everyone in the world can share in our abundance.

 

https://youtu.be/-gsDBuHwqbM?si=JP1kFCXVOKneGbQM

 

 

 

 

Advent Shelter: Devotion # 10

 

Refugees: Finding Home  -- by Amana

 

Living in a house with lots of people can be both fun and tough. There’s always noise, laughter, and stories being told, but it can also feel crowded at times. It takes patience to share space and make sure everyone feels cared for or has space for some alone time. Helping our new family members settle in Canada has been a big responsibility too, mostly for my parents (as it means doing a lot of paperwork and helping them figure out how things work here). Whereas I get to do all the fun parts, like helping them learn new things, like which fast food restaurants are the best, or going out with them and showing them where all the fun places are, and occasionally cheering them up when they start missing home. It’s hard and fun work; it’s also really rewarding because you see their hope grow as they settle into a new life, and you also get to learn about current and past life back home.

 

An example of this is my grandmother, who has taught me so much through her stories. Like the wars she’s lived through, the people she lost, and even funny stories of how my mother was being mischievous (although my mother says she was a well-behaved kid growing up). She’s been through a lot in her life—wars, being separated from family, and even losing some. Despite all those challenges, she shows so much strength and faith. She reminds me that even when life is hard, trusting God can give you peace. I’m learning from her that real shelter isn’t just about having a house; it’s about being surrounded by love, support, and hope for the future.

 

Prayer: 

Dear God, we pray for families who have had to leave their homes as refugees. Please keep them safe and give them hope. For those living in refugee camps, help them find comfort and protection. Show us how to share what we have so that others can feel Your love and care. Thank You for being a shelter for everyone who needs You. Amen.

 

 This picture is a map that Bob put up in the fellowship hall. People place a tab with their name on it and put a pin in their country of origin. The signs say "I am from..." in various languages.

The Welcome Angels flag is from the Rhenish Lutheran Church in Toronto. Our confirmation classes wrote letters to each other. Welcome Angel is a project that welcomes new immigrants and refugees, most recently Ukrainians and Chinese. 

Advent Shelter: Devotion #9

 

 

Social Justice - Providing Shelter

 

The shelter of arms

soothing the fear and sorrow

wordless sanctuary.   ---Carolyn

 

With regards to the National Housing Crisis, have you asked, “What can be done?” “What can I do?” “How can I help?”

Participating in these daily devotions on shelter contributes to addressing issues of housing and homelessness. The first step is to become informed on matters of housing and shelter.

“Actions to take are those for most social justice issues: become informed, volunteer/serve, and advocate.” --- Valerie

 

In our neighbourhood and wide community there are various non-profit organizations invested in providing shelter, working on solutions, and advocating for deeply affordable housing. Our church participates by actively supporting organizations doing the work: Adsum House, Bryony House, Alice House, Phoenix House, Holly House, Out of the Cold Shelter, Metro Turning Point, St. Leonard House, Shelter NS, and St. Vincent de Paul. Support is given by the collection of requested items, monetary donations (from pastor’s discretionary fund), pastoral visits, quilt/prayer shawl ministry gifts, social media following and reposting of organizations needs and/or advocacy posts.

Organizations listed provide shelter for women and children fleeing abusive situations, youth without save lodging, transitional housing for men and women coming out of prison, shelters for the homeless, and housing for low-income families. Most of these organizations have room for volunteers. Volunteering is a way to positively address issues of shelter.

 

Through your donations to the church, you provide a home for the pastor and her family. On your behalf she works to provide shelter and home for the community. With your help, home has been created through the re-homing of furniture and household goods particularly for newcomers – much thanks to Bob and his truck. Downsizing is difficult and helpful hands have been used to re-distribute, pack, and move congregation members. Pastor Kimber is often asked to be a character reference for lease or housing applications. And as a congregation, you have kept struggling families in their homes with resources to help carry them (fuel, rent, or electricity bills) between losing and finding jobs, or as result of other emergency situations.

 

The church advocates for affordable and low-income housing. When multi-storied construction projects are proposed in the church neighbour surveys and questionnaires are circulated for neighbourhood input. The municipality has rules that in new construction there must be so many affordable units based on the size of the building, or alternatively the construction company can pay a tax to not incorporate affordable units. Surveys are filled out stressing the importance of the incorporation of affordable units, for the health of the neighbourhood and the housing needs of the city.

 

Take time to decide the next step (become informed, volunteer, advocate) that you can take to positively address shelter.

 

 

Come, there is shelter, not much,

but a place to keep you warm and dry

It’s not home I know.

So much has been lost

I see the pain and agony in your eyes.

I can offer a smile, an arm around your shoulders

A warm blanket to enfold you

like a mother’s hug.

Thank you. It is enough. ---- Carolyn

 

 

God of compassion and hope,

open our hearts to the needs of our neighbours who are homeless, under housed, seeking refuge or denied the right to water. Open our minds to the issues that contribute to poverty, homelessness, and substandard housing. Open our eyes to opportunities for ministry, to partnerships, and to innovative approaches for addressing these challenges. Open our hands to act with compassion and for justice. Bless us with time, patience, persistence, and commitment over the long-term, so that all may have safe, affordable and adequate housing. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.                                       

-- ELCIC National Housing Day (Nov.22) prayer

Be Home

 

Ojibway writer, Richard Wagamese wrote: Home is the culmination of my hopes and dreams and desires. Home is a feeling in the centre of my chest of rightness, balance and harmony of mind, body and spirit. Home is where the channel to Creator and the Grandmothers gets opened every day and where life gains its focal point. To be away from it even for a day, is that acute awareness. It is also knowing that home is what I bring to it, and in that is the sure and quiet knowledge that home is within me and always was.

 

Our Advent theme of shelter has given me time to think about home and what home means to me. Home is a feeling in the centre of my chest… Wagamese describes home as being within and alludes to life as a journey, a going out and a coming in, from home that always was and is, here (hands on heart), within. Within, I have a home where God resides, and the wise ones are encountered. John the Baptizer, in his own way, invited and invites people to return home. His words open the door for people to step across the threshold, away from the interruptions of the day, and to find shelter in living God’s covenant. It is no mistake that John mentions Abraham and the ancestors in his argument, which reminds the people of safety and hope in God’s promises and familial ties. Dwelling in John’s words there is an admonishment that the people have wandered away from God’s promises into wilderness, desert, and inhabitable places. Preparing the way, opening the door for the coming Messiah, John urges the people to return home; home as the culmination of centuries of prophetic hopes and dreams and desires of a whole people.   

The Psalms chosen for our journey through Advent were chosen because of their focus on shelter. Psalm 107, this morning’s, is a Psalm of Thanksgiving on return from exile. It expresses home as resettlement in the land and a return to covenant living with God, God being at the centre of covenant relationship.

Home for me is built and nurtured, in and from God and covenant relationship. Psalm 107 describes my sense of home, the feeling in the centre of my chest of rightness, balance and harmony of mind, body and spirit, by inclusion of the words: steadfast, love, endures, gathered, inhabited, satisfied, saved from distress, fruitful, established, blessed, makes their families like flocks.

These words for me represent home, home as a sense of permanence and belonging.

 

I led a retreat where the participants brought their Bibles, for some that meant accessing the translation of their choosing via the Biblegateway site on their phones. During the reading of the text from Luke, the person reading received a phone call. Now the phone was on silent so none of us knew, except that the person stopped reading abruptly mid-thought. Whoever has two coats must … the incoming call interrupted the reading because the pop-up notification covered the words being read.

Interrupted.

This had me consider that John the Baptist’s call inviting people to return home, was a voice interrupting the people of his day and their habits, a people who were lost, having wandered away from home without even noticing. They were a people passing through the Temple without finding sanctuary, following laws just because one was supposed to, and subsisting in the land but land occupied by strangers. John’s voice from the wilderness interrupted lives that were filled with fake shelter; shelter that was inadequate to meet the peoples’ needs.

The inquisitiveness of the people in the wilderness illustrates the human desire for home, for a sense of permanence and belonging; the feeling in the centre of the chest of rightness, balance and harmony. John the Baptist’s direction to those who asked, “what shall I do?” is simple enough, he opens the door to the home of God’s covenant. To be home one is to care and share. John’s message: Care and share, is covenant living in a nutshell. The message is the same as all prophets and teachers: love God, love your neighbour.

More specifically commentators describe John’s directions of care and share as building home through merciful justice, radical generosity, and vocational integrity. Each addressed to specific kinds of home to be created based on the askers’ roles in society and their skills. Covenant living, living from the home of one’s being is to create home for others, to invite others home, and to prepare the way for permanence and belonging.

 

Home for me is really about heart connections. Home is people close to me, the ones I feel that I can face any circumstance of life with, the ones I can ask for help, the ones I act most like myself around.

Caring and sharing for me come from the heart of my relationship with God.

 

There is a vast array of reasons for people to be excluded from home, from a sense of permanence and belonging. Often reasons are out of a person’s control. Whatever the reasons, broken relationships, having no social equity or resources, makes one very much alone, with no backup plan or people to gather around when in need of support. John the Baptist’s words have interrupted us in this house, in this spiritual home, where for us we have found a sense of belonging and permanence, caring and sharing in community. John calls us to care and share, not just in this home, but in living God’s covenant in all of our relationships … and because we have experienced home as described in the Psalm 107: steadfast, love, endures, gathered, inhabited, satisfied, saved from distress, fruitful, established, blessed, makes their families like flocks; we can prepare the way and create home for those searching for home.

 

With hands on heart:

Within this house, God abide,

A home of steadfast love inside.

Inhabiting peace by caring,

Building home by sharing.

Ever welcoming

Permanently belonging.

Home – an indwelling of God.

Home – to be cared and shared in the world.

Advent Shelter: Devotion #8

Senior’s Housing

 

“… even to your old age I am God; even when you turn grey I will carry you.”  – Is. 46: 4

 

Photo: Shelter Word-web by Georgi

According to Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency, NSPHA offers a variety of housing options for low-income Nova Scotians including seniors, families, individuals and couples. Tenants must be able to live independently and are responsible for arranging their own supports if needed. NSPHA does not operate long-term care facilities.

NSPHA is a Crown corporation and is the largest social housing provider in NS. They operate more than 11,200 public housing units, housing over 17,800 people. 71% of those housed are seniors. The wait time to get into a Manor (there are 44 buildings in HRM) is approximately 2 years.

 

Manor buildings are home to people over the age of 58. They are accessible and close to amenities. Yearly, each person living in a manor, shares their tax-return which is used to calculate the rent the tenant will pay for the coming year. Manor living is apartment living. Your neighbours are culturally diverse seniors, sometimes set in their ways, eccentric characters, or shy widow/widowers. Manors can have outdoor space for gardens, parking spaces, allowance for a pet, smoking huts, and tenant organized activities. Turn-over comes mostly from aging, people moving to places with nursing care or due to death. For the most part, manors provide not only safe and affordable housing for seniors, but a community of neighbours navigating aging together.

                                                                                    --in conversation with Georgi

 

Over the years, Pastor Kimber has spent many pastoral care hours in long-term care facilities. The church offers shelter through this ministry, and at Northwood’s downtown Campus by providing worship services six times a year.  Nursing Homes and residential care homes are housing for people who have difficulty performing basic everyday tasks (bathing, dressing, etc.) and have nursing needs beyond homecare.  The province has a Single-Entry Access system where a person undergoes a needs assessment and then is placed on a list based on the priority of their need. Organizations and government, Department of Seniors, Long-Term Care, Department of Health, among others work together to support or find appropriate homes for each person.

For the first few months of nursing home living, pastoral visits listen to a person who grieves the loss of home. The transition into what is a final earthly shelter, is helped by family, friends, and church communities who offer support, warm visits, and comforts of home. Never underestimate the comfort of a visit, a card, a prayer shawl, a bag of peppermints, or a reading of a poem.

Long-term care residents are unique as each faces the constant change of roommates and floormates because of death. Shelter for residents is having people who are willing to matter-of-factly speak about death, hope in resurrection, and dream of what heavenly or eternal home will be like.

 

Housing for seniors, whether manors, long-term care, residential care homes, hospitals, or nursing homes, takes a community of skilled professionals, passionate care givers, and a team of support workers. Many give shelter to others through their vocations and occupations. One of our members, Isaias, works in homecare and in nursing homes settings. He offers this prayer for seniors:

 

Lord, I ask that you bless our seniors living in their home, and nursing home. Keep them safe from harm both physically and emotionally. Protect them from accidents, sickness, and injury.

Lord Jesus, I ask that you bless them with good health, safety and comfort.

In Jesus name. Amen.  -- Isaias

 

 

You can learn more at these links:

About NSPHA | Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency

A guide to moving in to long term care in Nova Scotia - Adobe cloud storage

 

 

 

Advent Shelter: Devotion #7

 

                     

                      Homeless  -- by Pete

The pic is of the tent community living across from the church (Welsford St) 

On June 17^th, 2022, I found myself in a situation I never thought I would ever be in.

On that Saturday in June, I found that after 22years of living at the same address, after 36 years of being married to the same woman, my life crashed.

 

I left my home, separating from, my then wife, I was homeless. It was with not trying to find housing in Halifax, it was out of reach, rent wise, too expensive. You needed a damage deposit, 1^st and last months rent. I did not have that. I spent that weekend in a hotel out of the rain that was coming down.

 

Lucky for me, I thought, friends opened their home to me in Kingston, NS. They came from Kingston and picked me up. I was there with friends, safe from the streets, for so I thought. That September, I was asked to leave as they wanted the room I had for their grandchildren. So, back to the city I came, with nowhere to go.

 

From the end of September to around the first of November, I was homeless and on the streets. I picked a well-lit spot behind Station 7 Fire Department on Dunbrack and Kinghtridge, where I stayed in the woods by the park for some shelter from the rain. I eventually found my way to Dunbrack and Lacewood Drive and a park bench where I stayed for about four weeks. A busy intersection, well-lit and I would be seen by police, fire, and EHS on a daily basis.

 

During my time there, I met some awesome community members, who brought me food and a comforter to keep warm. These folks talked with me, wanting to know my story. After 3 ½ weeks or so, a young woman who saw me almost every evening asked if I would like a tent. I said, “Sure!” She came back about an hour later and set up her tent for me. To say the least, I was pleased.

 

The next morning, I received a visit to my park bench from Halifax Police. They advised me I would have to move as it was not an area for a tent. So, I moved up the street to the Mainland Linear Trail, where I set up my tent in the woods, out of public view on the advice of Halifax Police.

 

The days were chilly and the nights cool and lonely. I was there for about 3 weeks, leaving there in the day and returning around early evening.

 

Then, one fine morning I received a call from Pastor Kimber. She was so helpful to me during this time, with coffee, chat and a gift card. Pastor Kimber mentioned to me about a place I could possibly move into. A day or so later, with the help of my friend and MLA, I was on my way to Kentville, NS, to my new home. There I met Jeff Hosick, a Lutheran pastor, therapist. I’ve been in Kentville since November 2022, with a roof over my head, off the streets. Thanks to these 2 awesome folks.

 

 

*NOTE – Pete and Jeff are both members at Resurrection. Because both were connected to the church and known to Pastor Kimber, through sharing their lives, struggles, and situations, she was able to connect them, meeting both their needs, a HOME was provided for both of them (boarder and homeowner).

 

Is there a possibility that you would like to share an apartment with another person? Do you have an empty room that you would like to offer to a student? Are you lonely and would like to have someone else around? Share with Pastor Kimber, you never know who else is looking to create a new sense of HOME.

 

Creator,

You created animals such that they seek refuge for the winter and hibernate until spring. They are warm and secure in their dwellings. We pray that it is so for all who find themselves homeless, tent-living, precariously housed, or couch surfing. May shelters be built, supportive housing provided, rooms opened up, and permanent spaces offered. For those who still shelter in the open air, blanket them with the warmth of kindness from others, comfort from the struggle of mental illness, and a sense of peace in the home of their hearts. Amen.

 

 

 

Advent Shelter: Devotion #6

 

Out-of-the-Cold Shelter  -- by Carolyn

 

Shelter: a building designed to give protection from bad weather, danger, or attack.

(Cambridge Dictionary)

 

Shelter is never defined as a home, but as a place of protection or place to live.

Is shelter different from having a home, a place that you can decorate and cook what you like. Listen to the music you enjoy. Cry, sing, curse, laugh.

Do you consider your home a shelter?

 

Tents are shelters, though not much of a shelter once it gets cold or rainy or snowy. A bed or cot in a large room is shelter. Cardboard boxes can be shelter - both a bed and a roof.

Shelters are set up during weather crises: hurricanes, flooding, wildfires. A place to stay and ensure you will be warm, dry and safe. And that you will be fed.

 

I have so far not needed to use a shelter, nothing has threatened my home or my safety in it, other than power outages. I wonder, though, when that might no longer be true as our climate becomes increasingly extreme.

Several years ago, I volunteered at a shelter for homeless men and women. I made beds, served food, cleaned up in the morning, helped people find clothing or shoes from donated items. And I listened to stories. So many stories from people of all ages, educational levels, ethnic backgrounds. Some were working, many were unable to. All now without a place to call home, a place to wake up in or go to sleep in that was a permanent address, with a fridge and stove, a bathroom.

 

Everyone of us was once a baby and then a child and a young adult. We all had hopes and dreams. Some of those were realized. But for some of us, something shatters those dreams. An accident, a job loss, a relationship breakup, violence, abuse, illness. Often one difficulty leads to another, like a tsunami, taking away every support and possibility of recovery. And family, for various reasons, cannot provide shelter and support. These are the people I would meet on those winter nights. I would listen to the stories: the reminisces about childhood, the early adventures and achievements. And the challenges, the tragedies, the conflicts, the disappointments. And the small successes and changes. I would hear the deep grief and pain, often covered by humour or bravado, or anger and blame.

At the end of each shift, I would return home to my warm house, maybe make a hot drink, and if I was on the evening shift, I’d soon go to bed. There was never a question of where I was going to sleep or whether I’d be warm or dry.

 

And in the hours I spent with my neighbours, I would know that Divine Love was present, holding us all as we looked into each other’s eyes, seeing and being seen. We were all held, all sheltered. We are all one, through and in God’s love. Amen.