Theo Jansen's Strandbeests - Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention Episo...

Creation, Imagination, Grace

In Between

It has been a peculiar day, much of it spent pre-planning and solidifying a timeline for goals. In between, I was to have a visit -which was cancelled.  So I spent more time pre-planning.  Crazy! To feel busy yet not able to complete anything right this instance is a little off putting.  So I set to work, on little tasks like cleaning up the Conference web-site, picking scripture and hymn for an advent reflection -not to be used until the end of Nov., and other such tasks.
 So with all those little things done, it still feels like being "in-between".  My day timer looks like a novel, but future events and dates will happen at the prescribed time; yet, they stay in my head nagging, pinching, and complaining to be done now.
Perhaps GRACE is learning to live in the "in-between" without stress. Others have called it living in the present, rather than the past or future.
  Today's prayer is to see the "in-between" as grace, a space of holy waiting, a time of holy leisure - a time to watch and pray.

Passion

Grace was found in the passion of a young man today.  His passion grows out of personal experiences of injustice and the fight to make the injust, just.  Oh that all should have the passion of seeing God's love come alive around them, through them, within them.  Oh that all would not only find their passion, but live their passion.  Oh that all, through living their God-given passion, could light the hearts, minds and imaginations of others.
That would be abundant grace, truly amazing.

Grace in more ways than one

Grace is one of those things that often surprises.  Today it was through a purple purse.

 Way back at the beginning of the summer, I purchased a shiny faux patten bag, the size and shape of a handled Bible cover.  At the time it was a piece of grace: not only was it 1/2 price day at Value Village, so it cost $2, it was brand new with the tags still on it; and even better it was found after patiently perusing through secondhand stuff.  Secondhand finds are fantastic, as it is ecologically friendlier shopping, and it is finding something discarded, picking it out, loving it...giving it new life.
There a million theological reflections one could make....
 

 Anyway, the bag is a piece of grace as it is being used outside of its intended purpose.  It is really a cosmetic bag complete with two inside plastic zippered halves.  In one side goes the Kobo, perfect fit, and in the other kleenex, wallet and purse type stuff.

This is the rainy season in Halifax, so today of course it rained. For those who walk, you know that getting from one place to another in a semi-dry state is not as easy as it should be.  Choosing the wrong purse on a rainy day, especially if it downpours is simply awful!  There are certain articles that do not fair well when wet.
 Well come to find out my purple cosmetic bag, re-purposed is perfect.  It gracefully handled the downpour.  Not one drop of water went inside and even when opening the bag contents of each pouch stayed dry despite the drips off the raincoat.
Brilliant!

 Thinking outside the box is always good.  Re-purposing is grace.

Sermon: Sept 4th

In yesterday’s paper Lezlie Lowe wrote, “Back-to-school carries such feeling of hope an opportunity.  It’s a land of fresh starts and blank loose-leaf, and it’s still my favourite spot on the calendar.  Back-to-school is like New Year’s, but better; a time imbibed with the sense that something big is about to happen.”

It’s true.  There is an excitement about this time of year.  At church we talk about getting back into the swing of things: Sunday School, Bible Study, and choir start up again.  We see families returning from vacation, students moving in and others moving back for another year of school.  Churches change liturgies, set programs, and lay out plans and schedules for the upcoming season.

It is kind of like New Year’s, where it feels like a fresh start. It is time for goal setting.

The biblical text for such a Sunday could not be better.  Take any line from Romans, and it reads like a New Year’s resolution: I will love my neighbour as myself by not stealing, coveting what they have, or sleeping with their spouse.  I will live honourably by not squandering daylight hours, not engaging in frivolity or indulgence, and avoiding bickering and hoarding.

Or from Matthew: I will be a Christ follower by seeking to resolve hurt and conflict in a relational way, using honest conversation, and then, if need be, turning to compassionate mediation.

The Exodus passage is a little different. As something new, a piece full of instructions, it is a set plan, a God-given resolution.  It is a new ritual –not for individuals- but for a people.

The people are a varied group. In Exodus the use of the word “Hebrew” refers to displaced people rather than to one specific ethnic group.  Abraham centuries before had been called a Hebrew, whose genealogy included Arabs, Arameans, Moabites, Ammonites, and Edomites.  The direction for the ritual given through Moses was to a collective group of people, united by their enslavement under the Pharaohs of Egypt.  The people who participated in the meal chose liberation from bondage; they did so with a guided united experience, of eating together and then exiting Egypt, later they become a people, the Israelites.

But right now in Exodus they are not Israelites, they are not a people, they are not a community.

It is the institution of a communal meal and ritual around that meal that fosters the growth of a community.  This group of displaced persons chooses liberation and to live life in a different way with a society fuelled by hope and promise, and bound by new parameters and rules.

This group of displaced persons spends 40 years in the desert where their time is spent learning about relational living – with each other and God; figuring out and setting priorities, carving out rules for a just and fair society, practicing living a life different from that of the Pharaoh’s Egypt –where many had too much and too many had too little.

The Israelites became a people, a people who through ups and downs, through law and a reinterpretation of laws over the centuries, who through stories and the remembrance of liberation from bondage by eating together yearly the Passover meal, are a continuing community.  In community there are expectations, etiquettes, and loyalties, all relating to how one lives life –inside and outside of the community. In community one finds the freedom to seek, acquire wisdom, and grow faith. 

Today is an Exodus, from our summer hiatuses to a more scheduled fall season.  There is an expectation that the people of this community will gather on Sundays to welcome each other, to share in worship and in fellowship; that there is freedom to seek, to acquire wisdom, and grow faith.  There is an expectation that people feel free to participate in any or all events that the church offers or to facilitate a program or event from their God-given gifts.  There is an expectation that people become engaged; here –but beyond.  God’s mission statement for this community is that “God is on a mission and we want to be part of it”

Jack Layton’s wife, Olivia Chow, was asked how she and Jack separated their public life from their private life.  Her response, “Why would we do that?”

As a community we come together to welcome each other, to love each through fellowship, listening, and offering ourselves, our time, our possessions.  We sing together, we pray together, and we eat together –Christ’s meal and the coffee/tea ritual.  This place is home: a place where we can be ourselves, comfortable in the hands of God, where we are be respected and in relation with others.

This place is not about being religious, rather as a community we come here to give grounding to our spirituality.  Spirituality is formed, grown, stretched and is always in the process of choosing liberation, whether liberation is needed from sickness, thoughts, crisis, or past paradigms that no longer speak to us or the wider world.  As a community we seek, acquire wisdom, grow faith –all through relationship with Jesus and each other.  Community liberates us as individuals to find our callings, our gifts-by encouraging, coaching, tolerating, gently guiding each other through honest compassion in relationship.

That means this exodus into a new season is about purposefully setting goals that take God’s mission and what we learn as community out into the world –to share with our whole hearts, where there is no separation between life in the church and our lives from Monday to Saturday.

You could say something similar about Lloyd Robertson; one word that continually is being used to describe him as a broadcaster, and as a man away from the camera, is integrity: life and work were intertwined.

“And that’s the kind of day it’s been, this”... Sunday September 4^th, 2011.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could say Lloyd Robertson’s famous line with confidence at the end of each day, in acknowledgement that we have lived the day being fully present, fully grounded, fully who we are as God’s people– in the events of the that given day;  to be able to say that you lived your best, serving the broader community, with honest compassionate integrity. 

That’s what the laid out rules of order are all about in today’s Bible readings.  They are sets of rules to regulate, direct, and help individuals embody God’s vocation in the living of their lives; but as you have already noticed it is not simply about the individual.  It is about living ones’ vocation, ones’ own calling, offering and using ones’ gifts within a community of people who share a common identity. And as those gifts are encouraged they become so much a part of who we are that that is who we are in the world as well –God’s people, bearing honest compassionate justice and integrity, bearing hope and seeing to it that God’s vision is growing daily in the world.

 God is on a mission and we want to be part of it.  This has been enacted in various ways –the most obvious is the sharing of this space with community groups.  We are known in the wider community as hospitable, welcoming...because of how you as individuals live your God given vocations in the world, people notice that there is an interconnectedness of public and private life – that faith, hope, and your understanding of the kingdom of God cannot be separated from who you are at any time. It equals honest compassionate integrity.

So let us begin with a New Year’s resolution, full of the anticipation of going back to school “that something big is about to happen”:

 let us each set the goal of being our authentic God-created self, not only in this church community but intentionally in everyday life.  It means that we will work on being relational and welcoming in our jobs and families.  The goal is to have others feel the love that we receive from God and this community, working through us and touching others.  The goal is to activate God’s compassion and see God’s love liberate those around us, who then will be part of liberating others, who then will liberate others, who will then liberate others....

“and that’s the kind of day it’s been”. 

Amen.

Going Home

As much as I love vacation:
Grace in learning new things, new experiences, time with family, no schedule, different food, trying things never tried before;
There is grace in going home!
Grace in appreciating the little comforts- my coffee cup, the chairs on the front porch, the kitty coming around, nodding to neighbours, watching changes in the flower beds-
And grace in the bigger things;
Grace in a good bed, routine, a new energy with which to go back to work, strength for the fall season and projects.
Grace is all this - and most importantly reconnecting with the me inside that is formed by the creator. Grace is my experience of God.

Sacred Harp Singing

Tonight I learned about sacred harp music.
 The principle of the singing is that it is not about the sound...this is grace in that this is the group for people like myself who would never make it into a choir...and after listening to sacred harp examples on YouTube, also those who are tone deaf.
Grace is in the solidarity created between the singers in the bodily co-existence and community action. 
 Curious check out the following:
www.fasola.org
 
The Socioligy of Religion periodical has a great article:
 "Bodies in Sync: Interaction Ritual Therapy Applied to Sacred Harp Singing", Spring 2010, 71:1, pp76-97

Weather in Halifax

If you were to speak to a Haligonian about the summer of 2011, you would probably get a groan and perhaps a rolling of the eyes.  It has been wet, very, very, wet!  Or so was thought...last night on the news, Haligonians were informed that less rain has fallen this summer than last.  The difference on the ground is that there have been way more over cast days; either fog or days threatening rain. 
Who knows what number of dark icky day today is?
Lots of tweets, emails, and conversations today are including head aches, sleepiness, popping ears, and blah moods.
Where to find grace in this...
well the head aches and popping ears might suggest that the weather pressure is changing...perhaps bringing some sun?
getting some extra sleep?
not working as quickly, perhaps a more summer relaxed speed that is too often forgotten?
hodgepodge, or as it is called in my house "ruskumsnusk", tastes even better on a damp day?

grace is the hope that in future days the sun will shine brightly.
It is a reminder that we are called to hope that the darkness and overcast skies in the world will one day shine brightly with God's shalom.  It is a reminder that we have a part in making this happen.
O for the Spirit to move through the world, through God's people, blowing the fog and darkness off the ends of the earth.

"Standing Together", A Canadian Gathering To Remember a Norwegian Tragedy

Below are the words I gave at this event, Aug.4, 7pm at St.Mark's Anglican Church, Halifax, NS:

 Genesis 1: 1-5 
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light.  And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness God called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Shortly after events in Norway, the National Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran church in Canada wrote:
"We join the world in sending our thoughts and prayers to those who have been devastated by the tragic loss of family, friends and classmates.  We also join in prayer with the Church of Norway and the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway as they respond pastorally to those in shock and grief.  We pray that the presence of Christ will be a source of comfort and strength in the midst of overwhelming grief."

The chaos in Norway, their grief, is the grief of Lutherans across Canada.  Many of our church communities are home to Norwegian immigrants, many of whom still have family ties in Norway.  One of the parishioners at Resurrection, where I serve, had friends and friend's children die -as many of you have connections to those who are gone.  She reflected that grieving is hard, especially when one is separated from their people by an ocean.

In 2007, Rev.Stan Johnstone, a Lutheran Pastor who was the Brigadier General of the Canadian Forces at the time, reflected that battle/combat was true chaos -having no inherent meaning and being absent of light.  Chaos is what there is before God comes; out of chaos/the formless void/the deep waters -God says,'Let there be".  This phrase is not an order but an invitation, where something or someone responds to fill the void.

Tonight it is the community that has gathered here, you and me, that is responding to fill the void, to speak against the vacuum of violence, the chaos of grief -to answer the invitation 'let there be', with a response...a response full of hope and creative energy.  We fill the void of chaos with prayers: let there be peace, let there be understanding, let there be good seen in the world again.

You are invited to pray:
(adapted from pray on pg.76 of Evang.Luth.Worship) 
O God,
where hearts are fearful and constricted, grant courage and hope.
Where anxiety is infectious and widening, grant peace and reassurance.
Where impossibilities close every door and window, grant imagination and resistance.
Where distrust twists our thinking, grant healing and illumination.
where spirits are daunted and weakened, grant soaring wings and strengthened dreams.
For good to be seen in the world again.
All these things we ask in your holy name. Amen

Birthday

Grace comes in the many friends who wished me well today, some through Facebook, others by coming and sewing quilts, email messages, and even a beautiful song.  I love you all very much!
 

 Grace is one of those precious moments that can be sent in the words of a card.  Here are two that I may use in a card someday...

 "If  you believe that each of us was designed by God for a specific reason, then you know there's no such things as an ordinary person.  ...Don't ever forget how truly unique, how essential, how important you are."

 
"wishing you a day where God has splashed His bright colours and beautiful moments."

A Birthday Invitation

For those of you living near Halifax, tomorrow is my birthday and I would love for you to come and celebrate with me.  I would like to spend the afternoon, 1-4pm tying and sewing the edges on quilts.  These quilts are special; they are made of entirely recycled fabric and liners.  The quilts will be given to St.Leonard's Halfway House for the residents at Christmas time.

The location of the quilting party is the church on the corner of Windsor and Allan Streets (please use the Allan St. door). You need not have any sewing skill.

 See you tomorrow.
 Oh yes, there will be a big pot of tea on.