Beautiful Sunday

It's been a long time since I wrote in this blog. Way too long! Life gets busy and one of the things I let go was this for a while. Well today, I decided it is time to do something about it. So here I am again, sitting in my office before church on Sunday morning wondering if what I am going to say will make sense to anyone but me, wondering if the stories I am sharing I have shared before. I hope not. But if I have, they are worth hearing again. Hoping we get something out of the message that will propel us into the next week, with the hope of doing more and helping more. If I had to give this morning's sermon a title, it would be Holy Work!

My daughter is here for a visit, Tracey. She is such a joy to have around. We will have a great week doing all the things that need doing as well as a few more things.

On Wednesday we are hosting a Wonderful Wednesday for the towns centennial year. This will be a potluck dinner and a family dance starting at 5:30 in the Koinonia Hall. So bring a dish to share and your dancing shoes and join us for a while to break bread together, to laugh and to dance. Our church school has done lots of work to make decorations for us to enjoy. So come and enjoy!

The church has been very busy this past winter and I am looking forward to the spring and summer. Hopefully the pace slows a bit and there will be time to enjoy the creation which surrounds us and the neighbours in our town who we hardly ever get to spend time with. If you see us out on the deck, drop by, have a visit.

Have a blessed Sunday everyone!

Sunday in Eston

It has been a while since I posted on this blog. Life has been busy, I have been tired, it was Christmas, my daughter was visiting, whatever the excuse, here it is again.

Today in church we are going to talk about Love. Agape Love as it talks about in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, love is kind and so on. I have a great story to share first told by Fred Craddock, a world renowned preacher and storyteller. So join us at 10:30 or watch this afternoon on the local cable channel.

I had a lovely visit with Leora yesterday in Moose Jaw. If you are going through there, let me know and I will share her address. She is missing home very much and she says hello to everyone!

I took a course to be an Age Friendly Communities Consultant on Friday in Regina. Very interesting. We had to talk about our own town or city or community and I said what a great place Eston was and how many things we are already doing to be age friendly and everyone wanted to move here. I said of course they could.... This is a great town with almost everything we could possibly need right here. If you or your group would like to know more about being age friendly, just let me know. Age friendly doesn't necessarily mean senior, it could be youth, children those of us in the middle or perhaps those with a disability of some kind. There are lots of ways to look at being age friendly.

So enjoy this beautiful Sunday morning, take a deep breath of the crisp clean air that surrounds us and let us be grateful for all we have in our lives.

Namasté
Barb

We will Remember Them!

Today is Remembrance Sunday and last week was All Saints Day so in church this morning we will be combining the two and doing a litany of remembrance where we light candles to remember those we have loved and lost or those who we know are suffering in any way in our lives today. We also light candles for our world, to show we care. The gospel story today is often called 'the Widow's Mite'. It is the story of a widow who gives all she has to the treasury as opposed to those who give out of their abundance. We often look at this story as a call to stewardship in the church, a call to give more money and this can be a great way to look at this. We need to support our churches or soon they will be gone. However, what if we look at this story from a different point of view. What if we look at it as a radical protest against the use of religion, politics and power to victimise those who are powerless and vulnerable. We will do this today.

In our Sunday school this week we talked about "The offering". Why we have an offering in church and how we share out Time, Talent and Treasure. One young man asked me, if I earn the money, why do I have to share it. What a great question and we spent some time exploring what it means to share what we have. There are so many ways children can share. We made boxes, and decided that if we made any money, we would put some in the save box, some in the share box and some in the spend box. What a great way for children to begin to learn about money management and stewardship at the same time. Sunday school is so much fun at St. Andrew's. It is a joy to watch these young minds learn the stories of Jesus and also to learn what they may mean in our society today. I have missed working with the young folks since I went into ministry, in my former life I taught Sunday school for years. So now that I am back at it, I am loving it. Thanks to all the children who come and share their time with me and with all those who help in this midweek program.

Life is so hard some days, it helps to remember that there is always something we can share with one another, whether it be time, talent or treasure. Help someone this week by sharing one of these with others.
Have a good week everyone!

Life is Busy

Some times life just seems to get so busy that we can't remember what it is we are supposed to be doing or saying. Does this ever happen to you? It certainly does for me. We had a great bible study this week, but for the life of me I can't remember the specifics. So, a sermon had to come from somewhere else. I want to thank my friend Kim for a story that started me on my writing on Friday. Some weeks the sermon comes so easily, others, not at all easy.

This week was especially busy with two funerals. My love and prayers go out to the Rovey family and the Abbot family. It is very hard to love someone you love, even if they are growing old. Some times we lose the ones we love at a younger age and this seems especially hard. So today's writings go to all those who are experiencing grief in the midst of their lives. I highly recommend reading Warren Hansen's little book, 'The Next Place' which has some wonderful words, especially to help children with the complex issue of death. I often quote it at funerals, especially if there are children involved but I think it helps adults as well. So if you are suffering grief today, or perhaps you have gone past the initial stages of grief and are just missing someone you love so much at this time of year, know you are being held in love today. May there be a bright spot in your day where you can see the presence of all that is holy in our world.

Namastè

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

It's a breezy beautiful day in Eston today and days like this remind me of back home in Cape Breton. The breeze is strong, the sun is shining and life feels good. As I write this, I am sitting at my desk before church begins and missing my family very much. It is lunch time there for them and I hope they are getting ready to enjoy a wonderful turkey dinner.

I am so blessed to live the life I am living. I read a question the other day that said if you had the past three months to live over again, what would you change. And for me, I would change nothing. Isn't that great. It certainly made my day when I looked back and realized that. Often I think things like 'if life would only get better' well for me, life is great. I have everything I need and want. Certainly being closer to family would be nice but they are only as far away as my phone or Face Time. I can see my grands grow up just by picking up my ipad. Technology is amazing.

So as I sit here today, remembering and being grateful, I can't help but think of all those in our world who are separated from their families and friends, those who have no home to live in anymore, those being forced to flee from their countries. What about those right here in our province and our country who don't have enough, who won't get to enjoy a beautiful meal with family today. Those who through no fault of their own are alone. May my eyes and ears be kept open to see where I might share my bounty with others.

I was reading a book this week by Mary Jo Leddy entitled Radical Gratitude that talked about us acting on our gratitude. So will we act on the sense of gratitude that we feel today? She says, "Gratitude is the beginning of our faith and hope in the possibility of creating something new in the world, of becoming someone new".

So go forth into this day, creating, becoming and giving thanks!
Namastè

Warm days and cool nights!

Well September was filled with beautiful days as well as a little rain which the farmers didn't really need, but it certainly has made our countryside green. It is very unusual to see the leaves falling from the trees and green grass underneath. September to me has always been a time when I start to settle in. The summer is done and fall is upon us and I love the cooler nights and warm days. Things start to get back to normal, whatever normal happens to be.

I just got back from my third residential course of my Prairie Jubilee Program in Spiritual Direction. What a great week, lots of hard work, but so much learning. This term we are working on contemplation, discernment, imagination, transformation. Easy things like that, ha... I will be needing a couple of people who would like to take spiritual direction to work with me this winter, once a month for an hour. So if you are interested, call the office and we can talk. Spiritual Direction is the process of discovering where the spirit is working in your life and also discovering your own ability to discern with some direction the answer you may need to a burning question. So if you have decisions to make, concerns to think about, or just want to explore more about where and how the spirit works in your life, this may be the process for you. I am still in training so there is no charge for spiritual direction right now. When I meet with my spiritual director, we always have lots of think about and discern. She gets me to look at life in a different way and I am more clear on what it is I need to do or think or perhaps process for a while.

I am also interested in contemplation and would be very open to having a Contemplative service once a month if folks are interested, so once again, call the office. In a world such as we live in now, we all need to be able to take the time to breath. Just to be and not have anything else we need to do at that particular moment. Often life's demands don't allow us downtime. Perhaps if we form it in the shape of a church service, in an evening, we can actually give ourselves permission to take the time we need to do this. So, let me know if this is something you are interested in.

Have a peace filled Sabbath all!
Namastè

Getting Desperate!

Well Good Sunday Morning everyone, it is a chilly damp day here in Eston.

Today in church we are going to look at the gospel from Mark and the letter from James. In the gospel story we hear two cases of healing and in both bases, the folks who bring the people for healing are desperate for this healing to occur.

Where in our world today do we see folks desperate for healing and What it is we can do about it. Do we every get that desperate life and death feeling here in our lives, I certainly hope not. At least not for ourself or our family and friends but I certainly hope we can get that feeling for the people in our world who are suffering. I think sometimes it is hard to put ourselves in the position of a woman or man in places like Syria or Libya who are so desperate to save their families that they would do anything, risk everything to leave their country. How about the people in Budapest, Hungary this week trying to get on the trains to leave. I am not sure we can even imagine that desperation. Living in such a beautiful country where we have freedom of speech, the freedom to get a job, or to live safely, without fear for our lives, it is very hard put ourselves into their place. But perhaps we need to, we need to hear the stories, see the pictures and react as the outraged people we can be when we see things harming other people. We have been so fortunate to have been born in a country where peace prevails, but so many people have not had that opportunity. So please, do what you can, do things like sign petitions, write letters to the government, here in Canada and in other places, and make donations to reputable places to help make the world a more safe and secure place for everyone to live. Let's all get a little desperate.... So much of our world is falling apart right before our eyes.