Busy times

It has been a very busy weekend. I was only home for a couple of hours between meetings, services and some fun. Friday evening a friend and I went to see The Queen. Good movie. Helen Mirren is brilliant in it. It is hard when you see a movie like that not to spend the time trying to figure out if something is what was actually said or if it was creative licence. They did a really interesting job of weaving together images from the media and the movie.

Saturday I went with my rector's warden to a meeting in Macleod of about 75 Anglican clergy and lay leaders from our area. Our bishop called us together to discuss the current state of the Anglican church. He made a short presentation on the Canadian church's response to the Windsor report and explained what would happen at General Synod in June. Then we talked about ministry in our parishes, what worked and what didn't and what we might do instead. It was a big conversation to have in a short time and I think there was a lot we didn't discuss. We didn't talk about the radical changes occurring in agriculture and the impact that is happening on our communities. And even though we have two reserves in this area, two First Nations parishes and many First Nations Anglicans there was no one present from these communities and nothing was said of issues for this community. It seems like our church is facing huge issues and all we did was scratch the surface.

Saturday evening a friend and I went to see The Marriage of Figaro at the university. It was the first time they had ever staged a full opera there and they did a marvelous job. The singing was great and the sets were spectacular. It was really a wonderful evening.

Today we had services in the morning and evening. Then a few of us met to look at the life of Henri Nouwen. We are meeting during lent and looking at the lives of some contemporary saints. Henri Nouwen has had a huge impact on my own faith journey and it was really good to share some of that with folks. There are so many paradoxes in Nouwen's life - he was so loved and yet so insecure about that love. He could speak so profoundly of the love of God and yet knew such darkness. Someone said of him that he witnessed to the fact that one could be a saint and wounded at the same time. I guess that means that there is hope for the rest of us.

Second Sunday of Lent

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!
Luke 13:34

I’m reminded of a story about a fire in a henhouse in Mission, BC a few years back. The owner and his grandson, after the fire was put out, discovered a dead hen, top feathers singed brown, her neck limp.

But when they pick the hen up, there was movement, and beneath the hen’s dead body came four chicks scurrying out. The owner figured the hen gathered her chicks under her wings when she sensed danger, and she sacrificed herself for her babies.

Try telling those chicks that a mother bird is not a wonderful image for God.
from Pastor Kevin Powell's sermon for today. Read the rest here.

Lent - Day 10

In honour of John and Charles Wesley who are remembered this day

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,
Born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
Now Thy gracious kingdom bring.
By Thine own eternal Spirit
Rule in all our hearts alone;
By Thine all sufficient merit,
Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

Charles Wesley

Lent - Day 9

I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer. --

from the letters of Ranier Maria Rilke


Thanks to the Velveteen Rabbi who picked it up from Maggie Dawn

O happy fault?

An editorial from today's New York Times:

March 1, 2007

Op-Ed Contributor

A Divorce the Church Should Smile Upon
By JACK MILES Los Angeles

THE decision of the global Anglican Communion to threaten the Episcopal Church, its American affiliate, with expulsion is about much more than the headline issue of homosexuality. Yes, the impending divorce has been precipitated by the decision of the Episcopal Church to consecrate a gay bishop and to allow individual congregations to decide whether or not to allow gay marriages. But as so often in religious history, the deeper issue is one of church governance. In effect, the Episcopalians left the Church of England more than two centuries ago.

Read the rest here.

Happy St. David's Day!

Today is the Feast of St. David, the Patron Saint of Wales. My father's father came from Wales. His father was a coal miner and they came to B.C. to work in the mines there. From that side of the family I learned to support unions and sing in groups. From Tom Graham, one of my religious studies profs at the U of Winnipeg, I learned to wear a leek on March 1st. Well, okay, he wore a leek on March 1st and I learned what a leek was. Can't say that I've ever actually worn one but I do like eating them now. If you don't like leeks eat a Welsh cake instead (too bad they have raisins in them - yuck). Now if only I had been named Philipa Phillips!

   Guide me, O thou great Jehovah, 
 pilgrim through this barren land.  
 I am weak, but thou art mighty; 
 hold me with thy powerful hand.  
 Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, 
 feed me till I want no more; 
 feed me till I want no more.

 Open now the crystal fountain, 
 whence the healing stream doth flow; 
 let the fire and cloudy pillar 
 lead me all my journey through.  
 Strong deliverer, strong deliverer, 
 be thou still my strength and shield; 
 be thou still my strength and shield.

 When I tread the verge of Jordan, 
 bid my anxious fears subside; 
 death of death and hell's destruction, 
 land me safe on Canaan's side.  
 Songs of praises, songs of praises, 
 I will ever give to thee; 
 I will ever give to thee.
  William Williams

Lent - Day 8

Where we arrive by work, we stay by grace.
Wendell Berry