posted on July 26, 2010 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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There is a good deal of talk nowadays about the “quality” of time spent with children. That word would have confused my mother.

posted on July 26, 2010 in Caught Dead, Features

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January second, Pepperfield College’s Administration Building was locked up tighter than the Masonic Lodge. Fortunately for me, I had Paige. She’d borrowed the security codes from her father, who’d taken Paige’s mom to Toronto for a theatre matinee. I wasn’t clear on whether Pepperfield was aware of his generosity, or not.

posted on July 26, 2010 in Columns, The Messy Table

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This morning, we’re snails again. We’ve got the old station wagon packed to the gunwales, and we’re heading east again.

posted on July 19, 2010 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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The funeral was over. The relatives had gone and the freezer was stuffed with more food than I could ever eat. But mostly, it was time I had too much of … minutes, days, weeks, months of time.

posted on July 19, 2010 in Caught Dead, Features

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Justin Pepperfield, killed when his tampered breaks failed, and Dillys Merryweather, Justin’s secretary, strangled, her body disposed of in another motor vehicle accident. Two murders someone tried to cover up with car accidents. What did they have in common?

posted on July 19, 2010 in Columns, The Messy Table

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Growing up, I spent all my summers at camp. Yes, we’re talking a good old Presbyterian summer camp with moist cabins, the outdoor chapel overlooking the lake, canoes and mosquitoes galore, cabins and campfires and all that.

posted on July 15, 2010 in In Song

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Hymn Societies, both local and international, keep lovers of congregational song in touch with what’s new and what’s familiar in hymnnody. Those who attend Hymn Society conferences find them invigorating and exhausting-and then they return with new ideas and new energy to their local congregations.

posted on July 15, 2010 in Blogs, Miscellaneous, Wondering Wanderer

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Spong categorically rejects Wright’s interpretation of a supernatural God who miraculously invades the world to save us from the reality of death.

posted on July 12, 2010 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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I set the small grey kitten on the white hospital blanket and waited—waited for the magic to start.

posted on July 12, 2010 in Columns, The Messy Table

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What books are important to you right now? What is on your bedside table? What’s overdue on your library card? What are you taking to the cottage?

posted on July 12, 2010 in Caught Dead, Features

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I was half way out the door Thursday morning when the phone rang. It clicked into the answering machine, then urgently shrilled again. I shouted for Dad to wait, and picked up.

posted on July 5, 2010 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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“How old is the baby?” I smile at the new mother. I guess my grey hair is not intimidating; she replies with a smile, “Three days old!”

Wow! This is a different world.

posted on July 5, 2010 in Columns, The Messy Table

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For us, this is the last irrelevant summer vacation for a while. This fall, Beangirl will be starting school, as will Spouse, who will be wading into grad school and all that might bring. Come September, it will be a whole new chapter for us, so this year, we mean to soak up as much summer as we can get.

posted on July 5, 2010 in Caught Dead, Features

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I had no office at the church, just a cubby hole and closet to store my vestments, so I used the Ladies’ Lounge for my appointments. I had to book the space well in advance. The ladies were very possessive of their plush couches and potted plants.

posted on July 1, 2010 in In Song

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A new CD of Charles Wesley’s hymns by the creators of Sing Lustily and With Good Courage makes the old new again. Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band present traditional hymns with a “gallery” band—flutes, lutes, fiddles and drums, singing and presenting them as they might have originally been heard.

posted on July 1, 2010 in Columns, Wondering Wanderer

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Most readers will have guessed from my wanderings that I’m on the back nine of life. As I made the turn, I hoped to make more birdies on the way home than I did on the outward nine. It depends, of course, on who’s keeping score but on m my card.

posted on July 1, 2010 in Letters

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Re Ethnicity, Identity and Isolation, April

The cover story by Andrew Faiz is excellent. The article provides a voice for us who, although members of the PCC for decades and decades, have always found the Highland/Lowland/Irish preoccupations to be one of the church’s less attractive characteristics.

posted on July 1, 2010 in Books

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Common Order: A Canadian Book of Services of Worship
Compiled and edited
by Ian S. Wishart

Presbyterian worship often oscillates between those seeking the liturgical precision of written prayers and prescribed texts, and those who like their worship free of set forms. This tension goes back at least to the 1633 fury of a Scot named Jenny Geddes, who threw a stool at the minister of St. Giles’ Church, Edinburgh, as he attempted to read from, and impose on the Church of Scotland, a prescribed liturgy inspired by the Church of England! Presbyterian prejudice against written prayers has had a long history; only late in the 19th century did Presbyterian clergy think it legitimate to use printed prayers written by others in public worship. The Presbyterian Church in Canada first published a Book of Common Order in 1922; a second followed in 1938, another in 1964, and the current Book of Common Worship in 1991. This collection by Rev. Ian S. Wishart of St. John’s, Nfld., stands in this liturgical tradition. But will his thoughtful new resource be used as widely as it ought?

Though our denomination encourages the use of prepared prayers and set worship forms, we adopted our various books of Common Order, not as prescribed canonical forms that must be used, but as helpful resources that can be used; Presbyterians enjoy significant liturgical freedom. This freedom leads, however, to a good deal of congregational worship that still oscillates between a stultifying use of printed resources on the one hand, and a makeshift liturgical incoherence on the other. Some worship leaders are convinced that the Holy Spirit inspires extemporaneous prayers, but is only distantly related to written prayers. Others have become such slaves to the verbatim reading of generic printed prayers that worship gets stuck in a dry liturgical rut. We need help to avoid the laziness apparent in both “we jis wanna” and “we beseech Thee, that Thou wouldst” prayers.

Wishart’s Common Order will help us. What he offers is the fruit of his liturgical labours and worship practice over a lifetime of ministry. It is a conservative book, both in the sense that he seeks to conserve prayers from the church catholic that might be otherwise lost, but also in the sense that he is a traditionalist rather than an innovator. As an example of the former,

I think of his inclusion of the wonderful 17th prayer of St. Dimitri of Rostov:
 

Come, my Light,
and illumine my darkness.
Come, my Life,
and revive me from death.
Come, my Physician,
and heal my wounds,
Come, Flame of divine love,
and burn up the thorns of my sins,
kindling my heart
with the flame of your love.
Come, my King,
rule the throne of my heart,
For you alone are my King
and my Lord.

As to Wishart’s traditionalism, his language occasionally sounds dated to me: “We do not deserve your benefits, yet we beseech you to confirm your favour to us,” or, in the Order for the Confirmation of Baptized Persons, the candidates are welcomed as those who have been “trained and taught in the things pertaining to Christ and his Church.”

That said, we ought to note that his intention is not that his texts be slavishly read, but that they be used to stimulate further reflection on prayer. Mind you, many of the texts included are immediately useable. I think of many of his own regular Sunday prayers, or of the Advent prayers of Ruth Houtby, or a fine prayer adapted from the 17th-century bishop, Jeremy Taylor:
 

O God: your mercies are more
than we can number.
Make us, we pray, sensible of
the shortness and uncertainty
of human life; may your
Holy Spirit lead us in holiness
and righteousness all our days.
When we shall have served you
in our day and generation,
receive us in your kingdom,
with the testimony of
a good conscience,
in the communion of your church,
in the confidence of Christian faith,
in the comfort of your blessed hope,
in charity with our neighbours,
in favour with you our God.
Grant this, we pray,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Some specifics: I like how Wishart introduces the prayers of intercession: “O God: you have committed to your people the privilege of prayer on behalf of your people. Hear our prayers for your church and your world.” I like his Good Friday prayers. I like the fact that he has included the Communion Service from the PCC’s 1922 Book of Common Order. Shortened, it can still offer a most complete liturgy.

We need to be reminded that God is a God of weight, and that when we worship God, our worship must also have weight. Common Order reminds us of this fact, even as it encourages us to confidently worship such a God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

posted on July 1, 2010 in Allegory, Features

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illustration by Jillian Ditner

Once upon a time, there was a Christian who wanted to find a comfortable church — one that was just right. Her name was Goldilocks.

Goldilocks went to a church around the corner from her home. The pews were comfortable and the music was pleasant. People were friendly.

Unfortunately, a few weeks later, the youth led the service. They played hymns on guitars and performed a play about the Good Samaritan. They compared the injured man to the needy in her community. They talked about feeding the homeless. Goldilocks wasn’t sure about this. Nobody seemed interested when she suggested that the guitars were out of tune. The minister didn’t seem pleased when she suggested that the homeless might mess up the church. Suddenly the pews didn’t seem as soft as they had. Goldilocks decided to move on.

Goldilocks found a big new church. The people said “Amen,” a lot, but they seemed to mean it and the choir was nice. They told her they only used professional musicians to worship God. Goldilocks felt comfortable again.

Soon Goldilocks noticed some problems. The choir sang the same songs over and over. The pastor needed to stop making that funny, distracting movement to keep his glasses on his face. The Sunday school children were so disruptive when one was trying to pray! The choir director said he would be very pleased to add a new song if she had any in mind. The pastor laughed and said he’d watch his glasses. The Sunday school teachers promised to keep the children from getting so excited.

After a few weeks, more things went wrong. The choir director told her he couldn’t add all 50 new pieces she’d brought. The pastor told her he had no intention of getting contact lenses. The Sunday school teachers told her Jesus called little children to him and they weren’t going to keep the kids out of the church just because they talked a bit.

Time to move on again. This time, the church was several blocks away. It was big and old. The minister was witty (and she didn’t wear glasses). The choir director assured her that she never repeated a piece until at least a year had elapsed.

Again, Goldilocks started noticing things that bothered her. The words to the Lord’s Prayer were different. Sometimes they even referred to the Trinity as, “Parent, Child and Spirit.” She mentioned this to various people, but they just said she’d get used to the new ways. She didn’t.

This time she went halfway across town to a little church that was old and quaint. It was easy to sit and imagine one was in heaven.

Soon she noticed that some of the words they said were always the same. She asked the minister about this and he said it was called a liturgy. She suggested they jazz it up a bit. She also noticed that the building seemed older and less quaint than she’d thought at first. The walls in the church hall needed paint and the stairs had hollows where generations of worshippers had walked. Several people agreed with her and they organized a painting committee. Unfortunately the colour they used was a yellow. Goldilocks hated yellow. In a few weeks, the words in the service changed a bit. The minister said that was because it was Lent and the liturgy changed for the church season. Goldilocks didn’t like the way it changed.

For a while, Goldilocks watched church on TV. Some of the services were too excitable and some were too dull. Sometimes she didn’t agree with the sermon. Sometimes she didn’t like what the choir sang. Sometimes she just didn’t like the angle they filmed it on.

Eventually there was nothing left for Goldilocks to do but read her Bible alone. Goldilocks missed being with other people. After a while she found that there were things in the Bible she didn’t like, so she tried a different version. But the things she read were still the same even though the words were different. She was disturbed by Jesus’ friends. That Mary Magdalene might have been a prostitute! Matthew was a tax collector! What about that woman taken in adultery? She’d never noticed before what a bunch of misfits they were.

Goldilocks decided that the only way to continue was to talk to God. She told Him what she thought about the churches, the TV services and the friends Jesus had. First she waited for tongues of fire and a great loud roar. Then she waited for a still small voice. Obviously God wasn’t sure what to say to her about the mess.

At first she was angry. Then she began to feel lonely. She went back to the first church to ask the minister about it. The minister wasn’t there when she arrived, but one of the members was outside planting flowers. Goldilocks was about to walk away when she decided she just had to talk to someone.

At first the lady with the flowers looked surprised. Then she smiled. She introduced herself and said her name was Faith. Faith listened as Goldilocks talked. Finally Faith said, “I think God is telling you something. It doesn’t sound to me like anything was wrong with any of the churches. It sounds like the problem is you.” Goldilocks was so surprised she just stood there with her mouth open. Faith continued, “I don’t always understand everything God does either, but I know God cares. I also know that I’m not perfect and neither is the church. It’s made up of people like you and me. But I believe that God can work through us even if the building isn’t pretty, the music isn’t always what I like, the minister doesn’t preach like Billy Graham and the people are sometimes pigheaded.”

Goldilocks went home and looked at her Bible again. She noticed there were a lot of things in it about Jesus being a shepherd and looking after lost people. She wondered if she was lost and if God had sent her to Faith. Goldilocks decided to go back that Sunday. The organist hit a few wrong notes at one point, but Goldilocks was too busy thinking about the words to the hymn they were singing to notice. The pastor repeated himself a little during the sermon, but Goldilocks was so struck by his story about his trip to a local prison she didn’t really care. When they asked for volunteers to help hand out coffee to the homeless, Goldilocks volunteered. It was awful coffee, but talking to the people was wonderful. When she got home, Goldilocks felt good.

If you go to that church, you will find Goldilocks there. Ministers have come and gone, and Faith has moved out of town, but Goldilocks is still a member. The organ is broken, the church hall needs new paint, the kids are sometimes noisy and the coffee is still bad. But to Goldilocks, the church is a wonderful place full of love. It isn’t perfect, but she knows that even though she sees it in a mirror, dimly, there are still beautiful glimpses of the light of God all around.

posted on July 1, 2010 in News

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More than $14,000 was raised at an auction on May 15 for the Building a Place Apart Campaign,
which supports the planned renovations of the Crieff Hills Community Retreat and Conference
Centre. Participants bid on quilts, furniture, paintings, gift certificates and other items. The official
groundbreaking also took place during the event, with representatives from the MacLean Estate
Committee, the Capital Campaign team and honourary campaign advisors present.