posted on December 26, 2011 in Columns, The Messy Table

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The space above our table is perfect for our advent calendar. I mentioned earlier that we might make one, and this is what we came up with.

posted on December 26, 2011 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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Many of us have experienced the let-down when the theatre play is over. It’s natural. For a while we are caught up in the movement, the story and sometimes the music and then it is done.

posted on December 20, 2011 in News

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On the fourth Sunday in Advent, members of the congregation of East Lake Ainslie Presbyterian watched their church burn to the ground.
Firefighters were called to the 131-year-old church around 9 a.m. on Dec. 18, but flames soon poured out of the roof and the wooden structure was beyond saving.
“It was like you were seeing it and it almost wasn’t real,” said Johnena MacLellan, clerk of session. “It’s so hard to explain. It’s like you didn’t believe it was really happening.”
Volunteer firefighters couldn’t even reach historic plaques mounted on the church, said Charles MacDonald Jr., son of a former clerk of session.
It was the second Presbyterian church in Cape Breton to be destroyed by fire this month. Victoria, Birch Grove, whose congregation was preparing to celebrate its centennial anniversary next year, was reduced to a blackened heap in the early hours of Dec. 10. Police are not considering either of the fires suspicious.
Old wooden churches are usually dry and once burning they are “generally hard to save,” Brent Denny, deputy chief of the Cape Breton Regional Fire Service, told the National Post. Electrical wiring and heating systems are often to blame for starting such fires.
Both congregations were small, with between 10 and 25 regularly attending members. Both buildings were insured.
The congregation of East Lake Ainslie had planned a turkey dinner to be held the evening of the fire. It was postponed until Tuesday, when it was held in the church hall—a building separate from the historic church—which escaped unscathed. The congregation still plans to hold its Christmas Eve service at the local United church, and expects to continue meeting in their hall as they plan for the future.
“For members of the [East Lake Ainslie] congregation, their parents and grandparents were members of that church,” said MacLelland. “Our ancestors when they came here started that church. It’s a vital part of the community.”
It was the third church to have stood on the site since the congregation was established in 1833.

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Please stay tuned for more information on this in the February Issue of the Presbyterian Record.

posted on December 19, 2011 in Columns, Miscellaneous, The Messy Table

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This past week, I was hit by love three times.

The first happened when I was at the school near our church. I was popping in for a visit, after setting up some crafts at the church, and I had my huge messenger bag over my shoulder. I have a collection of buttons pinned there, and one of them is a drawing of an anatomical heart.

posted on December 19, 2011 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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Daughter Robin bought our old house when we decided to move. It certainly made things easier…I didn’t have to tidy it up constantly for prospective buyers, and I left packed up boxes everywhere. Then one day in September the movers arrived.

posted on December 12, 2011 in Columns, The Messy Table

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The gate in the garden keeps crashing open and slamming shut. Leaves are blowing up the street at full throttle , and then come swirling back the other way again. The wind is fierce and fickle.

posted on December 12, 2011 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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Let there be laughter … no more tears
I’ve cried a river these past few years

posted on December 11, 2011 in Called to Wonder

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Called to Wonder December 2011

posted on December 5, 2011 in Columns, The Messy Table

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Thinking about performance, I came across Marni Kotak. She is a performance artist who tackles questions about the lines between life and art.

Late in October, in an art gallery in Brooklyn, she gave birth.

posted on December 5, 2011 in Columns, Patricia Schneider

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There are so many examples in nature that remind us that things are never static … change is inevitable .

posted on December 1, 2011 in News, The Other Six Days

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Knick-Knacks
What could be better than giving a little Santa Claus statue to your loved ones this Christmas? Ok, so maybe a baby Jesus statue would be better. Now you can have the best of both worlds. Catholic Supply is offering a nice little piece: Santa Claus visiting the baby Jesus at the manger!
catholicsupply.com/christmas/kneelsanta.html

Clothing
Christian companies love to take copyrighted materials from huge corporations and make slight adjustments that will appeal to Christians (like those silly t-shirts that say, “Got Jesus” instead of “Got Milk”). But there has been one article of clothing Jesus just hasn’t managed to work himself onto—until now! Underwear! We all wear ‘em… uh… hopefully. Anyhoo, if you happen to be someone who might find this a good gift for the wife, you can now buy Jesus and Mother Mary briefs.
Search cafepress.ca for “Jesus underwear”

Balloons
What’s that you say? “What if I’m really wealthy and I need to find that perfect gift for the hot air ballooner in my life?” Worry no more, because the good folks at Kubicek Balloons have a full-sized hot air balloon in the shape of a cathedral. How better to share your faith with your town or city than to fly a giant church overhead?
kubicekballoons.cz/english/products/specials.php

Music
If you have a Christian female guitar player in the family, I’ve got something for you. Luna Guitars creates beautiful stringed instruments, particularly with women in mind. They are light, built with necks that are easier for smaller hands to chord, and are contoured to fit a feminine torso. And … Luna makes the Trinity. It’s a dreadnought body with an inlay-filled trinity symbol around the sound hole… and it has Celtic neck inlays to boot.
lunaguitars.com

posted on December 1, 2011 in Letters

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Re Sad, Disappointed, Hopeful; Letters, July/August
Whenever I read a letter to the editor regarding the matter of homosexuality, such as the one by Mr. Paul Kokoski in the July/August issue, I am dismayed and also very saddened to learn that there are still people in the Presbyterian Church who prefer to quote ancient biblical texts regarding homosexuality rather than understand that a person does not choose to be gay. This is a fact that the medical community, in particular those in psychiatry, has finally come to understand and accept, no longer considering homosexuality to be reversible.
It would certainly be constructive if such persons as Rev. Calvin Brown, Rev. Laurence DeWolfe, Rev. Glen Davis, the current moderator and others would write articles about this important matter in a more open manner. God will help us all to do what is right and to not be fearful of opening our minds to the truth. Let us ask ourselves, “What would Jesus say?”

posted on December 1, 2011 in Pop Christianity

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This will be my 40th Christmas in Canada. Our first was spent in the Leaside home of friends from Lahore. It was a modest celebration, filled with surreal wonders, like snow and lights. We went to Eaton’s and Simpson’s window displays. I don’t recall what they were that year; I’m sure it was some brightly coloured toy land masterpiece, with the jolly fat man overseeing a team of little people happily making toys for good girls and boys.
The basics of the season were established then: fellowship, faith and festivities. There might not have been any mall displays in Pakistan, but for a child it was primarily about Father Christmas. Toys, of course, and an excuse to provide some new clothes; as if that couldn’t have been done any other time of year. It’s all part of the contradiction that is this month.
For two decades my Christmas Eve was spent first at worship and then at a cousin’s; half a dozen growing families gathered in a suburban mansion. I played Santa to a generation of second cousins and now I wistfully watch them don the red suit. We created our own tradition; mixing this with that to make something. Our table had curries and rices, as one might expect, along with pastas, turkey and ham. A claim to all the bounties available to us.
The wonder I felt at my first Canadian Christmas I have seen on the faces of children for four decades. Children who have just arrived, once only a week earlier, from away, excited and trepidatious about everything. Two – and three – year – olds born here, absorbing their legacy of family and of faith. And of our steadily growing wealth.
There was always worship and reflection at our Christmas gathering. My uncle was a minister, and he led us with his infectious hopefulness. We remembered the baby in the manger as the reason we had gathered. These were happy evenings that lasted till the wee hours after Santa had come and gone. Lots of laughter and singing and storytelling and eating, filled with the intensity of family.
There were dark moments, as there always are at family gatherings. Accusations, betrayals, back – biting. That, too, is part of the Christmas legacy; that strand of pain that runs through family, that is smoothed over by … well, by simply ignoring it usually. Perhaps this is why divorces and breakups spike in December; the hypocrisies of families are most exposed by the pressures of this season.
Christmas hasn’t changed radically over the years. It is still this confused and complicated mixture of family, faith and commerce; equal parts Oh Come All Ye Faithful and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. You cannot untie one from the other. For most of us, Christmas would not be complete without a visit from Charlie Brown or George Bailey or Dylan Thomas.
How rich it is to be human! A messy wonder, really. There is nothing to do but enjoy the spoils of this season, the parties, the punches, the presents. I don’t know if the madness that is this month actually grew out of celebrating Christ’s birth or is somehow coincidental to it, and has globbed on to it as an excuse to whitewash the excessiveness. I must call a cultural historian and ask one day. I do know, you can’t run away from the Christmas – crazy; believe me, I’ve tried.
It’s not about running or about disingenuously wailing against consumerist excesses while contributing to them. No, it’s about finding that quiet little space in your life where you can go to the manger for a moment and sit in meditation. It is the only defence we have against the noise—and don’t fool yourself, the rest is nothing but noise. So, it is a good thing we have the manger.

posted on December 1, 2011 in People & Places

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Little Narrows, N.S.

Forbes, Grande Prairie, Alta.

Sand Hill, Ont.

Presbytery of Western Han Ca

Order of Diaconal Ministries

St. Andrew’s, Welland, Ont.

Morningside High Park, Toronto, Ont.

posted on December 1, 2011 in Books, Features

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The words kept echoing through my mind. I had no peace and no rest. Strangely and goadingly, they seemed to speak to me.
My dad’s home office door was open and he sat puffing his pipe, perched over the original text of the Book of Job. On my next pass he called me in. “What is wrong?”
“Wrong?” I breathed in youthful defiance. “Nothing.”
He waited. He was a man who knew when to be quiet. I flopped down in a chair. “Well, pa, you see I was reading the Book of Hebrews this morning.”
He lifted his eyebrows; he was no small expert on this book having written a commentary on it.
“Here’s the thing, ‘today if you hear my voice do not harden your hearts.’” He puffed on his pipe and kept quiet. “Well, I can’t get these words out of my mind.”
“Ah,” he said thoughtfully, “Perhaps God is calling you?”
I sighed the word, “yes,” my sense of discomfort faded. A great burden was lifted.
To be called is to have a vocation. It gives meaning to one’s life. If there is anything we need in today’s church in Canada, it is the sense of meaning and purpose which flows out of knowing who we are and what we are called to. We are in a kind of exile today. We are frantically trying to salvage dying congregations. That exile invites us to a new sense of call on our journey of Christian spirituality.
Stories of calls to leadership lie at the heart of the history of Christian spiritual formation. Such stories are highly personal and particular because God calls individuals in unique ways. But although particular and contextual, such stories always carry universal implications in the great unfolding story of creation and redemption.
But experience remains a problematic measure of call. For Martin Luther, his experience of peace and acceptance after striving so much to please God was crucial in gaining certainty of faith. John Calvin insisted that one should not look at one’s self but rather at Christ for assurance in an attempt to turn the Christian journey away from self – absorption.
By the 17th century, the pietist movement in Germany and the Puritan movement started to emphasize experience, and experience became fundamentally associated with certain religious feelings in persons.
Religious experience of this kind tended to individualize faith and the call to follow God as it merged with the rise of the autonomous individual in the Enlightenment. Today, personal experience, and particularly individualized feeling, has become a basic expectation. How often do we say, “I feel that…”?
It is clear that experience has importance in biblical stories of call. It is also clear that an excessive emphasis on experience, particularly extraordinary experience, can be frustrating and painful to those who never seem to experience such feelings. Moreover, those who do claim special experiences sometimes consider themselves spiritually elevated. Combined with individualism, such religious experience can lead to isolation or cult – like spirituality.
Call cannot be divorced from experience nor reduced to experience. That is why churches have emphasized the role of community in connection with call. It is the community who discerns call and leadership. Whether the individual has a profound experience does not determine call. In all the biblical stories, God’s call was to community.

Call Today
In early times, Christian vocation involved risk and commitment. In medieval times, vocation was connected with monastic vows. During the Reformation, vocation or calling became a concept that included the idea that one’s daily work could be part of vocation. For much of the modern period, this Protestant idea of vocation played a formative role in shaping people’s sense of meaning in life. In our post – Christian context, significant questions are being raised about vocation. Thus William Placher writes:
The very claim that there is something that God wants me to do with my life, for instance, threatens many contemporary definitions of freedom. Surely, I can do whatever I want with my life, and the choice is mine? Much of the Christian tradition, however, has argued that that vision of life as a sea of infinite choices is more like slavery than freedom. If “freedom” means that every choice is open, and none is the wrong answer, then my choices cease to have any larger meaning. The direction of my life can be shaped by the pervasive siren calls of consumer culture, or by my own quest for immediate satisfaction. Either way, the advent of next year’s fashions or the boredom I find in the pleasures of the moment leaves me hungry for something else, a cycle of hunger always unfulfilled.
The ever expanding world of choice, information and constant technological change requires a new emphasis on God’s call and vocation for our spirituality.
Finding our identity, call and spirituality can be located in the opening chapters of Genesis. Having a calling is not just something that happens to us for specific church jobs. More importantly, calling is integrated with the way and logic of the whole of God’s creation. The very act of creation is an act of God calling forth. The Word—God speaking—is the way of God’s gracious act of creation. All things are constituted by God’s call, and out of this deep and profound loving call comes our call as human beings. We need to grasp this profound connection between God’s creating Word that calls forth creation, and God’s gracious word that brings redemption and calls us to be part of it in mission.

The Evocative God in Genesis
Old Testament scholar Walter Breuggemann says Genesis is a book of call. First, God calls forth creation to be God’s faithful world. (Genesis 1 – 11) Then God calls specific people to be God’s faithful people. (Genesis 12 – 50) Thus, both creation and the community of faith are “evoked by the speech of this God.” To be human is to be called forth by God and then to be called by God for a special task or mission in creation. This is who we are. Christian spirituality starts here.
Our identity and spirituality grows out of our call to a journey of mission with creation. The inherent potential for creatures to resist God and not heed God’s call is soon realized in the unfolding story of the first three chapters of Genesis. This rebellion leads to the second kind of call, the call of anguish, the one we discover in Genesis 3:9, when God calls out to the human creatures in what is rendered in the Hebrew language in one agonising word, “Where?”
This is an impassioned God. In fact, there seems to be a kind of suffering within God. The freedom of God’s creatures to obey or to rebel does not only bring the potential that God may suffer—the potential is realized! Whereas the calling forth of creation by the creative Word is an act that cannot be resisted, the calling of humankind and creation to its covenantal journey with God can be resisted. According to this story we can resist and we do. But God does not turn God’s back on rebellious humans. God, who loves and cherishes creation as a child will not let it go. In this sense, God is already in this early text in a judging and gracious solidarity with the “poor” and the “poor in spirit.” We, the cowering humans, are foolishly hiding until we hear the judging and gracious agonising cry, “Where?”
We are called and marked as creatures of the good and cherished creation and we are called in anguish as we run and hide in the garden. Just as these stories helped the Hebrew exiles to find their identity in Babylon, these texts tell us who we are in the “foreign lands” of consumer and technological culture or global empires of finance that exploit and destroy creation and people. It is here that we need to start if we want to talk about Christian missional spirituality. The message of God’s agonizing call in the face of our resistance invites us to repentance and provides hope. Together, people and creation stand under God’s dual call which sets them free. Creation is not abandoned but the great promise resounds, “I will bring all things together in reconciliation!”

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his article is adapted and edited from Charles Fensham’s forthcoming book, A Missional Christian Spirituality for the Emerging Church: The Journey to the Nations and for the Earth. To be published by Clement Academic, 2012

posted on December 1, 2011 in Cover Story

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The Magnificat during Advent is soul – stirring, indeed. Every time I hear the reading or sing the canticle, I am immediately transported back to a scene in the living room of my aunt and uncle in Oshawa, Ont.
There, an aspiring candidate for the Christian ministry, let’s call him Ebenezer McKay, is being tutored in the gospel arts by his uncle Leo during the family’s Christmas visit.
Leo Connolly, devout Roman Catholic, Irish, WWI veteran, affectionately known as ‘Tarz’ (Tarzan to his adoring brothers – in – law), and in those days of my youth an executive with General Motors of Canada, offered his attentive nephew this wisdom: “Jimmy, my boy, if you’re going to be a minister, you’ll have to know something of the Latin in scripture.”
Uncle Leo, as I picture him now, reclining in his armchair after a long day at the office, with feet stretched out comfortably on an ottoman, necktie loosened, shirt collar undone, launched into the Latin of this unforgettable text: “Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles.”
And so began an extended recital of a portion of The Sicilian’s Tale: King Robert of Sicily, from the collection, Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Robert of Sicily, regal in splendid luxury, hears the chanting of priests at vespers “on St. John’s eve.” The words pique his curiosity and he inquires of an attending clerk about their meaning. The clerk replies, “He has put down the mighty from their seat/ And has exalted them of low degree.”
Whereupon the King sneers:
“‘Tis well that such seditious words are sung
Only by priests and in the Latin tongue;
For unto priests and people be it known,
There is no power can push me from my throne!”
With that he dozes off, only to awaken in a dream where he discovers everything has changed. He is no longer king but a wretched serf in the royal court. In his place on the throne is an angel disguised as King Robert.
Robert, in squalor, is furious that this apparent imposter has seized his throne and rages against this humiliating reversal. To no avail, however, for he is mocked and scorned by everyone he meets. His place is now that of the court fool.
Gradually his stubborn pride gives way and is vanquished.
At that moment, the angel king in a private audience reveals himself to Robert: “I am an Angel, and thou art the King!”
Humbly, Robert accepts restoration and once more in ermine robes resumes his former station. When his courtiers rush into the hall, “they found him there/ Kneeling upon the floor, absorbed in prayer.”
Whenever human arrogance peaks in a nation or in an individual or in a community—even one of faith, this gospel theme in The Magnificat rings out with devastating clarity, calling us to repent, to reassess and to reach out for the spiritual makeover that will restore the grace of gratitude in our lives.
The Sicilian’s Tale would be a brilliant dramatic reading alongside Luke’s version of Mary’s extraordinary song. Try reading it that way at a Christmas Eve service or as a prelude to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper in Advent.
Your congregation may well be on their knees around that table!
Wouldn’t that be an Advent to remember?

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Sources of quotes:
“The Poetical Works of Longfellow”, Cambridge Edition, Houghton Mifflin Co, 1975 Tales Of A Wayside Inn, The Sicilian’s Tale – King Robert Of Sicily, pages 215 – 218

posted on December 1, 2011 in From the Moderator

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“Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. Therefore, be imitators of God…” (Ephesians 4:31 – 5:1a)

On the scale of “most difficult things to do” in this life, surely the ability to forgive must be somewhere near the head of the line, don’t you think? I’m not speaking of the driver who refused to let me merge into his lane this morning, or the woman who stepped in front of me in the bank line over the lunch hour (although I did just think of them…). No, I’m speaking of the remnant of hurtful words or destructive deeds that have cut us to the core, and have left a lasting scar behind. That kind of forgiveness.
For three days in October, I was privileged to attend the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings in Halifax as an official representative of our Presbyterian Church in Canada. I was listening to the voices of Indian Residential School survivors, and frankly, what I heard is still echoing loudly in my ears and in my heart. To be honest, I’m not really sure what I was expecting before I headed east, but I know what I experienced, and it was full – on anguish and remorse. Not to mention much personal weeping. And I was only a listener! (Or so I thought.)
The complicity of the churches in the Government of Canada’s “assimilation policy” toward First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples is something from which we must never hide. It is ugly, regrettable, and far from the gospel of Jesus Christ. There were, it must be stressed, many teachers across those schools who embodied the most noble values of acceptance and love toward these children. Yet most of these children were six years of age or less when they were simply taken (read stolen) from their parents. To help children learn and grow is a most laudable endeavour; the ulterior motive of “killing the Indian in the child” is a stain upon our work and witness that can never be excused by saying “it was a different time.” Nevertheless, and by God’s renewing Spirit, we have been journeying daily down the road of apology and reconciliation as a genuine expression of our profound sadness for past sins and our desire for a more hopeful future for indigenous Canadians. And, we will also pray that our indigenous neighbours can hear the genuineness of our continuing apology and accept it.
One personal moment demands sharing. As I sat listening to one survivor’s horrific tale of physical and emotional abuse (at age seven), a First Nations woman, herself a survivor, was sitting to my left. As she heard the inhuman details being shared, she (and I) began to cry. As the speaker’s story concluded, my neighbour was simply unable to contain all her emotions. Feeling badly for “disturbing” my listening, she suddenly turned to me and weepingly apologized for her behaviour. “I’m sorry!” she said, so genuinely, so emphatically. And in my tears, thinking now of the pain that she, too, was personally recalling, I answered her, “No … I’m sorry!” Her face instantly lit up, she immediately reached out her arm to mine, and we embraced. And the word “reconciliation” was no longer just a word.

Grace and Peace,

posted on December 1, 2011 in News

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Presbyterian Church Goes Up in Flames , by Connie Wardle

Kitsch Christmas , by Bradley Chlds

Presbyterian Soldier Laid to Rest 93 Years after Death – Spotlight, by Margaret Sambol

Doing What Churches Should, by Erin Woods

Letter From the Presbytery of Northern Saskatchewan – Working to be One, by Amanda Currie

Community News – December 2011

posted on December 1, 2011 in People & Places

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Friends, family and the members of two congregations gathered in July for the induction of Rev. Andrew MacDonald as minister of Little Narrows and St. Andrew’s, Whycocomagh. Several members of the Presbytery of Cape Breton conducted the service. Pictured here are MacDonald (left), Rev. Marian Barclay MacKay (presbytery moderator) and Rev. Lloyd Murdock (search committee convener).

posted on December 1, 2011 in Features, Mission

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Somewhere in their middle decades, most people experience a time of radical re – evaluation of their lives, which often leads to significant change—the so – called mid – life crisis. They feel a need to develop those facets of their lives they have previously ignored. They raise many questions that often go unanswered. And that, I believe, makes it a time of opportunity for the church.
The oldest members of the Boomer generation have been through this time of re – evaluation; the youngest are in it or are approaching it. In the past, this generation left the church in great numbers. And although the reasons for those departures are many and complicated, the result is that they have largely gone through life without the hope, comfort and encouragement the gospel provides.
Seniors are in a position to reach Boomers effectively—more effectively, in fact, than they can reach the younger generations. Time and again I have heard people say we need to work at bringing young people into the church. Well, we certainly need to take good care of the teens and young adults who are part of our congregations. But we are kidding ourselves if we think that a church composed largely of seniors is going to be able to make itself attractive to unchurched youth who are two or three generations younger! Boomers, on the other hand, are the children of those seniors, and we have a chance to reach out to the next younger generation and their friends.
This is not a plea for a national program to turn seniors into evangelists. But I believe we can only minister effectively if we first face some questions: Do we really believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ makes a difference in our lives? Does the message that God loves us unconditionally really touch us deeply? Do we seek to open our hearts so that we are ready to receive God’s love and reflect it in our lives? Do we really love our children and their friends? Do we care about their spiritual welfare? Do we tell them how God’s love makes a difference in our lives?
Unless a ministry to Boomers flows out of love for God and love for them, it will fail. Otherwise, they will rightly see our efforts as self – serving attempts to keep our institutions going.
A major part of our problem is that we have taken to an extreme the words of St. Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel always; when necessary, use words.” In my experience, it is hard to find a Presbyterian church where people are comfortable talking about God’s love and how it affects their lives. St. Francis lived in a different world than we do! How do we expect people who have little or no memory of Christianity to interpret our lives in Christian terms? If we are to reach out to the Boomers with the gospel, we will have to begin speaking clearly about the place God has in our lives. That involves a major change in Presbyterian culture.
We must develop ways to encourage people to speak more freely, and to make ministry to Boomers a priority. Here is a golden opportunity on our doorstep. Our children and their friends are a mission field that is ripe. The question is whether we are willing to make the effort to reach them with Good News that can change their lives for the better.