Most wonderful time of the year

So....at times I've thought those Andy Williams' lyrics "It's the most wonderful time of the year, " was rather sappy but I certainly was humming them Monday and Tuesday night.
Truly, one of my most favouite times of the year, is the Oilfields Food Bank Food Drive.  The Volunteer Fire fighters along with the Scouts, Cubs, Guides, Brownies and Sparks head out into our local communities, always the third week of November.  At the end of the evening, all the big vehicles with flashing lights end up at our Church.  Then a line up of adults and children move the food into the basement.    In spite of snow, freezing cold, there were big smiles on children and adults all working together to help others.
   What I also value is the flexibility that all church and partners show in making space for the food hampers to happen.
Thank you all!!

May we be life to one another

             As our American brothers and sisters celebrate Thanksgiving, I wanted to share this experience with you:

      The other night, our five-year-old insisted we thank God for our chicken.  Saying thank you is part of our meal ritual, but the meal on the table was particularly significant to us.

     We enjoyed them all summer, watched them grow from day-old chicks to full grown clucking hens and crowing roosters.    It’s been a good experience for us all to be closer to the food chain, including the day a few weeks ago when we transitioned the chickens from the coop to the freezer.  There were eight households involved.     The adults worked outside while the children were cared for inside the house.  But later some came out and joined us.  This is the cycle of life and any trepidation they had slipped away.  One older boy started to goof around with a chicken’s neck.  His Dad said to him that while it was OK to play, he needed to be careful not to cross the line.  “We show respect for what we harvest.”

“We show respect for what we harvest.’  Wise words.  Ones that were reflected through that day, through our summer caring for the chickens ensuring they had good food and  quality of life (we’ll always remember their leaping in to the air when let out of the pen) and through this winter as they in turn feed us.   

A Thanksgiving Grace

 God, you who gave bread

to Moses and his people

while they travelled in the desert,

come now and bless these gifts of food

which you have given to us.

As this food gives up its life for us,

May we follow that pattern of self surrender.

May we be life to one another.  Amen.

---   by Edward Hays from Prayers for the Domestic church

Living Divinely

Colossians 1:11-20

21 Nov. 2010

         Rick was a big, burly kind of guy in the Southern U.S. who drove a cross-country truck, chewed tobacco, and hit home runs on the softball team. However, he rarely made it to church services.  But some friends told Rick they needed his help putting on a play at church for Vacation Bible School.

             At first, Rick declined saying, "That's just not my bag." However, after some arm twisting, he reluctantly agreed.  Rick was to play Jesus.  

            The first time Mary Hollingsworth saw Rick in his Jesus costume, she almost laughed   because it seemed so out of character for him.   Hollingsworth wrote the play and wrote down this story in her book, Fireside Stories.   However, he appeared to take his job quite seriously; so she contained herself and congratulated him on his unusual interpretation of the role.

              When Vacation Bible School week arrived, Rick played his role to the hilt, yelling in his Southern accent at the money-changers to "Git outta here! . . .You cain't turn my Father's house inta a den a'thieves, ya hear? So, jist git out, and don't chew come back . . . evah!" Then he proceeded to destroy the temple by throwing over the tables of the moneychangers (he actually enjoyed this part) and tossing the crooks out into the street. It was more like a TV cop show than a Bible story . . . but the kids got the point.

            "As planned, twice every night for four nights Rick donned his Jesus suit and cleansed the temple of insincere people. And the children loved it! They voted this story to be one of the best of the whole week.

             "The best part of the story, though, came after Vacation Bible School. Somehow, acting like Jesus …. had a lasting effect on Rick. He began coming to the church services a little more often, coming to the midweek Bible study and staying for fellowship events. But the most powerful impact on him came from the young children…who, for weeks and months after, would point at Rick and whisper, "Look! There's Jesus!"

           Before long, the big, burly truck driver was giving up chewing tobacco, drinking beer less and attending church more.  “He and his wife began team teaching Sunday School classes and leading teens on mission trips…. And, after a few years, he was chosen as a deacon (elder). In short he stopped ACTING like Jesus and began LIVING like Jesus."  

(Mary Hollingsworth, Fireside Stories, Word Publishing 2000, pp. 162-164)

                    This last Sunday before Advent used to be called Christ the King Sunday.  It’s now called “Reign of Christ.  The whole day came about when people in the 1920s, thought the world was becoming too secularized and we needed to remember that   that God incarnate in Jesus Christ rules over us, not with might, but with justice and love.   

               And that’s what Rick discovered in this story.  God’s in charge and he wanted to live his life emulating Christ.

              When I read Rick’s story, it reminded me of Harry in a community where I used to live.    It was Palm Sunday and we decided to do in Church the play that the Curriculum laid out for us.  We asked one man to play Jesus.  He accepted and took the part quite seriously.  In one of the scenes, he dragged a heavy cross up the middle aisle, acting like Christ enroute to be crucified – beaten, hungry, downtrodden.  

              For some of us watching, that scene was particularly moving.  Because we knew that Harry understood what it was to be beaten down by life.  He and his wife worked hard but they’d lost their farm.  He battled depression.   Now, they both worked with seniors and they did their work with efficiency and laughter.  They lived resurrection.  They had walked a long, heavy road, still stayed together and knew new life and possibilities.

             Rick and Harry’s God is not one who lives in a beautiful castle on the highest hill.  Their God is one who walks among us.  Rick’s God is one who legitimately gets angry at the greed he sees in the market place.  Rick’s God expects and demands a just world for all people.  Harry’s God has walked with him during financial loss and despair.  His God has led him back to renewed prosperity and fullness of life.  He knows the experience of going from Good Friday’s devastation to Easter Sunday’s joy and celebration.

             The author of Colossians writes:  “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience, while joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled  us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.  He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.  He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”  (Col. 1:11-15)

Angels Among us Tea - Nov. 20, 2010

              Jesus is the first born of Creation.  And we are part of that beautiful creation. 

            We are each beautifully created by God.    We are to value the divine in our selves.  Christ being raised from the dead, giving us the Holy Spirit.  Christ is in each one of us.  The Holy Spirit is in each one of us.  We value the Divine in ourselves and we open our eyes to see the Divine in each other.

         We look at each other with Christ’s eyes and see Christ in each one we encounter.

            In our following Wayne Dyer’s The Power of Intention on Tuesday nights, he says what gets in the way of our living connected to our God is that “People go through life looking to be offended.”

             Now, there’s a part of the story about Harry acting the part of Jesus that I still need to tell.  Harry thought very carefully how he could look the part of Jesus as he carried the cross down the aisle.  He had red marks painted on his bare back to symbolize the beatings and he’d seen  depictions of Jesus on the cross in loin cloths.  Harry’s a former Prairie farmer and he’s going to be respectable to himself and others.  He finds a very large white sheet and wraps it around himself so his belly button is covered and the cloth reaches down to his knees.

             A few days later a woman in the congregation spoke to me.  She said she didn’t want  any more intergenerational services and dramas, especially ones where Harry comes down the aisle wearing a big diaper.  It was embarrassing.

             Now the woman entirely missed the personal significance in the enacting of the story of Jesus’ walking to Calvary.    She missed how playing Jesus was important to Harry and though she knew Harry’s history as much as anyone else in the area, she hadn’t seen the connection between Harry’s story and our common story in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

           The woman was a wonderful leader in the community and church.  She just fell into a trap that so many of us fall into and I’m no saint in this either.  We go through life looking for something to offend us and, of course, we’re going to find something to annoy us or irritate us.

         But instead, Christ really wants us to look at ourselves and each other as the beautiful creations of God we are.  We are each divine, carry Christ in us.  And we look for the Christ in each other.  

           When we recognize our own blessedness and see the blessedness in those we encounter, suddenly our world is more beautiful and much larger.  It is much more full of abundant goodness.

             God’s in charge.  Christ’s in charge.  We have a loving, caring God who wants only goodness for us and that we want that goodness for others.

Roses from heaven: Words at a Baby's Baptism

Psalm 145

Sermon from 7 November 2010

            A few years ago, Kaylan’s Great Grandma Irene gave me this rose angel at Christmas.  Irene was at the Lodge in Black Diamond.  She waited until I finished the service and then had this rose ornament wrapped in tissue and in a pretty gift bag.  Her daughter, Laurel, made the ornament.  Laurel is Kaylan’s grandma who died a few months before he was born.  Irene died last December.    When Laurel made this ornament, she was in between cancer treatments.

 There’s a tradition that’s developed around roses and a woman saint from the 19^th century.  It is said that anytime you see roses, St. Teresa of Liseaux is up in heaven showering you with prayers and love.  Apparently before her death in 1896 from tuberculosis she said:  “After my death, I will let fall a shower of roses.  I will spend my heaven in doing good upon earth.”

  Years ago, a lay pastoral assistant at a Catholic Church in a community where I worked, told me about this wonderful tradition about St Teresa:  When we see roses, some wonderful caring, loving woman up in heaven who we never met is showering us with love and praying to God on our behalf. 

I’d like to think today that two wonderful, caring women, Laurel and Irene, are up in heaven and showering us with love and praying to God on our behalf.

Showering us with love.  Sounds a lot like “grace” -- God’s unconditional love for us.  And that’s what baptism is all about.  God’s love pouring out for us.  We use water in the baptism act because water itself is life-giving.  An outward symbol of the continuous love that God gives to us.

 As I go about my week as minister of this church, I find much to give thanks to God—it seems every day there are little miracles happening around us:  Someone getting through surgery well, repairs done to the front stairs, a new volunteer for one of our outreach programs, excitement about the study we’re starting, people responding to what they’ve read on the minister’s blog, wonderful stories our men told in the men’s breakfast yesterday, knowing I’d see Kaylan’s family again today….a lot of many things that for me, add up to much to be thankful for.

Our Scripture reading is all about excitement that God is in the every day and in each moment.

 “All living things look hopefully to you,
      and you give them food when they need it.
                   You give them enough
      and satisfy the needs of all.” (Psalm 145:15-16)

God’s grace – always pouring out for us – if we have eyes to see it. 

I found some wonderful words on baptism this week “After baptism, our entire life becomes the overflow of those baptismal waters, which is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.”  Out of the grace of God’s love, flow our lives and we live in the abundance of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.   “Baptism is how we link our lives to the life of Jesus. We bind our lives to his. And we commit to a way of life that gives life—that shines new life, that multiplies life, like Jesus did.”

          Martin Luther said during the 16^th century reformation, “all of Life is Baptism.    All of life is baptism. We are always being submerged in darkness and chaos, the stuff of life that causes despair, but we are always reborn into new life through it all. All of life is baptism. It means that every painful moment that seems like a little death in our lives is also the moment of the outpouring of new life, the overflow of Jesus’ baptismal waters, the movement of the Holy Spirit. All of life is baptism means that God is always creating new possibilities out of the stuff that seems like a dead end. That is the way of our baptism. We are always on the verge of new life, no matter what kind of trouble we’re in.” (“Fully Alive,” by Isaac Villegas, www.rustyparts.com)

 

St. Teresa of Liseaux was not at all famous when she was alive.  She was a nun who lived   a relatively normal life.   It was her spiritual writings that were published after she died that made her famous.  And she was simply writing about finding God in the day to day but it was the simplicity that people desired and made her writings so popular.   Her way to God was simply about grace that she called “the little way.”    She was a determined young woman, fighting her father at age 15 to let her fulfil her heart-felt desire to a nun.        She suffered many years with tuberculosis.  During the painful times, she knew despair and pain – yet what shines through in her writings is the strength and goodness she constantly found in God’s love.    She continued to see the grace and that’s what she held on to and what gave her strength.  (from Robert Ellsberg's book All Saints, Crossroad, 1997)

Henri Nouwen, Roman Catholic priest and writer of many books, wrote this simple poem:  

"The one who created us is waiting for our response to the love that gave us our being.
God not only says: "You are my Beloved".
God also asks: "Do you love me?
And offers us countless chances to say "Yes."

Baptism is God's "Yes" to us.  May we delight in the joy of life in saying “yes” to God all the days of our lives.

A Baker's Dozen!!!

 Down in the Valley blog's first ever Give-a-Way was much fun!

Thank you to people who took time to leave comments or pushed your technological ability to figure out how to become a Blog Follower.  Six people became followers, four people left comments and another three emailed me that they'd at least tried to figure out the technology.  I figured that trying was worth getting your name in the hat!   So 13 names went in.


When the five-year old's hand reached into the big, pink summer hat, the name pulled out was Sherri Gussman.   She has received her copy of Wayne Dyer's Gift Edition of The Power of Intention.  Congratulations to Sherri, trail blazer extraordinaire, who was also the first person to sign up to be a Blog Follower!  She's pictured here, not wearing a pink hat!

The Power of Intention Give a Way was so much fun, I do believe another will be coming in the not-so-distant future!

First Ever Blog Give-a-Way

I have a copy of Wayne Dyer’s The Power of Intention (Hay House, 2010) to give away. All you need to do to get your name in the hat  is to either:

1 ) Sign up to become a follower of the Down in the Valley blog (see on right hand side)

OR

2) Leave a comment on the blog about something you’ve read on Down in the Valley.

Whether you follow us online or join us in worship, you can enter to have your name put into the hat by Nov. 13. This is the latest edition of Dyer's book with beautiful illustrations and just happens to be a resource for our November study, Praying to Make Manifest.

And remember – even if your name isn’t pulled from the hat on Nov. 14– we and God still think you’re really something!
P.S.  One way to leave a comment is to use the anonymous option and then sign it by leaving your first name and an initial.  Or to ensure I've a way to be in touch with you if your name is pulled from the hat, sign the comment by using your email address but put it down in safe internet form where you write out the "at" and "dot" i.e.  Shelleyinthevalleyatgmaildotcom.   

Meeting Erin Karpluk of CBC's 'Being Erica'

Last month Joel and I got to meet Alberta-born actress Erin Karpluk. On a whim I’d entered an online CBC contest and it was a wonderful surprise to get an email saying ‘two tickets are yours!’ We had a marvellous time at Milestones Restaurant in downtown Calgary with Erin and her co-star, Adam Fergus, and twenty some other guests. (Some drove from Edmonton and Saskatoon to be there for the two hours)

Being Erica is into its third television season and the Canadian show has become popular world-wide. I enjoy the series’ themes that our past doesn’t need to define who we are today -- which is a healthy reflection of our own Judeo- Christian beliefs of healing, redemption, new life and new possibilities. At the end of the evening, as we had our photo taken with Erin, we learned she was confirmed in the United Church in Jasper. It was wonderful to meet this talented Canadian actress whose skilled acting can take us through emotions of regret, grief, embarrassment, excitement, delight and out-loud laughter within an hour-long episode. But what Erin makes look easy, as she described for us, takes hours of careful work and deliberation over each script.

Watch for Erin Karpluk in the Hallmark Christmas movie, Mrs. Miracle, based on a book by Debbie MacComber. (The light-hearted novel is available to borrow from the church library)

The Gift of Friendship

Luke 19:1-10 and John 15:5-17

31 October 2010

Last Tuesday for our two seniors’ services, the theme was “The Gift of Friendship” as it is today. I brought a tote-bag full of homeless stuffed animals. We handed the animals out to those present at the beginning of the program as a symbol of friendship. By the end of the day, most of those stuffed animals – big and small – had found new homes.

All of us desire relationships outside of ourselves – even if it’s just a stuffed animal.

So it is with God – but of course, on a much grander scale, beyond our ability to comprehend. God desires a relationship with each one of us, whoever we are. So it’s no wonder then that Jesus walking along the road senses that Zacchaeus is up in that sycamore tree.

Surprisingly, it is Jesus who calls out Zacchaeus’s name and breaches social etiquette by inviting himself to this stranger’s house: “I must stay at your house today” (v. 5). “Must” is the Greek verb dei, which expresses divine necessity.

In the Mediterranean world, it is considered an honour to be the host. In Lebanon today, a host greets a guest by saying…… “you honour us.” Jesus must honour Zacchaeus by being his guest. In turn, Zacchaeus welcomes Jesus and experiences joy. He cooperates with the divine “must” or will by making restitution, symbolizing his repentance. (from Seasons of the Spirit lectionary resource for Oct. 31, 2010)

The encounter with Jesus is transformational for Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is seeking Jesus and God is seeking Zacchaeus. The lost has found his home again in God.

We know our own lost moments of being disconnected from God. Rejoicing happens for ourselves and God when we come home again to God.

God is determined to have a relationship with each and everyone of us. So that in turn, we might be in relationship with one another. That’s true for Zacchaeus. His choosing to return home to God means also coming into relationship with those he’s previously hurt by making amends. Earlier, by taking from his neighbours, he was choosing to NOT be in relationship.

If we are created by a good and gracious God, we are also connected to each person and everything that God has created. To follow Jesus means to value the goodness in one another. And we know, we have been blessed and enriched by the God-given goodness of one another.

That’s what friendship is about.

Author and Theological Wendy Wright says our Spiritual Life is facilitated, encouraged and shaped by people we journey with. It is not a private journey of faith but rather it happens in community (from “A Conversation with Wendy Wright,” Alive Now, Jan.-Feb., 1999, pp. 10-15)

Our journey as Christians is one of awakening love. Friendship is a form of love. And friendships help us grow in our capacity to love.

Friendships are mutual relationships. They are reciprocal. Sometimes one is giving, another time another is giving. Sometimes both are giving at the same time. A relationship between a parent and a child is not a friendship. Yes both love each other, but it is not a relationship between peers.

Christian friendships have at their core a shared love for God. It doesn’t mean that the friends are always talking about their faith. But simply that both know they have a love for God that draws us together. The relationship itself can be one that encourages and deepens their love for God.

One of the blessings of Christian friendship is that it can seem that God has sent us to each other. Together, we challenge, sustain and support one another.

There are challenges to friendships in our culture today. People move frequently. “Good friendships, like any kind of relationship are richer the longer you live with them.” Our busyness gets in the way also. “We’re all so efficient and motivated to produce that friends get left out. We also have a very difficult time feeling as though it’s OK to be drawn to people and love people. We’re afraid of deep love.” (Wright)

“We really do think of ourselves as autonomous individuals….but hyper individualism robs us of the sense that we are interconnected.” (Wright)

It is important that we celebrate our relationships with one another and value them.. Here’s where the church comes in. We hold up an alternative model to the rest of society. We value our connection with God and with on another.

Jesus expresses in John’s Gospel his great love for the disciples of which we are. “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.” (John 15:12-15)

Jesus says, ‘I have passed on to you everything that I know about how to be good, faithful friends to one another. Go and bear fruit. Pass on this abundance of love to one another.’

It’s our privilege to go about life bearing witness to God’s abundance, delighting in the relationships that we were given in the past and that are being offered to us today.