I WONDER....

NEW YEAR, NEW DECADE

When I left the car auction ten days ago, I was wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  A car dealer, the fellow I know as Sam who hails from Somalia, responded with a smile and said to me, "Happy New Decade!"  It stopped me in my tracks as I realized the truth of his salutation...which I have shamelessly used a dozen times since he offered it. Twenty-twenty... it really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

As the last days of the year unfold, I find myself drawn to an annual exercise is crystal ball gazing.  I survey several different news feeds on the web and pour over the year-end edition of the Economist; everywhere I look, I see one central theme: uncertainty.  The twenty-tens are closing in a haze of ambiguity.  Across Canada and around the world, I'm confronted with unresolved situations in every sphere of endeavour: international trade; the rule of law; social justice; climate change; national politics; world and regional economics...you name it.  The dominant characteristic is uncertainty. 

One pundit wrote: "Uncertainty is the enemy of progress; if uncertainty becomes sustained, it devolves into fear.  Fear is an emotion powerful enough to pull everything and anything down with it".  Whoa - just wait a minute!  That's a long leap from uncertainty to collapse.

I have always believed that times of uncertainty, distressing as they might be, are times of opportunity.  Uncertainty and change arrive on our doorstep like evil twins.  They disrupt our steady state, they challenge our expectations, they loosen the cement that holds our foundations firm.  Uncertainty and change also force us to look at how and why we do things, with the follow-on step of doing things differently and ultimately, doing new, different things.

And so, approaching a new year and new decade, I'm more excited about the opportunity than I am concerned about the uncertainty.  As First United seeks a path for transition and renewal of its mission and ministry, I'm drawn to the question that challenges all of us in times of uncertainty: what would we do if we weren't afraid to fail? 

We could literally do anything together.  Let's ring the bell...together.

Pat...still

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

~ Leonard Cohen, Anthem, 1992 ~

ECUMENICAL CHAPLAIN MINISTRY AT UNIVERSITY OF GUELPH

I never went to university or college as a young adult.  Even if I had, I don't think my experience of it on Thursday would have been like it was 45 years ago.  Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the midst of about 22,000 students who go to the University of Guelph (or, as some people call it, Cow Poo U). 

There were young folks every where...some were heading out for the Christmas holidays, being picked up outside their dorms by parents and friends, suitcases and duffle bags in tow.  Others were in the student union building alongside a Starbucks, coffee in one hand, muffin in the other, staring at a text book or a lap top.  It was the next to last day of exams and there was a fair amount of cramming still going on.  I felt their pain.

I was at the Guelph campus to learn about the Ecumenical Campus Ministry (ECM) led by United Church minister Andrew Hyde.  He's a young-ish man, full-time chaplain to the university students and staff who seek to make a Christian faith connection on an otherwise secular campus.  His chaplaincy is funded by money provided by the Anglicans, the Presbyterians and the United Church of Canada; this is where some of our Mission & Service donations go, to support the pastoral care that he provides to students attending university in Guelph.

I had no understanding of his calling until yesterday's visit; it didn't take me long though, to appreciate the value of that ministry.  I frequently read of or listen to reports of the pressures that young adults deal with when they begin post-secondary education.  Many of them are away from home for the first time; most of them have significant academic workloads they have never experienced before.  The majority shoulder a significant financial burden to attend university - tens of thousands of dollars of student debt is common.  The pressure to achieve is immense.

It's not surprising that rates of anxiety and stress for university and college students is high and climbing.  It gave me confidence and hope that Andrew was able to provide spiritual care and a safe place for students who need some caring attention.  He told me that he frequently encounters students who have been desperately waiting three weeks for access to counselling services provided by the university.  For young adults whose faith community is far away, or for those who have no faith background but just need a listening ear and compassionate heart, his ministry is a life saver...literally.

I've never doubted the value of my giving to the Mission & Service Fund; it made me feel good to experience the positive impact of my gifts in the pastoral support provided to students by Andrew Hyde.

The purpose of the University of Guelph is "Improving Life".  Andrew Hyde and the Ecumenical Campus Ministry are doing that.

 Pat

Take This Thought Away With You

"When the Student is ready, the Teacher shall appear."

~ ancient proverb ~

A Week's Worth of Gratitude

Saturday ~ food drive at the hockey game

Sunday ~ the wonder of White Gift

Monday ~ Truth & Reconciliation

Tuesday ~ home in the snow

Wednesday ~ knights of the rectangular table

Thursday ~ Guelph Ecumenical Ministry

Friday ~ every day is a day of thanksgiving

I WONDER...?

Jesus was no dummy.  But I wonder if he could read and write?

When I searched Google, what I found wasn't convincing to me.  There's that passage from John 8 when Jesus intervenes to stop the stoning of the adulteress and utters his famous words, "whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone at her."  Just prior to that, the scripture says that he bent over and wrote in the sand with his finger.  As far as being able to read, there are several passages that refer to him reading passages from scrolls...but I wonder.

Jesus was known as rabbi - teacher - and we know without doubt he was a great one.  He was a supreme story teller with an amazing grasp of Hebrew scripture.  He was raised in that tradition and we know he was drawn to learning.  He knew how to connect people and their lives to God through imagery and the spoken word.  My guess is that most of his learning would have been listening to stories, lectures, discussions and debates; I doubt that he would have been allowed to handle the religious scrolls that made up the Tanakh (the Hebrew bible) - certainly not as a child, and by the time his ministry began, he wasn't exactly on the best of terms with the ruling order of priests and lawyers...those that controlled access to the scrolls.

For most of the people, the whole process of learning was based on oral communication (story telling).  To be a teacher, you didn't need to read or write.  More likely, a teacher trained to listen and memorize, then repeat to pass that information on to others.  Writing itself was a very specialized skill - those that could write were called scribes.  They earned their keep by writing or copying text, but they were seldom teachers.

So, what was Jesus writing in the sand as he contemplated a response to the Pharisees who brought the woman accused of adultery before him?  Maybe he wasn't writing but drawing, tracing out something that he had seen before.  Perhaps he wasn't writing but doodling to gain time in formulating his response.   

Think about that!