​I love stories like Narnia where there’s a magical, fantastic world that touches ours! This happens in our world too: it’s called thin places, where everything feels holy and you feel more like yourself than you ever have before. In a thin place we experience a reality that extends beyond what we can see or touch – the reality that we are surrounded by the movement of Spirit and the love of God. Thin places may be called Lummi Island or Samish Island (or Jasper National Park or Hills of Peace!). These are places that call to our soul, where we long to be.

Baptism is a thin place too. We place ourselves in the water, allow ourselves to be immersed, and encounter God in a new way. God doesn’t love us more after baptism because that’s impossible! God already loves us 120%. We do become partners with God in a new way, though, finding consolation in one another and spending time together.
 
So while I may never talk with Aslan, I can continue to treat this life like a sacred pilgrimage. I can look to the sacraments for those moments of union with the divine that grow my soul. I can spend time with my beloved creator and learn how to participate in life fully rather than sleepwalking through it. I can be invested in the lives of those around me, seeing God’s presence and fingerprints in each one. Where is your thin place? How will you dwell with God? Let the still, small voice call you into a new corner of your world, where something fantastic is waiting to be revealed!
 
*Adapted from the Vancouver congregation’s baptism service
May 8, 2022

It’s a wonderful opportunity to connect with you through these messages. It’s becoming apparent over the months that the feeling tone of the ones I write is more like our Disciple’s Generous Response rather than our Daily Bread! Part of my spiritual journey is to keep close tabs on the health of my heart (both physically and spiritually) and generosity is a great metric for heart health. Where my treasure is, there my heart is also. Just like my sermons, I’m ‘speaking to the mirror’ with these messages, reminding myself of what I already know leads to life.
 
Two aspects of heart-healthy stewardship come to mind right now. The first is our camping season! This year we move back into a fee-based camp experience where we know exactly how much camp costs in advance and what we are expected to contribute. Our directors are assembling registration information right now to make this clear. This is an opportunity to let our values influence our budgets in the next few months, allowing us to respond generously to the opportunity to gather again. What if you are not able to go and experience camping in person? I wonder if this is also an invitation to extend grace to others in the form of donations so that they can experience one of our most wonderful offerings as a church.
 
The other part of heart-healthy stewardship addresses the news cycle. I was in airports a lot this weekend, journeying to our friends in Saskatoon, and was struck by the numbing that watching loops of news can bring. It’s heart-breaking, but the situation in Ukraine is not improving! I can keep my heart open and respond by once again donating to those helpers who are on the ground doing their best to end suffering. I can light my light in the face of darkness and tend the flame, partnering with the Holy Spirit in divine work.
 
May our faithful God bless and keep our hearts!  ​

​Ken Barrows spoke at the closing service of the Lethbridge congregation building in March, having been their administrator in the 1990’s. He shared about a transitional time when some key families had moved away and there was not enough spark left in those remaining to organize worship services. He counseled them to leave off from having services for a few months and then to check in with him. For those months, the chapel was open for meditation on Sunday morning, but nothing else was done. After that time, when Ken checked in with the congregational leadership, one dear Saint offered to bring cheese and crackers every Sunday, for some social time after the meditation. After several months of that, another dear one wished to offer a hymn service, and that began a re-emergence of corporate worship. What would have happened without the offering of those cheese and crackers?

I carry that story close to my heart. There are times when we don’t have to force ourselves to do everything. If we cannot do everything, what is the something – the cheese and crackers - that we can offer? We know that God can bless even the last measure of flour and oil we have, and we’ve heard about what Jesus did with loaves and fishes. Instead of focusing on what we don’t have, it may be time to offer and make sacred what we are capable of offering. Listen for the Holy. Tend the Holy.

​​Yours in Christ,
Gwyn, Kat, and Shannon
gwyn@communityofchrist.ca
​kat@communityofchrist.ca
smcadam@communityofchrist.ca

March 27 was a very special day: a celebration of the life of the Lethbridge congregation in their building on 11th Street. There were wonderful stories and testimonies told of the six decades our dear ones shared together in that building. One highlight of the service was the Prayer for Peace offered by Vickie MacArthur, so we share it with you today to continue celebrating Lethbridge and to offer ourselves again to the work of peace in our world. A church is more than a building. Peace is more than a word.

Prayer for Peace:  Ukraine, and Russia, and the World
By John Bell
​
Loving God,
because you have the whole world
in your hands,
cradle gently those who are rocked by fear, shocked to a depth they have never known and frightened to face tomorrow.

On the people of Ukraine: their children, their old people, their vulnerable adults, their babies soon to be born,

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the people of Ukraine:
their defenders, their advocates,
those who care for the wounded, who sit with the despairing,
who witness and report on the savagery and destruction,
who bury the dead.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the people of Ukraine:
their leaders
that they may continue to inspire,
in word and by example,
and continue to receive help and solidarity from across the world.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the people of Russia,
that they might learn the truth kept from their hearing;
On the churches in Russia that they might find
the vocabulary and courage
to speak truth to power,

On the soldiers of Russia who do not believe
in the carnage they cause.

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.

On the Russian president,
and those who affirm his policies, we ask the judgement of heaven, a radical conversion
and an end to their lies, scheming and murder.

Lord hear us, Lord graciously hear us.

And for our own nation
we ask for commitment to match conviction so that the pain of the Ukrainian nation
be shared by us,
their weary people sheltered by us,
their peace assured by us.
​
Lord hear us, Lord graciously hear us. Amen. ​

​Yours in Christ,
Gwyn, Kat, and Shannon
gwyn@communityofchrist.ca
​kat@communityofchrist.ca
smcadam@communityofchrist.ca

“Before any change comes chaos.”
 
My sacred movement teacher shared this truth from quantum physics with us during our meditation this morning. It led me straight into the drama of Holy Week. Did the disciples read their way into a new reality with Jesus? Did they meditate their way in? No, the new reality did not come from a bloodless birth or over the internet or through a book. Not even from a pulpit! The new reality of God’s love in Jesus Christ came through very gutsy things: betrayal, pain, scorn, abandonment.

              “What wondrous love is this, o my soul:
              What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of life
              To bear the painful cross for my soul.”

What cross do you bear? If the answer isn’t immediate, let me ask: What chaos are you in right now? I do not believe that we can expect to live into a new reality as Community of Christ here in Western Canada without some chaos. I certainly don’t believe we can think our way into it! If I can believe that Jesus was still held by God during the events of his passion, then I can believe that we find ourselves held by God during difficult conversations about finances, about relevance, about COVID, and about ‘what’s next’. We honour the name we share with Jesus when we humbly hold the remembrance of Holy Week. Let us share the last supper. Let us stay awake with Jesus. Let us gather close as we can as he is tried and beaten. Let us gaze on the cross. Let us be prepared for a tomb, and a stone, and a magnificent wondering: What is this new reality being born?

​Yours in Christ,
Gwyn, Kat, and Shannon
gwyn@communityofchrist.ca
​kat@communityofchrist.ca
smcadam@communityofchrist.ca

​Yours in Christ,
Gwyn, Kat, and Shannon
gwyn@communityofchrist.ca
​kat@communityofchrist.ca
smcadam@communityofchrist.ca

​Turn to the spirit within you!  As we approach Easter,  look around your world in wonder and appreciation.  

​As snow starts to melt, green grass returns, flowers start to sprout, and the world reawakens. I am privileged to be staying on a beef farm.  I came to the farm yesterday to new birth! A little calf! Joy, hope and a peaceful feeling came over me. I said a prayer for momma and baby thanking God for being there when I was not…from the very heart of a suffering, sacred world.

Our world is in turmoil.  There is a sense of desperation about the war in Ukraine, the next COVID wave in China, news about the increase in racist attacks in Canada and the need to reverse climate change on the planet.

Where do you turn?  Do you wonder how all this affects you?  Do you wonder what you, as one person, can do to make a difference?

Turn to the spirit within you!  Use the tools that you have been taught and the tools we are being given.  I have been very appreciative of the Daily Bread Lenten practices that are offered to guide us.

Daily Bread - March 15, 2022
A Vision

Reads in part...
​
There IS a vision greater
There IS a Spirit moving
There IS a deeper yearning
That means something real

There IS a God creating
And re-creating still
Who continues to call out
In the caverns of your soul
From the very heart of a
Suffering, sacred world.

Read full reflection and scripture here

We are getting closer to Easter.  Our themes from World Church have been our guide.  Enter the Wilderness, Count the Stars and Seek the Lord!  Isaiah 55:6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near”.

​​​Yours in Christ,
Gwyn, Kat, and Shannon
gwyn@communityofchrist.ca
​kat@communityofchrist.ca
smcadam@communityofchrist.ca

Written by Vickie MacArthur
Spiritual Director, Writer and Yoga/Meditation Teacher