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Posts from the ‘Grace’ Category

Feb 22

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Ashes, Ashes

I led my first ever Ash Wednesday service today. Actually, scratch that. I participated in my first Ash Wednesday service today. My Mennonite Brethren background was decidedly low church and we didn’t really observe Lent or Advent or the Christian year in general. It was Christmas and Easter and that was about it. Everything else was high-church or “liturgical” (as if we weren’t!) or some other negative/unnecessary  practice. And even though in recent years many churches in the Anabaptist tradition have moved toward embracing the Christian calendar, I still had never actually attended an Ash Wednesday service.

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Feb 2

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Who Am I?

Once a month or so, a delightful young woman from our church hosts a seniors coffee hour on Thursday mornings in our church basement. She is here from Germany on a one year volunteer assignment, and these times that she organizes for some of our older and wiser saints have become a real highlight for me. We play games, sing songs, enjoy conversation, and, of course, we eat. What would a gathering at a Mennonite church be without food, after all?! Read more

Jan 17

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Making Space

I’ve remarked here before that I am, by nature, a bit of a pessimist. I’m not particularly proud of this, but my default position seems to be  to see the glass half-empty. I tend to expect the worst in life, for myself and for those I love, as a kind of protective mechanism—this, despite the fact that this strategy has proved to protect me from precisely nothing and, in fact, almost certainly closes off certain possibilities for joy and peace. Just this morning, in a conversation  with someone about a person of mutual interest, I responded to an expression of hope and optimism in with something like, “yeah, well I’ll believe it when I see it.”   Read more

Jan 2

Grace—For Another Year

So, 2012 has arrived and another year presents itself. Another holiday season draws to a close, and the liminal days of the season give way to the normal, the mundane, the predictable, and the familiar. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I find myself in a bit of a reflective space today as I look back on the past year and ahead to the new one ahead. Read more

Nov 17

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You Are All One

Yesterday was another one of those interesting days for one new to the pastoral guild. In the morning I was down in Victoria preaching and leading a discipleship class at a church in Victoria.  It is a very interesting church comprised, I was told, mainly of well educated white-collar types. The worship service was formal and highly-structured; there was a strong sense of reverence and propriety. There was beautiful artwork throughout the sanctuary and a high degree of musical skill evident in the singing time. Read more

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