This Sunday, September 12^th, is National Grandparents Day

Our Sunday services will remember this special generation in the ongoing life of a family. In addition this Sunday we add a Sunday morning Zoom service at 11:30 a.m. for those who want to gather on line and unmasked. Zoom invitation is below under "Virtual Services"

For everything there is a season. Ecclesiastes reminds us that change is normal – a part of the cycle of things as life seems designed to unfold in its various patterns of living, moving and having being.

I was walking around an amazing home place recently with a new friend. It was an exquisite piece of land that shyly but proudly boasted a pond, woods, grassy slopes, an orchard, bee hives nestled in a corner, springs and what I call “secret garden” spaces. Every now and then a weathered bench tucked into a corner beckoned, saying “Stop, sit awhile, savor where you are, just absorb and relish the moment.”

The garden landscapes were designed by the loving owners of this land so that there would be something blooming year-round – as if the land was created to reinvent itself in some sure and predictable rhythm. Always to offer the potential of a revolving, evolving shifting cycle of colors, textures, aromas, sights and sounds that enfold the “senses” as the “seasons” of life unfold. While one season would offer a lush, colorful and complex landscape, another, a bare, more monochomatic, simple one, another a rapidly changing, transitional one – any one of these seasons offers its unique role in a continual cycle of beginnings, endings, new beginnings.

A coolness had crept into the day, a subtle invitation to contemplate that a new season was on its way. A soft breeze stirred green leaves in the towering trees – leaves that would turn brilliant fall colors in another month, then fall as colder winds wrestled them from branches in a coming winter that would dust bare branches with ice and snow as somewhere deep inside the tree dreamed of pale green buds springing out in a yet to come season.

I began to imagine what each season would do to the palette of the place. I could imagine the revolving, evolving shifting cycle of colors, textures, aromas that would excite the senses as the landscape shifted as the seasons turned – as the cycle of old life passing on gives way to new life, over and over again. The gift of this day of discovery: a deep profound understanding that it is in the nature of things to experience the changing rhythms intricately woven into the nature of all creation.

The images of life in Ecclesiastes are not that of trees and ponds, honey bees and flowers, but of human beings and the realities of what we experience as we live into, through and even beyond the life we experience moment by moment. Birth and death, planting and harvesting, hurting and healing, weeping and laughing, throwing away and gathering up, embracing and pushing away, seeking and losing, keeping silent and giving voice, tearing apart and sewing together, mourning and celebrating, loving and hating, fighting and finding peace. The connection, the bridge between all of these “ways” of life – not “or” but “and.” Because as all of creation confirms, affirms, promises there is a cycle to this journey we call living, constantly turning what may appear to be passing away and dying, into something new. It is a both/and, not either/or way of life.

Creation was not a one-time thing – but a continual process by the great Creator of all life, whose recreation is re-creation and renewal. Continually molding, shaping, renovating, rejuvenating, reinvigorating what has been, what is and what is yet to be. We are simply called to live within this rhythm, embrace it, co-operate with it in the cycle of be-coming that is at the heart of the Creator’s design. May we not fear the cycles of life, but trust in them, sunset to sunrise, summer, fall, winter, spring, birth, life, death, resurrection, new life. It is the storyline of creation. It is the storyline of the life of the One who came to be the pathway to new life. It is our storyline if we have the courage to live into it.

         Torrence

Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson offers a stimulating reflection on "old houses" as a metaphor for "church." It encourages us to consider the ideas of preservation, "conservation, renovation, innovation, and renewal in how we come together as "church." Certainly, here at St. John's and N. Farnham, as with many of our sister churches during the pandemic time, we have taken the opportunity to embrace renovation and innovation opportunities. Many have been liturgical, such as how we worship together. Many have been social/relational, such as how we reach out to, how we "commune"/ communicate with, and how we care for one another. We have had to be innovative in doing so.

We have also taken the op-portunity of doing some renovations of our buildings and grounds. What has happened? At N. Farnham, newly renovated shutters on the parish house; a new memorial garden planted and becoming a resting place for a loved one's ashes. At St. John's, the old font re-positioned, filled again with water to welcome a new little one into baptized life, the planting of a Garden of Peace, brick entrance to the church expanded and plans unfolding for a re-surfaced parking lot in October.

It is a time of renovation and renewal as we rediscover the many ways we can live into our life together with each other and with God- a God who says "I make all things new!"

Please enjoy the Bishop's reflection, linked here.

September Birthdays & Anniversaries

Background photo by Sigmund on Unsplash No permissions required.