May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! As most of you know, Wednesday morning is bible study morning. This morning we had a smaller group than usual (some of our "regulars" were away or had other commitments), but we still had a wide-ranging conversation. We always start with the words on the page - we read a short passage, sometimes from a couple of different translations, then start sharing with on

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! I had planned to write about something else this week, but after Sunday, I have another reflection to share instead. A lot of Jesus's parables begin with him saying, "The Kingdom of God is like..." and I have one for you this week. The Kingdom of God is like a church... ... where people of all generations, from babies to 80mumble year olds gather together around t

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Yesterday was the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and yesterday morning a group of us gathered at Westfield in the church parlour for an open conversation about how the United Church of Canada participated in colonization and residential schools, as well as what steps towards reconciliation we have taken so far. I want to bring our conversation that we

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Yesterday was the Equinox, the day when the sun crossed the equator, marking the point in the year when the sun rose directly in the east and set directly in the south. From now until mid-March, the sun will appear to stay in the southern sky. This is also the time of year when the length of the day is approximately equal to the length of the night, and from now u

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! It was lovely to see so many people at the picnic on Sunday! I love the opportunities that we have scattered throughout the year to bring our three congregations together to worship. (And the potluck was excellent, as always!) The story we read on Sunday was Oh! The Places You'll Go, and I mentioned that this is a book that is often given to graduates. Even though

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Last Sunday, in our Seussian Summer, we read the story of The Lorax, and I shared how this book influenced my youngest sister to become an environmental engineer. The story of the Lorax can feel a bit bleak - we see the environmental destruction, the cutting of trees, the smog filling the air, the waste polluting the pond, but in the book we don't ever get to see

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! I just got home last night after spending a week with my family in Ontario. We were gathered to celebrate my father's 80th birthday, and he and his wife gathered together their 5 collective children and 9 grandchildren, and we spent the weekend together celebrating and enjoying each others' company. And then on Monday my mother's siblings got together (Mum died i

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! This summer, I didn't plant a full garden, but I've been growing a container garden on my deck that is doing better than my container garden usually does. This is probably a combination of the warm sunny weather we've been enjoying, the manure I added to the potting soil back in the spring when I was planting things, and the fact that I am actually remembering to

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Last night at the church, the movie that we watched was Remarkably Bright Creatures - judging from the comments on the Facebook post I made about the movie, I know that a lot of you have already watched this movie (and loved it), but for those of you who haven't, here is a very brief (spoiler-free) overview of it. This is the story of a friendship between an older

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Happy Pride Week, to all of us in the Saint John Area! The flag was raised in front of City Hall last Friday, the lights in Grand Bay-Westfield's Veteran's Peace Park are shining the colours of the rainbow, and there is a whole schedule of events that are happening in Saint John and the surrounding area this week. Which means that this week, for my opening reflect

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Because I used to live in northwestern Ontario (Thunder Bay), my Facebook feed is currently full of pictures of the wildfires that are burning there, including a large fire that is burning out of control in one of my favourite places - Quetico Provincial Park. I have so many memories of that park. Memories of a canoe trip that my sister and I did with two friends

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! I usually begin these newsletters by reflecting on something that is on my mind, and what is on my mind today is death. (Which is maybe a really morbid way of beginning this reflection!) But I was at a friend's funeral last Friday, and we have our Flower Services coming up beginning this weekend, so I have been thinking about all of the people I carry in my hear

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! And happy Canada Day! One phrase that you may have heard floating around in the public discourse in the past couple of years is "Christian Nationalism" and I was thinking that today, Canada's national holiday, might be a good day to talk about what is Christian Nationalism (and what it isn't). "Christian Nationalism is defined as an anti-democratic notion that a n

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! If you were in church on Sunday (either in-person or virtual), you may have sensed that I have some concerns with the proliferation of generative AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the world right now. As I scroll through Facebook, it is filled with images that were created with AI (I don't have the art-language to describe them, but they are instantly recognizable b

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! It is good to be back this week, after spending two weeks in Toronto doing the first course of my Doctor of Ministry. The course I was taking was "Theology of Ministry" - each day we were in class together from 1-4; and the course was seminar-style, which means that we had a bunch of reading to do between classes (ie in the evenings and mornings) so that we would

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Last weekend, I had the opportunity to travel to Halifax for a couple of nights. I had a meeting on Friday of the Pine Hill Divinity College board (this is the United Church of Canada part of the Atlantic School of Theology), and I stayed for AST's convocation on Saturday. I got to be part of the convocation service. It is always held at a church (there is no spac

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Today is day 3 back in the office after being away for two weeks. Despite catching a cold that knocked the stuffing out of me for most of my vacation, it was a good couple of weeks. I rested, I read a couple of books, I got my taxes filed (something that my brain generally doesn't have space to think about until after Easter each year!), and I traveled to Ontario

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed! Hallelujah! We practiced this response on Sunday morning in worship when we celebrated the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus. But even though students are back in school and most of us are back to work after the long weekend, Easter isn't over yet. In fact, the season of Easter lasts for 50 days, which will take us r

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! We are now in the middle of Holy Week. Jesus entered Jerusalem on Sunday, riding a donkey and accompanied by people waving branches that they cut from nearby trees, as they shouted Hosanna! The word "hosanna" literally means "save us" - the shouts of the crowd were not shouts of praise, but were a literal cry for mercy. "Save us, Son of David!" On Sunday, I sp

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be always with you! Here we are, on the threshold of Holy Week. On Sunday we will remember Jesus's entry into the city of Jerusalem, riding a donkey, accompanied by people waving branches and spreading their cloaks on the road and shouting "Hosanna!" which means "Save us!" Our next stop on Holy Week will be Maundy Thursday - the night before Jesus died. If you read the gospels of Ma