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 a wild day out there as I sit here writing this e-mail - mostly wind, but with a bit of rain mixed in for good measure. I don't think that many of the leaves that are still on the tree will still be left at the end of the week.
This Sunday is Hallowe'en - All Hallow's Eve - the day before All Saints Day. In Celtic traditions, this is a time of the year when the veil that separates the world that we can see from the world that we can't see grows thin.
In our secular Hallowe'en traditions, we dress up in costumes to scare away any evil spirits that might slip through the thinned veil, and we light up our pumpkins (or originally hollowed out turnips) to shine a light into the increasingly dark night.
In the church world, All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (November 2) is a time when we remember the people who came before us - all of the saints of the church. We remember the saints who we knew, we remember the saints who are celebrated by the wider church, and we remember the saints whose names are known only by God.
Here at Two Rivers Pastoral Charge, our Flower Services each summer tend to have an All Saints Day feeling... even though we are remembering our saints at a time of the year when we can remember them with flowers, rather than at a time of year with increasing darkness.
This year, Hallowe'en falls on a Sunday! You are invited to wear your favourite Hallowe'en costume to church this Sunday (in exchange for a donation of your choosing to Mission and Service), whether you are attending the service in-person or joining us virtually. There will be a basket at the back of each church where you can put your donation - just make sure that your name is on the envelope that it is in so that we can credit it to you come tax receipt season.
Our services this week will be at 9:15 at Long Reach and at 11:15 at Westfield with livestreaming to Facebook. Our reading this week is one of my favourites - Jesus's double-love commandment to love God with our whole selves and to love our neighbours as ourselves. (Or is it really a triple-love commandment?)
In terms of other things going on this week...
Session is meeting this evening at 7pm in the Westfield parlour.
Our monthly gathering to discuss Broadview Magazine will be on Monday (November 1) at 10am in the Westfield parlour. We will be discussing the July/August issue this month, since there isn't a November issue, and we missed discussing this issue as we didn't gather in the summer. If you don't subscribe, you can still read many of the articles by clicking here.
Remembrance Day Turkey Dinner tickets are on sale now at the Grand Bay Home Hardware. Make sure that you pick up your tickets soon, before they sell out!
Youth Connection - we had a great gathering on Sunday evening, and we look forward to getting together again on Sunday November 7. Everyone between grades 6 and 12 are welcome to join us!
Last week, I was off on Study Leave - the first part of the week was a reading week (and I got through a couple of good books, along with doing some Advent planning); then I was part of leading a symposium over Zoom on Friday and Saturday. It was a very full week, but it was good to have some spaciousness to think about things and do some planning beyond the next Sunday.
As a closing thought for today:
"Light cannot see inside things.
That is what the dark is for:
Minding the interior,
Nurturing the draw of growth
Through places where death
In its own way turns into life."
(John O'Donohue, from To Bless the Space Between Us)
Blessings to you and yours, today and always,
Kate.
Rev. Kate Jones Two Rivers Pastoral Charge (506) 757-2201 (office) (506) 343-1307 (mobile) www.tworiverspastoralcharge.com Pronouns: she/her/hers "Teacher, what is the greatest commandment in the law?"
Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: "You must love your neighbour as you love yourself."
(Matthew 22:36-39)