Weekend in Black and White - December 2, 2022

 

                                       Whyte Avenue on a cold winter day (today). 

                       Further down Whyte Avenue on the same cold winter day.

         For Weekend in Black and White

Wordless Wednesday - November 2, 2022

 

                                                      Delicious food

                   For Wordless Wednesday

World Singing Day 2022

World Singing Day is celebrated every 3^rd Saturday of October (this year October 15th). Music is the international, universal language of humankind. So how appropriate then to devote one day of the year to singing around the globe.  

WSD was founded in 2012 by Colorado, USA musician, Scott Johnson. The purpose of WSD is to unite humankind through singing. It does not matter who you are, every human being is invited and welcome to sing. Whether you sing in the shower or are a professional musician, check out a WSD event nearest you, and join in the joy, solidarity and unity of making music together.

The 2022 Song of the Year is Dona Nobis Pacem, Latin for Grant us peace, and how we need peace in our world today! 

Orange Shirt Day-National Truth & Reconciliation Day

September 30^th marks the National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. It is a day to remember the terrible legacy of Indian Residential Schools, and listen to and learn from Indigenous survivors of the schools, and/or survivors’ family members. For the story of the orange shirt, click here. 

Weekend in Black and White - August 13, 2022

 

                                                                      Apples on our tree

                    For Weekend in Black and White

Sabina's Story: A day in the life of a refugee

 The following video highlights the work of Canadian Lutheran World Relief, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Government of Canada amongst South Sudan women in an Uganda refugee camp. They provide socio-psychological support, they also provide them with training to become more self-sufficient in order that they can provide for their children. The media here in Canada rarely provides coverage of situations like this in several of the African countries. So hopefully you find this video helpful and encouraging, and perhaps it will inspire you to give generously to organizations like CLWR and LWF, which offer two-third's world peoples opportunities to improve their standard of living.

Wordless Wednesday - July 6, 2022

 

                                  For Wordless Wednesday

Brief Book Review: The Confession of Brother Haluin

Author: Ellis Peters

Publisher: General Paperbacks, 205 pages

The Author 

Ellis Peters is the fiction writer of the Benedictine Cadfael mediaeval whodunit series. This particular volume is number fifteen.

Short Summary

It is the winter of 1142, and Brother Haluin falls while helping to repair the damaged roof of the St. Peter and St. Paul Abbey hall. He is seriously injured, and so he makes what he believes could be his deathbed confession to the Abbot and Brother Cadfael.

With the assistance of Cadfael, he survives the fall. Still limping, and in need of crutches to walk, he decides to go on a penitential journey, accompanied by Cadfael. There are several interesting, adventurous events on the journey, including a murder, as well as a couple of unknown discoveries connected with Brother Haluin’s past. 

In the end, Brother Haluin, in this reviewer’s mind, makes the wrong decision by remaining a monk instead of considering another viable option. 

A brief critique: Although it is acknowledged that Brother Haluin most likely became a monk for the wrong reason or reasons, Ellis Peters seems, ultimately, to idealize the monastic vocation in the novel, to the detriment of other vocations. 

What Ellis Peters does succeed in doing quite well in the novel is presenting the “sins” of England’s 12^th century patriarchal and class-oriented society. 

The Weekend in Black & White - May 20, 2022

 

                              Spring tulip and rock

                     For The Weekend in Black & White

Good Friday Collect/Prayer of the Day

On this holy day, may we be mindful of the sins of the world, and our own sins that crucified Jesus, our Suffering Servant; who was despised and rejected by humankind; and by his wounds we are healed. As forgiven sinners-saints, may your love live through us in thought, word and deed; for your name’s sake, Jesus our Suffering Messiah.

Wordless Wednesday - March 16, 2022

 

                      Taken on March 5, 2022

                       For Wordless Wednesday

Brief reflection on Luke 6:27-38

This teaching of Jesus to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” is the most difficult teaching to put into practice. The world is an imperfect place. Read, watch, listen to the newscasts every day, and you discover that sin and evil seem to be winning; and love, justice and peace are losing. 

Are we to take Jesus’s words here literally? Of course Jesus did, by setting the perfect example of praying for the forgiveness of those who crucified him. Stephen also prayed for the forgiveness of those who stoned him. Others have also taken Jesus literally, including Corrie Ten-Boom, Mahatma Gandhi, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Then there is also the thought-provoking quotation attributed to the Rev. Martin Niemoeller, concentration camp prisoner: “It took me a long time to understand that God is not the enemy of my enemies. God is not even the enemy of God’s enemies.” 

So, in short, love conquers all. The antithesis teaching of Jesus to love one’s enemies is a sign of the in-breaking of God’s realm. 

Yet, many of us still have some rather “thorny” questions regarding Jesus’s teachings in this gospel pericope. For example, what about a husband who abuses his wife? Does she love her husband by allowing him to continuously strike her on both cheeks, and other parts of her body? By allowing her husband to beat her up, is she giving him the message that his abuse is acceptable? What about a minus thirty below zero winter and allowing a thief to take your coat and giving the thief your shirt as well? Is this what Jesus really would want us to do? I don’t think so! By a wife turning the other cheek to a violent husband; does that succeed in preventing the husband from being violent? By giving a thief your coat and shirt on a minus thirty below zero winter’s day; does that prevent the thief from being a thief or give them further encouragement to continue to be a thief? The person who gives their coat and shirt away on such a winter’s day may very well freeze to death! 

What Jesus is getting at, I think, is that extravagant love, love that exceeds “normal” tit-for-tat expectations has the power to change the world, and break the evil cycles of hatred and violence. In a perfect world, of course, this antithesis teaching would not be necessary, since everyone would love perfectly without it having to be commanded, and, of course, there would be no more enemies, no more wars, no more violence, no more hatred and evil, no more need for laws, police, judges, jails, and so on. Sounds like what we pray for in the Lord’s prayer, doesn’t it? “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.”

The Eastern Church, Luther, and the Protestant Reformation

Professor Jennifer Powell McNutt has written the following article, making the connection of the Eastern Church with the Protestant Reformation. -Eclecticity

Image: Illustration by Rick Szuecs / Source images: Sean Gallup / Staff / Getty / WikiMedia Commons

Protestants engaged with both the Eastern Orthodox tradition and Oriental Orthodox traditions in a few consistent ways. To Protestants, it mattered immensely that Eastern branches of the church did not follow the Catholic practices of preaching purgatory, selling indulgences, or observing petrine supremacy. Luther marveled at how the churches of Armenia, Ethiopia, and India had avoided the private masses that developed in the West since Gregory the Great’s time. Luther also regarded it significant that, before there was a “pope,” there were the bishops of Ethiopia, Syria, Antioch, and Rome. The Orthodox branches were a link back to a purer, more apostolic era.

The church of Ethiopia, especially, was mentioned among early modern Christians. Some scholars have noted that Luther mentions Ethiopia at least 85 times in his written works. (It was a common though mistaken belief to view Ethiopia as the first Christian kingdom. That belief was based on a particular reading of Acts 8.) Luther’s esteem only grew after he was visited by Michael the Deacon, an Ethiopian cleric, in 1534. As Daniels explains,

For Luther, the Church of Ethiopia had more fidelity to the Christian tradition. ... Thus, the Church in Europe needed to be reformed in the direction of the Church of Ethiopia. Possibly for Luther the Church of Ethiopia was proof that his reform of the Church in Europe had both a biblical and a historical basis. To read the whole article, click here.