Blog ..Blogue
News from SouthWest ..Des nouvelles du Sud-Ouest
Technical difficulties finally resolved in time for us to share Pastor Beryl’s Palm Sunday service with you here. Scripture readings to look at beforehand if you wish are: Psalm 118, verses 1-2, 19-19 and Matthew 21:1-11.
There is an incredibly rich tradition of music for Holy Week, covering the days between and including Palm Sunday and Easter. This week represents the foundation of Christian belief and there is a treasure trove of music to accompany, illustrate and sustain us, from medieval chants through to modern meditations, and including music that may not have been intended for church use but has become part of our emotional journey.
Starting on Monday, I’ll pick out a few pieces with a brief description or history, and copy links to YouTube performances I think are worthy. Every day will finish with a prayer.
A journey through Holy Week in music: please join me!
Sarah
Note: if you normally receive our Friday newsletter by e-mail, you will also receive these special mailings next week. Also, watch this space.
For so many of us the days have become very stressful. Last evening I found myself in need of some solace. The more I tried to pray, the more the words became elusive. I have prayed so often, about the same concerns, and I guess Creator is just overwhelmed at this moment.
As I often do, I turn to Scripture, or poetry or music to calm my soul. I remembered the Hymn I’ll Trust In You by singer-songwriter Lauren Daigle. (Released January 22, 2016).
Hereunder I share with you selected verses which I truly hope will be a source of peace for you in these troubled times.
When You don't move the mountains
I'm needing You to move
When You don't part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don't give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You
You are my strength and comfort
You are my steady hand
You are my firm foundation
The rock on which I stand
Your ways are always higher
Your plans are always good
There's not a place where I'll go
You've not already stood
When You don't move the mountains
I'm needing You to move
When You don't part the waters
I wish I could walk through
When You don't give the answers
As I cry out to You
I will trust, I will trust, I will trust in You
I will trust in You
I will trust in You
I will trust in You
On another note, as many of you know, I live in the country. We do no have highspeed internet and the service I planned for Palm Sunday has crashed twice. I am trying again to upload it. I have faith it will happen and, as soon as it does, the link will be posted here on the Blog.
Please be well, take care in what you do and where you go
In peace
Beryl
These are the readings for this Sunday from Psalm 118 (1-2, 19-29) and Matthew 21 (1-11)
1 O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever!
2 Let Israel now say that His mercy endureth for ever.
19 Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go into them, and I will praise the Lord”
20 this gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter.
21 I will praise Thee, for Thou hast heard me and art become my salvation.
22 The stone which the builders refused has become the head stone of the corner.
23 This is the Lord’S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
25 Save now, I beseech Thee, O Lord; O Lord, I beseech Thee, send now prosperity.
26 Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord! We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
27 God is the Lord, who hath shown us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.
28 Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee; Thou art my God, I will exalt Thee.
29 O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endureth for ever!
21 As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage at the Mount of Olives. There Jesus sent two of the disciples on ahead 2 with these instructions: “Go to the village there ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied up with her colt beside her. Untie them and bring them to me. 3 And if anyone says anything, tell him, ‘The Master needs them’; and then he will let them go at once.”
4 This happened in order to make come true what the prophet had said:
5 “Tell the city of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you!
He is humble and rides on a donkey
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
6 So the disciples went and did what Jesus had told them to do: 7 they brought the donkey and the colt, threw their cloaks over them, and Jesus got on. 8 A large crowd of people spread their cloaks on the road while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 The crowds walking in front of Jesus and those walking behind began to shout, “Praise to David's Son! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! Praise be to God!”
10 When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was thrown into an uproar. “Who is he?” the people asked.
11 “This is the prophet Jesus, from Nazareth in Galilee,” the crowds answered.
Léonore Pion, who was our Kitchen Coordinator the last couple of years at SouthWest Mission, has moved on to the Eastern Townships and started her own community kitchen called La Jeanne. Back on March 14 (“a lifetime ago”, as she says) she sent the following words:
«Community kitchen La Jeanne started its activities a month ago. I've mostly (and successfully) been doing workshops, and will probably have to cancel what was scheduled for the next weeks. I'm hoping I won't be sick, so I can have a little production line for people here in isolation. I'm thinking La Jeanne could provide an "emergency popote roulante" for the next couple of weeks. Not sure how that will/can happen, but in God I trust, n'est-ce pas, and I know when one's focused enough, things just fall into place. »
Asked this week if she had been able to get her meals-on-wheels program off the ground, she sent the photos below and this follow-up message:
“I'm doing really well, considering.
I have a lot of energy and am happy and relieved to be able to contribute in a positive way.
Since the beginning of the crisis, I've been cooking, and cooking, and cooking more.
I left my kitchen log book at work, so these figures are approximate---so far, in more or less three weeks, and with the help of one volunteer only at a time, La Jeanne was able to send 100 L soup, 60 L fruit salad, 25 L meat sauce, 60 ready-to-eat meals, 80 family portions of orange cake, 50 banana loaves, and, last but certainly not least, 125 pots of marmalade to the local food bank, la Banque alimentaire Memphrémagog (BAM), my "landlady" and partner who then redistributes the food to her crowd. BAM feeds me with the ingredients she can't distribute, for various reasons -- too old, too much, too bulky -- and I transform them as fast as they need to be---or else they get fed to the pigs.
The number of people seeking for food help has increased tremendously in the last couple of weeks. Memphrémagog Food Bank is still able to provide generously. That is, I think, mostly because restaurants have closed, and restaurant owners brought their perishables to us. However, I'm concerned that there will be nothing left to distribute/transform in a few weeks---I heard Moisson Montréal is running out of stock; as for Moisson Estrie, it hasn't been providing our last orders.
That's why I feel it's important to transform now, in order not to lose stock. We can't afford to waste food that will be necessary tomorrow.
I will go on working as long as I'm healthy. So far, so very good.
I'm lucky to be surrounded by an amazing bunch of humans: the food bank team has been more than welcoming, and is eager to support me in our common effort to feed the most vulnerable. Some wonderful volunteers have also shown up---for now, I can't say the kitchen efficiency is at its best, but it feels like a real luxury to spend time with someone, that girl/guy at the other end of the room :)
I hope SWU is doing good, going through this crisis with courage and hope.
It must be really tough for some of them---alone, no visits, no going out. I hope everyone is getting as much support as they need. I hope everyone is taking this very seriously: you do not fool around with the virus, oh you do not.”
Bravo Léonore! Keep up the good work!
Suivez La Jeanne sur / Follow La Jeanne on Facebook.
I made this crossword for these days of social isolation. Click the button below to print it out. If you’re stuck, many of the answers can be found in Blog posts from the last few months. Why not send a picture of yourself with the completed puzzle to southwestunited@gmail.com?
Amy
This Sunday's service will be available as of Sunday morning at the link below. You are encouraged to read the following scriptures in preparation: Ezekiel 37: 1-14 and ESPECIALLY John 11: 1-45 which Pastor Beryl will be reflecting on.
With so much information to absorb and even more confusion as to what we are to believe, it is heartwarming to learn of the kindness that rises to the surface in those small instances where we can still interact with others.
The human spirit is dauntless in its desire to live into kindness and caring for others. All major religions teach of caring for others: the elderly, the widows and orphans, the poor, the hungry.
As I tossed and turned in bed last night, the word “love” kept popping into my head. The love we received as children, the love we had for parents and grandparents, the childhood friends, the teachers, the pets we loved, the love given to our partners, our children and our grandchildren, the love so many of us have for creation.
So, what is love, as defined in the biblical tradition? I guess it is best summed up in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians when he said:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.”
I believe that what we are seeing these days is “kind love”. We are witnessing a way of being which is gentle and pleasant – especially under circumstances which are difficult and have the potential to be self-serving or provocative.
As we reflect on the current crisis we are facing globally, I would invite you to ask yourself “how did Jesus show kind love?”
During his earthly ministry, there were no hospitals, clinics or doctor’s offices. The threat of illness due to infection plagued both the rich and the poor. Yet, Jesus felt amazing love for those who were helpless, excluding no one from being a part of God’s endless love for humanity.
I too believe that the love of God expands time and eternity.
Now is the time to emulate this love for one another, and for ourselves as we walk this uncertain journey together. Think thoughts of kind love, speak words of kind love, and, wherever you can, spread seeds of kind love so it will grow and spread seeds of its own!
Let our gift be kindness and love,
Beryl
As you know, in-person worship has been called off for the time being, as our society tries to rein in the coronavirus. Your church leadership wants you to know that you are in their hearts, and bringing you this service online is one way we have found to reach out in these very strange times. An earlier version filmed at the church had sound problems, so Pastor Beryl, with the help of her grandson Dillon, shot the whole thing a second time at home. Watch it right away, or Sunday morning, or anytime, right here.
In this fourth week of the Lenten season, we suddenly find ourselves thrown into deepening moments of introspection. The quickly changing world situation has found some of us hunkering down, choosing to stay closer to home in the hopes of protecting others and ourselves against the spread of Covid-19. In doing so, we are suddenly faced with moments of stillness in our daily routines and subtle but definite periods of deafening silence.
Many of us are of the baby boomer generation (born between 1946-1964). With the exception of the polio outbreaks during 1940-1950, the Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations during the 1960’s and, and the unbelievable horrors witnessed during the tsunamis in Thailand, Indonesia and Japan in the 1990s, we have had little experience dealing with uncertainty and fear.
For most of us, our grandparents were a part of our growing years. They lived through WWI, the Spanish Flu Epidemic and WWII and, because of this, our own parents were able to draw on them for wisdom, strength and the guidance their experiences provided. As a result, we felt relatively safe and protected because our own ancestors had lived with and through such events.
Now it is we who are expected to be the guiding light for our own children and grandchildren. It is a daunting and challenging task with so many unknown factors and conflicting information for us to sift through.
As I searched for comfort in the Bible this weekend, I turned to the Wisdom of Solomon and found the following words:
Wisdom 9:1-6
1 "God of my ancestors, merciful Lord, by your word you created everything. 2 By your Wisdom you made us humans to rule all creation, 3 to govern the world with holiness and righteousness, to administer justice with integrity. 4 Give me the Wisdom that sits beside your throne; give me a place among your children. 5 I am your slave, as was my mother before me. I am only human. I am not strong, and my life will be short. I have little understanding of the Law or of how to apply it. 6 Even if someone is perfect, he will be thought of as nothing without the Wisdom that comes from you.
(The Wisdom of Solomon was written in Greek, in Alexandria (Egypt), in the late 1st century BC to early 1st century AD; the author's prime literary source was the Septuagint, in particular the Wisdom literature and the Book of Isaiah, and he was familiar with late Jewish works as the Book of Enoch and with Greek)
This is the time to ask God for wisdom and guidance. This is the time to take solace in the fact that our parents and grandparents also faced times of great trial.
Yes, for many, this is a time which might test our faith. But it is also a time to remember that we are not alone. In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us.
May you find great peace in the days and weeks to come, knowing that the promises of God reach beyond our measure of time.
Beryl
image: The small and fragile Snowdrop flower is a symbol of rebirth and overcoming obstacles in life.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a hard sell.
We know many people are worried about money right now. Many businesses are shut down as we try to contain the Covid-19 outbreak here in Quebec and everywhere. People are waiting to see if the government really comes through with needed income support. For some, these are new worries; for others, they’re all too familiar.
For many of us, money troubles are something to leave at the church door. We go to worship to feed our souls, to calm our fears. Church shouldn’t get mixed up with anything so worldly as money!
Wouldn’t it be nice if that were possible? But churches need to be heated and cleaned and repaired. Even if we didn’t have a building, there’d still be salaries to pay, worship supplies to buy, and all sorts of little expenses right down to coffee and milk!
At SouthWest, we have never been pushy about taking up offerings. Of course we pass the plate every week but we never want anyone to choose not to come to church because they can’t afford to give. I’m going to repeat that: we never want you to stay away just because you can’t put something in the plate.
Right now, of course, no one’s putting anything in the plate because we are prevented from meeting. We don’t have any idea how long this will go on, and that’s why we’re asking you, if you can, to consider other ways of giving. Some of you are already on P.A.R. (Pre-Authorized Remittance), a program through the United Church of Canada. We thank you for your steady contributions.
Even in non-pandemic times, there are advantages to being on PAR. You don’t have to scramble every week to find cash or a cheque to bring to worship. Your monthly donation becomes part of your budgeting, something you don’t have to think about. But it’s also simple to change the amount at any time if your financial situation changes. Those steady amounts also make it easier for churches to budget and plan ahead. Please see the brochure and form attached below if you think you might be interested in signing up for PAR.
If you’re not sure about a monthly donation, it’s also possible to make a one-time donation to SouthWest through our website, Southwestunited.net. Just click DONATE in the top right corner of the home page and follow instructions to give using PayPal or a credit card.
We pray that no one in our congregation would have to worry about money. We pray that those who have a little bit to spare might see fit to share.
We pray that all of our extended family might stay healthy, and that God gives us the courage to weather the isolation and anxiety this crisis brings.
We pray that we may all be together again, singing, praying, sharing soup, sharing coffee and cake, very soon.
