In Memoriam: Barbara (Howes) Smith

July 16, 1932 - January 13, 2022

We are saddened to learn of the passing of Mrs. Barbara (Howes) Smith at the Verdun General Hospital. Pre-deceased by her husband Donald and her grandson Brendan, she leaves to mourn her son Derek, daughter-in-law Joanne, dear friend Shirley Beaulieu and many others. Most recently, Barbara lived at the Centre d’Hébergement de Lasalle. Prior to that she was at the Cavalier Lasalle where she attended outreach services. She was a member of Verdun United Church and then of SouthWest.

Pastor Beryl will do a private funeral at Rideau Gardens in Dollard on January 27th at 10:30 a.m. It may be possible to watch remotely. If a video link is made available we will share it with you. No obituary is available at this time. Our prayers are with the family.

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The Winter Hymn Project, Week 2

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And is it ever winter! From snow storms to frigid days when the cold enters every fibre of our beings. It is achingly beautiful, the play of the moonlight on the clear palette of snow at dawn, to the sounds of trees yawning and cracking in the forest…

This week’s hymns come to us from our community of friends both close by and far away.

 

Dorothy Brown: MV 169 When Hands Reach Out Beyond Divides

Ronee and I always liked this one, both for the music and the words.

*Ronee was a church member, then a choir member too, sitting next to Dorothy as part of the all-female tenor section! She moved to Ottawa a year and a half ago – stripped of a proper send-off by Covid, though I still have plans to get her back for a Sunday this spring.  

 

Linda Young: VU 664 What a Friend We Have in Jesus

We joined Southwest United on Woodland first in 1993 when we moved from Montreal East. Have always been associated with a United Church. 

Our grandchildren were baptized at the Church on Woodland. 

The Church has always been a center of my life. It represents Peace, Love among family and community. Thank you for using my song. It means a lot to me. 

 

Sandra Thompson: MV 215 Peace Be With You

I would love for you to include this hymn that I love from the old Voices United, ‘I the Lord of Sea and Sky’ please, and if possible, my other favourite ‘Peace be with you, peace forever.’ Thank you ------- and to the congregation for not forgetting about me and especially keeping me in prayer. Miss all of you!

*I promised Sandra that we’d sing I the Lord of Sea and Sky again soon, but since we sang it last Sunday, we’d wait a few weeks!

 

Beryl and Angie Barraclough: VU 352 I Danced in the Morning

Some of my Mom's greatest stories were about dancing during the Blitz when the bombs were falling. She and her friends would all head to the Palace to dance. In honor of that memory, you played it at her funeral in February 2010. I'm sure she would have loved it.

Blog: Candles of Hope

Since the global pandemic began almost two years ago, religious leaders have sought different ways to support the larger community while providing for the needs of members of their congregations. Many have turned to the evening ritual lighting of Candles of Hope.

One of the most important features of a ritual is that it not only marks time; it creates time. By defining beginnings and ends, rituals structure our social worlds and how we understand time, relationships, and cope with change and uncertainty.

Lockdown, quarantine, isolation. These words are now part of our every day conversations.  People are unable to gather in their places of worship and for many, the world has become a much darker place. 

So, what have people done in times of darkness?  Well, they have created light, through ritual fires or candle lighting; all symbols of the light of Christ, a man who brought hope to a nation struggling under the darkness of oppression.

Each day, as darkness begins to descend on the land, I am joining this collective witness and leaving a light in the window, with these words:

“A single drop of water may seem insignificant, but many drops of water can fill an ocean. One Candle may not seem sufficient but, as we light candles together, may their light shine through the darkness, bringing us closer to the true light, the light of Christ in these times of uncertainty.  Amen

I am inviting each of you to join me in this empowering, collective ritual.  As you begin to feel comfortable with the daily practice, you might want to lift the name or names of  people you know to be in particular need.  Each day, you might feel the need  to add a photo of someone or something that has deep meaning to you.  The personal touch has endless possibilities.  In fact, you might even wish to share a photo of your ritual with our office at southwestunited@gmail.com and perhaps Amy can post them in our weekly news letter.

How long should this ritual last?  I have no concrete plan as to when it should end.  For so many of us, we seem to be stuck in a state of prolonged liminality and life “as normal” is distinctly over. Yet we have not returned to whatever our “new normal might be.

So, we wait in this in-between state, betwixt and between, neither here nor there, suspended.  Time has lost so much of its structure, its rhythm.  So many of us feel the need to do “something” as we are told to do as little as possible.

For me, the ritual of candle lighting and prayer seems the most comfortable path forward until we arrive at a place as yet unknown.

Shine your light so that all who pass by your window might feel a sense of hope and the presence of Christ.

Amen

Pastor Beryl, DLM 

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The Winter Hymn Project: Week 1

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The call went out for favourite hymns with a few words attached and we have our hymns for January 16!

Doug Hastie: VU 585 Jesus Bids Us Shine

One of my favourite hymns is “Jesus bids us shine.”  I remember first singing it when I was 4 or 5 years old in the beginners’ department of Sunday School in the basement of the old First Presbyterian Church at 501 5th Ave. I say old because this was before the extension and new church was built. That hymn has been one of my favourites ever since. The hymn had actions to go with the singing but I have long forgotten them. Mabel Paul was the superintendent, Evelyn Gray was the pianist and Betty Shearer was my teacher.

Aline Sorel & Steve Scales: MV 157 I Am a Child of God

(Aline) We sang this together often, in happy times but in sad times too. I don’t know if it had a deeper meaning for us, it was that we sang it together. That’s what makes it such a memory for me.

Linda Dixon: VU 69 Away in a Manger

For me, this is what Christmas is all about. It just makes me feel good. I’ve loved it ever since I was a little girl in Sunday School at Chalmers United.

Bob Dixon: VU 509 I, the Lord of Sea and Sky

(Linda) This was sung at the service when Bob was licensed as a Lay Leader nearly 20 years ago. That meant so much to him. The hymn was new to us, and I remember Bob telling me before the service, “Wait till you hear this hymn, you’re going to love it”! I did, and it became one of Bob’s favourites.

 

Winter Playlist I

A hearty soup is simmering on the stove, the chores are done, and a light snow is falling to a steady soft rhythm outside…and my mind is turned to the first edition of our music for a winter’s journey. As I wrote in last week’s newsletter, I’d like to offer a weekly playlist of music, an eclectic mix for our eclectic times.

Playing, as I write…

Franz Schubert – Winterreise* (1827)

Literally, ‘Winter Journey,’ this is a collection of 24 songs written when Schubert was thirty years old and just a year before he died. He composed his song cycle to the poems written by Wilhelm Muller and published just a few years before. This early recording is a classic: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s voice is sublime, and Gerald Moore’s sensitive piano playing fits him like a soft, understanding glove. The whole cycle lasts for over an hour, so dip in and out as you wish, or simply gaze out the window as the snow falls gently to the ground and let your thoughts wander as they wish…

Titles of the poems are below.

 

Arvo Pärt – Spiegel im Spiegel Mirrors in the mirror (1978)

Some people love Pärt’s often dark, always introspective music, and others are not so fond. I am definitely of the former. Pärt is from Estonia and still composing. For cello and piano.

Just close your eyes…

 

Antonio Vivaldi – Winter (1720)

From The Four Seasons, the fourth of Vivaldi’s eternally popular collection of four concertos for solo violin and chamber orchestra. If Pärt is a very minimalist composer, Vivaldi is most definitely not. Enjoy!

 

Have a fine week, everyone, and till next week.

Sarah

 

Schubert - Winterreise

1.     Good Night
2.     The Weathervane
3.     Frozen Tears
4.     Frozen
5.     The Linden Tree
6.     Flood
7.     On The Stream
8.     Backward Glance
9.     Will o’ the Wisp
10. Rest
11. Dream of Spring
12. Loneliness
13. The Post
14. The Gray Head
15. The Crow
16. The Last Hope
17. In the Village
18. The Stormy Morning
19. Deception
20. The Signpost
21. The Inn
22. Have Courage
23. The Sun Dogs
24. The Hurdy-Gurdy Man

Memory Lane 2

Here are a few other local history tidbits found on the internet. The dated clippings are again from Rohinton Ghandhi. The ticket below was posted on a Montreal history site by someone who hoped to learn what it was all about. These bus excursions seem to have been quite the trend in the 40s and 50s, and even into the 70s. Some people recalled that it really was all about the trip: you could get on or offwherever you liked, explore a new neighbourhood, meet people on the bus. Others thought the trip usually ended up at a club, but that only the driver knew where he was going. Some recalled being taken up north, others to the Maples Inn in Pointe Claire. One man wrote,
”Our Legion and others in the area have had "nowhere" bus tours. In this case the bus would travel to different Legion Branches, where refreshment and food awaited. The participants did not know where the tour would take them but the organizers had set it up with the branches to be visited, well in advance.
Participants were always assured of a warm welcome and plenty to eat and drink. A typical tour would leave at 9:00 A.M. and be back at the home Legion by 6:00. Approx 8 Legions would be visited.”

The fact that the trip mentioned on the ticket starts at the Old Stone House could suggest a Legion connection, but the start time of 7:45PM sounds more like dinner and dancing. Does “19-35 Club” sound like a social club associated with a church?

This blog post from Coolopolis mentions a “Nowhere bus” that used to leave from a pharmacy on St. Catherine Street, east of the Main.

Did you ever ride a bus to Nowhere? We’d love to hear your memories!

A rare photo of the old Crawford Park school.

Blog: Water Into Wine

It’s an old joke:

A priest is stopped by a cop for speeding. As the cop comes closer he smells alcohol on the priest's breath and then sees an empty wine bottle on the floor of the car. The Cop says, "Sir, have you been drinking?" "Just water," says the priest." The cop says, "Then why do I smell wine?"
The priest looks at the bottle and says, "Good Lord! He's done it again! He has turned
water into wine again.”

Turning water into wine in order to save the priest from being arrested for drunk driving may be just a joke, but turning water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana is no joke, the writer of The Gospel of John documents.

 

This coming Sunday, our Gospel reading is the story of the marriage feast at Cana, which is narrated only in The Gospel of John.  This story must have made a deep impression on John - probably because it happened only a few days after he and four other disciples had decided to follow Christ.

 

It is interesting to note that as the wine ran out, Jesus was reluctant to step forward and it was the intervention of Mary, his mother, which saved the day and the wedding. I love her words to the servants “Do whatever he tells you.”  I wonder if we can still find meaning in those words today?

 

At this wedding John witnessed the “first miracle” worked by Jesus. John refers to this miracle as a “sign,” and it is the first in John’s series of seven signs by which Jesus manifested his power in his public ministry.

 

If you are interested in the seven signs, they are as follows:

 

Throughout the Bible, marriage has been used as a symbol of the Covenant relationship between God and God’s chosen people. Historically, God has been depicted as the faithful Groom and humanity is God’s beloved bride.

 

Having opened the blog with a joke today, I feel it fitting that we end with one:

Second graders were reading about the wedding feast of Cana and miracle of Jesus
turning water into wine. After explaining the story, the teacher asked the kids, “what did you learn from this story?” Only one hand went up. The teacher asked, “So, Tommy tell me. what did you learn?”  “I learned that I should invite Jesus and Mary for my wedding.”

We may laugh, but perhaps we all need to invite Jesus and Mary not only to our weddings, but to our homes in our day to day lives.

Think of it this way; when the “good wine” in life runs out, there is no one better to replenish it with more and better wine than Jesus himself.  After all, living in faith should be an occasion for joy and celebration!!

Cheers

Pastor Beryl, DLM

image: Wedding at Cana by Bill Bell
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