I would like to recommend Bruce Sanguin’s blog for those looking for an inspiring evolutionary Christian thinker in Canada today.
Bruce Sanguins words inspired my closing remarks on Sunday morning (Dec 29th, 2013), the last Sunday of the year. I should note that during Advent (2013) the United Church of Canada’s Unsettling Goods Campaign was introduced at Central United. The campaign sought/seeks to raise the consciousness of church members to the reality of people living in Palestine who have been negatively affected by the ongoing development of illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian lands. United Church members were encouraged to consider boycotting goods produced in the illegal Israeli settlements, and the Canadian retailers who sell these products manufactured where human rights are being violated. (We had been privileged to hear, in September, Steve Berube’s presentation on his three month sabbatical experience with the Ecumenical Accompaniment for Peace in Palestine and Israel program. [EAPPI])
With these things in mind, I concluded my last reflection of the 2013 calendar year acknowledging that taking a stand on justice issues is not always easy for many of us. There can be fear of possible negative repercussions resulting from taking particular peaceful positions, yet still something at the core of our being continues compelling us to communicate our concern in gentle ways for people who need the world’s attention and caring response to their plight.
My year end reflection wrapped up something like this:
‘As I turn for a moment to my/our friend Bruce Sanguin in closing, I am reminded how he (and others) declare that you and I are the very presence of a 13.8 billion year evolutionary process of staggering creative energy— you and I are the precise presence of a staggering creative energy which has long been evolving and today is waking up to itself and shaping a future—a future now capable of being shaped, less by chance and more by choice.
You and I here at Central United have been evolving and maturing in our faith over many years. During Advent this year we have been remembering how following Jesus and John the Baptist is no easy matter. These prominent Biblical personalities (and countless others since) have lived more by choice than by chance. They have chosen to give their best and their all in the pursuit of justice, peace and positive change for fellow citizens and succeeding generations.
What does it mean to be steadily evolving and continually growing in self-conscious awareness? What does it mean to be filled with a staggering creative energy? On the eve of a New Calendar Year, the balance of the Advent Candles have been lighted. (We lit the Candles of Possibility and Responsibility on the First and Second Sundays [respectively] of Advent, but, with the morning services cancelled due to weather on the Third and Fourth Sundays of Advent, we only ended up lighting the last two Advent Candles on Sunday December 29th, 2013.) Today (Dec 29th) we have lit a Candle of Action and a Candle of Justice and Peace. What will these Candles shed light on for a people imbued with a staggering creative energy? What will it mean to shape the future more by choice and less by chance in a New Calendar Year? What will it mean to be living with the understanding that in you and I natural selection has become actual selection?
Jim MacDonald