Lent, a time for reflection…
Rev. Jim MacDonald and sister (Jane Van Horne) at the Campbellton Rural Cemetery Friday afternoon, November 28th, 2016 just moments before Mother Nature covered the region with its first enduring winter blanket of white. The top of Sugarloaf Mountain is seen in the background.
Tomorrow is the First Sunday of Lent. Lent is a forty day Season in the Christian Church year leading up to the celebration of Holy Week and Easter. Lent can be a time for reflection and resetting our focus on the things that are important and life-giving.
On a Friday just prior to Advent, I made a quick overnight trip to Campbellton, NB for the graveside service of my late Uncle Allan MacLeod. It was a cold November afternoon at the Campbellton Rural Cemetery and no lasting snow had yet covered the North Shore landscape. We had barely completed the graveside ceremony placing the ashes of my late Uncle closely to the previously interned ashes of my late Aunt Catherine, when Mother Nature began gently releasing large white flakes of snow. Within minutes the season of Autumn 2016 began giving way to the season of Winter 2016/2017. With seemingly precision timing, a freshly closed grave was being quietly covered with a warm winter blanket of white. It turned out to be a lasting winter snow as it continued falling through the night and into the following day and, so I’m told, has remained ever since.
Before returning to Moncton that following day I managed four quick visits with parishioners of First United Church, Campbellton, the congregation I had served in ministry with, before moving to Moncton nearly 14 years ago. During one of those visits a friend remarked that his mother, in her nineties, had been reading with interest the books written by the United Church minister by the name of Gretta Vosper. At another stop, a woman now eighty asked me: “What do you think of Gretta Vosper?” Before I could formulate a reply, she continued, “You know, I kind of like the way she thinks!” (Gretta Vosper is a minister with the United Church of Canada who has ‘come out’ and declared she can no longer believe in a ‘guy-in-the-sky’ concept of God and for this reason and others has commenced referring to herself as an atheist.)
Now you can imagine my surprise back in late November when visiting, for the first time in years, parishioners from a former pastoral charge and learning that a nonagenarian and octogenarian were either reading or at least interested in the news of a minister in their denomination (the United Church of Canada) no longer inspired by a distant and disconnected deity concept of God. It was truly inspiring to realize that these elders of the Church were continuing a faith-inspired quest. I felt they were continuing to wonder and search and ‘long for’ improved metaphors and explanations that might enhance their capacity for connecting more deeply with the infinite mystery surrounding us still in the 21st century.
My thoughts following that late November visit to New Brunswick’s North shore included questions like: What explained that gently falling snow quietly commencing ‘precisely’ at the moment the grave of my late Aunt and Uncle had been closed? Was that just a coincidence? Was that a ‘guy-in-the-sky’ God pulling strings? Was there yet a deeper and more beautiful explanation – or was there no explanation to be had at all?
I experience Gretta Vosper as a minister in my denomination calling us past certain assumptions and theologies which may no longer serve our 21st century church and world in the best possible way. Are we up for the challenge of re-thinking certain beliefs or certain interpretations of our sacred stories? Do we have room for deep conversations with people who may think differently than we do and who may approach holy mystery differently than we do? We are on a journey together and without the important work of thinkers and mystics and scientific discovery we might never evolve and change in important and essential ways – ways that might benefit all people and the whole Earth.
What will you be reflecting on during Lent 2017?
Jim MacDonald serves in ministry with the
Congregation of Central United Church
An Affirming Congregation and Community Peace Centre partner