I am trying to get my thoughts focussed on the season of Advent, 2008, so it was a little disorienting to receive yesterday the United Church book of Lenten reflections for 2009 called Why Would Jesus Say That? Eight months ago I was involved in the challenging exercise of taking three of Jesus' less transparent sayings and offering my interpretation. It seems like a lifetime ago and I had to root around in the book to discover what I had actually said!
I was pleased to see that people I know were among the other writers. My predecessor at St. Paul's the Rev. Nancy Knox is one of them. The person who followed me in Sudbury, the Rev. Bill Steadman is another. A friend from my teen years, the Rev. Drew Strickland (married to my high school best friend's sister) has also offered his reflections. I served on a national committee with another of the writers. The United Church is a national denomination and there are more than 2500 clergy, so often when visitors share the name of their minister I draw a blank. But it is pleasing to see the names of people I know and who have served the same pastoral charges.
Rev Cathy my co-worker here is also the child of a minister. We got talking about the charge served by both our fathers and realized that the same bedroom in the manse had served as the place to lay our childhood heads in different eras.
I won't break into a chorus of It's a Small World Afterall, but I might whistle it.
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