Welcome to David Mundy's nearly-daily blog. David retired after 37 years as a United Church minister (2017)and has kept a journal for more than 40 years. This blog is more public but contains his personal musings and reflections on the world, through the lens of his Christian faith. Follow his Creation Blog, Groundling (groundlingearthyheavenly.blogspot.ca) and Mini Me blog (aka Twitter) @lionlambstp
A 1631 copy of the Bible that includes the text "Thou shalt commit adultery." Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
We will be in a museum today contemplating dinosaurs with our 5-year-old and 8-year old grandchildren. Libaries and museums are marvellous places offering insights on the world that inform us and stretch our imaginations. Many of them are under threat due to underfunding and authoritarian control.
I would love to wander through a new exhibition at Yale Library which explores the history of typos across five centuries. Visitors will see corrections that were listed inside copies of works by James Joyce, Upton Sinclair and Nicolaus Copernicus.
Perhaps the timeliest of the lot is an an infamous 1631 edition of the Bible, which lists “Thou shalt commit adultery” as the seventh commandment earning it the nickname “the Wicked Bible.” According to a Smithsonian article; " By the time the mistake was discovered, 1,000 copies had been printed. The British king Charles I reprimanded the publishers, fined them £300 and stripped them of their printing license...Nearly all the Wicked Bibles were destroyed, and only about 20 known copies survive. In the copy on view at the Beinecke, someone fixed the error by hand, adding “not” to “Thou shalt commit adultery.”
We know that a certain warmongering president sells his special bibles to the gullible and I wonder if anyone has checked to see if this version is "wicked." This erroneous commandment would apply to Trump, a number of the members of his cabinet and his "spiritual advisor" Paula White.
Truthfully, I'm more concerned by all the passages about justice and mercy and care for the marginalized effectively edited out of bibles these days. That really is wicked.
I would wish a great lake of ale for the King of Kings;
I would wish the family of heaven to be drinking it throughout life and time.I would wish the men of Heaven in my own house;I would wish vessels of peace to be given to them.I would wish joy to be in their drinking;I would wish Jesu to be here among them.I would wish the three Marys of great name;I would wish the people of heaven from every side.
Olay, this is a prayer attributed to St. Brigid of Ireland, not St. Patrick, but she is one of the three patron saints of the Emerald Isle and we know that plenty of beer will be flowing on this St. Patrick's Day. I do enjoy a nice craft beer but I've never been much of a drinker and even less so as the years pass. A lake of ale would create problems for me I won't go into here.
There is definitely a long tradition of imbibing in Ireland and the Guinness brand is certainly a part it, going back to the 18th century.We have been watching, with a bit of eye-rolling, the imagined shenanigans of this clan in the series House of Guinnness. While it seem to be something of a Peaky Blinders wannabe it has its moments.
The writers have chosen to include the family's progressive philanthropic efforts in the 19th century which impacted Dublin's and even rural Ireland's social landscape into the 20th century. They financed numerous hospitals, housing projects, and educational institutions, leading to transformative effects on the city’s social fabric. They created what we might call social housing for workers and the poor.
I have snooped around trying to find out who were the motivators in this staunchly Protestant family for their enlightened outlook and whether religious convictions were involved but I haven't been successful.
I'm sure the blessing of all three saints is upon their charitable legacy whatever else they got up to.
Happy St. Patrick's Day to you, and bottoms up, perhaps a stout!
I have always been spooked by vampire films (Sinners) and I'm a 'fraidy cat when it comes to monsters (Frankenstein) and as I age I'm brittle in viewing violence (One Battle After Another.) I willingly concede that all three of these movies deserved honours at the Oscars and we have started into all of them but sighed and went elsewhere. We may return to them, or we may not.
We did go the cinema to see Hamnet and were pleased that Jessie Buckley won Best Actress for her moving role as Agnes Hathaway/Shakespeare. She is an actress with remarkable range, simply hilarious in Wicked Little Letters. In Hamnet she embodies a fiercely independent woman who discovers love, including the love for her children. I found her depiction of grief when she loses a child totally believable in a way that no words could describe.
Through my years in pastoral ministry I was witness and companion to grief hundreds of times and came to realize that it was unique to each person in its expression. Hamnet explores the way loss can shake relationships and even destroy them because the way it is manifested can be so different. I realized that some people moved forward with resilience and others were never over their mourning. There were and are no right or wrong responses.
There are critics of the film that suggest it is too slow moving -- this wasn't a Marvel flick! -- and that the story itself was implausible, although it is historically accurate that their boy died, probably of the plague. In the movie Shakespeare works through his profound grief at son Hamnet's death by writing a play called Hamlet which is about loss and the ghosts that haunt us. To me it is one of those stories that may not be factual but is true.
Well done, Jessie Buckley. Long may you grace our screens!
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13 NRSVue
We have seen two of the animated short films nominated for this evening's Academy Awards, The Girl Who Cried Pearls and Forevergreen. Both of them are stop-motion stories and both of them are quite lovely. It is a remarkable art form in our world of CGI and AI and whatever new "I" I don't know about.
One reviewer offers a summary of the latter of these two:
“Forevergreen” is a storybook come to life, even though it’s a rather familiar story. It plays like a more energetic, and even more emotionally-manipulative version of Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree.” That it ends with a biblical quote — I’d say which one, but it’s a spoiler — only cements the film’s identity as a blunt morality tale.
I've already been the spoiler, naming the verse above which comes from the story of Jesus and his disciples as they share in the meal we have come to term The Last Supper. I'm not so sure that the message of self-giving love is all that blunt, at least in terms of the biblical reference. As a form of evangelism I feel that the Christian filmmakers who I think are Disney animators have been quite restrained.
I've discovered that people who may love certain allegorical stories such as the Chronicles ofNarnia are totally unaware of what may seem to be overt religious imagery such as the sacrifice of Aslan, the lion. It's quite possible to enjoy them and even be moved by them without that awareness. In the case of Forevergreen the verse comes at the very end in unassuming print. There is no final Last Supper or Crucifixion image, which would have been over-the-top.
We know that when ice encounters warmth it becomes water and when water is heated it becomes steam. There has been steam coming out of my ears this week as the Ontario government made the announcement, after "consultatiion with the public", that the 36 conservation authorities in the province would be consolidated into nine. I responded to the invitation to provide feedback to this plan and the survey was clearly meant to steer around any critiicsm or resistance, let alone informed science.
I listened to an CBC Radio nterview with associate professor Michael Drescher from the University of Waterloo School of Planning about these changes. He reminded us that conservation authorities are watershed based and that the local wisdom of those who work in them helps to mitigate flooding and erosion and maintain water quality. In other words, they protect the environment and humans with place-based knowledge and acquired practical understanding.
Prof. Drescher also reminded us that the Ford government did away with the Endangered Species Act in Ontario and has reduced development seitbacks from wetlands from 120 metres to 30 metres. Even though municipalities, fees, and federal government provide a large percentage of funding it is the province making these decisions. Can you understand why I'm steaming?
We have spent time in many of the Conservation Areas in both Quinte and Lower Trent Conservation Areas and we feel blessed, literally, by these oases of nature. As the decades march on I've become more convinced of the necessity of a "grounded" approach to caring for Creation. Sometimes I become discouraged and angry but I want to maintain hope despite what unfolds around us.
Years ago the theologian Chet Myers introduced the notion of Watershed Discipleship, a bio-regional approach to how we as Christians inhabit the Earth. In a prophetic article in Geez magazine ten years ago Myers offered:
A talk in 2009 by Brock Dolman, a permaculturist in Northern California, really sold me. “Watersheds underlie all human endeavors and form the foundation for all future aspirations and survival. The idea is one of a cradle,” he said, cupping his hands into a little boat. “Your home basin of relations is your lifeboat.” “Our watershed represents a community,” he continued, “every living organism within this basin is interconnected and interdependent.” This represents the most viable “geographic scale of applied sustainability, which must be regenerative because we desperately are in need of making up for lost time.”
What would it mean for Christians to re-centre our citizen-identity in the topography of Creation, rather than in the political geography of dominant cultural ideation, and ground our discipleship practices in the watersheds in which we reside? Five years ago I began to explore an approach I called “watershed discipleship” with other faith-rooted organizers and educators around North America. “Watershed discipleship” is an intentional triple entendre:
recognizing that we are in a watershed moment of crisis. Environmental and social justice and sustainability need to be integral to everything we do as inhabitants of specific places;
acknowledging the bioregional locus of an incarnational following of Jesus. Our discipleship and the life of the local church inescapably take place in a watershed context;
and implying, as Todd Wynward added, that we need to be disciples of our watersheds, learning from and recovenanting with the local “Book of Creation.”
When we arrived in outport Newfoundland from Toronto 46 years ago the practical acts of kindness to the new minister and his wife soon began. It came in the form of edibles (not those edibles), everything from fish to moose to rabbits to berries and jam. We were willing to try just about anything but the most unsettling gift was live lobsters. We may have indulged in "surf and turf" once but we discovered that living creatures into boiling water was not for the faint of heart -- shades of Annie Hall. Ruth has a vivid memory of putting the lid on the pot with relief only to have it pushed off by a large claw.
This morning I recalled our lobster queasiness as I heard on the news the effects on Canada's lobster fishery from a growing movement in Europe. Several countries have already or are considering bans on cooking live lobsters because it is a form of cruelty to animals. In Britain there is an organization called Crustacean Compassion and I must admit I guffawed when I heard the name.
Yet I realize that during my lifetime attitudes toward other creatures has changed, often dramatically. We regard our companion animals differently and cruelty can be a chargeable crime. We have laws about the treatment of the livestock we eat and have restricted the use of animals for testing of products and experimentation for medical procedures. This is all important and what I think most of us would consider progress.
Saturday Night Live Skit 1982
As Christians we recognize that we are people of a Creator God who brought call living things into being and in our United Church we affirm that we are called to "live with respect in Creation." While we may readily agree that this applies to Fluffy the Llasa Apso, do we share this conviction about Larry the Lobster?
When Kristi Noem, former Governor of North Dakota, and now former ICE Barbie, admitted in her biography that she'd shot a supposedly untrainable pet dog named Cricket many people were appalled. Did her callousness toward this hound contribute to the hardness of heart she demonstrated toward undocumented immigrants as her minions hunted them down in communities across the United States?
I have never seriously considered becoming a vegetarian or vegan, although I respect those who've made this choice. As an outdoors guy I won't alter my slaughter of mosquitoes and blackflies. And I will never be a card-carrying member of Crustacean Compassion. Still, as we become increasingly aware of the decline of biodiversty and species extinction we probably have a lot more to learn about compassion toward all the critters in God's Wondrous World.
This is the end of my tale...tail? Anyone want to write a lobster hymn?
Pourya Zaganeh (left), pictured here with Anglican bishop Victor-David Mbuyi Bipungu, was Muslim when he lived in Iran but was baptized at St Jax in Montreal after some powerful personal religious experiences. Now he leads a Farsi Bible study at the church. (Photo courtesy of Pourya Zaganeh)
We've been informed during this past week that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the supreme leader of Iran who was "eliminated" by US missiles has been replaced by his son, also a hard-liner. It would seem that the perserve version of Islam practiced by the leadership structure in Iran has not been shaken by the onslaught by the United States and Israel and the citizens of Iran are still in their iron grip.
We might assume that all Iranians are fundamentalist Muslims but this is not the case. There are moderates in the faith as well as a small number of Christians, despite persecution. I came upon what was for me a suprising article in Broadview magazine, formerly the United Church Observer, about a growing group of expatriate Iranians living in Montreal who have been baptized as Christians in an Anglican congregation there:
As participants logged into St Jax Church’s weekly Bible study on Feb. 3, the Zoom call filled with the warm echoes of “salam baradar” and “salam khahar”—peace, brother, and peace, sister. The study, held in Farsi, is one of the services the Montreal church has recently added to address the growing influx of Iranian congregants. St Jax has baptized over 140 Iranians since 2020, when it opened as a new Anglican church plant.
“The growth of our Iranian community actually started with a person who was a very dynamic community leader and came here saying, ‘I’m definitely not a Muslim. I’m definitely not a Christian, either. However, I know a lot of Iranians who are trying to explore Christianity, and I’ve looked into where the best churches for them are. It may as well be here,’” recalls senior pastor Rev. Graham Singh.
While Iran is predominantly a Muslim nation, Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian and Baha’i communities have rich histories in Iran and continue to gather as minorities, often at risk of persecution under the Islamic theocracy that has ruled since the 1979 Revolution. Although apostasy is punishable by death under the Islamic regime, Christian conversion among Iranians born Muslim is a growing movement both within the country and across the diaspora living in the West. Now, as Iran reels from levels of governmental violence that haven’t been seen since the revolution, Montreal’s Iranians are finding comfort at St Jax.
It's tempting to consider conversion as coercion but it sounds as though the people who have joined this congregation have experienced the Good News of acceptance in Christ in this setting.
I'm grateful that Broadview shared this story and we can pray for this faith community and all whom they love in a war-torn land. Here is the link to the article: https://broadview.org/st-jax-church-iranians/
I've mentioned that we listen to books together as we travel in our vehicle, downloading them from the library, often repeatedly, until we work our way through.
We have just finished our most recent tome called Canticle, by Janet Rich Edwards which we both appreciated, although I did moreso than Ruth. A canticle is a song, often a religious song, and this novel is a song of praise to women of courage and faith.
A review in the Washington Post drew me to the novel and this paragraph sums it up well:
Edwards, like her late-13th-century heroine, Aleys, is walking a treacherous path. With “Canticle,” her debut novel, she has created a bizarre story of miracles and martyrdom by drawing on equally bizarre stories about medieval mystics such as St. Clare of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Catherine of Genoa. Some readers will catch echoes of Lauren Groff’s 2021 novel, “Matrix,” about the 12th-century poet Marie de France, but Edwards’s fidelity to the Christ-saturated imagination of the period is bolder — and, probably, less appealing to those modern readers who want historical women to be sweetened with modern feminist sensibilities like a Communion wafer dipped in honey.
I wouldn't describe the story as bizarre even though it is very different from our perspective of the world today, including the spiritual. I appreciated the many allusions to that era, some of them listed above but also the Beguines. The Beguines were religious lay communities in which the women were devout yet not nuns and were free to leave if they chose.
As I listened I was reminded of so much I've read about women of that time who found ways to express their faith outside of the often oppressive control of men. They were often mystics who experienced God and Christ in unconventional ways that were viewed as a danger to the patriarchal control of the Church. If they strayed too far from that control their lives could go up in flames -- quite literally. There are also echoes of Hildegard of Bingen and Julian of Norwich in this well written novel.
We agree that there were portions that could have been been edited to a degree but I'm glad we prevailed to the end.
I have found making house calls to be one of the most meaningful and satisfying aspects of my work as a family doctor. Although they have long been in decline in North America, there are still physicians fighting to save the tradition
Nicholas Pimlott
The Globe and Mail
When we lived in Halifax I got a phone call one Christmas Day evening about the death of an elderly woman I had been visiting in hospital, She was the mother of a member of the congregation but I ended up seeing her a number of times. She actually died at home because the family made arrangements for her to receive care there in her final days.
I went to be with the family so that we could pray and commend her to God's eternal care. She and her husband lived in one of the swankiest condominium buildings in the downtown and as I approached the elevator I realized that the man waiting there was my doctor, who, it turned out, was her physician as well. We were both a bit surprised to see the other and we chatted on our way up.
A few weeks ago the artiicle above was publiished in the Saturday Globe and Mail and it brought to mind that incident. I was touched as I read it because I found pastoral "house calls" to be a deeply meaningful part of ministry, although my role was in spiritual health rather than physical. Dr. Pimlott began his piece with a story about the death of a woman and the solemn and intimate formality, with her care-giver daughter present, of verifying what had occurred. Dr. Pimlott went on to offer some facts and a reflection on the value of home visits:
Before the Second World War, house calls made up around half of all visits between doctors and patients; by 1950, that had fallen to roughly one in 10, and by the 1980s house calls made up just one in 200 of all such visits...
Not long after I started making those monthly home visits to her, the weekly trips to the emergency department suddenly stopped. Whether or not it was because my regular home visits finally had an impact, or because in her new home she had easy access to the help and advice of a nurse, I cannot say. Nor did I ever ask her. Like many doctors, I am vain enough and arrogant enough to think that somehow, I had changed her behaviour. The more obvious truth is that she changed mine. After years of frustration, I had finally stopped treating Isabel as a problem to be solved and began treating her like a person to be cared for.
Although still inadequately compensated compared to office visits and not always convenient to do, I have found making house calls to be one of the most meaningful and satisfying aspects of my work as a family doctor. They have provided me with insights into the lives of my patients that have helped me to better understand and care for them, and they have deepened my sense of connection to them.
I did have occasions when I was present as parishioners "shuffled off this mortail coil" and it was always a powerful experience. Thankfully, most visits were pastoral in nature with conversation and perhaps a scripture reading, a prayer, and sharing in holy communion. I had my own version of the doctor's bag, a lovely walnut-cased communion set, and a visiting bible, a small version I would have trouble reading from now because of the tiny print.
As with Dr. Pimlott there were individuals I didn't really want to visit and neither did the excellent pastoral care ministers I worked with through the decades in multiple-staff congregations. One imperious old soul insisted on holding court in her bedroom with the stock market scroll on the TV. I eventually convinced her to turn off the set for the time I was there.
I'm grateful that son Isaac, also a United Church minister, visits congregants, mostly older, where they live. As with physicians, home pastoral visits by clergy have been on the decline for decades. More than once colleagues opined that they didn't have time to "sit around drinking tea" (a direct quote) and I wondered what they were doing that was so much more important than this aspect of ministry. Of course, there are so many cautions and rules about time spent alone with vulnerable persons but compassion is still essential.
While I will readily admit that I often felt mildly guilty that I wasn't keeping up with this ministry of presence in Christ's name I have no regrets for the time I "wasted" with my parishioners.
Reproductions of The Doctor, a painting by 19th-century British artist Luke Fildes that depicts a house call to a sick child, hang in many modern family doctors’ offices.
The United Church of Canada expresses its unwavering solidarity with Cuban Mission and Service partners and the people of Cuba. At a time of deepening interconnected crises, the United Church condemns the recent executive order (opens in a new tab)issued by the Trump administration, which declares a national emergency and establishes a process to impose tariffs on goods from countries that sell or otherwise provide oil to Cuba. This threatens the right to life and the wellbeing of Cubans.
We spent time as tourists in Cuba on several occasions over time although we haven't been there in at least 15 years. Even though we enjoyed the respite from the cold of Canadian winters we became increasingly concerned about the the oppressive regime generally and the lack of religious freedom, despite statements to the contrary. We were very aware that tourism was an economic engine for the country and those who served us in resorts were dependent on Canadian dollars to lift them above poverty.
Now, thanks to an American embargo on Venezualan oil entering Cuba, most tourism has ground to a halt and the country is suffering from power outages and serious food insecurity. People have no money and are starving in the dark. This embargo is punitive for average Cubans who have no say over government policy. Canada is trying to figure out how to offer aid to those who need it most.
On one of our trips we visited a Christian seminary in the city of Mantanzas, a simple oasis in the midst of the poverty. At the time the United Church had am active partnership with the seminary and our son, Isaac, considered doing a portion of his theological education there. We toured the grounds and saw the extensive vegetable gardens which provided produce for the seminary and the broader community. We had brought with us cloth and sewing supplies for a collective sponsored by the seminary and we met with the coordinator later in Havana. They simply didn't have the money for or access to these supplies within the country.
I have been thinking about this Christian witness in Mantanzas and about the ministries of the Roman Catholic church in Cuba. A spokesperson for the RCs said recently:
“Food prices are rising. Medicines are scarce, medical services have been reduced, and surgeries are limited only to those whose lives are in danger. Access to drinking water has become more difficult because many people depend on water trucks, and without fuel, they cannot reach them.”
In this context, the Church — poor and among the poor — offers a pastoral ministry of charity and consolation. “It is in the area of charity that we are perhaps being renewed and continually growing, as we see increasing needs and experience the Lord’s call to serve Him in the poor,” he said, recalling the many assistance efforts carried out — often with great difficulty — for the most vulnerable.
The prospects for Cuba are bleak and while President Trump has mused about a "friendly takover" of the country, starving the poor is not a form of liberation.
I'm not sure to what extent the United Church connection has continued but we can pray for Christ's church in all its expressions in the country. Here is a link to the United Church response to the current situation:
Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John” (although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized), he left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
John 4: 1-7. 13-15 NRSVue
Both Lower Trent and Quinte Conservation Authorities have issued warnings about high water levels in rivers and streams due to heavy rain and rising temperatures. The message is that banks might become unstable and flooding is possible. These are important cautions although I'm somewhat pleased that they are necessary. Last year drought in our region was so sustained that water levels dropped alarmingly, wells dried up, and many dependable channels became a navigation nightmare. Our waterways need to be replenished.
Samaritan Woman at the Well -- He Qi
Wouldn't you know that the gospel reading for this Sunday in Lent is exclusive to John, the story of the encounter between Jesus and a woman at a precious source of water, a well. It looks as though our pastor (and son) Isaac will tie what is the lengthiest conversation between Jesus and any person in the gospels to International Women's Day, a thoughtful choice. In the back-and-forth of this exchange Jesus, the Jew, promises the Samaritan woman Living Water, even as she provides him with a drink to quench his thirst.
Although this story abounds in symbolism, as is the case with so much of John, it is also a reminder of the value of water for daily sustenance. Finding sources of water and managing them was a vital part of every day, often women's work. Some of you may have read James Michener's novel, The Source, which unfolds the complex history of the region through countless generations with the focal point of a particular water source. In years past I would recommend this entertaining saga to those who were going on trips to Israel and Ruth read it before we visited in 2023.
The paucity of water in places around the planet due to global heating is becoming a crisis and even in normally watery climes such as ours is cause for concern. While we watch the extensive bombing of Tehran in Iran, there is another emergency for this city of well over 10 million. Officials have been warning about Day Zero, when the taps run dry as the country has endured six consecutive years of severe drought.
When we read the story of the Samaritan Woman we appreciate that Jesus is offering a deeper spiritual truth to this rejected person, a message of hope and acceptance. Perhaps we can also rethink the symbol of Living Water as the precious resource that brought the two of them together in the first place. Water is sacred in many religions, complete with rituals and liturgies.
Am I suggesting that the seemingly endless snowfall of this Winter was actually a blessing? I'll let you decide!
The madness of Bill 94 continues in the province of Quebec. The bill, adopted last Fall, introduced a further set of secularism measures banning the wearing of religious symbols for all school employees, students are prohibited from wearing face coverings, and the ban on religious symbols now also applies to parent volunteers at schools.
At the time former education minister Bernard Drainville said "In Quebec, we made the decision that the state and religion are separate. And today we say the public schools are separate from religion. "
Now the ban on symbols and apparel extends to parent volunteers at schools. I've written before about how this targets Muslim women more than any other group because of the hijab head covering. Even though finding volunteers in schools is a challenge one mother will no longer be able to offer assistance in her childrens' library. Another has been planning an end-of-school meal for her kids and their classmates but won't be permitted to serve it.
Asma Qureshi, who wears a hijab, has volunteered in various capacities for seven years at the same school Khan’s [llbrary volunteer] children attend , including this year helping to organize a lunch for her daughter’s graduating class.She and her husband, who owns a restaurant, are donating all the food.
“One of the things that hit me hard is that when I asked if I could participate in that event and be there to distribute the food, I was told I couldn't because of my hijab,” Qureshi said, adding she’s feeling a mixture of hurt, sadness, anger and shock.
Seven years of generous service to children. What if a parent showed up to volunteer wearing a toque, or a beret but was known to be a Muslim or a Jew? Would the secularism police be called in to make a judgement about the head covering as a "stealth" kippah or hijab? Who does this really serve, and doesn't it deepen the "us and them" prejudices that lead to hatred and misunderstanding?
According to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms we are all guaranteed freedom of conscience and religion. Quebec is still a part of Canada, isn't it?
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.Once when he was serving as priest before God during his section’s turn of duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to offer incense.
Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him.But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord.
Luke 2: 5-- 15 NRSVue
With my art history background stories about "lost and found" paintings and prints are catnip for me. Recently a set of 35 Rembrandt etchings were discovered in a folder left to a Dutch woman by her grandfather years before. This is an important reminder -- never throw out anything!
Rembrandt is in the news again, this time in the form of a "lost" painting from 1663 which was known by experts. disappeared for more than 60 years, only to be rediscovered and authenticated by experts. The rightfull owners presented Vision of Zacharias in the Temple for tests at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. According to the BBC
Rembrandt was 27 when he created the painting, which depicts the Biblical scene when priest Zacharias is told by the Archangel Gabriel that despite their age, he and his wife will have a son, John the Baptist.
The museum said Rembrandt had given the Biblical story an innovative twist. Instead of depicting the Archangel Gabriel visibly, he only suggested his presence. In doing so, he departed from established visual traditions and introduced a new way of representing this subject.
Rembrandt deliberately chose the decisive moment, just before Gabriel reveals his true identity.It is one of the few history paintings Rembrandt created during this period. At the time, he was primarily producing portraits, which were highly lucrative.
Rembrandt was in high demand at that stage of his career and spent his wealth faster than he made it -- why not? As he aged and was no longer the painterly flavour of the day he careened into bankruptcy and disrepute. Yet he produced another extraordinary work, The Return of the Prodigal Son, as he neared the end of his life. The late theologian and priest, Henri Nouwen offered:
Rembrandt is as much the elder son of the parable as he is the younger. When, during the last years of his life, he painted both sons in Return of the Prodigal Son, he had lived a life in which neither the lostness of the younger son nor the lostness of the elder son was alien to him. Both needed healing and forgiveness. Both needed to come home. Both needed the embrace of a forgiving father. But from the story itself, as well as from Rembrandt's painting, it is clear that the hardest conversion to go through is the conversion of the one who stayed home
I would encourage you to snoop around in your New Testament and read the rest of the story of Zecharia. And while you're at it, turn to chapter 15 of Luke for the Prodigal Son. It's interesting that these two biblical paintings are from stories told exclusively in gospel of Luke. Hmm...who will unravel this mystery?...
This photograph illustrates the various phases of a total eclipse, as seen on September 7, 2025.(Annegret Hilse/Reuters)
The heavens are telling the glory of God, and the firmamentproclaims his handiwork. 2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. 3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; 4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth and their words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19: 1-4 NRSVue
Two mornings ago we watched the lunar eclipse between 5AM and 6AM, standing outside, intermittently, in the cold and the dark. Dare I admit that we didn't set an alarm for this event, we regularly awaken at this ungodly hour!
We couldn't see the "blood moon" phase but we did watch the progression of Earth's shadow creep across the face the face of our natural satellite. I could see the pockmarks on the Moon's surface with my binoculars. We weren't awestruck, nor did we bow down in fear and wonder (too early in the morning), but we both thought the sight was pretty cool. Yesterday I wrote about the wonders of Creation here on Earth but this was a taste of venturing out into the universe. There is a theory that the moon was once a part of the Earth, flung away from the outer layers of our planet. Another plausibe theory is that it's made of cheese.
I've seen in the past week that two churches in the British Isles have followed the lead of others to display images from our solar system within their buildings. On the Isle of Man 11,000 showed up to see Mars: From the Imagination to Science by Luke Jerum over the course of a month.
The same artist will be displaying a large-scale installation depicting the sun at Grimsby Minster in North East Lincolnshire for four weeks.more than 400,000 high-resolution photographs of the sun's surface and observational data from Nasa. While I imagine these installations are quite impressive there is something about viewing the skies not-up-close-and-personal that is truly awesome, as many of us experienced with the solar eclipse two years ago.
On this Sun-ny day in Southern Ontario we can give the Creator the glory and perhaps ponder the night sky as well.
Deep peace of the
running wave to you.
Deep peace of the
flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the
shining stars to you
Deep peace of the gentle night to you
Moon and stars pour
their healing light on you
Deep
peace of Christ, the light of the world to you.
