July 26, 2012


When I look at your heavens,

the work of your fingers,


   the moon and the stars that you have established;


what are human beings that you are mindful of them,

mortals that you care for them?

from Psalm 8

These summer nights a person has to stay up really late to see the stars. The moon passes through its phases above us, and the thunderclouds roll across the evening skies with power and beauty.

No wonder our ancestors in faith attributed each vista of beauty and each uncontrollable power to God’s creative hand. I am overwhelmed sometimes by the natural wonders around me and awe leads me to praise. Or fear. Or wonder.

I don’t really think God is painting each sunset. But I do believe that God loves this world, and that it is God’s World, not mine. I am part of it and God is mindful of me. Wow. I have that in common with the poet who wrote Psalm 8.

So I am primed for praise. Ready to listen for God’s love when I am afraid. And open to God with wonder, sheer wonder, at the earth and our part as mortals walking around on it.

  

Blessings of beauty and awe to you,

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

July 12, 2012

In the Gospels Jesus is portrayed as a border-crossing man. He went from Galilee to Samaria and back again. He traveled extensively in the region, and stopped in villages, cites, at the seashore and on hillsides. He brought blessing, healing, and wisdom.

Are you crossing borders this summer? Are you traveling across provincial boundaries, or national borders, or into parks? I wonder what it calls out of you to go to a different place: patience perhaps, or wonder or concern.

Perhaps you are enjoying the pleasures of our city this summer. Sunshine, thunderstorms, friendship, family, farmers’ markets: what do they call out of you?

Perhaps again this is a season with a different kind of border crossing. There may be a loved one who is looking toward the final crossing, the mystery of dying. May the blessings of our eternal loving God be with them, and you.

Maybe the border this summer is a line you drew in the sand and now the change is a household change, or an adjustment in your identity. Peace to you.

In all the borders we cross, God goes with us. Jesus went all over the places around him, with blessing, healing, and wisdom. Please trust that we are praying for those spiritual gifts to rest on you.

Blessings,

  

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

July 4, 2012

This week we began our summer Sundays with neighbours at Knox-Metropolitan United Church. For four weeks they will come here and lead worship; we will offer hospitality, refreshments, a program for children, and babyfold care. Then we will be their guests for four weeks and lead worship there. Incidentally, worship time there is at 10:30, half an hour later than here. So if you come this week, come at ten. If you come to worship July 29 – August 19, come at 10:30.

Steven Johann is the minister at Knox-Met, and he preached Sunday. He asked us to look at our hands. Look at yours. How have your hands been busy? What stories could the marks or wrinkles or blemishes tell?

He read the Bible stories from Mark about Jesus healing a woman with a haemorrhage, and a little girl. 

We can restore people in our own ways, he reminded us – how do we use our hands? How do we embody God’s love with the work of our hands? 

Good food for thought. Good question to ponder as you dry dishes, or grasp the car steering wheel, or shake a neighbour’s hand. Good news that we reach out with God.

Blessings,

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

June 27, 2012

This year our church Board put a lot of energy into what we believe. An Awesome Faith: Inside Out and Outside In was our theme. What we think affects what we do, and what we do informs how we think.

As it is with individuals and congregations, so it is with denominations. These last few years our United Church has been examining what we believe – we have been so active in our communities, governments and family lives that surely what we believe has been well toned.

Indeed. Our founding denominations created a Statement of Faith just before the inauguration of the United Church in 1925. The writers were quite clear that it was a statement of and for that time. As the years have progressed, our articulations of faith have changed, both in vocabulary and in content. Some articles of faith remain constant too.

Our founders made sure that we would not be a church that requires subscription to a set of beliefs: we don’t shun or excommunicate people for their faith. We encourage conversation, questions, growth, experience, prayer, and the trust that comes from being honest about our doubts as well as our convictions.

From sea to sea to sea, congregational and presbytery leadership have voted clearly to add the 1940 Statement of Faith, We Are Not Alone, and A Song of Faith to our 1925 doctrine. We have the material at St. Paul’s and you are welcome to look at it. Or open united-church.ca and put Our Words of Faith or Remit 6 in the search box. Truly An Awesome Faith: Inside Out and Outside In.    

Blessings,

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

June 22, 2012

Wednesday I went to City Hall. I drew a breath in Churchill Square. The fountain splashed in the sun, and smiled as I remembered being part of the crowd there last week for Pride. The Art Gallery shone beautifully in the morning sun and of course there were people milling around the Stanley Milner Library, and the open space at the doors of the Winspear. 

I had been invited to give the opening prayer at Edmonton City Council. Each meeting opens with prayer. For 35 years, councillors have begun their deliberations with a voice from our many faith communities. They begin their business in prayer. Wow.

Two items from their agenda are on my mind. The Edmonton Symphony, whose home is the Winspear, played at Carnegie Hall, home to beauty and sound; the orchestra was honoured by Council. 1100 Edmontonians accompanied them to New York. And an Edmonton Transit driver was recognized for his achievement at the 2012 International Bus Roadeo. Larry Waselenchuk placed 5^th! I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a bus rodeo.

We live and move and have our being here, where people hear prayers that are familiar and foreign, where music soars and where bus drivers are expert. Hurray for a community that cares.

Blessings,

  

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

June 12, 2012

Lord, listen to your children praying.

Lord, send your Spirit in this place.

Lord, listen to your children praying.

Send us love, send us power, send us grace.

Right in this time, right here, we call on God to be with us. Smack in the middle of our everyday doing, we ask for God’s grace. Precisely in the dilemmas and discouragements of living, we ask for God’s power. Immediately, no waiting or bargaining, we ask for God’s love.

Sometimes we think of our lives as a journey. We even speak of

passing away when a friend dies. If life is a pilgrimage, then we need places of nourishment, rest and protection along the way. Medieval pilgrims in Europe wore a shell on their cloak or hat, and looked for the mark of a scallop shell to indicate safe haven.     

We find it, too. All along our journey, in all our passages, as pilgrims we find the nourishment, rest and protection our souls need for the living of our days. Believe it: right in this time, right here, in this spot along your journey, as you call on God to be with you, God is. And Sunday, we sang for you:

Lord, listen to your children praying.

Lord, send your Spirit in this place.

Blessings,

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean

May 31, 2012

There is a character in a Dickens novel who travels abroad and in order to be understood by people who don’t speak English, raises his voice. When comprehension doesn’t set in, the voice goes louder.

…

Sometimes when we have something really important to say, we deliver the message with increasing volume. Sure of our conviction and the usefulness of our information, we increase the volume.

…

Do you know how frustrating it is to know the answer and not have your listener get it?

…

Jesus’ disciples had good news to offer, a message that would save lives, mend relationships and change the world. When the Holy Spirit came upon them at Pentecost (Acts 2) “the crowd gathered and was bewildered. Each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.”

…

The disciples were able to speak so the listeners could hear. Knowing how our listener hears is essential.

…

When you and I speak of love, joy and peace to friends, neighbours and the world, we need to be mindful of how our listeners will hear us. Sometimes that means saying very little. Often it means listening first, to discover the other’s true dilemma before we hold forth on our own solutions.

…

This is a challenge when we can see the speck in the other’s eye. But oh, yes, a great teacher once admonished us to remove the plank in our own first. Food for thought.

Blessings,

The Rev. Dr. Catherine Faith MacLean