This Week@Wesley

January 18, 2019

Hi Everyone

The poet Mary Oliver died yesterday. I am sad that we will no longer be able to read new poems from her, but so very thankful for her life and the gift of her poems that she has shared over her lifetime. Mary Oliver was not a particularly religious person and yet her poems often name the sacred in life and in our world. I am drawn to her writing for she had a way with words that made even the most ordinary of things in nature and the world extraordinary. Here is one of my favourites.

I Happened to Be Standing

I don’t know where prayers go,
    or what they do.
Do cats pray while they sleep
    half-asleep in the sun?
Does the opossum pray as it
    crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
    growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
    along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
    of little importance, in full
self attendance. A condition I can’t really
    call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
    or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep. Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
The wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why. And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t. That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

This week at Wesley, I will be speaking on the topic of Grace as it is expressed in the story of water being turned into wine and we will be celebrating the Sacrament of Communion. The children will begin in Sunday school and join us for communion. Hopefully the forecasted snowstorm will not prevent you from attending.

See you on Sunday.

Rev. Heather

An additional note:
This past fall we have been enjoying the presence of Selina Mullin, our In Ministry year student from United Theological College. Selina was practicing her worship leadership and preaching skills with us while doing other ministry learning at Montreal City Mission. She was to have continued on at Wesley throughout the winter, but the college made a decision in December to discontinue her work with us at Wesley in the best interest of Selina’s learning. Selina will return to Wesley on January 27 for pulpit supply so everyone will have an opportunity to wish her well.