I notice that little by little this blog is closing off. If anyone wishes to stay in touch, you can reach me at franota@rogers.com.

I now blog more often at http://franota.blogspot.com/

Letters from Corner Brook - a chronicle of life here in Newfoundland, and some reflection.

http://frannyharp.blogspot.com/

Fran's Musings

Sermons can be found at: http://humberunitednl.blogspot.com/

Fran

It's been a long time - again - since I blogged. LIfe often takes us on twists and turns that we least expect. That happened this year, in a big way. In July I saw a vacancy posted at Humber United in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. By mid-August I had said yes. It had to be the shortest search in the history of the church.

On November 7th, I said farewell to my congregation of five years, Glen Ayr United in Scarborough. What started as a one-year supply had stretched over five years, and many changes. It was a wonderful farewell, and a wonderful end to a good chapter.

I haven't blogged for a long time, but today something happened which prompted me to write again. A friend sent me a story from the internet. The gist of the story is that because prayer is banned in schools,  some students in the US sneezed at a graduation ceremony, and the response "God bless you!" got around the prayer ban.

Yesterday, here in Toronto, despite all the predictions of snow and rain today - snow came down in the form of tiny pellets. Enough to bring a little Christmas-like atmosphere. I left for the evening service with carols on the radio, basking in the glow of being ready for once and looking forward to the worship. The news came on - the street I normally travel to the church closed both ways because of a car accident; three major arteries closed for the same reason. Several people hurt and in hospital. Four men dead because of a faulty scaffolding which collapsed under them.

This evening, driving home from work, I came up behind a Christmas-red car at a stop light. The licence plate read "IWNT2BLV". Wow! I thought - now there's the Christmas Eve sermon...title and all. I wanted to get the driver to pull over, and ask "What do you want to believe? Why? What do you believe?" But the light changed to green, and we were off in the home-going traffic.

The questions remain. Was this person looking for some kind of faith? Not Christian, just faith. What did she want to believe? Why? Did she have any beliefs?

Rev. Gretta Vosper wrote a book which included this in the title - why how we live is more important than what we believe. I've thought the same for many years, but last Saturday experienced what I think is the living embodiment of this. I was privileged to conduct a memorial service for the sister of a good friend. While the family was born Buddhist, they were not active in a congregation. Since I have also begun to practice Buddhism, the service combined Christian and Buddhist elements.

In my last blog I mentioned a friend whose husband had died. I did indeed travel to Winnipeg for the celebration of his life. Yesterday, my friend and I spoke on the phone for a long time. Something she said stuck with me, and it's been going around and around since we spoke. She said she has never felt any pain like this before, and doesn't know where to go with it. Everything seems empty, flat and gray. She can't process (her word) unexpected things, or make decisions without stress.

This week, I had an interesting experience. I joined a group on Facebook which was a discussion and exchange of resources for Lent. Two notifications came - one for "Happy Ash Wednesday", and one for "Happy Lent". I sent a private message saying that while I understood the intent, "Happy Lent" and "Happy Ash Wednesday" didn't seem quite theologically apt.

This past week a ministry colleague of mine emailed that she had been told by some people in her congregation that there was "too much prayer" in the service, and they thought she was using prayer as a cover for being "unprepared" for worship.

I haven’t blogged for a while. That’s because I am on vacation, and was running in circles getting ready to leave Toronto last week.