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o, when was the last time you bought a toaster, and how much did you pay for it? Maybe $25 if you’re working on a tight budget, or around $50 if you’re looking for something that will last, right?   Even if you bought yourself some high-end European-style chrome model, it can’t have cost you more than a $100.

Well, the subject of toasters came up in connection with our ongoing relationship with Agape Table, the local community nutrition program that works out of the All Saints Church hall, offering food and hospitality to as many as 250 people each day.  As they say on their own website, “Agape Table is committed to providing a community based program, nourishing the body, mind, and spirit of our guests in a cost effective and financially responsible manner.”  That has always seemed to us to be a great set of commitments, so from our earliest days we’ve been gathering fresh fruit  for them, as well as sending volunteers their way.  We’ve spent some hours gardening alongside of the sisters at St Benedict’s Monastery, bringing boxes of freshly harvested vegetables back for Agape, and for the past two years we’ve been part of hosting an open house with them on the February statutory holiday.

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The text of an address given at the official launch for Beautiful Mercy by our senior editor, Bramwell Ryan.

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t’s a delight you have joined us on a night I thought – at times – would never come.

Yesterday morning was another long-anticipated time for me. Around 1 am I completed an 18-day stretch covering the Olympics. It was quite an experience for a confirmed non-jock to spend 12 or more hours a day immersed in the world of sports.

And that experience, while physically and mentally exhausting, was also a fascinating look into a world I don’t usually work in… in this case the world of television sports coverage. I learned a lot while I was in the locker room, so to speak.

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ast night at the end of our liturgy, we had everyone who had played some role in the creation of Beautiful Mercy gather at the front of the church for a blessing.  In that context I made just a few remarks as to why we’d put such time and energy and resources into the production of a work of art (and more than being a collection of writing, art and music, this book is itself a piece of art), putting at least some of the blame squarely on the shoulders of Calvin Seerveld.  Cal is a founder member at the Institute of Christian Studies in Toronto, where for many years he taught and wrote in the area of philosophical aesthetics, labouring tirelessly to try to convince the church that the arts need to be part of who and what we are.

Well, for a number of us who call saint benedict’s table home, Cal made a pretty convincing case, so when the time came to do this blessing of the Beautiful Mercy project I pulled out my copy of his book Bearing Fresh Olive Leaves to give me the right words with which to frame things.  After worship, several people asked me about the words I’d read, looking for more information about the book and its writer, so it made sense to share the words here.  Cal often draws on the image of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with perfumed oil – an act to which Judas objected on the grounds that it was wasteful – as a good place to begin to think about art.  I read aloud the following lines from the book’s introductory essay:

When art is crafted for God and neighbour… and is simply spilled like an offering of perfume as this woman (in the gospels) did, then you as an artist have God’s authoritative blessing.  If you have been gifted by the Holy Spirit to write songs, or to draw the human face, to tell stories to children or to grown-ups so their mouths drop open, to paint colours that bring cheer to the sad, or film shapes that stop the self-assured with uneasy reflection, or if you can be trained to make choreographed gestures that bespeak righteous anger or redemptive tenderness, then you have Jesus Christ’s explicit approval for such ‘good works’ of love.

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a personal reflection on the idea of a Lenten discipline

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sh Wednesday, 8:55am, and I’ve already messed up one part of my personal Lenten discipline.  For several years now, one of the simple ways in which I have observed the season of Lent is to forego using my car radio and CD player.  I don’t know if you are like me, but the first thing I do after starting up the car is to turn on the radio, and this morning was no different.  I was heading off to an early morning breakfast gathering, and without thinking I switched on the radio to listen to the morning news.  I didn’t even get half-way down the block before it dawned on me, “It is Ash Wednesday… here we go.” Click.

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very year during February, we hold an open congregational meeting aimed at any and all who consider themselves a part of saint benedict’s table.  The past year is reviewed, the finances are considered, and a bit of dreaming and goal-setting is put on the table for wider consideration and discernment.  This year’s meeting takes place on Sunday February 21 at 4:00pm, followed by a supper at 5:30 and worship at 7:00.  This really is an open meeting, so if you’re interested in joining us, just contact us so that we can add you to the list for the meal.

If you keep reading here, you’ll find my refection for the year, followed by one from our music leader, Larry Campbell, and one from John Berard, our part-time ministry coordinator.  Later in the week, we’ll add a bit of a financial summary for the year.  Even if you can’t attend the meeting, these reports will give you a good sense of what all makes us tick.

Jamie Howison

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A reflection on how and why we might observe Lent

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s of February 17, we’ll be in the  season of Lent, so it is time to do a little reflecting on the nature of this liturgical season, and why we’d bother worrying about it in the first place.  In case you were wondering, the season starts on Ash Wednesday, February 17, which we mark with a liturgy at the church at 7:00pm.

What exactly is Lent?

Lent is the forty day liturgical season stretching from Ash Wednesday through to Easter Eve. This year Ash Wednesday falls on February 17, with Easter Day coming on April 4. The forty days, however, are interrupted by the six Sundays that come within this period, because Sundays are always resurrection days or “little Easters.”  Still, in our Sunday worship during Lent, we actually “fast” from singing or saying the word “Alleluia,” as a steady reminder of the larger season in which those Sundays fall.

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News from El-Shaddai Church in Haiti

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e’ve got a bit of a connection to El-Shaddai Church in Haiti, through our support of the annual medical mission team spear-headed by saint ben’s member Dr Pierre Plourde… and, in various ways, ably assisted by the rest of his family! What follows is a recent report of the shape of things in and around El-Shaddai, as well as an update on plans for the next mission team visit.  This report was issued January 30.

Damage report

• Seventeen days have passed since the initial 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti.  Denis now reports that it may be possible to repair some of the homes that they feared would be lost.  However, they continue to sleep out on the streets until the tremors have stopped and these buildings can be better inspected.
• We’ve been told that there are enough medical personnel in Port-au-Prince, the issue is a lack of access to medicines and supplies.  In the north, where many have fled to, there are working hospitals with the necessary supplies that are able to perform surgeries on those who could make the journey.
• We have heard that Vicky (medical student) is safe but her stepfather is suffering from severe crush injuries to both legs.
• Growing hunger is fueling violence.  Denis says it is no longer possible to manage the crowds.  If aid does arrive, there is no one to ‘keep order’ as the nearest police station is a pile of rubble filled with the bodies of dead officers.

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Our first round of doing theology in the dark…

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hile racial segregation in South Africa had its roots firmly planted in colonial times it wasn’t until the general election of 1948 that the outgrowth was fully felt as Apartheid (where the rights of the majority blacks were dismissed and minority rule by whites was entrenched). As official government policy, apartheid was a legal system of racial segregation enforced in South Africa between 1948 and 1994. In May of 1994, after years of anti-apartheid activism and imprisonment, Nelson Mandela became the first black President of South Africa in that country’s first multi-racial general election. With a deep and violent racial divide and a new black president, the question on everybody’s mind the day Mandela came to office had to have been, “how does he even begin to envision balancing black aspirations with white fears?”  On June 24, 1995, a rugby game was played that changed the hearts and minds of millions, and for a moment those aspirations and fears were forged into something beyond expectation …  a collective sense of greatness.

Based on the book by John Carlin, Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation the film Invictus is the newest project from director Clint Eastwood, and was the first to be viewed in a new occasional series we are calling “theology in the dark”. The film is about how Mandela (portrayed well by Morgan Freeman), in the early days of his presidency, set out to re-define South Africa and galvanize a country ripped apart by racial divides, by using the World Cup of Rugby which South Africa was set to host. The dilemma was that the dominantly white Afrikaner Springbok national rugby team was beloved by the white Afrikaners and despised by the blacks.  And frankly, at that point they were  just not a very good team. Mandela set out to enlist the help of team captain Francois Pienaar (Matt Damon) by inspiring him towards building a better team and to go just beyond the expectations of those around them and consider what was then unlikely – win the world cup of rugby.

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n this past Sunday night in the sermon, I offered a bit of reflection as to why we structure worship the way that we do at saint ben’s, and specifically why we use silence, contemplative music, and the kind of slow and steady pacing that we do.  I suggested that these things are important as a way of shaping us as the kind people who know something of how to focus not on the things that normally grab the attention, but rather on the places where God is most likely to be doing something; at the edge, on the margin, just out of view.  The key biblical text for the evening was that of “water into wine” – John 2:1-11 – in which Jesus’ first miracle is performed in such an understated, almost “off-stage” way that only the hired help and the disciples even know that anything unusual has happened.

And so we build some silence and space into our liturgy, which in a culture filled with noise and endless bit of information is a fairly subversive thing.

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a bit of a meditation by Byron O’Donnell, on his baptism on January 10, 2010

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here I sat, enjoying Jamie’s lighthearted remark about the tiny infant who was to be baptized in the same ceremony as me. “She has never had an unkind thought or uttered an unkind word to anyone.” Chuckling along with the congregation, I suddenly felt our whole pew stiffen as Jamie said “Byron, on the other hand…”  Our many conversations raced through my mind, somewhat akin to someone’s life flashing before their eyes. Why oh why did I ever open up to this man? I’m not sure what he actually said next, but it was fairly gentle, as is Jamie’s way.

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