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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.
They’re some of the contributors to
hen Steve Bell first proposed to make a recording consisting largely of the songs of Gord Johnson, it almost went without saying that “Embrace the Mystery” would be included. Typical of much of Gord’s writing of the past several years, the song is simple in structure and designed to be sung in a repetitive chant-like fashion, yet for all of its lyrical brevity is both substantial and evocative.