Message from REVEREND MARY WHITE
Good Day and Blessings!
Subject to our beliefs and experiences, the concept of Love has many diverse meanings. I’ve come to understand Love as a mixture of a spiritual presence within myself, the glow of my soul, the aura of energy I have inside and surrounding me, and the radiant energy linking every part of the cosmos. I therefore embrace the Celtic spiritual belief of Anam Cara…
“Anam Cara refers to the Celtic spiritual belief of souls connecting and bonding. In Celtic Spiritual tradition, it is believed that the soul radiates all about the physical body, what some refer to as an aura. When you connect with another person and become completely open and trusting with that individual, your two souls begin to flow together.”
https://anamcaraministry.ca/anam-cara-meaning
With Love,
Rev. Mary White
Dear Parents, Families and Friends,
The story this week on the Family Fun video is about a zebra making friends with a gazelle, and it is from a book called, Unlikely Friendships. I mentioned on the video that the stories in this book remind me that we can all be surprised as to where and with whom we might find a friend. Our lives are expanded when we have friends from many diverse backgrounds. As the song says, "Draw the circle wide, draw it wider still. Let this be our song, no one stands alone, standing side by side, draw the circle wide."
The parent tot video includes a book about insects, as well as these songs, "Higgledy, Piggledy Bumblebee", "From My Head Down to my Toes, God Loves Me", "Itsy, Bitsy Spider", "Alphabet Song", "Twinkle, Twinkle", and "God Made Me".
The Family Fun video has the following songs along with the above mentioned story: "This Land", "Kum By Ya", "Corner Master Store", "All I Really Need", and "Draw the Circle Wide."
Here's wishing you lots of fun sun filled days to enjoy with your family.
Brenda Pielle
Reaching Out to Families
Powell River United Church
Reading Excerpt from “Anam Cara” by John O'Donohue
The Umbra Nihili
In a vast universe that often seems sinister and unaware of us, we need the presence and shelter of Love to transfigure our loneliness. This cosmic loneliness is the root of all inner loneliness. All of our life, everything we do, think, and feel is surrounded by nothingness. Hence, we become afraid so easily. The fourteenth-century mystic Meister Eckhart says that all of human life stands under the shadow of nothingness, the umbra nihili. Nevertheless, love is the sister of the soul. Love is the deepest language and presence of soul. In and through the warmth and creativity of Love, the soul shelters us from the bleakness of that nothingness. We cannot fill up our emptiness with objects, possessions, or people. We have to go deeper into that emptiness; then we will find beneath nothingness the flame of Love waiting to warm us.
POEM Excerpt from Neil Paynter (ed.) “Growing Hope”
The Prayer Stool by Graham Kings
I leave aside my shoes
– my ambitions
Undo my watch
– my timetable
Take off my glasses
– my views
Unclip my pen
– my work
Put down my keys
– my security
To be alone with you
the only true Creator
After being with you
I take up my shoes
to walk in your ways
Strap on my watch
to live in your time
Put on my glasses
to look at your world
Clip on my pen
to write up your thoughts
Pick up my keys
to open your doors
PRUC Online Worship Service
Please join us this Sunday, July 18th
PRAYER
Spirit of Love
May your grace of Love glow upon our face; may the humanity of Love inspire us. May your Spirit of Love support us in the shadows of life; may the strength of Love keep us to be respectful. May the kindness of Love surprise us; may the warmth of Love take our breath away. May the believability of Love give us hope. We pray this in the name of the One who brought Love’s understanding to the world.
Amen