Light of God Ministry • Reverend Mary White
Good Day and Blessings for the New Year
We remain in the Church season of Christmas for at least one more week. There are those who refuse to let go of Christmas so soon and others who can’t wait for all the fuss to end.
Whether we are the clingers or the discarders, it’s difficult to overlook the purpose for celebrating. As children, we are taught that we celebrate the birth of Christ, and we do. But as adults, there is the possibility for us to see through a different lens. By looking deeper, we are able to understand that Christmas is an opportunity for us to be born into our authentic selves.
Letting go of all the judgements, and negative thoughts and values that do not uplift the Spirit within is a great beginning. Can you imagine the world in which we would exist if everyone viewed Christmas in this way?
With Love,
Reverend Mary
All Are Welcome With Love
New Year’s Day Worship Service
Sunday, January 1st at 11am
Dear Friends:
I hope you had a wonderful time with your family during Christmas which is such a special time of the year.
This week the parent tot video contains the story book of Frosty the Snowman along with these songs: It's A Happy Day; This is the Way; Frosty the Snowman; and I Can Feel You Near Me God.
The Family Fun video has the story book of Charlie Brown's Christmas and the following songs: This is the Day that God Has Made; Draw the Circle Wide; Winter Wonderland; and Like a Rock.
Happy New Year and best wishes for good health and happiness in 2023.
Brenda Pielle,
Reaching Out to Families
Powell River United Church
R E A D I N G
Excerpt from Matthew Fox’s “toward-a-more-than-literal-and-more-than-rational-and-more-than-capitalist-christmas”
Christmas day is not so much a Birthday Party for the baby Jesus—an exercise in nostalgia certainly—so much as it is a Birthday Party for the Christ in all of us, the Buddha Nature in all of us, the Image of God in all of us yearning to Come Alive and Be Born finally, throwing off the shackles of history and fear and lack of self-worth to take on the dignity and the responsibility of being grown-ups; of being God-like; of being compassionate; of being fully alive.
There are many reminders of the Cosmic dimension to our lives in the Christmas story. The star of Bethlehem is one such reminder: the heavens themselves, the cosmos, is part of the birth of each of us and part of the incarnation of each of us. It is revelatory and can point the way to the Divine. Science tells us that it took not just stars but supernovas and galaxies and the birth of atoms and the life, death, and resurrection of multiple beings in the sky and the preparation of the earth including fine-tuning the atmosphere, for each of us to be born to this amazingly rich and beautiful and unique planet.
Young families please note: Kids United will resume on Sunday, January 8, 2023.
POEM ~ A Birthday Gift
No gift I bring but worship, and the love
Which all must bear to lovely souls and pure,
Those lights, that, when all else is dark, endure;
Stars in the night, to lift our eyes above;
To lift our eyes and hearts, and make us move
Less doubtful, though our journey be obscure,
Less fearful of its ending, being sure
That they watch over us, where’re we rove.
And though my gift itself have little worth,
Yet worth it gains from them to whom ’tis given,
As a weak flower gets colour from the sun.
Or rather, as when angels walk the earth,
All things they look on take the look of heaven—
For of those blessed angels, thou art one.
by Robert Fuller Murray
May you experience the constant blessing of God’s grace.
P R A Y E R
– A New Zealand Prayer Book
Creator of Love,
Through your most Holy Spirit, Mary the Jewish girl conceived your Son; may His beauty, His humanity, His all-transforming grace be born in us, and may we always embrace the strange and stirring gentleness of your almighty power.
Amen