Message from Our Minister
Light of God Ministry • Reverend Mary White
READING TO CONTEMPLATE…
From “In Sync with the Sacred, Out of Step with the World”
by Tom Stella
According to Carl Jung, the purpose of life is to relocate the centre of gravity of the personality from the ego to the Self. This relocation is a spiritual journey. Relocation is a life-long endeavour that requires dedication and discipline because our ego consists of those aspects of ourselves that we identify as being “us.” Ego, to expand on philosopher René Descartes’ infamous cogito ergo sum, “I think therefore I am,” suggests that we are what we think, feel, want, need, experience, and the like. Ego claims to be the totality of who we are. The soul, on the other hand, because it lacks concreteness, is less readily recognized as being a dimension of our self. This being the case, we must learn to be quiet and still in order to catch a glimpse, feel the stirrings, or hear the sounds of silence that arise from our deeper self.
If I were to attempt to draw a picture of my soul, there would be nothing visible on the paper. But if I attempted to live from my soul, you might observe a kind of aura that permeates my presence and actions. You might sense “a quiet calm” about me even though my life is filled with the chaos of conflicted relationships and deadlines too close to meet. You might also experience in me a deep joy that is unexplainably present despite the existence of painful losses. You might be baffled by my firmness and resolve as I voice an opinion that is unpopular, especially since you know it is hard for me to be the odd person out. And you might wonder out loud why I seem so perplexed in the face of a derogatory comment that would wound the most callous among us.
This is what the soul looks like, or what it is like to live from it. This is the Self beneath the self we think we are. This is what we fall into when we let go of the self that is offended.
Because it is scary to let go of our ego and to cooperate with the relocation process Jung speaks about, we instinctively hold tight to our notion of our self even if we know that doing so prevents the possibility of being more calm, joyful, strong, and unruffled. But when we do let go of the self that is offended, it is not as if we cease to be who we’ve always been; it’s just that we begin to open up to the fullness of who we are, and in that openness, we glimpse the possibility of a new and richer life.
With Love,
Rev. Mary White
Dear Friends:
As we begin a new calendar year it is exciting to think of all the possibilities that lie ahead. The daylight is returning bit by bit and this also speaks of brighter days to come. I hope doing some singing together will further uplift the spirits of those living in your family.
The Parent Tot video has the reading of a book created from the words of a song that is also included on the video: "All Things Bright and Beautiful". Other songs are: The More We Sing Together, If You're Happy and You Know It, Roly Poly, and Jesus Bids us Shine.
The Family Fun video has these songs: Come in and Sit Down, You Are my Sunshine, Waddly Acha, Abundantly, and I am the Light of the World. Three types of birds are featured from a number of bird books including one that has recordings of bird songs.
Have a great week.
Brenda Pielle
Reaching Out to Families
Powell River United Church
Self-Reflection
The Spiritual Seers of old recognized millennia ago that we each have 4 bodies of identity: Body (physical), Mind (mental), Heart (emotional) and Soul (spiritual).
Most of us identify with them in that order. Primarily we think of ourselves as this Body that was born, lives for a while, and is destined to die.
Then within the body is our Mind, and in truth it is our thoughts that we identify with about our body, and the world, that create our reality.
At a deeper level within the mind is our Heart; and it is within our Heart that feelings of good and bad, right or wrong, love, fear, desire, sorrow and so on, arise. If we reflect upon this, we may see it is actually the feelings of emotion, or the “energy of motion” that powers our thoughts and actions.
Beyond emotion, within the innermost depth of our heart, lies the Spirit or Soul. At this level, we are free from the confines of the physical, mental and emotional worlds. This is the level that Christ, and Spiritual Seers identify with inside themselves. At this level, all sense of separation from totality dissolves, and the universal truth is revealed, that indeed God (Creator) and Spirit (Creation) are in essence One.
Betty Abbott’s Celebration of Life
January 14th, 2023 at 11:00am
Click link below to participate:
https://www.standrewskamloops.com/live
To read Betty’s obituary please click:
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/kamloops-bc/elizabeth-abbott-11094331
Soup & Bun
Sunday January 22nd following worship.
There is a sign-up sheet in Trinity Hall for anyone wanting to make soup for this event.
POEM
There
Light is only in the field sometimes – often it is not there at all and the rain seeps into
the corners of the sky
to make the trees that stand between seem darker, larger than they really are.
When light fills the field it is like liquid gold filling full a cup,
sometimes so bright the eye can hardly bear to hold there.
Only once have I known such light open like a flower so that I
was drenched in all of heaven
pouring over me, until I knew that I stood somewhere that was mine and no-one else’s for a second, for a moment, for a breath –
that I became a kind of gold
and all the world in shadow lay beyond.
Excerpt from “West” by Kenneth Steven
PRAYER
God, teach me the silence of love, the silence of wisdom, the silence of humility, the silence of faith, the silence that speaks without words. O Saviour, teach me to silence my heart that I may listen to the gentle movement of the Holy Spirit within me, and sense the depths which are God, today and always.
– Frankfurt, sixteenth century