The Gleanings Project: Ordinary Heroes: Celebrating United Church Women

“Walking on Water” Acrylic on Paper, DS

Boughton, Noelle, Ed. Ordinary Heroes: Celebrating United Church Women. Toronto, ON: United Church Publishing House, 2012.

497 Words

[For] those who continue in their footsteps. 

Like the Samaritan woman at the well, I have been offered living water here, inspiration to carry a passionate witness. Like Huldah the prophet, I am excited by a book that offers rich resources for learning about who we are as people of God. Like Joanna, I am reminded to the joy and pain of being a friend of Jesus. And like the Shunamite woman, I celebrate the good that comes of service.

Jesus said, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. (Matt 22:37) (Tindal, 7)

As we read the gospel stories and engage their meaning for our time, we need to find even more creative ways to witness to the gospel story that calls us and challenges us. (12)

It isn’t just the church that is changing; just about all aspects of Canadian society have changed in the past 50 years . . .  demanded new formats of Christian practice to allow people in changing times to continue to benefit from the riches of our scriptures. (15)

Our church’s engagement in a addressing the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools and the impact of colonization is already providing new narratives for the church in relation to radical reimaging and sustainability. (16)

Congregations as we know them will continue to be an active and a valuable option, but not the only option . . . Imagine new ways of being church together . . . (17)

Artist Caroline Pogue created a 16-inch (40.6 cm) Poverty Doll . . . presentations of dolls to dignitaries and celebrities . . .  (52-53)

Mary’s prayer shawl ministry (54)

Leading worship . . . collecting postage stamps . . . (59)

The older UCW members . . . were a great resource for the younger members. (60)

The UCW members worked hard holding afternoon teas, strawberry festivals, and other projects to raise needed funds . . . with God anything is possible, transformation, rebirth, and even reopening of churches become realities. (63)

The studies included, for example, questions about Aboriginal rights or Aboriginal women . . . (71)

New approaches to Bible study such as lectio divina . . . (73)

Beads of Hope . . . HIV/AIDS . . . (77)

Because our labyrinth has been created out of painter drop cloths that have been sewn together . . . we remove our shoes to keep it clean . . . holy ground . . . (80)

She was there to share her Spiritual Journey with a series of original oil paintings . . .  how the Bible relates to today’s world . . . It made me remember the first time God spoke to me . . . (82-83)

I made some good friendships and valued being with other young parents as well as grandmothers as we built community . . . (93)

The Gleanings Project: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

“Piper at ECUAD” Collage by DS

McEntyre, Marilyn Chandler. Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Grand Rapids, MI: 

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009.

385 words

“Foster the kind of community that comes from shared stories . . . “ (Mc Entyre, xi)

“There is, in all of us, a hunger for words that satisfy, not just words that do the job of conveying requests or instructions or information, but words that give a pleasure akin to the pleasures of music. “ (27)

“Mere lists of nouns can be poetry.” (38)

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant. . .” (Dickenson, Emily, in McEntyre, 41)

“Opinions are the stock-in-trade of thoughtful people to be earned and held strongly until further evidence requires their modification.” (41)

“The practice of precision not only requires attentiveness and effort; it may also require the courage to afflict the comfortable and, consequently, tolerate their resentment.” (44)

“Healing involves naming the insults and offenses.” (59)

“We inhabit narratives . . . every story provides a space in which author and reader meet . . . some readers . . . become the guides or docents in those spaces.” (78)

“Once we have dwelt in a particular house of fiction, we hold within us the memory of the landscapes and intimate spaces it affords. And that memory furnishes and redesigns our interior spaces where thought is born and nurtured.” (79)

“Our lives are lived in relationship to words, written and spoke, sacred and mundane. They are manna for the journey.” (86)

“Conversation is a form of activism . . .” (89)

“Curiosity is a form of compassion . . . ‘What is it like for you?’” (98)

“When silences are allowed, conversation can rise to the level of sacred encounter.” (107)

“Understand how richness of experience, even the most searing, blesses us in the struggle.” (115)

“Stories are pathways.” (121)

“High intelligence involved in word play offers not only entertainment but encouragement.” (188)

“The story is told of Mother Teresa that when an interviewer asked her, ‘What do you say when you pray?’ She answered, ‘I listen.’ The reporter paused a moment then asked, “The what does God say?’ She replied, ‘He listens.’ It is hard to imagine a more succinct way to get at the intimacy of contemplative prayer.”  (211)

“When the mystics speak of prayer, they are talking about that which will create in us a new structure of consciousness.” (O’Connor, Elizabeth, in McEntyre, 220)

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as a Practice of Lament: The Light We Carry

“Altar Painting and Hearth” DS

Hear are today’s explorations:

Obama, Michelle. The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times. 2022.

1000 words

*** To all those who use their light to make sure others feel seen. *** The cane helped my dad get himself up the stairs to our apartment or down a city block. *** That cane symbolized nothing. It was just a tool . . . *** If the indignities of his disability dimmed his spirit, he rarely showed it. *** Giving voice to all this felt a bit risky . . . *** I got up the next morning and took Becoming on the road. *** What I do know is that these times left us wobbly and unsettled. *** Have I felt angry? Yes, I have. *** What I can offer is a glimpse inside my personal toolbox. *** What we share as humans on this earth is the impulse to strive for better, always and no matter what. *** after pandemic *** How do we adapt? *** The smallest of tools can help us sort through the largest of feelings. *** I mail-ordered myself some knitting needles without quite realizing what I needed them for. *** Sasha and Malia continued their schoolwork online. Barack was busy writing his memoirs . . .  I launched a video series in which I read storybooks out loud for kids. *** I was in a low place before I finally got around to picking up the two beginner-sized knitting needles. *** There was my beautiful country. There was the kindness and grace of people helping out their neighbours . . . There were crowds marching in the streets, determined not to let another Black person’s death go unnoticed. *** After stalling on my convention speech I finally knew what I wanted to say. *** It’s okay to pace yourself, get a little rest, and speak of your struggles out loud. *** It’s these small rearrangements that help us untangle the bigger knots. *** What does it mean to be comfortably afraid. *** Saying no would be a relief, I told myself. *** But that’s exactly why my mom made me do it. *** Each leap I’ve taken has only made the next leap easier. *** One of us bites; the other hurts . . .  And that’s what I want to talk about here – the possibility of starting kind. *** Children show us how instinctive the need for gladness is all the time. *** Nearly everyone on earth experiences . . . that prickling awareness that you’re somehow not suited to your environment, that you’re being viewed as a trespasser. *** They never seemed to sweat, these women . . . *** I understood none of this at the time. *** My group of friends made me feel less alone . . . I still had to step out of my at-home circle and into the force filed of the broader culture. *** It made him noticeable, visible in all the right ways. *** It was ease despite struggle. *** We are a young country dominated by old narratives. *** I am not someone who takes friendships lightly. *** My days became a surreal mishmash of the mundane and the extraordinary, the practical and the historic. We needed a pencil box for Sasha, a ball gown for me. *** My real friends know what I look like without make-up on  . . . *** We must continue to practice the art of opening ourselves and connecting with others. *** The best way to be a friend to someone . . . to appreciate each person for what they bring, receiving them simply as themselves. *** When and if my kids do choose someone, finally, to be with for life, I want them to do it from a place of strength, truly knowing who they are and what they need. *** Unlike in my family, Barack’s family hugged each other a lot. *** This is where certainty begins . . . you step out into the balmy Honolulu night with a vault of stars overhead, hit suddenly by the realization that you have made it your home. *** My mother is now eighty-five. She operates with a quiet mirthful grace. Glamor and gravitas mean nothing to her. *** If Grandma was going to talk to the media, Grandma was going to speak her truth, and get it over with. *** As long as you are still breathing, you’ll be wondering if there’s something more you can do. *** My mom showed me how to set my wake-up time and how to turn the alarm off when it buzzed. *** From the day she birthed each of her children, my mother was striving toward a singular goal, and that was to render herself more or less obsolete in our lives. *** It must have been during these hours that my mother arrived at the idea, even unconsciously, that her own kids someday, would not just be allowed but encouraged to speak. *** Our parents saw us each as different and treated us that way. *** How do we build places where gladness lives – for ourselves and others, and most especially our children – and to which we will always want to return? *** A month before a new president was sworn in, my mother happily packed her bags. *** If you know me, than you will also know the exceptionally talented and even-keeled people who have been on my team over the years. *** You leave home knowing that you’re holding a tray stacked high with the hopes and sacrifices of others. *** There was a choice to be made between fear and faith . . . *** I held Barack’s hand and walked onto the inaugural platform, trying to inhabit the boldness that seemed to be called for. *** She’d converted what seemed like a vulnerability into a unique asset, something potent and useful. *** Our differences are treasures and they’re also tools. They are useful, valid, worthy, and important to share. *** When you do the work, you own the skills. ***