GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE
Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address:
waholst@telus.net
This e-mail is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
Autumn is my favourite season of all - even though I find something special about all four seasons. Having lived in parts of the world where there were essentially only one or two seasons, I am grateful to live in a country with four. Enjoying some natural beauty in them all is very certainly one of the joys of my eighth decade of life.
I look back on previous decades with a growing sense of appreciation for each - but I have to admit to believing that "the best wine has been preserved for last." The beauty of autumn leaves is a happy confirmation of that.
Not a morning dawns but I am grateful to be able to make a mental note of a number of important challenges and work opportunities for the day ahead.
I did not expect that I would reach the age of seventy-five - much less having such joy in the process! By this time, both my dad and granddad had become "old" and ready to die. They lived in a different time, but that's not true for me!
A mentor, earlier on, suggested that having love and work in one's life was a goal to strive for in the senior years. That has been a gift I have been given. It has been sheer grace. I am so grateful to my partner, Marlene, whom I came to know at age sixty when I thought the best of it was over. Indeed, life for me was only just beginning! Since then, to be able to start doing the work I wanted to do for its inherent value and not just to make a living has been a wonderful, unexpected serendipity...
I don't know how long this special time will last. What I can say is that I am determined to make the most of each day and to make every one of them count. I don't know what my legacy will be but, fortunately, that doesn't bother me like it once did.
The number of years I have left and the opportunities still ahead are not my main concern today. I look at those beautiful leaves outside my window and hope I will be something like them. In spite of what happens tomorrow, they are giving it their all - today!
*****
COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log
September 27thk, 2017
"What Does God Worry About?"
http://tinyurl.com/ydcuppx6
--
Martin Marty,
Chicago, IL.
Sightings,
September 25th, 2017
"Nonwhitesome Mormons"
http://tinyurl.com/ycw337ly
-
Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX
Personal Website
September 25th, 2017
"A Prayer for Stillness"
https://tinyurl.com/yb5la59z
*****
NET NOTES
ROHINGYA REFUGEE NUMBERS
APPROACHING 500,000
Supports Severely Strained
UCA News
September 22nd, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/ya97kdd7
--
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
GETS A SPECIAL GLOSSARY
To Help Understand Ancient English
Religion News Service
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/ydd3epgr
--
DAVID MAINSE - "CANADAS PASTOR"
DIES AT 81 - HE PIONEERED TV MINISTRY
Christian Week
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/yd9fu86u
Reflection on the Life of David Mainse
by Colleague Lorna Dueck
Context
--
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS NEEDS RENOVATIONS
Seeking Help from Local and Foreign Sources
New York Times,
September 29th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ybktxaho
--
THE REFORMATION ANNIVERSARY -
SOME PERSONAL REMARKS
The 500th Has Had A Marked
Affect on Germany This Year
The Paulist - Koinonia
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/y8kcf5d6
"German Election is Evidence
of a Mature Democracy - and
No Need to Panic Over Far Right... Yet"
La Croix
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/ydhsta95
--
TEN ANGLICAN CHURCHES CLOSING
EVERY YEAR IN WALES
110 in the Past Ten Years
BBC News
September 24th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y8mhxy4r
--
FIRST MUSLIM COLLEGE IN THE USA BUYS
LUTHERAN SEMINARY CAMPUS IN BERKLEY
Significant Step in American Islamic Education
Religion News Service
September 25th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ycsmvuwk
--
CANADIAN JESUIT CANOE PILGRIMAGE PROMOTES
RECONCILIATION WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
America Magazine,
September 24th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y6v7vvgl
*****
WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement, and remuneration based on ability.
- Sandra Day O'Connor
--
As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
- Elie Wiesel
Love gave me the key to my vocation. I realized that if the church was a body made up of different members, she would not be without the greatest and most essential of them all. I realized that love includes all vocations, that love is all things, and that, because it is eternal, it embraces every time and place. Swept by an ecstatic joy, I cried, "At last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! I have found my place. I will be love. So I shall be everything and so my dreams will be
fulfilled!”
- Thérèse of Lisieux
--
Dying is not the end, it is just the beginning. Death is a continuation of life. This is the meaning of eternal life; it is where our soul goes to God,to be in the presence of God, to see God, to speak to God, to continue loving him with greater love. We only surrender our body in death – our heart and our soul live forever. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we are ready, and prepared, to die with a clean heart.
- Mother Teresa
--
How can we not lose our souls when everything and everybody
pulls us in different directions? How can we “keep it together”
when we are constantly being torn apart? Jesus says, “Not a
hair of your head will be lost. Your perseverance will win you
your lives” (Luke 21:18–19). We can only survive our world
when we trust that God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. We can only keep it together when we believe that God holds us together. We can only win our lives when we remain faithful to the truth that every little part of us, yes, every hair is completely safe in the divine embrace of our Lord.
To say it differently: when we keep living a spiritual life, we have nothing to be afraid of.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen
*****
MOMENT IN TIME
Globe and Mail,
September 28th, 2017
Penicillin is discovered
Sept. 28, 1928: Before the discovery of penicillin, hospitals were full of people infected by bacteria that doctors could do little about. Enter scientist Alexander Fleming, who returned from holiday in 1928 and began to sort through petri dishes containing colonies of staphylococcus bacteria. He noticed something strange – one dish was dotted with colonies, except for an area with a blob of mould, which had broken down the harmful bacteria. Fleming grew a pure culture and named it “penicillin.” His findings were published, but not given much attention until pathologist Howard Florey and his colleagues turned the laboratory curiosity
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE
Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address:
waholst@telus.net
This e-mail is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
AUTUMN LEAVES
A Short Personal Reflection
On the Changing Seasons
As I write these lines on a beautiful fall afternoon, with a lovely yellow view emanating from the crab apple tree outside my office window, I am enjoying the classical jazz rendition of "Autumn Leaves" by my favourite saxophonist, Stan Getz. You might want to enjoy him too -- http://tinyurl.com/ozou9oo
As I write these lines on a beautiful fall afternoon, with a lovely yellow view emanating from the crab apple tree outside my office window, I am enjoying the classical jazz rendition of "Autumn Leaves" by my favourite saxophonist, Stan Getz. You might want to enjoy him too -- http://tinyurl.com/ozou9oo
Autumn is my favourite season of all - even though I find something special about all four seasons. Having lived in parts of the world where there were essentially only one or two seasons, I am grateful to live in a country with four. Enjoying some natural beauty in them all is very certainly one of the joys of my eighth decade of life.
I look back on previous decades with a growing sense of appreciation for each - but I have to admit to believing that "the best wine has been preserved for last." The beauty of autumn leaves is a happy confirmation of that.
Not a morning dawns but I am grateful to be able to make a mental note of a number of important challenges and work opportunities for the day ahead.
I did not expect that I would reach the age of seventy-five - much less having such joy in the process! By this time, both my dad and granddad had become "old" and ready to die. They lived in a different time, but that's not true for me!
A mentor, earlier on, suggested that having love and work in one's life was a goal to strive for in the senior years. That has been a gift I have been given. It has been sheer grace. I am so grateful to my partner, Marlene, whom I came to know at age sixty when I thought the best of it was over. Indeed, life for me was only just beginning! Since then, to be able to start doing the work I wanted to do for its inherent value and not just to make a living has been a wonderful, unexpected serendipity...
I don't know how long this special time will last. What I can say is that I am determined to make the most of each day and to make every one of them count. I don't know what my legacy will be but, fortunately, that doesn't bother me like it once did.
The number of years I have left and the opportunities still ahead are not my main concern today. I look at those beautiful leaves outside my window and hope I will be something like them. In spite of what happens tomorrow, they are giving it their all - today!
*****
COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS
Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC
Personal Web Log
September 27thk, 2017
"What Does God Worry About?"
http://tinyurl.com/ydcuppx6
--
Martin Marty,
Chicago, IL.
Sightings,
September 25th, 2017
"Nonwhitesome Mormons"
http://tinyurl.com/ycw337ly
-
Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX
Personal Website
September 25th, 2017
"A Prayer for Stillness"
https://tinyurl.com/yb5la59z
*****
NET NOTES
ROHINGYA REFUGEE NUMBERS
APPROACHING 500,000
Supports Severely Strained
UCA News
September 22nd, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/ya97kdd7
--
BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER
GETS A SPECIAL GLOSSARY
To Help Understand Ancient English
Religion News Service
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/ydd3epgr
--
DAVID MAINSE - "CANADAS PASTOR"
DIES AT 81 - HE PIONEERED TV MINISTRY
Christian Week
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/yd9fu86u
Reflection on the Life of David Mainse
by Colleague Lorna Dueck
Context
September 25th, 2017
--
NOTRE DAME DE PARIS NEEDS RENOVATIONS
Seeking Help from Local and Foreign Sources
New York Times,
September 29th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ybktxaho
--
THE REFORMATION ANNIVERSARY -
SOME PERSONAL REMARKS
The 500th Has Had A Marked
Affect on Germany This Year
The Paulist - Koinonia
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/y8kcf5d6
"German Election is Evidence
of a Mature Democracy - and
No Need to Panic Over Far Right... Yet"
La Croix
September 27th, 2017
https://tinyurl.com/ydhsta95
--
TEN ANGLICAN CHURCHES CLOSING
EVERY YEAR IN WALES
110 in the Past Ten Years
BBC News
September 24th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y8mhxy4r
--
FIRST MUSLIM COLLEGE IN THE USA BUYS
LUTHERAN SEMINARY CAMPUS IN BERKLEY
Significant Step in American Islamic Education
Religion News Service
September 25th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ycsmvuwk
--
CANADIAN JESUIT CANOE PILGRIMAGE PROMOTES
RECONCILIATION WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
America Magazine,
September 24th, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y6v7vvgl
*****
WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement, and remuneration based on ability.
- Sandra Day O'Connor
--
As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
- Elie Wiesel
--
People are more themselves when joy is the fundamental thing in them, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live.
- G. K. Chesterton
--
We must love God, but let it be in the work of our bodies, in the sweat of our brows. For very often many acts of love for God, of kindness, of good will, and other similar inclinations and interior practices of a tender heart, although good and very desirable, are yet very suspect when they do not lead to the practice of effective love.
- St. Vincent de Paul
--
People are more themselves when joy is the fundamental thing in them, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labor by which all things live.
- G. K. Chesterton
--
We must love God, but let it be in the work of our bodies, in the sweat of our brows. For very often many acts of love for God, of kindness, of good will, and other similar inclinations and interior practices of a tender heart, although good and very desirable, are yet very suspect when they do not lead to the practice of effective love.
- St. Vincent de Paul
--
Love gave me the key to my vocation. I realized that if the church was a body made up of different members, she would not be without the greatest and most essential of them all. I realized that love includes all vocations, that love is all things, and that, because it is eternal, it embraces every time and place. Swept by an ecstatic joy, I cried, "At last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love! I have found my place. I will be love. So I shall be everything and so my dreams will be
fulfilled!”
- Thérèse of Lisieux
--
Dying is not the end, it is just the beginning. Death is a continuation of life. This is the meaning of eternal life; it is where our soul goes to God,to be in the presence of God, to see God, to speak to God, to continue loving him with greater love. We only surrender our body in death – our heart and our soul live forever. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come; we must live each day as if it were our last so that when God calls us we are ready, and prepared, to die with a clean heart.
- Mother Teresa
--
How can we not lose our souls when everything and everybody
pulls us in different directions? How can we “keep it together”
when we are constantly being torn apart? Jesus says, “Not a
hair of your head will be lost. Your perseverance will win you
your lives” (Luke 21:18–19). We can only survive our world
when we trust that God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves. We can only keep it together when we believe that God holds us together. We can only win our lives when we remain faithful to the truth that every little part of us, yes, every hair is completely safe in the divine embrace of our Lord.
To say it differently: when we keep living a spiritual life, we have nothing to be afraid of.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen
*****
MOMENT IN TIME
Globe and Mail,
September 28th, 2017
Penicillin is discovered
Sept. 28, 1928: Before the discovery of penicillin, hospitals were full of people infected by bacteria that doctors could do little about. Enter scientist Alexander Fleming, who returned from holiday in 1928 and began to sort through petri dishes containing colonies of staphylococcus bacteria. He noticed something strange – one dish was dotted with colonies, except for an area with a blob of mould, which had broken down the harmful bacteria. Fleming grew a pure culture and named it “penicillin.” His findings were published, but not given much attention until pathologist Howard Florey and his colleagues turned the laboratory curiosity