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What if 2020 isn’t cancelled by Leslie Dwight

Ursula Andrade2020-07-06T11:31:39-07:00July 6th, 2020|

what if 2020 isnt cancelled…

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St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church
Suite 100, 1022 Nelson Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6E 4S7

T/ +1 604 683 4574

(Parking available off the lane. Free parking for Sunday services. Wheelchair accessible.)

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“Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we

“Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved.” ~ Jane Goodall

I love this one because it puts the work back on us! We get an invitation to engage and
be changed, and to trust we have the power to make it so with God. Has this happened
to you lately?

Rev. Rhian

#stawquotes #intgistogether #lightintheheartofthecity #janegoodall #standrewswesleyunitedchurch

Join us 10am Aug 9 Live Stream joint service with

Join us 10am Aug 9 Live Stream joint service with @highlands_united_church (on their Youtube channel) or watch at your convenience.

https://youtu.be/XrnO7a4Zu7M

To contribute financially to this ministry and the work of Highlands United Church please visit: https://www.highlandsonline.org/pages...

To give to the STAW community, please visit: https://pushpay.com/g/standrewswesley

Please send prayer requests throughout the week to Prayers@highlandsunited.org To contact our Online Minister please email andria.irwin@highlandsunited.org

For all other ministry personnel please visit www.highlandsunited.org

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
ZOOM COFFEE TIME!
Grab your favorite mug and gather with your friends from church! This week we are starting a Zoom coffee hour from 11-12 Sunday after worship.

Please REGISTER executivedirector@standrewswesley.com and Tom will send you the secure Zoom link (and how to use it!).

Gifted: celebrating the talents of our folks! Have

Gifted: celebrating the talents of our folks! Have a talent to share, big or small? We want to hear about it! Every Saturday we will share some of the gifts of the folks who make St Andrew’s Wesley home!

This week we are sharing how Devina decided to sew masks for healthcare workers and other essential workers to help keep them safe and protected! Never doubt you can make a difference…

#gifted #skilled #learninglab #communityrocks #elders #youngandwise #communitywisdom #faithcommunity #makingadifference #inthistogether #sharingourgifts

What has stopped you in your tracks lately and daz

What has stopped you in your tracks lately and dazzled you with its beauty? The crystal waves of the ocean, the stars like diamonds tossed across a velvet night, or just some dahlias in a vase, their heavy heads nodding at you like shy guests at your kitchen table. It is amazing the sheer amount of beauty in our world and some of it seems so...unnecessary! Like it might be beauty just for the sake of it. Poet Khalil Gibrana noted that
"beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty
hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted."

Perhaps then God is longing to enchant us, drawing us into the present moment so we may awaken to the reality that all life contains beauty.

In August our worship theme is "Beguiled by Beauty", and how one of the ways God shows up in the world is through moments of beauty. But not just through glamour or perfection. God shows up in the broken places too. God turns beauty on its head and spins it so we are not confined by narrow angles and mindsets, and come to realize the goodness, worth and beauty in all life and living things. Perhaps God gives us beauty to remind us that healing and hope is also part of our world and our path, even while we hold suffering and loss in our other palm.

So what if I gave you permission to chase beauty this week? To wear something wonderful, to prepare a gorgeous plate of food, to lose yourself in music, or drink in the full outrageous colour of the sunset, because this too is holy; this too is your spiritual work and maybe, just maybe, it might be our saving grace as we move forward in uncertain times...

With every blessings, Rhian

StAW Summer Reads Series from Rev. Gary Paterson

StAW Summer Reads Series
from Rev. Gary Paterson

I Saw Three Ships (West End Stories)
by Bill Richardson

I met Bill Richardson some forty years ago, before he was a famous author, and the winner of the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, – but even then, quirky, funny, observant, smart, self-deprecating.

I remember him learning to play the lute; or shaving his hair off, to protest violence against women. For some years Bill was the Children’s Librarian up in Kelowna, and delighted my three year old daughter, Kate, on our weekly trips to the library.

Bill’s latest book, I Saw Three Ships – a collection of eight intertwining short stories, set in the West End during the Christmas season – transports you back in time to when there used to be apartments renting for $165 a month, reminds us about the impact of HIV/AIDS in the community; and inspires us with the resilience of ordinary people who keep showing up from one story to the next, sometimes just getting through, at other times the perfect model of eccentricity and fantasy; not “wholesome,” yet pulling on our heartstrings…

What I found most compelling was Bill’s sense of “mystery” – as he says in the Foreword, “[These stories are] about secular people who undergo epiphanic moments of revelation or transcendence.” Yes, there is a not-to-be-forgotten Christmas Eve service, but most often the Spirit moves through the hearts of the SBNR (Spiritual But Not Religious) in unexpected ways, with people who are hungry for connection, forgiveness, friendship… for love. They find it in ghosts, the now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t angel on top of the Christmas tree, Weldon’s hitting the high note in “O Holy Night,” Leonard Cohen walking through Christmas Eve snowfall in a wedding dress….

Gary

https://talonbooks.com/books/i-saw-three-ships

Jen shares a morning prayer by Keri Wehlander from

Jen shares a morning prayer by Keri Wehlander from her book Circles of Grace: Worship and Prayer in the Everyday. #newlight #gardenmoments #recognizingmiraclesmercyandjoy #standrewswesley #unitedchurch

Dear Friends, I wanted to try and get the word ou

Dear Friends,

I wanted to try and get the word out about this month’s 4-week Zoom study group on The Lord’s Prayer. Practical stuff… the 4 Wednesday evenings this August, at 7 pm to 8:30 pm; register with Tom Rose (caretakers@standrewswesley.com) for the zoom connection.

Probably the bigger question, though, is “Why?” The church almost never offers summer programming for adults; we’re all too busy, it’s vacation time, kids not in school, lots of sunshine (well, maybe) -- but this summer feels different. Like, we can’t get around the way we’re used to – six feet apart, masks, don’t go to the States, can’t go to the Maritimes without 2 weeks of quarantine, and who wants to get on a plane unless you have to.

So maybe we have the time this August for an evening study group; and maybe we’d be grateful to connect with some familiar or new faces. But maybe most of all, perhaps this is a time that has many of us thinking about life and faith and God and prayer. And maybe exploring The Lord’s Prayer, the one that Jesus gave his disciples, the prayer we say or sing every Sunday – maybe that’s a good way to ponder our questions… because those oh so familiar words are about God; about our hope for a transformed world; about food, and sin and forgiveness, and the struggle to stand firm in faith, conviction. And that’s worth talking about.

One of my favourite poems is “The Way It Is” by William Stafford:

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
Things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
Or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

So what’s the thread that you are holding onto? What happens when you do let go? Is the Lord’s Prayer kind of like a thread… one woven by Jesus, to take us back to God?

I’m looking forward to this time together; and I hope we can talk about stuff that matters. If you have any questions, send me an email (rev.paterson@standrewswesley.com).

Maybe we’ll “see” each other in August.
Gary

Racism, Reconciliation, Women’s rights, Human Ri

Racism, Reconciliation, Women’s rights, Human Rights for all...sometimes we need the perseverance and apparent dogged determination of the inch-worm, ya know? #allinthistogether, #socialjusticematters, #uccan, #pacificmountainregion, #standrewswesley, #revdanadventures

A warm and sunny long weekend is coming up, which

A warm and sunny long weekend is coming up, which is perfect weather for the Pride Parade. Pride is going to be virtual instead of a physical parade because… well, you know. But it doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate – like with Sunday WORSHIP, where Rev. Curt Allison will be preaching on the spiritual themes around pride, acceptance and inclusion.

And then enjoy a Virtual Pride Parade, the Virtual Sunset Beach Main Stage Show and a Virtual walk through of “40+ Years of Vancouver Pride History.” It will start at noon on Sunday via Vancouver Pride Facebook page. And hey, you won’t get sunburned!

I believe that celebrating Gay Pride is a religious act – a proclamation of God’s love for each and every one of us. Too often churches try to set limits to that love, determining who’s acceptable to God, and who’s not; who’s in, who’s out – and too often we get it wrong. But sometimes we come close to catching a sense of God’s dream of the beloved community. The United Church has been a leader in building inclusive community, affirming that LGBTQ people are a welcome part of the church community… Hallelujah!!

AND we still have work to do. For instance, only 4 congregations in Vancouver are officially “Affirming Congregations;” only 2 in Victoria. We’ve got a lot to learn about “intersectionality,” -- how sexual orientation and race/ethnicity and class and wealth (or lack thereof) all fit together. And what about the “T” in the LGBTQ acronym – the needs and rights of transgendered people? Then there’s our calling to be aware of and involved in what is happening around the world, where homosexuality is illegal in over 70 countries, with the death sentence on the books in several of those countries – hence our congregation’s commitment to LGBTQ refugees.

So there’s work to be done, yes! But this is a time for celebration. So “Happy Pride!” and “see you” on Sunday.

Gary
PS
Join us for after worship coffee hour! If you need the zoom call information, please email executivedirector@standrewswesley.com

Giving brings us so much joy. Our refugee committe

Giving brings us so much joy. Our refugee committee raised $300,000 to Rainbow Refugee! Happy Pride from St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church!

image from @rainbowrefugeecanada

#lgbtqrefugees #affirmunited #radicalinclusion #loveislove #happyvancouverpride #happypride2020

StAW Summer Reads Series: What is Caitlin Beck re

StAW Summer Reads Series:
What is Caitlin Beck reading...

How She Read by Chantel Gibson
(https://caitlin-press.com/our-books/how-she-read/#:~:text=Chantal%20Gibson,across%20the%20Canadian%20cultural%20imagination.)

"The poetry of 'How She Read' is quick-witted, clever, exposed and elusive all at once. It plays with language and with the standard materials of the Canadian educational environment and system to tell stories from lives these materials weren't designed to see or illustrate, but which are inextricably linked to them.

This is a book of poetry that tells Gibson's stories - her family, her cultures, her experience and these are stories that were at times difficult, unfamiliar to me from how I have experienced the world. Nonetheless, I could see the threads of the stories of Canada that I was taught about as a child and how differently these resounded in the context of this author's very different life.

There are so much complexity and nuance and culture woven in these lines, I had to come back over and over again. I am certainly not done sitting with these poems."

Caitlin

#stawsummerreads2020 #chantelgibson #caitlinpress @caitlinpress.daggereditions

Despite the heat, Richard and team are making exce

Despite the heat, Richard and team are making excellent progress. Have a peek into the sanctuary to glimpse this massive seismic upgrade and restoration project. #standrewswesley, #hanginginthere, #uccanada, #revdanadventures

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