A Blessings and Peace

Are you having di"culty getting into the Christmas spirit this year? I’ve heard several comments from many that this is so. For some it is simply the lack of snow that makes it hard to believe Christmas is almost here. Christmas just isn’t Christmas without that white stuff gently falling - allowing holiday opportunities for tobogganing, skating and skiing with family and friends. Perhaps it is all the political turmoil in our country that challenges our Christmas spirit. For others, the lack of Christmas spirit has a much more serious source. It lies in the predicament that people are experiencing as a result of the worldwide economic crisis. This crisis has forced many families to take a hard look at where cut backs can be made in order to reduce financial stress. It has caused others to live with little hope or joy. Some look ahead and see only darkness and pain.... Read More...

Why We Believe In The Bear Chief?

I still remember my first (and only) UFO sighting.

A young lad I was, and “it” happened when I was driving down a residential street late one evening.

Some peculiar lights caught my eye, and before I even knew what was going on, I had stopped my car, jumped out, and started flagging any traffic around me to stop and do the same. I was successful in stopping a large dude on a motorcycle to whom I proudly announced: LOOK, a UFO !!!! Read More...

Some Eccentric Scientists - Setting the Record Straight!

“What I like about scientists,” said John Wilmott, Minister of supply 1945-47 in the United Kingdom Government, “ is that they are a team so that one need not know their names.” It is perhaps from public statements of this kind that the public gets the predominant impression of the scientist as a colorless, odorless, passionless pioneer who works continually and unemotionally in the far off corner of some dreary and aseptic laboratory. Scientists are different but not different from each other. Scientists can communicate but only to each other. Scientists may be necessary to society but often seem not to be part of that public.... Read More...

The Richtiks in China

After years of being encouraged by Roy Halstead to visit China Jim and I booked an Intrepid tour for three weeks in April. This tour company out of Australia assumes that you want an inexpensive tour of up to 12 similarly adventurous people plus a guide.

Our young Chinese guide had renamed himself Harry, which he considered to be a power name. Harry informed us that we were to learn three Chinese words a day but, in practice, it was he who spent the time refining his English which was already good.... Read More...

Fields of verdant wheat and lovely yellow mustard contrast with dusty arid plains with only a few hardy shrubs. Over much of both there teems living creatures, both human and animals, goats sheep and cows.

An image that symbolizes India for me is a slender woman in a brilliant green Sari leading a herd of goats with 4 before and 5 behind across a diagonal path through a field of wheat or some other green growth. On her head she carries a large bundle of firewood consisting of cuttings of bushes and the like. This woman is likely headed for her home, probably a hovel, out of my sight. Now, she is not poor, for she has her goats. She is probably married and may be mid-ranged in the society of the village, I guess. Not poor, compared to those who carry all their possessions on their person, and sleep on the street or in alleyways of the village foraging amongst the garbage of the better-off. To my mind she represents the beauty, the mystique and the dire poverty as well as the determined nature of ordinary people... Read More...

In Love with Adultery?

I am confused.

Work through this with me: The Bible says: God is love (1 John 4:8). The Bible says: Love is not jealous (1 Corinthians 13:4). The Bible says: God’s name is jealous and this God is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14).

See my conundrum?

The above is a classic example of proof-texting. And proof-texting is the shameless slapping together of verses with absolutely no regard for context in order to make the Bible say what you want it to say (or in this case, to make it say what you probably wouldn’t want it to say). It is what televangelists like Jack Van Impe do in order to explain “world events” and in the process become fabulously wealthy (memo to self&hellip.... Read More...

The Centre for Christian Studies - a national theological school of the United Church of Canada, that is located at Woodsworth House, 60 Maryland Street - has been preparing women and men for ministry for over 100 years. Its predecessors were established to provide theological education and training for women back in the late 1800s at a time when ministry opportunities were opening up to women in the form of missionary and deaconess work. From today’s perspective it seems quite unremarkable for women to be ministers and in leadership positions in the church. However when these schools were opened, the thought of women doing any kind of public ministry was considered to be quite a radical thing.... Read More...

In 1964 Ross Yarnell of Winnipeg, a lawyer, and Shelagh McCulley of St. James, a school teacher, became Mr. & Mrs. Yarnell. They gave birth to and raised three children: Jennifer, now a Social worker in Victoria, Patrick, now an Environmental manager for Parks Canada and Derek, now a Director with an Advertising Agency in Toronto. Ross has been a member of Westminster since 1948 and Shelagh since 1967... Read More...

Last year, the moderator said United Churches should concentrate less on physical plant and more on helping others in our community and internationally. How well are we doing in helping others who don’t sit in our pews? Not badly, it would seem. Westminster has had a good reputation for outreach and that reputation is continuing – despite the need to set aside funds for leaky roofs. A good place to start an examination of our work is the Outreach Committee, chaired by Pat Miles. Its proposed budget for this year tells an interesting story.... Read More...