Mount Albert United Church

We gather on the traditional territories of many Indigenous nations who have called, and continue to call, this area home.  We acknowledge the Huron-Wendat, the Haudenosaunee, and the Anishinabewaki Peoples who cared for, and lived in harmony with, this land long before our ancestors arrived from Europe.  We confess that our ancestors were often neither fair nor ethical in their dealings with the Indigenous Peoples of this land.  We pray that we may better learn to walk a path of reconciliation; we pray that we may better learn to live in harmony with the land in, and around, Mt. Albert (rev. 210921).

September 1/23 

I read an article the other day that took me back about five decades.  The story had to do with a teenage boy who loved to build model airplanes, but who had a mini-trauma when the glue he was using on his latest project actually melted the plastic pieces!  You see, I used to love building models as a youngster – did you?  But when this young lad about whom I was reading went back to the store, he was heartlessly told, “You didn’t follow the instructions properly!  You used the wrong type of glue!  See, it says right here on the tube:  NOT for use on plastic!”

It seems to me that story carries a larger lesson because we, too, have instruction books. The Bible, our Christian tradition, centuries of theology, all hold pages, and pages, of instructions. Yet how much time do we spend on a regular basis to engage those instructions, and see how they fit into our lives?  How much conscious effort do we take to integrate the helpful part of those instructions into how we live each day?

Now then, thank heavens God is never as heartless as that person who worked in the store; thank heavens God has forgiveness for all the occasions when we fail to follow the instructions properly!  And yet forgiveness takes time and effort too – how much richer could our lives be if we stopped taking steps in the wrong direction?

I send you best wishes and prayers for a spiritually bountiful, and well-instructed, autumn,

Warren (a.k.a. Rev. Ball!)