This event evolved from a friendly cricket encounter in 2016 between St. Thomas a Becket, Erin Mills South and St. Peter, Erindale. By 2019 the ACCF expanded into a great community engagement event for participating churches. However, the pandemic-related disruptions in 2020 negated the great momentum and the network of local churches that was built over five years. A modified version of the ACCF returned in June 2022 after three years. Despite the uncertainties around the pandemic, we were pleasantly surprised to see more than 70 parishioners, family and friends from five GTA churches attending the event on a glorious summer day last year. Charmaine Williams, MPP for Brampton Centre and a parishioner of St. Joseph of Nazareth, Bramalea, was among the attendees. Addressing the gathering, Ms. Williams spoke about her love and passion for the mission of God and emphasized the importance of community engagement events like the ACCF to share God’s love with the church and in the community.

This year, the ACCF will once again be organized to accommodate seasoned cricket players and those who are new to cricket. There are opportunities for absolute beginners to learn cricket, children of all ages, women and men, as the ACCF uses modified rules with the objective of giving all players a chance to bowl, bat and field.

The ACCF was launched with the aim of providing opportunities for Anglicans from the GTA’s diverse communities to get to know each other as a church community and build relationships, and enjoy food, fun and good Christian fellowship. If you are interested in playing as an individual or a church team, or if you’d simply like to volunteer, email rmendis1@gmail.com.

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Confession was a practice very dear to the heart of our Mr. Perkins. It was something he had adopted in his early days as a churchman, when with youthful zeal he had considered himself a member of the “Anglo-Catholic party,” those zealous Anglicans who loved all things catholic and ritualistic, and devoted themselves piously, perhaps even slavishly, to a catholic rendering of the Anglican liturgy and, of course, held a deep fondness for things like incense and lace. But after a short sojourn in that country, Mr. Perkins had left that all behind him, at least most of it. That was back in the day when Mr. Perkins liked to be called “Father”; now, “Mister” sufficed. Back then he reveled when he “put on Christ” in the form of a beautifully brocade silk chasuble to celebrate the sacred mysteries of the Holy Eucharist; now, he was just as happy with his black cassock and white surplice, and a simple stole or even a black preaching scarf. With age and maturity, his outward zeal had become less ostentatious, and as with many of us, as age softens our sharp edges, the simpler things had begun to prevail for Mr. Perkins.

The one thing, however, that he clung to from his Anglo-Catholic youth was the idea of private confession. He really did believe it was good for the soul. He felt strongly, both for himself and for others, that one should make their private confession from time to time as a sort of spiritual housecleaning, to cast off the things that stood in the way of a deeper, closer, more intimate relationship with the loving God. And what better time to encourage confession than the beginning of Lent? Without fail, Mr. Perkins preached about confession on Ash Wednesday. Every year he reminded his congregation of that old Anglican adage about private confession: “All may, none must, some should, few do.” And every year his congregation would dutifully chuckle at this pithy aphorism, very few taking him up on it, but every year at least a couple people gave it a try.

Like many Anglican clergy, Mr. Perkins would hear a very small number of confessions over the course of the year. Occasionally, someone who had been brought up a Roman Catholic or who, like Mr. Perkins, had once had Anglo-Catholic leanings, would come for private confession. For the most part, though, those who came to confess did not really set out to make their confession, but came to Mr. Perkins with a heavy heart about something that was troubling, some way they had treated friend or neighbour, some mistake over which they had great regret, something wrong they had done and the guilt they bore that they could not shake – these are the things that brought folk to Mr. Perkins for counsel.

As they would sit in his little study and unburden their souls to him, they were, in fact, making their confession. Mr. Perkins would offer them spiritual counsel, encouragement and love, and would finally say, “it sounds to me as if you have just made your confession,” and when they acknowledged that perhaps they had, he asked “would you like me to pronounce priestly absolution?” They would often pause for a moment, consider it, and many would say yes. And so, either right there in his little study or at the altar rail in the church, he would put on his stole, make the sign of the cross over them, and offer the words, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, who offered himself as the perfect sacrifice to the Father, and who conferred power on his Church to forgive sins, absolve you through my ministry by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and restore you to the perfect peace of the Church. Amen.” Mr. Perkins would invariably see the burden lift from his parishioner. It was as if Jesus himself were present and taking the weight away. Mr. Perkins really had nothing to do with it. His task was simply to be a witness to the pain of his brother or sister in Christ, to reassure them of God’s grace (for that is really all that priestly absolution is – it is not magic), and then to forget everything that he was told, keeping what was spoken between the penitent and God alone. The little ritual would always conclude with Mr. Perkins saying, “the Lord has put away all your sins, now go, and pray for me, a sinner.” Mr. Perkins was invariably reminded of his own need to unburden himself.

As hard as Mr. Perkins worked each Lent to help his little congregation understand confession and even encourage them toward it, there were some who never really got it, in spite of their best efforts to please him. Would I be breaking the seal of the confessional if I told you about the old woman at Christ Church who used to come annually to Mr. Perkins at the beginning of Lent for him to hear her confession? She was a pious old dear who was convinced she never sinned, and yet she knew that it was incumbent upon her, as a pious Christian, to make her confession from time to time. So, every once in a while, she would throw a bag of garbage over her neighbour’s fence so that she would have something to confess to Mr. Perkins, in order that she might receive the soothing and holy balm of priestly absolution. Mr. Perkins would gently counsel her that perhaps, just perhaps, her sin was rather one of spiritual pride, and perhaps, just perhaps, she might do some self-examination in this area. But she was adamant – she had not a proud bone in her body.

Perhaps it is like those folk who never really get the purpose of Lent altogether. Lent is a solemn time, and for 40 days the liturgy is built around penitence, self-denial, purity of heart and the sufferings of Christ. As a consequence of this, Mr. Perkins, like most other clergy, always made a point of ensuring the music in Lent was suitably solemn, to assist worshippers in assuming a suitably solemn mood in their devotion. By about his third year at Hampton’s Corner’s he could predict the individuals who would start coming to him by about the fourth week in Lent to complain that we were singing too many dirges. One well-meaning soul would always ask, “can’t we have something a bit more upbeat? The last few weeks all the hymns have been such downers.” Mr. Perkins was tempted to reply, “Yes, and so was Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, and his betrayal by Judas, and his trial before Pilate, and his crucifixion.” But being nicer and less sarcastic was one of Mr. Perkins’ regular Lenten disciplines, something he had to regularly confess to his confessor, and so with difficult restraint he refrained from berating the person, and simply responded cheerily, “Easter’s a-comin’!”

And so, you may ask, did Mr. Perkins practice what he preached? Did Mr. Perkins make regular, private confession? Yes, he did. From time to time, not on any particular schedule – although almost always around the beginning of Lent – Mr. Perkins visit his confessor, a cleric of another denomination. During this particular Lent, Mr. Perkins had gone to see his confessor about a matter that had taken place many years ago, during his early days in priestly ministry. It was a matter that he tried again and again to put out of his mind, that he was successful in ignoring and forgetting a good deal of the time, and yet it would return again and again, weighing heavily on his conscience. And what was this matter that so plagued our diminutive priestly friend, that most pious of clergymen, whom anyone could scarcely believe had ever sinned?

When he was a very new priest, he was out celebrating with friends – I think it may have even been Mardi Gras. As often happens when Anglican clerics gather, and as 40 days of self-denial were about to unfold, a certain Scottish elixir was flowing most freely. The little gathering itself was most uneventful, and in fact rather jovial. The event that was to come to plague Mr. Perkin’s consciousness and trouble him for many years took place on the way home. As he and a couple of his fellows were walking through the city streets (for Mr. Perkins was but a lowly curate in a city church in those days), they passed a man lying outside the entranceway of an apartment. They conferred amongst themselves, and Mr. Perkins was elected to investigate. Now, Mr. Perkins, who we might say was “well beyond the legal limit” in terms of what he had imbibed, approached the man. He was breathing but quite still. When Mr. Perkins was sure that the man was alive, he returned to his comrades and pronounced with no sense of irony, “he’s just drunk.” And so they went on their way, each making their way home on foot or by cab.

Two mornings later, as Mr. Perkins was drinking his coffee and reading his paper, he came across a small item about a man who had been found dead the previous morning outside that very address that Mr. Perkins had passed. Doctors suspected that he had had a heart attack while trying to unlock the outer door of his apartment. A feeling of dread came over Mr. Perkins; dread and guilt. Was this the man that Mr. Perkins had encountered and so readily dismissed as drunk? The irony was not lost on him now, for as a result of his own intoxication that evening, his memory of the event was somewhat foggy.

Mr. Perkins had a busy day ahead and tried to put the thought of the man behind him. Eventually, as the days went on, his worry and guilt about what had transpired began to recede, as is often the case in such matters. His busy life pushed away the memories, only coming to the surface from time to time in the years ahead. When they did, he would box them up in some dusty corner of his mind (or heart?) and pretend the whole incident never happened… until several years later he began to dream about the man. The man began to haunt his thoughts and would come to him at unexpected moments. He never accused Mr. Perkins, but in Mr. Perkin’s mind’s eye, he just looked at him sadly and then would disappear. The truth was, Mr. Perkins had no idea what he looked like, for he had never even seen his face. Mr. Perkin’s subconscious would conjure up a withered, sad-looking visage of someone in need, someone whom he had passed by. Perhaps this is really why Mr. Perkins had such an uncomfortable relationship with the parable of the Good Samaritan. The man would haunt Mr. Perkin’s dreams on and off for years, and Mr. Perkins would push him away and try to forget. How foolish we are when we think that pushing down something deep inside will make it go away.

Back in the present, as Lent rolled around again, the dreams had returned, and added to it was Mr. Perkin’s wondering about the man’s family. What must it have been like for them to hear their loved one had died this way? Or perhaps one of them had even discovered him, cold and lifeless. And what if they learned that someone, a priest of the Church, who was drunk, had passed him by? The burden, after all these years, had become unbearable. Thus, after Mr. Perkins had preached his annual Ash Wednesday sermon on confession, he got immediately into his car and headed to the convent.

Within an hour he was kneeling before his confessor and tearfully making his confession. He let it all flow out – his shame over his drunkenness, his failure to see Christ in the man who lay dying on the pavement, his guilt over keeping it hidden so many years, his unworthiness of the mantle of priest, and especially his unworthiness to exhort others to confession and pronounce priestly absolution.

After his confession, there came a long period of silence in which he wept. After what seemed like an eternity, he looked up and his confessor was looking down on him, with gentle, loving eyes, and she said, “William, I am a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the one who died for our sins, that we might live. For what you have done, you are forgiven, and for what you have not done you are forgiven. In the name of Jesus Christ, the God of love.” And these words followed intentionally, and slowly: “You are forgiven.” The weight began to lift, and she extended her hand and helped him gently to his feet. With eyes at level, she concluded, “The Lord has put away all your sins. Now go, and pray for me, a sinner.”

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We look up from weeding in the kale beds. A young girl’s voice calls to us from the other side of the fence, where children from Three Valleys Public School tear through the schoolyard during recess. She extends her small arm through the chain link fence, offering us some flowers she has picked. We walk over to accept her beautiful gift and offer back some flowers to her and her friends.

“What are you doing? What’s growing over there?” Bright eyes, noticing everything. They are curious about what so many of us city-dwelling adults have become immune to – the life right before us. In every plant and patch of soil we mindlessly walk (or drive) past is a world of life rooted in the sustaining Earth.

At the Common Table Farm, we grow local organic produce in the Don Mills area. These fresh veggies are distributed at no cost to families and seniors experiencing food insecurity. The farm is a project of Flemingdon Park Ministry, an Anglican charity working in the neighbourhood of Flemingdon Park for many years. We grow thousands of pounds of food each season. A farm in an urban centre like Toronto offers much more than food, however. There are so many opportunities to connect people with the Earth, with each other and with curiosity.

Last spring, Anélia Victor joined our team as the Urban Farmer & Educator. Here she shares about last season and what we look forward to in 2023:

“Can you grow dragon fruit at your farm?”

For the past year, I have heard such wonderful quotes from children, teens and adults during our workshops. As I started this position, I was excited to create educational workshops for folks living in Flemingdon Park and the area surrounding our farm. Since I am coming to almost a year in this position, I want to share the joyous moments we created as an urban farm community to teach others the importance of growing food and caring about the land that provides so much to us.

Starting in March 2022, we ran two workshops with guest facilitator Tim Martin, teaching students about the benefits of pollinating plants and bugs. The children played a fun game mimicking the flight patterns of various pollinating bugs and learned how predators can disrupt the pollination process.

Next, in August our farm hosted a community pizza-making workshop. Participants from ages 4 to 60 learned how to knead pizza dough, build a pizza using fresh ingredients from our farm, and cook a pizza using a griddle on the stovetop. After the workshop, our summer staff member Kalia distributed tote bags with pizza flour, yeast and recipes to make your own dough and pizza at home.

We ended the year with two new educational partnerships that will bring opportunities to teach the community at large. We have created a three-part workshop with Three Valleys Public School, teaching children the life cycle of vegetables – from saving seeds and planting seedlings to having dedicated beds to grow their own food. As well, we were awarded a grant from Telus to build a youth program to teach Flemingdon Park students from grades 10 to 12 how to grow their own vegetables and nurture the land.

We can learn how to nurture the land and, at the same time, the Earth nurtures us in more ways than one.

“I learned bats pollinate.” “Bees make food.” “How do you pick out the plants you want to grow?” “I want to know, do pollinators eat pollinators?” “I like seeing the flowers.” “What are those white things in dirt?”

Upon visiting the farm, students are bursting with thoughts and questions. These children will inherit what we older folks leave for them of this Earth. Our modern, urban lives tend to dissociate us from the physical world around us and the food systems that feed us. So much depends on the bats, the bees, the flowers and the white things in the dirt! Perhaps significant shifts could take place in how we relate to the Earth if we learn to become curious again.

This season the farm will be humming with learning activities, even as we keep on weeding around that kale. We look forward to hearing many more inquisitive questions – from young and old – as we farm and learn together.

To find out more about the Common Table Farm or to support its work, contact melodie@flemingdonparkministry.com or visit www.flemingdonparkministry.com.

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More than 100 ships, both cruise and cargo, are scheduled to arrive in Toronto and Oshawa during the upcoming shipping season. Each cargo ship has a minimum crew of 22 to guide and direct it, and each luxury cruise ship has an average crew of 250 to keep nearly the same number of passengers well fed and relaxed. But we are the people who take care of the crews of these commercial vessels.

We would welcome your help meeting and greeting seafarers. In the Port of Oshawa, we have a mission station where seafarers come to access free WiFi, drink a cup of coffee, have a snack and just get away from the noise and busyness of their life on board ship. In Toronto, we meet our cruise ship seafarers at the ship’s gangway to assist with local errands such as shopping in their very limited time off.

If you feel called to offer your services as a volunteer for the Mission to Seafarers in Oshawa or Toronto, please contact me at glutenfreepriest@gmail.com and I will be happy to provide you with a job description and job training. Thank you, and God bless you for your interest.

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PWRDF also participated in the Humanitarian Coalition appeal, with donations matched by the Government of Canada up to $10 million. The appeal raised more than $12 million.

The earthquake damage has been catastrophic. As of Feb. 24, the total death toll had reached more than 47,000. There are thousands of collapsed buildings, and 115 schools destroyed in Aleppo, Hama and Lattakia. Inclement winter weather has caused flooding in displacement camps.

PWRDF has allocated $5,000 to the Diocese of Jerusalem to provide food, water, clothing and medical supplies in northern Syria. Syria remains a challenging environment in which to provide support. Rescuers and aid agencies must deal with the long-term effects of the war, destruction of civilian infrastructure, economic collapse, explosive ordnance contamination, COVID-19, and one of the largest number of internally displaced people in the world.

On Feb. 13, the Middle East Council of Churches invited member churches in Aleppo to discuss coordinating a response. The Aleppo Church Leaders Committee agreed to establish an ecumenical Syria earthquake committee, along with a committee to deal with the safety of building structures.

This committee will assess the priorities of those who need help with housing and how to implement repairs. It will also distribute food and other items to existing shelters and look at ways of getting cash assistance to people.

The ACT Alliance has issued an appeal for Syria for earthquake response ($6 million) and ongoing resilience work ($5 million). There is a pledge of $3 million by the funding members so far.

Anglicans are being asked to keep the people affected by the earthquake in their prayers. Donations can be made online at pwrdf.org, by calling 416-822-9083 (or leave a message at 1-866-308-7973) or by cheque to PWRDF, 80 Hayden St., 3rd Floor, Toronto, ON, M4Y 3G2 and indicate Syria/Türkiye Earthquake in the memo field.

Submitted by PWRDF

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Poetry readings at St. Thomas began in 1988, about the time that the anthology Christian Poetry in Canada was published by ECW Press. The readers on that occasion were Robert Finch (in his final public reading), John Reibetanz, Tim Lilburn, Maggie Helwig and Margo Swiss. In 1996, the publication series began.

Mr. Meyer will be joined by Lesley-Anne Evans from Kelowna, B.C. The pandemic delayed the Toronto launch for her first book, Mute Swan (2021), until now. Also reading will be Bruce Hunter of Thornhill, retired from Seneca College. His latest book, Galestro, has just been published in Italy.

A reception in the parish hall will follow the reading in the church. Books will be available for purchase and signing by the authors. If you are unable to attend in person, the readings will be livestreamed on St. Thomas’s YouTube channel. A link for the reading is also available on the poetry website, www.stthomaspoetryseries.com.

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Fast forward to the end of January, and we found ourselves sitting on a plane preparing for the 10.5 hours it takes to get from Toronto to Tel Aviv. Aside from the anxiety of leaving our work for two weeks and wondering if we’d packed the right clothes, we wondered what exactly lay ahead in our Intro to Bible Lands course run by St. George’s College in Jerusalem.

We were greeted with sun and palm trees and a very busy international airport buzz. The first sense of home: the commuter train. Right outside the main doors of the station, with a very easy payment system, we found ourselves and bags crammed into a train heading to the city centre. Just like our daily commutes on the TTC, there was diversity, zero personal space and fast-moving vehicles, complete with inexplicable delays along the route.

Cathedral view

Dragging our cases on the cobble-stone sidewalks, we eventually found our way to the college, and here was the second sense of home: a soaring cathedral appearing in the sky with buildings, shops and the courthouse densely packed around it. Our room in the guest house had a cathedral view, and I was so elated I texted a picture to Bishop Andrew (who had just arrived in Kerala himself for the Church of South India’s annual conference, so was only a 3.5 hours’ time difference away) because at the diocesan office in Toronto we have a cathedral view every day. Just like home for the next 10 days!

The opening Eucharist at St. George’s Cathedral was the first thing on our course agenda. We were not too jet-legged to marvel at our safe travel to Jerusalem and find ourselves sitting in a beautiful stone cathedral chapel with 25 strangers-soon-to-be-pilgrim-classmates, being greeted by the Dean of the cathedral and our course guide and chaplains. Cue the tears – in that moment overcome with gratitude, sharing in the body of Christ in the Holy Land.

Since the Hiltz Scholarship began, I have known about St. George’s College and the pilgrimages on offer. I have enjoyed processing all of the applications over the years and working with the scholarship committee to grant clergy and lay people to partake of this opportunity. I loved helping Bishop Andrew plan his trip to the Holy Land a few years ago and was intrigued by his and Mary’s experience there. We know so many people who have been to the Holy Land and how much of an impact it has had upon their faith and formation. But I was truly surprised by the instant, overwhelming sense of home we experienced within the first couple of hours. That sense of home, accompanied by overwhelming gratitude, carried us throughout the pilgrimage.

The first outing our group took was to the Mount of Olives. When Dave and I were commuting from the airport to Jerusalem, we noticed with delight that the name of transit routes and stops all seemed to be Mount-something. That was such a pinch-me moment – we were somehow in the land of the Mount of Olives, etc., that we had heard about our entire lives growing up in Christian communities. There we were, standing on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the old city of Jerusalem in all its modern-day glory (complete with construction cranes), just marveling again at the ground on which we stood. Our guide said a lot of things and I could not recall any of them now, we were so taken with the view and awe of being there. Thankfully he knew that none of us were probably listening, being the seasoned guide, Bible scholar and priest he was. He took us back there later in the course when our ears were trained to listen to his calm and quiet voice and our eyes were trained to see what we were being directed to at the same time! (Isn’t there a parable in there somewhere?)

One very special outing was visiting the Haram esh-Sharif, the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Thanks to the good relationship between the college and the staff at the mosque, we were taken on a private, guided tour inside the Dome and surrounding buildings. The morning was sunny and clear, and again we found ourselves quietly marveling as we stood within the compound, taking in the glorious gold and the art of the Dome of the Rock. I was not the only one in our group weeping at that holy sight. The emotional swell came from recognizing the significance that physical structure has for millions of people of a different faith than mine, and with a shared reverence for the holy place that it is. It was stunning to be in a sacred place so important and sought after by people all over the world.

Bullet holes

We were led into a giant building next to the Dome, and our guide pointed us to the windows at the very top of the soaring ceiling. Many of the windows were shattered, and it took a few minutes to realize what it was – bullet holes and the destruction from bullets. Our guide explained that forces have tried to invade the buildings with such force even while people were inside worshipping. That was disturbing to see and something I continue to think about now that we are home. There are no bullet holes in my church’s windows. Also in the same building, we came across a group of people cleaning, dusting and tidying up. Some more familiar reality, that such holy places are also very public spaces and need to be cleaned. I have spent my whole life in church, and helping to clean up and tidy up at church is second nature, because it is your home away from home. We all have to contribute to our churches’ caretaking so that we may have a place to worship and pray in.

On our last day, early in the morning, we met the Dean in the college courtyard who would prepare and lead us through the Way of the Cross in the old city, ending at the Holy Sepulchre. I am not a morning person, nor did I at all like the visit to the Holy Sepulchre on our first day, so this was an excursion I, admittedly, was anxious about! Being the last day, however, we had had eight rigorous, fulsome days of awe-inspiring excursions under our belts, and when the alarm went on the last morning, I was already awake and eager to engage with this last adventure (a pilgrimage miracle!).

The Dean asked us to take turns carrying the cross and reading the scriptures at each station. By now we were also experts at managing our earpieces/headsets and minding local traffic so as not to be herdlike and irritate people going about their daily lives. But carrying a large wooden cross and keeping your breath to read scripture in meaningful ways in the hustle, and minding many other pilgrim groups, was a challenge. Somehow, I ended up beside the Dean and was saddled with the cross as we began. It felt awkward and weird, and the old cobblestones amongst the vendor stalls and people and cats (there are cats everywhere in the old city) gradually blended into the background as my heart took in what I was physically doing: carrying a cross through the streets of the old city in Jerusalem just as Jesus did some two thousand years ago. Ending in the courtyard of the Holy Sepulchre, we were all a puddle. As we made our way inside, we stopped at the anointing slab perfumed with fragrant oil and made our way up to the place of the crucifixion. Kneeling in front of the cross at that place of all places was an extremely humbling and meaningful moment.

We learned that an hour or so after we had passed through the second station, at the Chapel of Condemnation, a young man had run into the chapel courtyard overturning statues and trying to smash monuments. The chapel groundskeeper, who had greeted our entire group and the Dean by name just a short time earlier, threw himself on the man to restrain him. The young man apparently pleaded “insanity” to avoid charges. It was jarring to hear of another act of violence in a holy place that we had just stood in while praying and reading scripture. A day after we had arrived in Jerusalem, a Palestinian refugee camp was attacked, and several people were killed. Three days after we arrived, a Jewish synagogue was attacked, and several people were killed. The tension between violence and welcome is something I have never experienced in a place to such an extreme and was palpable throughout our time in the Holy Land.

One night we were visited by staff of a non-profit organization working for peace and understanding, specifically with young people. This was so hopeful to learn about, and I invite you to visit www.musalaha.org to consider learning more and supporting its work. As a pilgrim who was warmly welcomed and instantly found spiritual “home” in Jerusalem, I must in turn give time to pray for those who have their home in Jerusalem, and for peace and reconciliation in Israel. Thank you to the Hiltz Scholarship Committee, to Bishop Andrew and to the Diocese of Toronto for the gift of this extraordinary pilgrimage!

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When I was young and grumbled about having to do something I didn’t want to do, my mother often replied, “Offer it up.” Like many Roman Catholics of that era, she wasn’t big on God-talk, but I think that what she was telling me was this: embrace what God has put before you, including the tough things, and let your life serve as an example of Christian service. Offer your life up as an example of love in action.

My sister endured a drawn-out death exacerbated by dementia. Anxiety often overwhelmed me when I was with her during her final years, seeing her abilities fade, like circuits being pulled out of an old-fashioned telephone switchboard. Speech became more and more difficult as time passed, and her mood went up and down like a yo-yo. Yet she said two words in almost every conversation that became a kind of living prayer: “Stay positive.” Yes, I still grieve her absence, but when her face floats up into my mind’s eye, I try to keep her positive outlook in mind.

We are an Easter people, and Easter invites us to look for resurrection when the death of dreams, of our spirit, of our lives as we have known them, seems imminent – when we receive almost daily reports that creation is under threat as never before from climate change, loss of biodiversity and other kinds of environmental damage; when a pandemic that has curtailed our lives so much during the past three years still leaves its grim mark on our spirits, both individually and as a nation.

We can choose to allow the resurrected Jesus to live through our bodies and voices, our thoughts and dreams, our arms and faces. We are the Body of Christ. This is not merely a nice metaphor; it speaks of a reality by which we live as Easter people. Living a new life with Christ means infinitely more than being a good church member. It means literally living with Him, and letting his spirit penetrate our being. “Behold, I make all things new,” God tells us (Revelation 21:5). God did not say he would make all new things but all things new. God is going to take what we are and make it new – if we are open to his invitation.

Jesus is with us now, within us. He is also outside us, in others. We meet him especially in those who need our love, those we can feed, clothe, visit, forgive, and work alongside towards a world that lives out justice and dignity for all. “Live by the Spirit… the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:16-23).

Easter reminds us that our baptism must mean something; it should transform our lives and inspire us to hunger and thirst for justice and peace. It should lead us to commit to live by the values that Jesus embodied.

It’s far from easy to live out this call, especially in a world that entices us to think first and foremost of ourselves. One of the best ways to sustain us in this calling is to follow the example set before us by Jesus and by those we’ve known or still know, who embody new life in their actions, and can inspire us when the going gets tough. We can also be inspired by the miracle of new life we witness every spring: tender shoots of grass, plants and flowers springing up from what had been frozen ground only a few weeks earlier.

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