Ausable Pastoral Charge
236 Hastings Street N0M 2K0 Parkhill, ON, Canada

For March 14, Lent 4 Light Fright

World Day of Prayer 2021 Virtual Service https://youtu.be/0rWE3TCR59U

Worship thoughts for Feb. 21, the first Sunday in Lent

It's time to redouble our efforts. I know we're tired. I know we're getting forgetful (ok, I'll speak for myself), and not quite as careful I was before. But th...e numbers, and the models, and the people who *know*, are warning us that we need to be even more careful in our COVID-19 protocols. The new varients of the SARS-COV-2 virus are much more easily transmitted. *Much* more easily transmitted. This is coming at a time when many of our hospital systems are near their capacity to deal with not only patients dealing with COVID-19, but any seriously ill person. I know I'm tired of it all... the restrictions and the curfews and the wondering when the vaccine is going to be available for everybody... but this is the time we need to take a deep breath, and recommit ourselves to doing everything we can to take care of our neighbours and ourselves. When the health authorities are telling us to tighten our bubbles, to stay home except for truly urgent or emergency matters, to make sure we're wearing our masks and washing our hands more regularly - then we need to *do* it. Not look for ways to get around it. Love calls us to do. And to do more. Let's.

What Were You Expecting?

Water, water, everywhere?

(This is a timed post - I'm still on holidays.) Each year, on New Year's Eve,, just after the clock turns to the next year, I have found myself praying a versio...n of John Wesley's covenant prayer. (I find that reimagining the traditional words, which you can find at Wikipedia under "Wesley's Covenant Service", helps me to say them with fuller meaning. Rewriting the prayer into new words, each year, helps me to think on what I'm saying ) Here is what I will be praying tonight. Feel free to join me. I am yours, God. Fully and completely. Place me as you desire, with whomever you desire. Give me a task, if that's what is needed. Let me suffer, if that's what is needed. Let me work for you, or let me sit, waiting, for you. Let me be lifted up for you, or laid low for you. Let me overflow, let me run dry. Let me have, let me want. Freely, without coercion, I give you all that I have, all that I am - to do with as you please. And now, as always, blessed and wonderful God - Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit - you are mine and I am yours. Let it be so. Oh, let it be so! May these words, a covenant of my heart, be sealed in God's house, as I say them in my own. Amen.