Wesley United Church
6 Cambridge St N1R 3R6 Cambridge, ON, Canada

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RETHINKING ANCIENT TEXTS by Keith Hagerman Sometimes people attend concerts to hear music they know. Other times they attend to be introduced to a new experience. I have been in both camps, but I was inspired to new levels by Against the Grain Theatre’s reinterpretation of the age-old music of Handel’s Messiah in its online presentation Messiah/Complex. We have moved beyond the season of Christmas, but this performance is appropriate for any season, crossing boundaries and m...Continue reading

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The story of Christmas as told by children. Adorable.

Wisdom of the elderly.

The much-needed repair bars are all installed in the sanctuary. We will soon not notice their presence.

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The decorating committee have done a wonderful job in decorating the front of the church for the weekly services.

2020-11-25 Thoughts for the beginning of Advent from Rev. Keith Hagerman We have been in a time of expectancy: our dog is about to have puppies at least we thi...nk she is. The breeder who facilitated this pregnancy tells us that there can be false pregnancies, but Clara is showing all the signs of being large with puppies, and her expected due date is here. In other words, this birth is imminent! Something is about to happen. We don’t know exactly when. We don’t know how many puppies (it could be anywhere from one to 10!). There is excitement in our house, but also some worry, for we have never done this before. We have been reading about how to help as dogs give birth, and have been collecting all the things we may need from a heat lamp for keeping the puppies warm, to dental floss for tying off tiny umbilical cords. We have built a whelping pen to keep Clara and the puppies safe, and everything is ready. I share these things with you because it parallels the time of Advent we are about to enter. The Church year begins with Advent. It is a time of hope and expectancy. Anything can happen. We don’t know exactly when, so we have to keep alert. The lectionary Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Advent this year is Matthew 13:24-37 which uses the instructions keep awake and keep alert for we do not know when the time will come. Sounds a lot like us and Clara it could be in the middle of the night; it could be while kids are at school; it could be while I am away. How do we prepare for all of these eventualities? How do we get ready? Our faith story tells us that with Advent we look forward to the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. A birth is about to happen: the sacredness of life that we associate with God is about to be unleashed in our lives so that life will be on earth as in heaven. The scriptures characterize it as a leveling of the playing field where the downtrodden will be lifted up, where the afflicted will experience comfort, where the hungry will be filled, where peace and fullness of life will be known. And, say the scriptures, the glory of the Lord shall be known, and all flesh shall see it! As 2020 draws to a close, we could use some of that. With Advent, we begin our faith story again, recognizing our need for God in our lives, and looking with hope and expectancy to God coming to us in surprising ways. This is not business as usual, with the same old thing happening again and again. It is about opening our eyes to the unexpected blessings that come to us. Perhaps we will be surprised; perhaps we will discover joy in unexpected places; perhaps we will encounter new paths, new ideas, new friendships, new possibilities; perhaps we will find that this time is a blessing for us beyond what we could have imagined. We begin with an attitude of expectancy, alert to what may be happening around us and within us. Advent begins this Sunday, November 29. Since we are in an unusual year, with no in-person worship, and without the possibility of Choirs and Carols, our worship will depart from its usual format: on Sunday, we will have a Hanging of the Greens an ancient tradition in the church of decorating the sanctuary with symbols of the season and making links to our faith story. As you decorate your home in Advent, you also will be getting ready to make it a sacred place, connecting to the sacred in the symbols that you place around you. May this Sunday’s service be a link that helps transform your home into a place of worship and connection to the sacredness of life. Looking forward to seeing you online In solidarity and toward shalom

Behind the scenes action at today's live-streaming church service.

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Wesley United Church members selling masks beside the church, close to the Cambridge Market on October 3, 2020.

Wesley United Church, the church on the Cambridge Market Place, saw a busy fruit market on October 3, 2020.

THOUGHTS FOR THE SEPTEMBER 20TH WEEKEND... Different cultures have different ways of counting time. Ancient cultures counted lunar months, because the cycles ...of the moon were a readily observable way to count time. In the same way, the cycles of the moon, aligned with the cycles of the sun became identified as a year. Since lunar months do not align exactly with years (there being 354 lunar days in a year), different cultures have employed various ways to notate divisions (often called months) which together form a year. In ancient China, there were ten months in a year, each 36 days long. In ancient Rome, there were also ten months, but Emperor Julius and Emperor Augustus both wanted months named after them, so July and August were added to make twelve months. Other cultures followed the monthly lunar cycle, and then added days every few years to realign with the seasons of the sun. Weeks also varied in length. Our seven day week has a tradition reaching back to the ancient Near East, but along the way there were experiments with eight day weeks (Hellenistic period) and other divisions within a month. Some cultures didn’t even bother to name weeks or days. In ancient Persia, only particular days in the cycle of the moon were named: new moons, half moons, and full moons (the Ides). The Roman Emperor Julius Caesar effected drastic changes in the counting of time, establishing a twelve month year that ran from January 1 December 31, based on a solar rather than a lunar calendar. The dating system that we now use is also connected to Julius’ reign. The resultant Julian calendar remained in almost universal use in Europe until 1582, and in some countries until as late as the twentieth century. Today we use the Gregorian calendar, which aligns more precisely to the solar year with the insertion of leap years every four years. These are all ways of talking about secular time, but throughout history, people have also notated sacred time, with yearly festivals celebrating sacred events. Sometimes these were connected to creation and thanksgiving for harvest, or asking the blessing of the sun and rain on crops, or the blessing of the winds and water that would bring fish. Sometimes they remembering sacred events in the past. Such times are celebrated with particular rituals, with song and dance, with gathering together and feasting; others are observed with silence or with fasting. In worship this month, we have been reading from the book of Exodus, and how the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites, so that they could escape from slavery in Egypt. This Passover then became a central festival for their descendants, as they retold the story. The story became part of their identity. For Christians, every Sunday (the first day of the week) is a little Easter, a celebration of the resurrection. This is central to our identity. However, the dating of the yearly celebration of Easter is itself dependent on both the cycles of the moon and the cycles of the sun, occurring on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox! Lent then is set to begin forty days plus six Sundays before Easter, with Pentecost set fifty days after Easter. I share these things with you because this weekend is Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish new year, beginning with sundown on September 18 and ending with sundown on September 20. As Christians, our new year begins on the first Sunday of Advent, four Sundays before Christmas (which is itself an arbitrary dating, but that is another story), when we begin all over again to tell our sacred story. Other cultures celebrate new years on other dates: in China, the lunar new year is celebrated (sometime between January 21 and February 20); in India, Diwali (a five day long Hindu festival in either October or November, depending on the cycle of the moon); in Ethiopia (September 11 each year, marking the end of the rainy season). The Islamic new year moves gradually through the year, as do all Islamic festivals, based on a lunar year. Rosh Hashanah literally means head of the year, and is associated with the creation of the world. It is celebrated with the sound of the rams horn (the shofar). It is a time of rejoicing and also a time of introspection. In this Season of Creation, the creation of the world seems like an appropriate thing for us to celebrate as well rejoicing in the wonder of creation, and also considering how we have failed to live in harmony with the earth. This summer I heard an Aboriginal teaching that said that the Corona Virus is not to be feared, but to be respected. The speaker was saying that we need to recognize how we are out of sync with the environment, and learn to live with respect in creation. For our Jewish sisters and brothers, Rosh Hashanah leads in another week to Yom Kippur the day of atonement (much like the Christian Ash Wednesday). This is a letting go of the mistakes of the past, and resolving to live in peace and harmony with the earth. What could be more appropriate for us now as we let go of what we have done to the earth, and resolve to live in a new way. I have been thinking of Rosh Hashanah and our lives. I want to take to heart that today is a new year and a new beginning. (Perhaps I will claim new years celebrations in each culture this year!) Today, and each day, God invites us to begin again. This is the first day of the rest of your life. We are like the Israelites now on the far shores of the Red Sea. The past is behind us, and now we look to the future. I invite you to celebrate the wonder of the earth, and also to ponder your relationship with the earth. Let go of that which is not life giving. Receive the gift of forgiveness and the blessing to begin again. Today, anything is possible. This is a gift we have been offered. In solidarity, and toward Shalom ~Rev. Keith Hagerman

Wesley United Church is the church on the marketplace in Cambridge, Galt. The market is back in business and today contained a large amount of fresh produce from local farms.

The new, metal roof shingles are going onto the church's roof this week. This roof over an entrance door is low down and easy to photograph. The shingles look great.

Thoughts for the beginning of September from Rev. Keith Hagerman Blessings to you as September begins and as we continue to adjust to this new normal of life du...ring COVID-19. If you are anything like me, it doesn’t seem possible that the seasons are now turning toward fall, for there are so many things that we associate with summer which didn’t happen this year. Gatherings with family and friends had to be cancelled or postponed, or at least down-sized; festivals in our town and in our province were cancelled; travel was curtailed. In a normal summer, I would have travelled to the Maritimes: I would have visited my daughter and granddaughter and other friends, and reconnected with the ocean and the landscape that is part of who I am. But the most important part of that journey would be to make the yearly sojourn to Berwick Camp a United Church Family Camp now in its 149th year which I have attended for over 50 summers of my life. There I would sit under the ancient Hemlocks and be nurtured by nightly worship led by a visiting preacher of international stature; there I would be inspired by the adult morning program, led by another keynote speaker, focusing on some of the theological issues facing us today; I would have participated in many other groups focused on mind/body/spirit, or justice issues, or community building and each of these would have become part of my future leadership with you; there I would network with colleagues and have deep conversations about what was happening in the congregations they served and what new innovations they had tried or were planning. I would also have reconnected with friends that I have had from childhood at this camp the oldest friends I have. There we would have grieved together the violent death of Lisa McCully Kierstead in the Nova Scotia massacre this spring, and supported each other as we talked for long hours and embraced, and shared food together and worshipped together. My children also look forward to this event all year long, counting the days and weeks and months until they can return to this spiritual home and their Berwick friends and the programing for their age group. Away from normal life, there I would also read and pray and contemplate, and perhaps compose some music, and plan for the months to come. But alas, with the restricted Atlantic Bubble, we were not able to get into the Maritimes, and Berwick Camp was open only on a drastically reduced scale for a few people to briefly visit without programing. But that is not the end of the story. Since a regular encampment could not happen, some programing was offered online: worship services, chats with various people who had offered leadership over the years, reconnecting with others via online ZOOM meetings. And at home I was able to read and reflect and think deeper about issues of spirituality away from the daily task of ministering to a congregation, and so have a chance to think more long term about where God is calling us over the next few months. And, after months away from it, I was able to return to composing some music, based on spiritual reflections by one of my mentors. There were other serendipitous moments as well: a garden that produced in abundance; the fulfilment of work with my hands and body as we continue to renovate our schoolhouse; a camping trip north to Manitoulin and Sault Ste. Marie, and beyond that as far as Lake Superior Provincial Park; time to do things together with my immediate family. And then there were the wild blackberries we found (where we could feast by the handful), and the glorious places we found to swim, and the delight of watching our dog embrace each moment with her whole being! It felt like life was good, and that even in this time, God had blessed us. My spiritual mentor Andre Auger writes A concrete spirituality: falling in love with what is in front of you. Bringing it gifts; making sure it is happy and fulfilled; praising it; finding out what it needs; sharing its beauty with those around you; gazing into its eyes; whispering it words of appreciation and love. This is how you help the Divine Milieu where you are. This is how you fall in love with God. (from So Much to Ponder: A Walk Through My Spiritual Reflections. Copyright 2019, Andre Auger) I have been thinking about these words about falling in love with what is in front of you, and finding the blessing in each moment and it seems that this is where we find ourselves. There is a blessing of now in this moment and in each moment we encounter it. And as we see the blessing, we fall in love with God over and over again. It may not be what we were expecting or what we would have wished for, but there are blessings for us in each of these moments. What are some of those moments for you? I invite you to take some time thinking about these things and to give thanks for them. It is in the finite, in the here and now, in the daily aspects of our lives, that God is with us, reaching out to us, blessing us, embracing us, encouraging us, enabling us to face the future, reminding us we are not alone. It is not church as usual, but as of this Sunday, Wesley returns with online worship on Youtube. This has become the new normal for us a way to intentionally connect with the sacred and with each other, and surprisingly, it has become a new form of blessing that we wouldn’t have thought possible a few months ago. Out technical guru, Earl McCluskie has put together various aspects of our online worship services over the past several months, and melded them together into one service for this Sunday: the best of Wesley online you could say. Come and watch and worship together, and if you want to join in the chat, this is a way to further connect with others, sharing peace and joy, concern and friendship. Going forward, the Executive has decided that for at least the next month, we will continue with online worship, and postpone having the congregation gather in the Wesley sanctuary. One change is that the Communications committee is working to be able to live stream from the Wesley sanctuary, but without a congregation present in the building. This means that our worship will be televised on Youtube in real time, and you can watch from wherever you are. Part of this is in anticipation of when we are able to open our doors for you to attend worship, we will also have the capability to continue having our worship appear online. I know that many of you are concerned about returning to worship, so this means that even when the building is open again, you will have the option of worshipping with us online. All this to say that Wesley committees are working hard to meet these ongoing challenges, so that you may feel connected. Your ongoing support of Wesley and its various ministries makes this possible. Thank you for your continued generosity. In solidarity and toward shalom, Rev. Keith Hagerman

THOUGHTS ON ANOTHER TRIP AROUND THE SUN Oh, the passage of time! How could it be that I have made so many trips around the sun? The number is a mystery to me.... I cannot fathom it. Internally, I have perhaps reached 40, but given that I was born on September 8, 1960, I am apparently now 60 years old. Psalm 90 says that the days of our lives are seventy years, or perhaps eighty if we are strong. I have now reached that age that is considered senior by many parts of our society, complete with discounts as a reward for having achieved this age. Some people even retire at my age or younger. How could I now be in this category? Surely it is someone else that they mean. I remember my youth; I remember boundless energy; I remember the feeling of having my whole life ahead of me; I remember dreams of what I would do and become; I remember feeling invincible. Isn’t this still who I am? I cannot remember my earliest birthdays in Lorneville, NB, Elderbank, NS, or Noel, NS. I do have fleeting images of those years enough to know that I was loved and cared for, and blessed with a nurturing family. I have faint memories of birthdays in East Saint John, NB, and in Sussex, NB, and stronger memories of birthdays while I attended Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB. I do remember my twentieth celebrated in Bermuda (days after my family moved there for my father to become minister of Wesley Methodist Church), when my family treated me to a great celebration, even while I grieved leaving the teen years behind. And I remember celebrating birthdays in Boston, while studying at Boston University School of Theology and at BU School of Fine Arts. I remember a big celebration for my thirtieth birthday, while ministering in Kintore, ON, and then my fortieth while living in Antigonish, NS, and my fiftieth held at Sunfish Lake, just beyond the western edge of Waterloo. It seems that the decades have each brought significant parties with lots of friends and family. And now I have reached the sixtieth milestone during the time of COVID, so celebrations are restricted to my immediate family. What does this number mean? They say that in our right brains, we have no sense of the passage of time and since I tend to live mostly out of the right side of my brain, the number 60 does not make sense to me. The years become blurred: I remember events and they seem to be from the not-too-distant past, but then I realize they were a long time ago. I remember the Beatles when they were still together, and Watergate, the first Prime Minister Trudeau, the first lunar landing, the Vietnam War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of apartheid, the end of the Cold War, and 9/11. I was alive during the Guatemala Civil War and the systematic genocide of Mayan people but I was oblivious to this tragedy in another part of the world. I have lived through the Israeli occupation of more and more of Palestinian land and inhuman treatment of the people of the land. I have lived through the much of the great shift that has brought about climate change. My life overlapped with that of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Glenn Gould and Princess Diana. How could I have lived so long? At times it seems almost like a dream like I am remembering someone else’s life. At other times it seems like a moment in time, when I consider the span of human history. Psalm 90 says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. And then when I consider deep history and 13.7 billion years since the universe was birthed, I am completely overwhelmed. Psalm 8 says, I look at the heavens, the moon and stars and I wonder what are humans that you are mindful of them. What is my life in the midst of all that is and has been? Psalm 90 says, Teach us to count our days so that we may have a wise heart. But what if I cannot remember? I have done so much living: 21,915 days! (That equals 525,960 hours or 31,557,600 minutes and counting.) That is a lot of living! And that is only considering chronological time, and not beginning to consider meaning. Imagine the breaths, the heartbeats, the moments of delight, the things I have learned (and the things I have forgotten), the experiences, the joy, the awe, the insight. My wife can remember all of her teachers; she remembers houses that we looked at a decade ago; she remembers words to songs and people’s names and places and books and movies. Then there is my mother, who famously remembers details of events from her whole life. My friend and colleague Paul Browning reminds me that even if we lose our memories, they are all held in the memory of God. I love the thought that our brain waves and our circulatory system all give off radio waves that continue forever. That means all of the energy of my living and being are part of the universe, surrounding me and uniting with all of the other energies that are and have been. I am part of all that is! (And if you are reading this, we are part of each other.) I start to reflect to remember, and I am overwhelmed by the sense that I am blessed. I have been loved, shared wonderful friendships, had opportunities, been guided by wise teachers and mentors, have engaged with life and been able to contribute and share of my gifts. I have grown and changed, challenged and nurtured, learned and experienced and changed dramatically over the years. Yet I am still the same me. All of this is who I am. Yet I am changing even now, and will be different in the future, but still it is me. I am reminded of the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said you cannot step into the same river twice because it is a different river (different water than before) and a different you (changed by time and experience). But I can step boldly into the future knowing that I am not alone, carrying the memories of the past and having ever new experiences. The Maritime poet Charles G.D. Roberts reflected from a hillside in Tantramar Revisited, looking down at the town of Sackville, NB, and remembering his time there. In the end, he decides not to go down into the town, in case he finds the present reality disrupts these sacred memories. I carry the memories of all that I have lived and learned, loved and experienced, and even if I cannot recall them, they are part of who I am, and for the future, who I will be. These are sacred memories, for together, they are all part of who I am. Thanks for sharing this journey with me. Let us race around the sun together, imbuing each other’s lives with meaning and purpose, together contributing to the future of life in relationship with all that is. In solidarity, and toward Shalom, (Rev.) Keith Hagerman

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Wesley United Church Minute for Mission. Many members of Wesley United Church are active in the larger community beyond the walls of the church. Over time, some of these stories will be told. The first story describes how Wesley United Church member Paul Eagles contributes to the Branchton Village Land Trust in the Village of Branchton, just outside the City of Cambridge. You can expect other such stories to be told in the future.