Families

 The link to this week's live-streamed service is here.

 Our on-going food drive is doing very   well. The bins in the narthex are nearly   full, there are extra bags of groceries   stacked up around them and the cash   donations are mounting. In celebration   we held the draw for the first flower   basket after church on Sunday   morning. The winner was Margaret S.   Well done, Margaret, we hope you   enjoy the flowers.

• Congratulations to Peter! For the second year in a row, his Rugby 7's team from Stelly's Secondary School has won the provincial championship. Since the competition has only been held for two years, they hold the all-time record.

Peter is dear to our congregation, he's "family." As such, we can all bask in his achievement and cheer him on to the next challenge.

Families have been top of mind for me this week. Perhaps because summer holidays are approaching and I've made plans to visit my brothers in Ontario. They are a long way away and COVID made visits awkward if not impossible, so it has been over three years since we touched base. There have been many changes.

But, even without a pandemic, the family I meet this summer, will have changed. Over our lifetimes, we all experience family in different incarnations.

When I was a kid on the farm, all of the city relatives would spend their vacations visiting us. I knew my many aunts and uncles and hordes of cousins very well. We thought summer meant relatives. It meant hide and seek in the hay mow, taking shifts around the dinner table, begging some adult to take us to the lake for a swim, and, if we were lucky, ice cream cones on the way home. 

But, as I grew older and my siblings scattered, family meant something different. It meant less time with cousins and more precious time spent nurturing those bonds of immediate kinship that had seemed immutable in childhood. We could decide if we liked each other and wanted to be friends as well as family. As we chose to be close, the family bond grew stronger. 

Then as the next generation came along, roles changed again. A new crop of carefree youngsters ran barefoot in the wet grass  and we were now the ones responsible for keeping everyone fed and safe and held close in the bosom of love. Family get-togethers were busy and exhausting. 

Now that my generation has moved to the head of the line, the family is different again. The succeeding generations are the doers, the ones who must choose if they want to be part of this clan or if they'd rather opt out. Do they have time for the "elders?" Apart from sharing a gene pool, do we have anything in common? Will we make new memories together?

I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that within the family of God, His love and care is steadfast, unchanging, unwavering and permanent. In Bible study, we've been looking at the Apostles' Creed, which opens with "I believe in God, the Father Almighty." What comfort lies in those words. Our heavenly Father is always there, with arms outstretched, ready to welcome us home. We are never too old or too young, too lost or too broken. 

In the poem, "Death of the Hired Man," Robert Frost says "home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  Those words are meant to be comforting, but it is a grudging comfort. With our heavenly Father there is no such reluctance. As in the story of the prodigal son, God runs to welcome us and throws a party.

The "lazy, hazy days of summer," are upon us. May yours be filled with rest, recreation and a renewal of the bonds of love that God has seen fit to bestow upon you.

For the joy of human love,
brother, sister, parent, child,
friends on earth, and friends above,
for all gentle thoughts and mild,

Lord of all, to thee we raise,
this our sacrifice of praise.

Ed. Note: Fathers day is just around the corner and I'd like to share your memories of your dad or a father figure in your life, in this space. Please send your reminiscence to me at avaldal@shaw.ca