Ordinary

This link for this week's streamed service is here

   

On Sunday we celebrated the Lord's Supper. Such a joy to repeat the comforting words and practice the familiar rituals. With rising numbers of COVID-19 cases on the Island and throughout the province, we opted to use the little creamer-like cups rather than pass the elements within the pews. Still we enjoyed the privilege of gathering around the Lord's table and "doing this in remembrance of Me."  

    There were a number of newcomers to the worship service and we welcomed them at the door and during the coffee hour following. After so many months of "distancing" we now treasure these few minutes of greeting and meeting with fellow worshippers.

 

  Earlier in the week I took a walk in the Butchart Gardens, one of my favourite things, with one of my favourite people. We remarked that the beds weren't as pristine, the visitors as numerous, nor the flowers as exotic as in previous years. Like all the tourism business, the Gardens are operating with reduced staff and shortened hours. Yet what we saw was beautiful. Zinnias, marigolds, impatients -- homey flowers --not the grandstanding lilies, or the jewel blue delphiniums seen on previous visits.

     But these "ordinary" blooms brought "oohs" and "aahs" from the visitors and gladdened the eyes. They are a reminder that the "ordinary" in life is wonderful. Massed together they shimmer with colour, dazzling in their combined beauty. 

    With the news so full of the heartbreak in Haiti, Afghanistan, the Interior of B.C. and other disaster zones around the world, it is natural to think that one "ordinary" person can have no effect. But the zinnias prove that many "ordinary" blooms are powerful. 

    If we all give a little to disaster relief, if we all practice kindness, if we all speak out against hate, if we all "love our neighbours," what a marvellous difference we make.

I think one of the most encouraging and comforting passages of scripture is Romans 12: 6-21

None of us is so "ordinary" that God did not bestow a spiritual gift upon us. All of those gifts, when used together for the glory of God and for the furtherance of His Kingdom, lead us to join that great cloud of witnesses.-- and that is extra-ordinary!