Greetings to my
Willowdale and Emmanuel family:
With gratitude
and thanksgiving, I hold you in my heart. I am looking at your faces in
the church directory, and I am praying that you and your loved ones are all
well and heathy.
The other day,
one of my friends from Vancouver sent me a YouTube from a nurse in the
Vancouver General hospital. She was crying out to the world and saying that
staying home saves others. She said that so many doctors and nurses
can’t go home for many days. They are sleeping in the hospital
basement.
Another friend
of mind posted on her face book saying, “In this world crisis, pandemic,
individual rights are still important but we can only beat COVID-19 if we all
work together on this, this time the most important thing is the health of
others.” On Monday, our WEUC Response Emergency Team got together by ZOOM,
which is another communication tool that helps us serve you as church in these
uncertain times.
The United
Church of Canada, the Regional Council, and the many other ministers and
leaders are striving to find what it means to be a church in these challenging
times?
I imagine
that each of us has those moments, of questioning, and wondering what will
happen next. Some of us are fearful, scared of isolation, and striving
to find ways to connect as community and be a community.
This
week, we are entering Jerusalem; we are celebrating Passover. We hear
news reports and listen to people stories, you might have many images of beauty
and fear. What hopes do you hold in your hearts? Is it a time of waiting just to get back to life as
we normally live it, or is it a time for thinking about what we are waiting for
and then acting on that. “What we do while we wait, depends on what we
are waiting for.” Perhaps there are some
things about our “new normal” that we would like to keep…taking time to rest,
to try new things, to spend less, to reach out more… We continue to pray
for all…the suffering, the lonely, the vulnerable.
Remember
Jesus’s heart and his faith. His way is one of compassion, love and justice, in
response to God’s call and love for the world.
May God give you
lots of sunshine, warmness upon your home and family.
God’s joy
and love be with you all. With gratitude, YoonOk Shin
Attached is a
poem from brother Richard Hendrick, lifting up our souls.
------------
Lockdown
Yes there is fear.
Yes there is isolation.
Yes there is panic buying.
Yes there is sickness.
Yes there is even
death
But, They say that in Wuhan after so
many years of noise
You can hear the birds again.
They say that after just a few weeks of quiet
The sky is no longer thick with fumes
But blue and grey and clear.
They say
that in the streets of Assisi
People are
singing to each other
across the
empty squares,
keeping
their windows open
so that
those who are alone
may hear the sounds
of family around them.
They say that a hotel in the West
of Ireland
Is offering
free meals and delivery to the housebound.
Today a
young woman I know
is busy
spreading fliers with her number
through the
neighborhood
So that the
elders may have someone to call on.
Today
Churches, Synagogues, Mosques and Temples
are
preparing to welcome
and shelter
the homeless, the sick, the weary
All over the world people are slowing down and
reflecting
All over the world people are looking at their
neighbor’s in a new way
All over the world people are waking up to a
new reality
To how big we really are.
To how little control we really have.
To what really matters.
To Love.
So we pray and we remember that
Yes there is fear.
But there does not have to be hate.
Yes there is isolation.
But there does not have to be loneliness.
Yes there is panic buying.
But there does not have to be meanness.
Yes there is sickness.
But there does not have to be disease of the
soul
Yes there is even death.
But there can always be a rebirth of love.
Wake to the choices you make as to how to live
now.
Today, breathe.
Listen, behind the factory noises of your
panic
The birds are singing again
The sky is clearing,
Spring is coming,
And we are always encompassed by Love.
Open the windows of your soul
And though you may not be able
to touch across the empty square, Sing
Brother Richard Hendrick