Minister's Thoughts - Fall 2008: Sue Mayoss-Hurd
One hundred years and counting!
We made it! We reached our Centennial as the church of St Margaret’s, Peachland – and wow did we have an action packed weekend of celebrations: a barbecue, formal dinner, special worship service with the Bishop; and the fun of preparing, entering and being awarded a prize in the Canada Day parade. As well as completing (finally) a Centennial book, having a wonderful Centennial banner and a beautiful new door – all for the occasion of the Centennial.
Many people commented on the great occasion, and said “we should do this every year!” Those who had been involved in the four year planning for the Centennial book, worked on the banner and the many other events might have a rather different idea! Of particular note was the way that people pulled together to make things happen. Just about everyone at St Margaret’s participated in some way and it was this “togetherness” that was so fantastic to see: the church at its best, working effectively as the body of Christ. Each of us with different tasks and abilities, but working with one purpose and as one.
I reflected on this shortly afterwards as we joined some of the members of St Margaret’s on a camping trip. Our family were rookies at knowing how to put up our new (well 27 years old actually!) tent trailer. We arrived at the camp site late, having struggled to get the tent trailer safely stowed and ready to be towed! We were grateful for the help from neighbours on each side of us who shared their wisdom and on occasion brute force! The last 20 K or so of the journey were along an extremely potholed single track gravel road. It was almost dark when we finally rolled in and discovered that somewhere along that last stretch of the route we had lost a tail light. We certainly weren’t heading out in the dark in search of it: we needed to erect the tent trailer in the fast approaching darkness! Fortunately one of the other families in our group had made the excursion ahead of us and they were not averse to crawling over, inside and under the tent trailer to help us erect and stabilise the vehicle.
More fun was to follow – the next day another family arrived with their box trailer – ready to set up their tent. After the usual round of greetings, they went to unload their trailer only to discover that the back end had come off and their trailer was consequently empty – presumably spewing its contents along that same bumpy gravel road en route. Even as they made the discovery, the Warden arrived complete with about half of their missing load which he had encountered on his travels. We sent out a search party to locate the rest – and they found most of it – fortunately with little damage. They recovered our missing tail light too!
The rest of the weekend went by happily without further complications. We dipped into each others gourmet dishes, held evening camp fires, shared floaties on the lake and even included a smudging ceremony and simple agape Eucharist. Having heard that the alternative route out of camp was the better road – we left as a convoy of several vehicles – with the box trailer taking the lead so we could alert them to any further spills of their possessions. This was just as well as we needed to stop three times to recover their cargo. In the end we used duct tape to secure the back tail gate and everyone got home safely!
It is when we work as a team – sharing what we have in terms of our skills, wisdom, energy, time and hospitality – that we see the Christian community at work, and at its best. As we look back on our Centennial weekend and all that it involved: let us give thanks to God for the gift of one another – and let us resolve to continue as members of Christ’s body together that others may see, know and experience his love - to the glory of his precious name. Amen