I’m writing this on the Labour Day weekend, knowing you will not be reading this till almost Thanksgiving. As we start into the season of Autumn, I am aware of the feeling of angst from a summer that didn’t feel like summer, with drought which wrecked crops, the horror of destructive fires, heavy smoke blocking the sun, and a continuing pandemic that adds uncertainty to our lives and presses our medical system.
As I write this I have just finished the closing worship for a week of OAC, Okanagan Anglican Camp. When the kids were asked to yell out a word of Thanksgiving this morning, many of them said “the smoke clearing”.
The Ascension; a festival day in the Church, an event in the life of Jesus important enough to be named in the historic creeds, because it says something about what Jesus did for us that has meaning for the life of the Church… a fabulous day to begin our Synod and to ponder the meaning of the Ascension for us now as 21st century people of God.
As you know, the 64th session of the Synod of the Diocese of Kootenay is called to meet May 13 through 16, 2021, with opening worship Thursday evening, May 13, Ascension Day, with the business of Synod on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday May 16, 2021.
Dear People of the Diocese of Kootenay,
As many of you know, on March 6, at a meeting of the Provincial Executive, I was elected Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Ecclesiastical Province of B.C. Yukon.
Last year at the beginning of March, writing my column for the Easter issue of the HighWay, I invited you to participate as fully as possible in the physical pageantry of Holy Week and Easter, to wave palms in the parish parade, wash feet at the Maundy Thursday remembrance of Jesus’s command to love one another, sing out your joy Easter morning.
As we continue through the season of Lent and approach Holy Week and Easter, we have entered our second year of not being able to worship in person. There is much to lament, of course, but also much to learn, about ourselves, our communities, who we are as disciples of Jesus, what it means to be Church.
Dear People of the Diocese of Kootenay,
The day I write this, I have been out on my snowshoes, reveling in the sun glinting off fresh snow. I look up to the hills around Kelowna transformed by white, and feel grounded as I remember this same daily walk through the seasons
Epiphania means manifestation, revelation. Epiphany is the Season of Light, when the reality of God entering the world in the baby Jesus shines into our
