A sieve. A kiln. A pair of pruning shears.
And my words.


I have a whole stack of sieves in my pot-and-pan drawer, all nesting together waiting to do a job. I pull out one that fits the bowl I’ve chosen to catch what comes through. The stoneground flour looks fine as it sits in the sieve, but hidden amongst the powder is particulate. Only one thing is missing. Agitation. As I shake my sieve, a separation happens and I can see what I don’t want in my bread laying revealed on top of the mesh.


A conversation with you can be a stirring of my mind, dredging up what I’ve buried. It reveals what I might have missed, what I might be hiding from myself even, let alone you. The grace, the gold in this opportunity is that when these faults are laid bare, there’s a chance to get rid of them. Put you, and I, and Jesus in a conversation and anything might happen.


The centred lump of porcelain seems almost still as the wheel spins under my cupped hands that pressed it into place. My thumbs find the middle and create an opening. The gentle pressure of fingers on the inner wall and knuckles on the outer start to draw the clay up. Graceful and perfect in appearance it goes in the kiln, and comes out in a hundred pieces. I had not spent enough time wedging, the hard muscular work of slamming, pulling, and pushing the clay, that comes before the wheel. Air bubbles had created havens for locked moisture. The heat of the kiln found them out in myriad micro explosions.


I thought those things didn’t matter. They are buried well under the cover of a seemingly smooth life. Then in the heat of a hard conversation, the irritations I haven’t dealt with become anger, and I explode. Making a mess all over you and I. The grace, the gold in the detritus comes only if I can stop defending my sin and choose deference instead. Humble submission and respect. I hand over the swept-up shards to Jesus, and He hands me back a fresh lump of clay.


Looking at my garden in August, one thing is clear. I can’t fake fertilizer or a timely visit with the pruning shears. The die was cast when I chose to crawl among the raspberry canes with pruning shears in my pocket in the thin sun between the cold April rains. And before that, in the choice not to gather the storm-brought seaweed that washes up on my shore in grey November, laying it in the dirt to feed the soil for seeds in May.


I have a fondness for happenstance, and  Jesus calls me to cultivate. If I’m counting on managing my mouth in the moment, I’ve missed the point of maximum impact. The grace, the gold comes long before you and I talk. What and Who we’ve put into ourselves will carry the day.


​

Noreen Smith

I love boxing movies. I love the thrill, the grit, the fierceness of the training, and the way the fighters can channel their anger in a way that is controlled in their sport.


I recently watched a movie called “Cinderella Man”. The main character, James, must go back to his career in boxing to feed his family during the Great Depression. It’s a brilliant story of family, honour, and overcoming difficult circumstances.


There is one scene that stuck with me the most. The final boxer James is up against is incredibly crude. He makes inappropriate comments and tries very hard to make James lash out at him and throw him off before the fight. Yet, despite his best efforts James remains calm and demonstrates a high level of class and character even when he’s being treated unkindly.


Now, not all of us have the luxury of taking the people who have hurt us into a boxing ring. In a similar way to how this character demonstrated restraint, Jesus so calls us to overcome our hurts.


The gospel is a humbling call to love when your heart is calloused; to love when someone has hurt you or your family and forgiveness feels unthinkable. It’s so easy to keep hating people who have caused division in your life.


It’s excruciating to choke back rage when all you want is to let it go free.


However, I have found that it’s only painful if you let it be painful. God’s grace has the power to lift our pain and give us objectivity — to empathetically see how that other person may be in their own agony and in need of mercy and compassion. How can we in our simpleness ever know the depth of another person’s pain if they do not tell us? Only God can know the subconscious mind, and in this gospel, He is telling us to soften our hearts to each other.


It’s funny that this theme of softness has continued to come up in my life. I have always been very sensitive, and a lot of people use the word “gentle” to describe me. It used to anger me that I couldn’t be strong and bold like other girls I looked up to (or my brothers). Yet, in this Gospel reading and in so many other instances in my life, I am thankful for these gifts. They allow for coming closer to the gentle heart of God.


Jesus encourages softness.


The soft is where we see another person in their humanity. We allow for the brokenness of their own hearts to enter, and we can hold the pain with another person.


What a challenge the Lord has placed before us here this Sunday: softening our hearts and humbling ourselves before those who have hurt us. God’s wisdom is far superior to our own and only He holds the truth to unlock the hardest of hearts.


Please, Dear Jesus, soften and humble the hearts of Your faithful. Give us the gift of forgiveness — stronger than a knockout punch.




Theresa James

“We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on.”
 


So said Sirius Black to Harry Potter midway through J.K. Rowling’s Order of the Phoenix.
 


We sometimes refer to the dark inside of us as “sin”, a word that carries a lot of emotional weight and, therefore, puts some people off. Research on the Greek and Hebrew words for sin is fractured — some say the origin of the word implies “missing the mark” (not too harsh), others offence against God (which is flinch-worthy) — and this lack of clarity is immensely unsatisfying. I’ve decided not to go down that road. What I can say, however, is that regardless of how “judgy” the original words for what we now call sin, we can at least acknowledge that sin bears some relation to the tendency within all of us to act out of self-interest and that acting in such a way separates us from God. I like the way Sirius Black captures it: “We’ve all got both light and dark inside of us.”
 


But, as we know, when it comes to behaviour, the dark inside of us — our weakness and self-interest — is not all that drives us to action.
 


In the second reading for this Sunday, Saint Paul reminds us that we have within us both the man of dust (Adam) and the man from heaven (Jesus), and we bear the image of both. When Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, He promised to send us His Holy Spirit not just to be with us but to be within us. This Spirit of God is not something external to us that we need to invite to come and be part of us — it is already part of us.
 


“Come, Holy Spirit” is an ancient prayer of the Church. When we invite the Spirit in this way, it is not for the purpose of bringing in a holiness that is external to us but rather to stir up a holiness already within us. We are calling on that holiness to be part of us that we choose to act on. We are rejecting the darkness and choosing the light. Jesus said, “I am the light.”
 


Lord, may we act as men of heaven. May we be your light to the world. May we burn ever brighter. May we grow in holiness. Amen.




Donna  Davis
​

“He does not deal with us according to our sins... ”
 


When I was a teenager, I considered myself an atheist. My family was Catholic by heritage and I’d received a few sacraments, but it had been years since we went to church. So I was horrified when my parents decided to renew their faith. I was going to church – and Sunday school – every single week. 
 


My Sunday school teacher that year was a woman named Diane. I was determined to make her Sundays miserable. Each class, I showed up ready to argue, debate, mock and belittle the deeply held beliefs she shared with us. And each Sunday, Diane welcomed me into the class, made room for me whenever I wanted to speak and took my questions – even the rudest ones – very seriously. Things really came to a head one class when we talked about abortion. While she shared her pro-life views, I took over the class to argue vociferously for a woman’s right to choose. The rest of the class took Diane’s side, which just empowered me more: I was certain that I was the only one on the side of justice. When class ended, she asked me to stay back, and I thought, “This time, I finally got to her!” 
 


Instead, she thanked me. She thanked me for being brave enough to stand up for my beliefs and acknowledged that it’s not easy for a young teen to speak up against her peers. She said that she admired my tenacity and my passion and that she was so glad God had put me in her class because she always looked forward to hearing my thoughts. 
 


I was absolutely shaken, down to my core. I’d done everything I could to make this woman’s life miserable, and yet she didn’t hate me. She didn’t even tolerate me. She liked me! She was happy to see me! How on earth could someone be so kind to someone so mean? 
 


That day was the start of my journey toward conversion. I didn’t convert that day or even that year. But my heart of stone got its first crack when someone showed me the abundance of God’s love when I least deserved it. She didn’t count any of my sins against her. Instead, she looked at me through God’s eyes, saw how much He loved me and gave me a taste of that love. 
 


Today’s psalm is a celebration of God’s love for us and a guide for how we should love others. I am so grateful that God does not give me what I deserve but, instead, has compassion on me. He loved me like His own daughter, even when I was persecuting His followers. Now that I am a Christian, I get the challenging but beautiful privilege of being a witness to others as Diane was a witness to me. 
 


Lord, when I am persecuted or attacked, help me to see others through Your eyes and love them as You love me. 
 


 
Jenna Young
​