The World We Want
On June 5 we celebrate Pentecost Sunday, a day in the church calendar when we remember the beginnings of a movement which evolved into the Christian churches that we know today.
This year June 5 also marks “World Environment Day,” a day in the secular calendar when we acknowledge the beauty and fragility of the created world and commit ourselves to transformative actions to celebrate, protect, and restore our planet.
Looking through a Pentecost lens I reflect on the dream of a world in which people from different nationalities, cultures, genders, and creeds can all come together, each one able to “speak their own language” yet be understood by each other and valued for who they are.
Looking through an Environment lens I reflect on the dream of a world in which people from different countries, societies, occupations, and political and ideological beliefs can all come together with a common goal: to stop harming the planet and participate in healing the precious gift of Creation.
I wonder if there might be some synchronicity in these two things converging on one Sunday. It got me thinking about what kind of world I want: a world in which every person and the whole of creation is valued and respected.
As we celebrate Pentecost and the birthday of this organization we call “church” and as we continue to reflect on our visioning process, let’s keep imagining the role that Comox United Church can play in our community and in the world.
I recently came across the following meditation from the Iona Community and felt that it summarizes my dream of how our church could participate in creating the world that we want:
“The church’s vocation in each and every locality is to be a worshipping, healing, learning, serving community, faithfully living by the values of the kin-dom, modelling and embodying a counter-cultural vision, looking and reaching out beyond itself with a wider vision, to discover the light and love of God in engagement with the life of the world, standing up and speaking out against all that diminishes and disempowers… In so doing it will dream and explore; it will be open, flexible and ready to take risks; it will be generous, hospitable and ready to celebrate; it will not be a ghetto but keen to co-operate and engage; it will be a transforming community – influencing others for good, and being transformed itself in the process; it will be resilient and persistent, however hard the way, and it will be marked by joy and an eagerness to celebrate.”
(by Norman Shanks, from This is the Day: Readings and Meditations from the Iona Community)