News & Views

Beginning on Monday evening March 1, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. (to 9:30 p.m. with a short break) in the Lounge is a six (6) week Lenten/Easter series on: Faith.

Lent is traditionally a time of reflection, of giving something up - in anticipation of Easter.

This series is a Conversation with you. What have you given up regarding your faith journey ... BUT more importantly, what are you choosing to keep!!! What does your faith journey look like these days - what inspires you and connects you to/ with 'mystery, the divine, the spirit, gaia, wisdom, your inner-knowing, the transcendent, god, creation, love, and so on ...'?

The weekly conversations are hosted by Janice Meighan, chair of wellness & care. There are no books to read, simply because, YOU are the 'book of faith' being shared during this conversational program!

Some topics for the Conversations include:

Faith/Spiritual/Religious Journey - are they the same thing, different and does it really matter?; Death & Dying - the afterlife?; Creativity As An Expression of Faith - music, art, poetry, drama, pottery ... do you "connect" through creativity? ... AND Much More....!!

Come out to one, several or all weeks ... it's your choice. Please do sign-up (initially) if you are interested in attending any week in this series. Sign-up sheet is on the Wellness & Care board directly across from the church office. Or speak to Janice if you have questions.

Mark your calendars and see you Monday March 1, 2010!

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With thanks to Scott Campbell for the link.

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This morning I opened a bulk email I receive regularly and enjoyed a poem by Pedro Salinas, particularly these lines:

Your task
is to carry your life high,
and play with it, hurl it
like a voice to the clouds
so it may retrieve the light
already gone from us.

 

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(This article is also published in the October edition of the Salt Shaker) 

Winner of the 1964 Caldecott Award for children’s books, Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak had a film adaptation released earlier this year that will introduce a whole new generation of children to the fairy tale Sendak weaves.  In the book, little Max, angry at having been sent to his room without a dinner, imagines his way into a strange and distant land ruled by wild things. Staring into their yellow eyes, he becomes king of them all, dances and rules them until, finally, he becomes bored. Max, tiring of the wild things, finds the control he needs to manage the complex emotional landscape of a child, a place where all the decisions are made by people bigger than himself.  When he returns to his room, he finds his still-warm dinner, a sign of his mother’s love, awaiting him.

From time to time, we all feel like Max.  What we want and what we can do are two different things; forces beyond our control impose their choices upon us; situations we understand but can do nothing about, threaten to engulf us.  Frustration builds and anger erupts. If we aren’t careful, our “wild things” end up running the show. We react with our emotions instead of responding with as objective an appreciation of the situation as is possible.

On September 20^th, I advised the congregation of the financial situation in which West Hill currently finds itself. Thrown off the long range plan we’d set in 2007 by the departure of many long-term, established donors, our focus, necessarily, turned toward survival. The situation appeared beyond our control and, indeed, threatened to engulf us.  Frustration built. Feelings of betrayal have been strong. Anger, periodically, peeped out from the depths. During the service that day and in a subsequent email, I invited the congregation to come together to talk about what we might do about the situation the following Saturday. 

In the interim period, the wild things had a pretty good time. We conjured up all sorts of measures to cut expenses or create income that, while seemingly drastic, were all potentially acceptable outcomes.   The images were graphic and stark.  The darkness swirled.  The week was long.

But Saturday came.  That afternoon fifty-six people gathered to offer their energy and put their shoulders to the task of getting some objectivity and creating a plan. We worked under the leadership of Scott Campbell, author of 5D Leadership (check it out in our library!), and mentor to the board through its leadership assessment process, to describe the mess we found ourselves in; clarify what we knew and what we only guessed at or didn’t know at all; identify the key elements that would stabilize and sustain us; and “fish-bone” our way to an incredible list of potential options that we can now explore and engage as we (wild things at bay) choose what it is we want to do.

In the process, we realized that two significant things could be identified as essential to stabilizing our financial picture and moving forward with confidence. 

1.      we need to raise a certain amount of money immediately to stem the use of our reserves and

2.      we need to increase our monthly income in order to sustain us into the future.

We came to a couple of numbers to use without hard facts in front of us. Review of our finances shows that we were close, but not bang on.  The figures as they stand now are:

 

1.      we need to raise $34,000 by April 1.

2.      we need to increase our monthly income by $4,300 by April 1.

 

Two groups of people are needed to get this work underway, one looking at immediate fundraising ideas and the other looking at sustainable income sources. A few names were collected at the end of the meeting.  Darrick Heyd has agreed to coordinate the fundraising group. Joe Konecny will coordinate the other group. Both groups will be energetically engaged in the process of moving us toward stability so if you’re inclined or forgot to put your name down on Saturday, let someone know!

Getting these two groups going and brainstorming some ideas for them to work with were huge tasks we had to accomplish on Saturday and we did. I like to think, though, that the greatest accomplishments made that day came in the form of single steps. As each person took his or her first step toward the church that day, a little bit of “we can do it” that hadn’t existed before popped into the realm of possibility; working through our challenges became a little bit more likely.  Without those first steps, it would have been an empty room. In an empty room, “we can do it” never gets said, thought, even dreamt. The wild things continue to stamp their feet. But Saturday afternoon, one step at a time, we stared the wild things down, got them under control, found our way to possibility, to maybe, to something can be done.  And, as we all know, once you’ve managed to get that far, the sky’s the limit!

 

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Saturday, September 26, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m., at the church

West Hill United has, for the last several years, been at the forefront of what we call the “progressive movement” within the church.  What we had come to know about Christianity from courses we'd taken, books we’d read, conversations we’d shared, thinking we’d done, and experiences we’d had had moved us to a place where what we did and said in an ordinary Sunday service no longer reflected our understandings.  We chose not to do nothing about this; rather, we began a journey toward creating the non-exclusive spiritual community for which we are now known across Canada and around the world. 

The journey continues to be exhilarating. The relationships we nurture, the lives we touch; the music, songs, prayers, and hope we release into the world; the community we continue to build are all life-giving facets of this engaging work. We’re passionate about it and that passion shows in what we do and in the responses to it, both positive and negative.

Already, people across Canada, in the United States and the United Kingdom, in Sri Lanka, Australia, France, Nepal, and Brazil, have contacted us to express their gratitude for what we are doing. Others, for years to come, will share in the benefits of our willingness to risk being on the bleeding edge of change and setting a course that they might follow.

We find, however, that as a single, small community of faith, on our own and without significant changes, we can no longer sustain this considerable, and, we feel, essential work of transforming Christianity.  As a committed band of hardworking, visionary people, we have borne the burden of this work and paid its costs up front. Our recent donor losses, realized as a result of our work, have placed us in a highly critical financial position; we are very close to reaching the depletion of our resources.

This morning, I shared with the congregation the news that, with current revenue trends continuing and with additional expenditure scrimping, we can expect to keep our doors open for a limited number of months. Our surplus funds will support us until the end of May, 2010.  At that point, we will begin to use our overdraft, secured by $20,000 in Canada Savings Bonds. Those funds will be depleted at the end of August, 2010 at which time the bonds would need to be cashed in and turned over to the bank which holds them. We could no longer pay staffing, mortgage, or building costs.

What does this mean? Clearly, it means that we must make some major changes or find some significant donors who can support us through this difficult part of the journey to the place of strength we know is possible. Clearly, it means we need to examine all our options and determine which are viable, desirable, acceptable.  Our meeting on Saturday will be a first step in determining what those options are: what we want to do, what we must do, and what we can do.

If you are at all able, please join us at the church on Saturday the 26^th at 1:00 to help strengthen the foundations of this new Christianity we represent.  We will endeavor to have childcare available; please let us know if you require it.  If you are at a distance and would like to participate, please contact us and we will work toward making that possible.

Until then and beyond, please hold the community in your heart and your prayers.

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WHUC is a non-prophet organization.

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A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Albert Einstein

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WOW!  What a wonderful surprise - turning the corner to see this beautiful, magical garden of Pansies.   Delightful, lovely colourful faces upturned to the sun to greet us as we approach the steps to WHUC.  What a happy, cheerful welcome! Who among us has the Green Thumb?

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Following a speaking engagement on Sunday evening with Gretta, a woman approached me with a whole whack of questions concerning progressive beliefs.  She really wanted to know what Gretta believed.  I refused to speak for Gretta but shared my woldview.

 

One of her questions was "Do you still celebrate Easter?"  I answered in the affirmative and spoke of rebirth and transformation.  How might you have answered the question?  What does Easter mean for you?

 

Cathi

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