Dear Ones of St. Columba's,

As I prepared for our latest Wednesday evening class on the Church Calendar I have been pondering what it means to mark time.  I have especially been thinking about how the marking of time is done differently depending on one’s culture.  Simply, how we measure a day and what day begins a week is dependent on culture and how we decide to organize our days.

But, almost, universally different groups and cultures of people who come together are all trying to put structure and order into their days.  We are all trying to figure out ways to mark time.  How is that children grow up so fast?  It seems like just yesterday that I was pregnant with Cascade and now she is running around with more opinions that she knows what to do with.   I have become to depend on marking time by beginnings and endings.  I have ended at St. Andrew’s and now I am beginnings at St. Columba’s.  I do this because culturally that is how I have been raised and because transition makes my head spin. I am trying to make sense of time.  I was recently talking to a gentleman who was speaking about his cultural context as a Cree (Indigenous) person in Canada.  He does not mark time by beginnings and endings but understands life more as an open circle where you are constantly inviting new people and experiences into your life.  He sees these new experiences as all connected and building on one another and does not find a need to mark something as an ending.  This has challenged my thinking while also opening me up to wonder about this way of marking time.  Instead of ending at St. Andrew’s I am bringing St. Andrew’s here with me.  And St. Columba’s is joining me now in this journey.  All of these experiences further my ability to love and open up myself up to God and to God’s people.   I find both ways of understanding time helpful.  

I share this story with you all as a reminder of how differently we all can experience and take in the world.  How there is not a right away to transition, or a right way to grieve, or a right way to celebrate.  But as we go through these church seasons together at St. Columba’s, as we live into the season after the Epiphany and move towards Lent, as we see the children around us grow bigger and bigger, as we experience aging, lose, and joy I find it helpful as a community to ask ourselves; how will we mark this time on earth?  I encourage you to seek out ways that the church seasons can give us a shared knowing of time and help us to invite God and our community into these days that make up our lives.  

Blessings to you in this Season after the Epiphany.  May God show up in surprising and new ways offering you a renewed hope and strength to love those around you.

Meghan