Looking Ahead to November 30, 2025 -- Advent 1

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 9:2-7
• Romans 13:8-14
• Luke 1:67-79

The Sermon title is The Christmas Dream: Awakened Hope

Early Thoughts: Once more we enter into Advent, once more we speak of hope. What does it mean to speak of hope being awakened in a world which too often leads us to despair?

Often during Advent I like to find a piece of poetry to go with each week. {Usually I then find pieces that are too long for reading in the service anyway}. As I was looking for something to go with this week I found this one which begins:

War darkens the world

more than the length of days

violence, gun shots, fear and hatred

echo through our streets promising only more of the same

It’s easy to lose hope

when every day the weight of worry

grows heavier and heavier still

What does it take to awaken hope in the world today?

Isaiah talks about people walking in darkness seeing a great light. He talks of a time of renewal and release. Often we read these words on Christmas Eve, I have used them as the basis for a call to worship on that day. The promise Isaiah shares is about the coming of one ho brings hope, peace, justice, and liberation. We begin Advent this year re-hearing the promise of the child who shall be born. That child brings hope.

This week we also hear the song Zechariah sings as his son John is named. Zechariah sings of renewal and transformation. He sings of hope for his people. Like Isaiah, he also uses the image of light shining in the darkness, light that drives away shadows. Maybe part of hope being awakened is that the shadow of despair is being driven away?

Rachael Keefe concludes her poem (I really encourage you to follow the link above and read the whole thing) with these words:

Darkness interrupted by chaotic lights,
disjointed décor from one house to another
boldly proclaims the Light
the Light that shines through all things
in every color, every shape, every rhythm
no matter how chaotic – not
just for December nights,
not just for Christmas this year
or next
 These holiday lights – no matter how old,
or how garish – are pleasant, perhaps joyful,
reminders that Hope shines on and on
even when the days are short
and humans hold their weapons
closer than their neighbors

AS we move into Advent this year there is a lot of horrible things happening around the globe. People are being dehumanized. People are starving. Might seems to make right. Violence breaks out in a myriad of forms and locations. Sometimes it seems like one great big nightmare and despair seems like the only option. But I encourage us to look beyond our nightmares to those things we scarcely dare to dream. There we might find hope just waiting to be awakened in our hearts and souls. Look beyond the big stories and try to see the glimmer of Christmas lights, the flicker of a candle flame, shining in the dark places.

Then may we let the hope change us.

The Romans passage calls us to love our neighbours. It also calls up to wake up, to become woke one might say. When hope wakens in our hearts and guides our lives we can be different people. In Advent we light candles every week, we brighten the world one tiny flame at a time. We proclaim that the dawn is near. May the hope that awakens in Advent, the hope for a baby who will call us to live as different people, wake us up. May that hope lead us to be people of hope in a world that too often leads us to despair.
--Gord

Advent Pastoral Letter

We wait for God, creation longs to see a new day dawn.

And though the night is dark and deep, we dare to sing our song...
We watch for God, the earth cries out, “Will violence ever cease?”
he one who saw the signs is seen in ways that make for peace.
(from “We Wait for God” by William Kervin, #57 in Then Let Us Sing)

Friends in Christ,
Grace, peace, hope and love be with you as we move into another Advent Season.

Every year I am struck by the circular nature of the church year. We move from the last Sunday of the year where we name that the Reign of God is a reality growing in our midst directly into the Advent time of preparation and waiting for God to break into the world as a newborn baby.

There is a passage in Isaiah that is sometimes used on the first Sunday of Advent (we often hear from Isaiah in our Advent waiting and preparing). It begins “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence” (Isaiah 64:1). Some years I feel that prayer more acutely than others. This is one of those years. From Alberta to Chicago to Ukraine to Gaza and so many other places there is much that needs to be set right with the world. It would be nice if God were to break into the world and cause some speedy transformation in how the world works.

We are promised that in the birth of Jesus God is doing just that. When we wait and prepare in Advent it is not just to remember a birth long ago and far away it is also to remember that Christ continues to be born, that God continues to come to us bringing hope and peace, joy and love. Advent means that God is coming, coming to transform us, to change the world, Glory to God in the Highest! And on Earth Peace.

For now we watch and we wait. We light candles and we sing songs and we pray. But primarily we watch and wait. We open our hearts and souls so that we might recognize what God is up to around us. We name the troubles we see near and far and we join creation in longing for a new day, we cry out with the rest of the earth, we dare to sing our songs.

There are traditions that go with this annual time of watching and waiting and preparing. For many many years one of our traditions has been to gather with the CGIT for their Vespers Service. Though CGIT has come to its end the Vespers Service continues as a group of Alumnae have gotten together to welcome us to worship with them at 7:30 on November 30^th. The theme for the service this year is Faces of Joy. All are welcome.

Another tradition of the Christmas season is that we stretch out and think of the community around us. This year the Social Justice and Affirming Ministry Team (SJAM) is encouraging us to make extra donations to our Local Outreach Fund. This fund allows us to support our neighbours in times of need. It allows that when one of our partner agencies phones the office and says “we have a client who needs some help” we can respond with a voucher for groceries. Every day I drive past the Salvation Army building and see a line of people waiting for the Food Bank to open. There are so many of our neighbours who are struggling, let us do what we can to be the hands and face of Christ in Grande Prairie. SJAM is also reminding us all that the Salvation Army Christmas Kettle campaign is in need of volunteers to staff the kettles.

Dream a dream, a hopeful dream, as children do on Christmas Eve,

imaginings, surprising things to hold and to believe
Dream a gift, the Christmas gift that changes every thing we see:
the shimmering of angel wing, the Child, the Mystery.
(from “Dream a Dream” by Sheila Erena Murray, #158 in More Voices)

In a world where the news is so often nightmarish it is good to dream. I think that dreaming is a big part of how we, as Christians watch and wait for God. Dreaming can be, I believe, a big part of how God shares their vision for what the world could be. With that in mind the theme for my Advent sermons this year is The Christmas Dream. What dreams has God planted in Scripture as we prepare for Christ to be born? What dreams spring up in your heart and soul as you think of Christmas? Sometimes it feels like Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love are just dreams for the world. What might it look like if those dreams came true? I invite you to dream along with me this season. Our Christmas Eve celebration will be at 8:00 and we will probably talk some more about dreams that night.

I close this year’s letter with a piece of news. United Church ministry personnel are encouraged to take time for rest and renewal. After a few years of encouragement from the St. Paul’s Ministry and Personnel Team I have decided, with their agreement, that is it time to take a Sabbatical Leave. I last did this in 2016 to mark 15 years since I was ordained, so in 2026 I will do the same to mark a quarter century in ministry. Between three months of leave and the normal month of vacation I will be off from May 8-September 8. Look for more details in the New Year.

I look forward to you joining us during the Advent and Christmas season. If it is a challenge to join us in person, all our worship events are also streamed on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@st.paulsunitedgrandeprairie).

Have a Blessed Advent and Christmas Season!

Looking Ahead to November 23, 2025

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Isaiah 65:17-25 
• Luke 1:68-79

Taken from FB,
Click to enlarge

The Sermon title is MWGA (Make the World Great Again)

Early Thoughts: What does it mean to make something great again? When was the greatness and what has changed?

In the last few years, thanks to a certain 2016 Presidential campaign, we have heard a lot about making something great again. It started of course with MAGA (America) but has also been used by people to talk about Canada or Alberta. In last month's municipal election one candidate's signs said "Make GP Great Again".

So many questions come up. Great for who? Why is _____ not great now? Who wins and loses in your vision of greatness?

Some have tried to bring the church into this Make ___ Great Again discussion. Often under the auspices of Christian Nationalism, with the assumption that somehow greatness and Christianity are intrinsically related. As Brian Zhand points out in the quote pictured above, the church is not in the business of making America, or Canada, or Alberta, or Grande Prairie great again. The church is in the business of lifting up a different way of being.

This Sunday marks the end of the liturgical year, the Reign of Christ Sunday. It is a day when we are asked/encouraged to take seriously Jesus claim that in his ministry the Reign of God has broken into the world. It is a day when we are encouraged to ask where our loyalty is meant to lie. Is it to a nation state or is it to the world that God envisions? Here is a quote from C.S. Lewis about loyalty and sabotage...

I think we can all agree that the vision we find for a renewed world in passages like this week's reading from Isaiah is not what we see in our news feeds and TV screens. But here is the Good News. God is actively at work.

God is actively and continuously at work renewing the world. It might be a more gradual process than we would wish but God is actively at work making the world better, maybe even great.

Click to enlarge

Here is another meme I screenshotted from Facebook earlier this fall. It helps describe what I think it means to say the God is making the world great/ Not again, again suggests that there was some sort of idyllic past we are trying to get back to. God calls us to look forward, to how things are being renewed. The Reign of Christ/Kingdom of God is not found in the past, it is found in the present and growing into the future. 

We are invited to catch the vision, to share in the dream of a world renewed and reformed. We are invited to join in the task that has been ongoing for millennia. In Christian terms, we see Jesus as announcing the inauguration and beginning of the Reign of God. This reading from Luke (which we we read again on Advent 1 as we move into another year of hope) is the song Zechariah sings at the naming of John the Baptist. In the final verses he sings about John but the early verses sing of the promised Messiah or Saviour -- the one we call Jesus. The one who will renew the people  as God has promised of old.

How do we see God making the world great? How have you been asked or invited or challenged to take part in God's great renewal? How do the promises and actions of the world around us help or get in the way of God's project of MWGA?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 16, 2025

Source

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• James 2:12-17
• Luke 6:27-37

The Sermon title is Upside Down Power

Early Thoughts: Do you remember last January and Bishop Budde? She spoke truth to power. She lifted up a different understanding of how we could live together. She advocated for mercy and grace. Some thought it was inappropriate to bring 'politics' into a sermon (with the President and Vice-President sitting right there). Others thought it was the best time to speak the gospel hope for a renewed transformed world.

We all have power, to one extent or another. We all have power and authority in some sphere of life. Sometimes the sphere feels really small. Sometimes it is bigger than we imagine. The question for all of us -- those with great power and those with just a little bit -- is how do we use it.

There are those who say you use your power to get everything the way you want it. There are voices who will always say that those with the most power get what they want. And if we look at how the world works it appears that people with power have a tendency to use it to benefit themselves, their supporters, and their agenda. Governments pass legislation enshrining their policies in law. Influencers convince people to ignore decades of science or history (or sometimes just basic facts and logic) in favour of a particular idea or understanding. Those who resist or protest are seen as troublemakers or unrealistic dreamers.

Power can certainly be abused.

How are we called to use power as people of faith, as citizens of God's Reign?  What does power mean in a worldview where the last shall be first, the weak shall be strong, the least shall be the greatest?

I think there are a few key points. One is that we use power to lift up and build up not to keep down and put down. We use power to create community rather than to divide. Another is that we use power with grace and mercy at the forefront of our decision making. A third is that we use power in ways that stand with the vulnerable and weak against the strong and powerful. Finally (and possibly the most importantly)is that we use it for the betterment of others, not just our own agendas -- sometimes we use it in ways that appear to set us back in the interests of our neighbour.

Obviously there is some overlap in those points.  Life in faith ends to be a web of ideas.

Using power in the kingdom might look like going the extra mile. It might look like malicious compliance to point out the implicit injustice in a policy. Using power in God's Reign might look like caring for someone who can never reciprocate. Using power in a Christ-like way  might mean making a bold choice to put others first at cost to yourself. It might look like challenging those with more power to be more gracious, merciful, loving. It might mean being seen as divisive or 'too political'. Using power as a follower of Christ means doing things that help us see that God's Reign is breaking forth all over the place.

Using power as a person of faith most certainly does NOT mean violating people' rights. It does not mean using your platform to dehumanize people. It does not mean helping the winners win bigger while the losers fall farther behind. It does not mean retreating into some worldview where the Reign of God makes not impact on how the world actually works, of telling people "your reward will be great in the next life" while they suffer here and now.

Bishop Budde had power by virtue of the office to which she has been called. She had the chance to speak to those with a different sort and understanding of power. One showed faithful use of power, one has consistently shown a different use and understanding.  WHich way will we follow with our power?

To close this piece I share this screenshot I took sometime after Charlie Kirk was murdered. I think it too talks about power (and I encourage folk to search Benjamin Cremer on social media)...

MAy God help us to use power faithfully, lovingly, mercifully as we live into the "world God imagines" (as our hymn last Sunday put it)
--Gord

Looking Ahead to November 9, 2025

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 119:33-40
• Romans 12:17-21
• Matthew 5:38-48

The Sermon title is Upside Down Vengeance

Early Thoughts: This Sunday is two days before Remembrance Day. How do we get to "Never Again" in a world that seems hardwired to repeat history. How do we get to Peace in a world so prone to violence?

By turning things upside down. By living into Jesus' upside down logic and commandments.

Jesus challenges our understanding of how to react in the face of mistreatment (real or imagined I would say). Much of the time the natural reaction is to want to strike back or at least to complain. Jesus seems to tell us to go further along the path of being mis treated.

Jesus challenges our understanding of how we respond to our enemies. Common sense says that you love your friends but have different feelings about your enemies. Jesus tells us to love them and to pray for them. [To be fair he does not say how to pray for them so there may be room for malicious compliance on that count.] Jesus points out that any fool can love their friends but the true calling is to love your enemies also.

Then there is Paul. Writing to Rome, Paul points out that payback is not the way of Christ. Years ago Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said: "Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.". I have heard that for years without realizing how deeply rooted it is in Romans 12. Dr. King understood that to live into a new word meant changing our thinking. We move beyond payback and vengeance. We act lovingly instead. It is a hard calling. It is easier, and feels better, to at least dream of getting back at others. Though I do like the slightly twisted idea that by loving our enemies we "heap burning coals on their head". We overcome evil with good, maybe in part by shaming the other????

Psalm 119 is a very long piece of poetry -- 176 verses -- that talks about the glories of following the Law. In Jewish tradition the Law is often seen not as burden but as gift. In the same way that boundaries can help children grow healthily or "good fences make good neighbours" (as Robert Frost tells us) the Law, a set of rules about how we live together, helps keep us healthy. In a world where we lift up the importance of self and self-determination we might lose sight of this principle but we need boundaries to be healthy as individuals and as a society. In these verses we see the psalmist asking God for guidance and wisdom so we might stay inside the boundaries.

We will never get to true peace by putting down others, even if "they did it first". At no point in human history has the path of vengeance and pay back led to lasting peace. As it has been said, "eye for eye and tooth for tooth only leaves everyone blind and toothless".

Instead we lift up the upside down logic of the Reign of God. The path to peace is to love your enemy, to act lovingly toward them. The path to peace is to let God lead us in new ways. The path to peace is to stay between the lines -- even when the lines seem to lead in a strange direction.

May we continue to let God turn our worlds upside down.
--Gord

For the Advent Newsletter

Dream a dream, a hopeful dream...

Dream a time, this Christmas time...
Dream a peace, our planet’s peace...
Dream a gift, the Christmas Gift
that changes everything we see...
(Words from Dream a Dream by Shirley Erena Murray, #158 in More Voices)

We are entering the time of preparation and waiting we call Advent. Four weeks of lighting candles and preparing our hearts for the birth of a baby who will change the world. As we get ourselves ready for Emmanuel, God-With-Us to be born what dreams fill your heart, soul and mind this year? What does Christmas need to bring for the magic of The Word becoming flesh to re-energize your world as we move into 2026?

Dreams are important, they help us envision a world renewed and re-vitalized. Dreams remind us that there is another possible reality. In our faith stories dreams are often a way that God communicates with God’s people (it happens 4 times just in the first 2 chapters of Matthew!). What dreams has God placed on your soul this year?

This year as we gather on the four Sundays of Advent I invite us to be open to the power of dreams. The theme I have chosen for the season is The Christmas Dream:____. Each Sunday we will finish the phrase with one of our Advent themes: Awakened Hope, Transformative Peace, Blosoming Joy, and Embodied Love. Sometime between now and then I will figure out how we might finish the phrase for Christmas Eve itself. When you think of Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love what dreams stir in your heart?

The weeks leading into Christmas can get very busy and hectic, but let’s take time to pause and listen. Let us dream together. Let us share our dreams with each other. May we be open to how God is speaking to our hearts and minds as we prepare for God to change the world by becoming one of us, to walk around among us. In 4 weeks a baby will be born. We will sing carols and remember shepherds and angels. Hope, peace, joy and love will break into our lives again. Life can be a dream. Dream along with me.
--Gord

For the Next Newsletter

It is October 28, 2025. My heart is heavy. My outrage is bubbling. To be honest I don’t know how to write about Gentleness today.

Between the draconian and undemocratic ending to the Alberta teachers strike, the prospect of millions of US citizens losing access to financial support for food through SNAP, the real possibility that ethnic cleansing will continue in Palestine, news of a category 5 hurricane set to ravage Jamaica, and whatever other troubling things might pass under my eyes today my heart is heavy.

How do we respond to all the {expletive deleted} that comes flying at us these days? How do we remain gentle and meek in the face of injustice and unfairness and suffering? Some days I think the better question is “should we remain gentle and meek?”...

In the end I think we should. I think we are called to respond passionately but gently. I think we are called to find a different path. We follow the one who told his followers to love their enemies, to turn the other cheek, to put away their sword. Jesus reminds us that there is the way the world usually works and there is the way the Reign of God works – and we are called to strive for the second one.

Which does not mean it will always be easy.

Maybe part of the problem lies in what we often think it means to be gentle. Maybe it is only me (though I guess I am not alone) but to be gentle carries with it the idea of letting others walk all over you. It suggests remaining calm and not getting worked up, not calling people out, not engaging in conflict. Certainly it seems idealistic and naive to suggest that we respond to the violence of the world with gentleness and expect to make a difference. In all of this I think I am wrong.

To be gentle does not mean we can’t be passionate or forceful or just accept things as ‘that’s just the way it is’. To be gentle is about how we are passionate and forceful about what we believe to be right. To be gentle means following the path of a Mahatma Gandhi or Dr. Martin Luther King. To be gentle is to model a different way of changing the world rather than letting the world change us.

We know that the world is not what it could (or should?) be. There are things that will make us rage. There are things that will make us weep. There are things that call for us to stand in the breach and protect the vulnerable in our midst. Do all those things. Be passionate about what it means to love. Be forceful about how we should live. But also be gentle. Be loving. Don’t let the violence of the world lead you to counter with violence. May God help us to live lives filled with all the flavours of the fruit of the Spirit.
Gord

Looking Ahead to November 2, 2025

This is a first of the month Sunday so we will be celebrating Communion this week. If you are joining us via YouTube you are encouraged to have some bread and juice available so we can all eat and drink together.

Also the first Sunday of the month is a day when we at St. Paul's intentionally remember our Local Outreach Fund with designated gifts to support our neighbours.

With the beginning of November we start to prepare for the end of the Liturgical Year when we mark the Reign of Christ Sunday (Nov 23 this year). A month from now we will be into Advent and starting to prepare for Christmas. AS we lead into the Reign of Christ this year I encourage us to think of how Christ tends to turn our expectations and assumptions about the world upside down.

The Scripture Reading this week is Luke 6:20-26

The Sermon title is Upside Down Blessings

Early Thoughts: What does it mean to be blessed? Is Jesus seriously saying that the poor, the hungry, those who weep, those who are hated/reviled/excluded/defamed are the blessed ones? 

Last week I came upon a video which included a clip of Jordan Peterson responding to the version of the Beatitudes that we find in Matthew, a parallel passage to what we have here in Luke. In Matthew is where we find the familiar "Blessed are the meek" and "Blessed are the peacemakers" and Dr. Peterson was responding (in the clip which was presumably from a longer piece) to the idea that the meek and humble are blessed. Surely, he said, Jesus meant something else by meek -- his suggestion was those who had great power and strength but chose not to use it were the truly meek. The clip was spliced with a Biblical scholar who said that Peterson was clearly trying to renegotiate with what the text actually said to make it more palatable. In short, to make it fit with Peterson's assumptions about how the world should work.

But Jesus challenges our assumptions on a regular basis. Jesus is the one who tells us that the last shall be first and the our calling is to be servant-leaders. Jesus proclaims a kingdom that upends the way the world works, a kingdom where power is assigned differently, a kingdom which gives preference to those on the margins instead of those at the center.

In our world of late-stage capitalism we would think that Jesus has it all wrong in this combination of blessings and woes. Surely it is the rich, the well-fed, the praised who are truly blessed. Right?

What if we are wrong about the signs of being blessed? What if we are called to see the world with our head on the ground and our feet in the air? 

WHat does it really mean to be blessed?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 19, 2025

The Scripture readings this week are:

• Psalm 133 Acts 2:42-47
• Hebrews 10:24-25
• Romans 12:15-18

The Sermon title is A Thankful Community

Early Thoughts: In the end we are a communal species. Certainly  we are a communal faith. Really human life, Christian life is about how we function in community.

I may not always have believed this. There may well have been a time when, speaking out of having been consistently hurt by a specific community, I thought that the Simon and Garfunkel song I Am a Rock sounded like a good motto. Or at least that is what I told myself at the time.  It felt safer to be alone behind walls.  (On reflection I am not sure I had myself totally convinced even then.)

I still understand the impulse. Bit in the end we are a communal species and Christianity is a communal faith.

Over and over again when you ask people why they go to church some part of the answer is "the community". Together we dance and celebrate. Together we weep and lament. Together we complain about how the world is and dream about what the world could be. It may be a cliche but together we are more than the sum of our individual parts.

Our Scripture readings this week talk about the blessings of community. They also talk about the importance of being in community. They talk about the importance of  supporting each other in community.

5 years ago we were pushed to re-think how we are as a community.  How could we continue to be a community when we didn't gather in one place? We learned how to be community not only in-person but on Zoom as well. 5 years later we are still a different type of community.  Some of us gather together in a room on Sunday morning, others join us online either in real time or later that day.  We have people who have joined us for Sunday worship from other towns, even other provinces. We are a community that expands well beyond the walls of our building or even the boundaries of the city. AS time goes by the community grows and reshapes, we find new things that re important about how we are community together. Still we see the importance of community.

This week, in the middle of Thanktober, I ask you all a couple of question. Why are you thankful for the communities of which you are a part? How do our various communities make a difference in the world (both local and global)? What difference does it make to be in community --both when it is easy and when it is hard, when it feels safe and when we feel really vulnerable?
--Gord

Looking Ahead to October 12, 2025 -- Thanksgiving Sunday

The Scripture Readings this week are:

• Psalm 100
• Deuteronomy 26:1-11

The Sermon title is Thankful Remembering, Thankful Giving

Early Thoughts: DO you pause to remember? Do you pause to recall what God has done? What happens when you do that?

This passage from Deuteronomy describes a ritual of presenting a thank-offering. It describes it as one of the first things you do at harvest (I wonder if first fruits means every year or just the first harvest in this context?) You take a portion and offer it to God. As you do that you name those things that God has done for you and for the people and out of thankfulness you give to God as you celebrate the abundance of the land.

So what do we do with this story?  We have not just entered the Promised Land. Many of us do not have fields to harvest and bring in the first fruits. Few of us have a story of how our recent ancestors were delivered from an oppressive empire (at least not as specifically as the Exodus story). The story can't be talking about how we are to act -- can it?

It is my contention that we read these ancient stories because even if our context and lives are very different from the culture that passed them on to us they do have something to teach us about how we are called to live.

In this case the story has much to tell us.  There are three parts to the ritual that is described: offering, remembering/recalling/retelling, and celebrating.

How do we incorporate all three into our lives?

It is my firm belief that the act of remembering with thankfulness how we have benefited for the gifts we have been given changes our hearts and minds. When we intentionally pause to name those gifts, to retell the story, to celebrate the abundance we are more open to do the offering. A thankful heart is most often a generous heart.

AS we move into Thanksgiving weekend this year I encourage us all to remember. As we remember I encourage us to tell stories, talk about the gifts we have received. Then celebrate them. Be glad for the gifts, even sing  if you are so minded. Then open yourself to the next step -- sharing, making an offering. I want us to ask ourselves what 'first fruits' we might have to lay down before God, not just on Thanksgiving or in some sort of ritual but on a day-to-day basis. As I said above, we will be more open to identifying what we can share if our hearts are filled with a sense of abundance and a feeling of thankfulness.

When we forget to remember, when we don't tell ourselves the stories of gifts received we can more easily fall prey to the ongoing claxon telling us there is not enough. We miss the abundance. Worry or jealousy take the place of gratitude. In that place there is little celebrating, little impulse to be generous.

THe choice, in the end, is ours. What will we choose to remember? What will we choose to see? Will we be generous and thankful?
--Gord