DEN Enews

Meditation on Sunday’s readings from https://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/2025/11/the-second-sunday-of-advent-december-7-2025/

“The meek seldom inherit the earth. The wealthy seldom give up power. Despite the realities of injustice, we cannot give up hope for a new heaven and a new earth, and the emergence of a Peaceable Realm in the rubble of our civilization.

Advent presents an impossible possibility, that the partnership of humanity and divinity will create a new earth. The Season of Advent invites us to wait but also be catalysts for the changes we wish to see.

…..we must strive after God’s Shalom and, perhaps, in the striving after Shalom in our personal lives as well as the body politic create communities that nurture a better humanity and make peace with the non-human world; a world in which poverty, injustice, racism, sexism, and global climate change are a thing of the past and God’s Shalom reigns.”

More Extras

I know, I know — Grandma said she was taking December off, and here I am again. Just a few things to share.

Grandma is always on the lookout for a good fundraiser. Yes, fundraisers help keep a bank account healthy, but even more importantly, they bring a community together. On a Sunday morning, we may be lucky to have 20 souls hearing the Gospel inside the church. Put on a Christmas Bazaar, and suddenly there are 30 helpers bustling around tables, laughing and working side by side.

Our Christmas Bazaar follows a familiar and comforting pattern. There’s lunch — soup or chili, a roll, dessert, and a cup of tea (or coffee). Craft tables fill the hall with sewing, knitting, crocheting, rug hooking, and handmade items for sale. Mittens and socks line one wall as you come in. There’s always a cake to guess the weight of — closest guess takes it home. A book table invites you to leave a small donation and take a few books, with proceeds going to a women’s shelter. And then there’s the ever-popular “New to You” table.

Each year, Grandma and Nana try to find one new-to-us gift for under the tree. Most years, I find it at a church sale. This year, it was at a sale just ten minutes up the road — a “New to You” Christmas Bazaar. Folks like me, trying to keep less, donate items, and the rest of us happily buy them. It’s a wonderful environmental idea.

Along with ornaments, there was wrapping paper, gift bags, and boxes — brand new and never used. There were elaborate decorations, kitchenware, and plenty of things perfect for re-gifting. Grandma came home with a six-unit baking pan that makes cakes look like gifts, a complete latch-hook set, and the most gorgeous, oversized Christmas napkins.

They also had a bake table, but this year they went a step further and sold lobster roll lunches — a generous roll, plus macaroni salad, coleslaw, fresh carrots and tomatoes, a cookie, and even a mini candy cane. Fifteen dollars for a lobster lunch is hard to beat, and those rolls were full.

And Nana’s “New to You” gift? (Shhh!) Grandma found a white-robed Santa with a big wind-up key on his back.  I’m told it dates from the 1960s. Nana loves Santa figures, so that one is safely tucked away.

Maybe your group might like to think about hosting a “New to You” Christmas Bazaar someday. It brings people together, keeps good things in circulation, and fits beautifully with caring for Creation.

Grandma thinks that sounds like a fundraiser worth repeating.

Ok. Grandma can’t stop finding neat things on the internet while she scrolls with her first cup of tea. Today it was making suncatchers by printing off a colouring page, colouring shapes for suncatchers. Add the colouring to a mason jar ring and hang in the windows. Easy Peasy, keep those hands busy

Want to make your own bows to put on your gifts. These are made from magazines and a stapler (or glue dots)

Grandma believes every child — boy or girl — should know a little sewing. Nothing fancy! Just the basics: mending a tear, sewing a button back on, or fixing a hem.

A lovely beginner project is making small rice packs for warming hands or boots. The tutorial explains it in detail, but the idea is simple: cut two pieces of fabric about 4 × 4 inches. Sew three sides together, turn the square right-side out, fill it with rice, and stitch the opening closed. If you want it a bit sturdier — and prettier — sew a neat line all the way around the edge on the outside.

Pop your little rice pack in the microwave for about a minute, then slip it into gloves or pockets.

Warm hands, warm hearts.

Now for the big news!
Remember Grandma’s story about tackling what she thought was a very big grant application?

This week an email arrived from the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage letting us know that the Parish of Blandford has been approved for a major grant.

Because of this support, we’ll be adding new community garden boxes (complete with fog fences), expanding the number of planting kits, and hosting a Seed and Plant Swap. There is also funding to grow Seed Share, meaning more pollinator food will be scattered far and wide.

But here’s the best part: people — real, local people — believe in this work. They believe in caring for Creation and in the network that makes it possible. When you hear of programs being cut or scaled back, remember that at least one small parish, alongside your Diocesan Environment Network, is being encouraged — not just by neighbours, but by our provincial government too.

Grandma has finished decorating now. December, you see, is neatly divided into decorating, wrapping, and baking.

Grandma has a question for you: what’s your favourite Christmas recipe? If you have a moment, send it along to [email protected] — Grandma loves trying something new.

Until next time,
Merry Christmas.

We take the light of our prayer into the world
to pray for those unable to pray;
to offer ourselves as answers to prayer.

We take the light of our compassion into the world:
to come alongside those who are suffering
anguish of heart
anguish of mind
and be as Christ for them.

We take the light of God's power into the world:
God's power made perfect in powerlessness
strength made known in weakness
life made known in dying.

God enters the hearts of all who pray and feel they are not heard
suffers their pain -
their humiliation -
carries the burdens of the world
and dies that we might live

May our God bless us
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

And until we meet again
May God hold us in the palm of his hand.
Amen