Sermon: "Be Heliotropic" (Mark 9:30-37), Sept 30, 2018 -- Orange Shirt Day

Sermon: “Be heliotropic.” 

Mark 9:30-37

When my family returned back home from our month-long holiday in Korea, we were welcomed by these guys in our backyard: 

the seeds that Jah-bi had planted in June had turned into a lemon flower forest. It was a very cloudy day, as you see in the picture, but the lemon-coloured flowers were simply bright, as if they could cast out the spell of the clouds.  

People often experience being amazed or uplifted by sunflowers – I gleaned those words from the Facebook posts of my friends. 

One of my friends was walking on the Camino. She resisted the urge to speed up when all the people were briskly passing by. Her unhurried pace allowed her to notice the beauty of the fields and open space. The sunflower field. The contentment inside, letting go of anxious/fearful thoughts with every breath. 

Now, a few more gleaned words from two people who are in this space. “A hot hazy day on the prairies - finally. Haying and other harvesting underway on my way to work. The cheery-faced sunflowers are hanging their heavy heads awaiting harvest. Our resident mother bear and cub haven’t been spotted for a few days but the plum trees will beckon them soon, no doubt.”  (Sept 4, 2009) What lovely images. 

Another one is from Aisha! (Our Sunday School director-to-be, who starts her work on Oct 1st, tomorrow) “My light is so bright that I grew sunflowers in snowstorms….” 

Sunflowers are not just friendly or pretty, though. They are the healers of the land, and therefore, the community. They detoxify soil – after the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi, in Japan, millions of sunflowers were planted to help purge the soil of radiation and heavy metals. 

One United Church minister reported: “Last year when the congregation was scattered because of the evacuation order due to the forest fires, I stayed in touch via email reminding the community of our identity in God, reminding one another that while we were scattered across the province and even beyond we were still connected one to another in God. The image that came to me was Jeremiah, who reminded Israel that even in captivity their identity in God was with them. The forest fires had scattered the community but the fires could not destroy who we knew ourselves to be. I heard from many folks how much this helped them in a time of great uncertainty. I would wonder Leenane (one of my United Church clergy colleges in Vancouver) in the devastation of a flood, if the people just need to remember their identity is not in that which was lost, but in their faith in each other, found in their belief in God. Prayers with you and the church. And with others in the community impacted by the unexpected flood.” 

To this prayer, Even Smith commented: (She is an indigenous member, and a United Church clergy serving the Toronto Urban Native Ministry) “After the hard stuff is done, plant sunflowers outside. They draw the toxins up out of the soil. We did this all over in New Orleans after Katrina. Sending you prayers.” 

Another example: Recently, in Alberta, sunflower seeds were collected and sent to High River United Church.  The congregation who initiated this compassionate effort had enough seeds donated that they could donate a package to every home affected by the flood. 

Reading and hearing all these, I found it very inspiring to think how each creation is God’s given gift. The sunflowers are a great treasure to clean the soil and begin healing the earth. They have to be planted when the time is right, though – in Spring, when winter loses its fierce grip on the land. Sunflowers can truly be a metaphor for prayers in our lives — cleansing our hearts and healing the future. 

Now, there’s one more lesson about sunflowers I would like to share, and I hope that I can make a meaningful link with today’s scripture reading. 

I invite you to find or affirm your personal strength in relationship with the divine in you, and God in all things, with the image of the Sunflower being heliotropic. 

Have any of you heard the word heliotropic before? Students of Greek, artists and gardeners might have an advantage here… I first introduced this word to the search committee by writing about it in my application, and I was wearing a little sunflower necklace at the actual interview. Helio is the ancient Greek term for sun. To illustrate, sunflowers are heliotropic. They turn their large flower-face towards the movement of the sun in order to constantly face the light. We, as a community and as individuals, tend to grow in the direction of our positive images of the future, like a sunflower or heliotrope grows toward the sun, to find our best alignment with the direction and warmth of our source of light. I told the search committee that my research about this community, Immanuel, through interviews, documents and reputation, impressed me, especially Immanuel’s clarity of vision — what it means to be the church — and this community’s desire to continue to grow as an inclusive, heliotropic community. I said, ‘You are spiritually confident, deeply rooted in your authentic tradition and, at the same time, open to embracing new possibilities where freedom and community can bloom.”

 After being part of your mission and journey for the past year, and now in this second turn round the sun, the faith and belief I saw from the first have only been affirmed, strengthened and increased. Our life, our individual life’s goals and purpose, our church, our home, our nation, our society all need to, metaphorically, (and also practically, maybe :)) plant sunflowers to draw the toxins up out of the soil, to clean the soul, and to begin healing the following spring. 

In today’s scripture, Jesus finds the disciples arguing with one another over who is the greatest among them. Jesus’ response, as a way of teaching, is astounding and beautiful. He sits down, (he sets the peace in the room, like a ceremony) and calls the twelve and says to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” Then he takes a little child and puts the child among them; and taking the child in his arms, he says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” 

When Jesus’ disciples were arguing about who was the greatest and who would sit next to the throne of the Christ in the new Kingdom, they were swallowed up by their fear of uncertainty. They were not disputing about power and entitlement because they were excited and confident about what the future would bring to them — prosperity and thriving potential; they were quibbling over signs of security and privilege because they were afraid, anxious – they were operating from a deficit mindset. But Jesus’ calling and teaching about the Kingdom of God is clear and compelling: our leadership and spirituality must be grounded in appreciation, gratitude and a perception of abundance. 

Think about how children explore their world, rolling over at 6 months, crawling at 8 months, walking at 12-15 months, picking up interesting things and putting them into their mouth to taste, and starting every day’s new learning from a blank slate, really believing they can do new things themselves - often insisting they can do it! Because they are so sure that they have some not-fully-known ‘superpower’ inside their body and mind. And it is true, they have such faith in the world, and people, and God has such faith in them. Children are, by nature, sunflower beings from birth, incredible Heliotropic creations who always look for possibility, strength and the Sun, the greatest source of light and hope possible and available to them. 

That heliotropic nature of children to seek warmth and light highlights how Residential schools, the intergenerational trauma caused by the Residential school system and the cultural genocidal programs that separated children from their homes, parents, culture and tradition were so wrong, and were responsible for so much tragedy. Stan McKay once told me that even the current school system’s teaching practices can break an indigenous child’s soul. We are humbled as we lament, our only small gesture of remembering the past and the present and the future of all indigenous children and the irreplaceable, God-depth worth of every child on our planet by wearing orange today.

Sept 30th, 2018, Orange Shirt Day,
Immanuel United Church

These are the lemon Sunflower survivors of Jah-bi’s garden I took a picture of last Friday, after sleet and snow, which melted quickly. 

From their birth, to the high peak paralleling the Sun above, to the moment the harsh weather will make them collapse at the end, the sunflowers faithfully follow their orientation — constantly facing the sun. Let us do the same.

Sermon: The stories that are signals (Mark 8:27-38), Sept 23, 2018

The stories that are signals…

Mark 8:27-38

Rev. Ha Na Park (Immanuel United Church, Winnipeg)

The disciples and Jesus first met beside a sunny sea in Galilee. 

Now, they are on the road to Jerusalem, in the middle space between Galilee (the place where the first calling events happened) and Jerusalem. (Caesarea Philippi is at the foothills of Mount Heron)

In this middle space, the disciples feel uncertain: What does it mean that they follow Jesus? Who is Jesus? Who am I? Who are we? The questions and the answers that they thought they knew are no longer crystal clear, not like when they were first called at the sunny sea. 

Jesus challenges the disciples to come out of their ego and comfort zone. Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?”  

It appears that Jesus is looking for some new names. Who do you say that I am? Messiah or the Son of Man, the teacher or the healer? 

When we look deeper, however, we can see that what Jesus is really looking for is not just names, a confession (Peter says, “You are the Messiah”), or new titles. Jesus is really asking the disciples to tell him stories. Jesus wants them to answer, “Who do you say I am?” with Stories, the narratives that they’ve all been told from infancy. 

First, the holy story of God: “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again”. It is a Story that they all know. Second, the holy story of God’s people: “For those who want to save their life will lose it; and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” 

We believe that following Jesus means following his name. But, as I read this passage this week, I reached a different conclusion, and it really made sense. (No commentary offers this idea): Following Jesus is actually following the Story Jesus shows by action, words and life, as if Jesus tells us, “Unless you follow my Story, you do not follow me.” 

What interests me most is the disciple’s reaction. Peter, the first disciple, who verbalized the right answer with the confession that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed, rejects the story, gets angry, pulls Jesus aside and “rebukes” him: “No way, Jesus. That is never going to happen with me. I don’t understand your story. I don’t want it.”

The stories are powerful. Our minds, hearts and brains are hard-wired to respond to stories by making deeper connections. Stories stick. Stories are like Velcro. 

Jesus changed the world through stories. What is both a blessing and a curse is that we, each one of us, our ancestors, our descendants, historically and in the present, are the carriers of the stories. The question is, what are the stories we are carrying? We are capable of changing the world to be better or destroying the world. Sharon Ballantyne, who is completely blind, was one of the Intercultural Observers at GC43. At General Council, she compelled us to think about lenses. “Some lenses are life-giving, some lenses are life-limiting, some lenses are life-harming.” Stories are the same. Some stories are life-giving, some stories are life-limiting, some stories are life-harming. 

For example, the Doctrine of Discovery is a story that is horribly life-harming. It says that the land belongs to the King, the Sovereign God, therefore, the colonizers, if the population that lives on the land are not Christians. It is declared to be empty, therefore, to be conquered and possessed. 

In contrast, Treaty is a life-giving story we need to learn and know. Many of you at Immanuel encouraged me to watch the three episodes of First Contact (APTN Channel). Some of you have even taped them. Some of us, like me, watched them on-line. I would like to invite all who are interested and are able to stay after worship next Sunday (the 30th) to watch the second episode of First Contact together, on this fabulous new screen, and have some discussions after showing it. All are welcome. Bring a bag lunch or food to share. So, what’s First Contact? Most Canadians have never taken the time to get to know Indigenous people or visit their communities. First Contact takes six average Canadians, all with strong opinions about Indigenous People, on a unique 28-day journey into Indigenous Canada. 

First Contact taught me that stories help people connect. The stories the indigenous hosts share, one story at a time, begin to unravel these six people’s perceptions, fears and prejudices. It is very interesting to see how each individual evolves (or doesn’t) in their thinking. Stories humanize one one another, and link people together. What would you answer if you were asked, “Do you believe that you are a treaty person as well?” 

We need to look at ourselves both as a community and individuals and ask which stories shape our life, faith and world-views, which stories shape the lenses through which we observe ourselves and others? We always need stories, but right now we especially need life-giving stories.

What are our stories at Immanuel? What are our stories at home? What stories do we follow or not follow? How are we doing as story-tellers and as story-makers, in our roles – as a parent, a teacher, a friend? What are life-giving stories we would like to centre and grow and share in our lives? Stories connect people. Stories are another name for mission. 

“When you understand the story, you are engaged, connected, strategic and intentional.” (Cate Friesen) 

Last year, my first year of being the minister at Immanuel, I was busy getting to know each one of you a little more at each opportunity, and at the same time, I was busy telling you my story. I hope that in this second year we can start a conversation to discover, write and tell about what Immanuel’s own life-giving stories are, and what they can be. 

Jennifer Aaker is a professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business; she has spoken a lot about the power of story. Aaker says, (and I really like this metaphor)  “In life, there is signal and there is noise. The stories that you tell about yourselves and that others tell about you are signals.” 

What I learned from her work is that to be effective, we need to cut through the noise, and stories help us do that. 

The signature story is something that, after we tell it, makes people look at us differently. Everyone needs a signature story, and we, as Immanuel, need one too. What’s Jesus’ signature story? The cross and resurrection. “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again… For those who want to save their life will lose it; and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Imagine hearing that story halfway between Galilee and Jerusalem – imagine looking at the person who is telling that story, and realizing that story is about them – and you. 

The most powerful stories, the signature stories, are those that take the audience (the community) where we want them to go. It is the Vision story. We need a conversation. Conversations will help us to discover the treasure of stories, which lead us to the holy, life-giving story — which is translatable to mission. 

Good stories usually have a three-stage plot: Character - challenge - outcome. 

Character: Who are you? 

Challenge: What is the turning point in your life?

What is a clear and present obstacle or challenge you face? What choices have you made in response?

Outcome: What strength has been demonstrated from the event, from the experience, that followed the choice? 

Jesus’s story has all of these elements, and our story will exactly do the same. 

As Immanuel, as a community and as a disciple, we will understand what was and is a turning point in our life. Not just in the past – in the present, too.  

We will befriend our own middle space. "Don’t just do works, but sit where you are, sit with people, and ask, listen, and ponder their stories. 

We will clarify what is the clear and present obstacle and challenge we face. 

We will find which choice will give us life. 

We will discover, draft, write and rewrite stories, and be creative.

This call to be the story-teller, the story-maker comes from the fact that we are all disciples, all learners. 

The holy story of God and God’s people always has two ends: the beginning (the birth) and the end (the resurrection). The end also poses the open question: “In what new and different ways do we intend to change lives? Who do we say we are… Who does God say we are?

Sermon: "Like a Ceremony" (Luke 6:6-13), Sept 16, 2018

“Like a Ceremony”

Luke 6:6-13

Rev. Ha Na Park, (Immanuel United Church, Winnipeg.)

Let’s play 4 Pics 1 Word. It’s a puzzle game to find the common link that binds the four pictures together. The goal is to guess that word.

(Show the pictures of)

Wedding ceremony

Tea ceremony 

Olympic games ceremony 

Soccer player’s goal ceremony (In the English-speaking world, people say it is a goal celebration. Koreans call it a goal ceremony)

Ceremony. 

Today, I would like to talk about the wisdom I learned from an indigenous spiritual elder, Susan Beaver, about how we can embrace each moment of our lives, “like a ceremony.” 

To be specific, how we can do conflict like a ceremony. For example, in our scripture this morning, Jesus says, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you…”. We can perceive that situation (being not welcome, being refused) as a conflict.

This past summer, I was elected as a Commissioner to the 43^rd General Council, held in May, and was sent to Oshawa, Ontario, to participate.  It was a great experience; many “Ephphatha” moments happened, with everyone’s eyes, ears, mind, and spirit being opened. 

One of the highlights of each General Council meeting, which takes place every three years, is that the approximately 300 commissioners who are sent from the 13 Conferences of the United Church of Canada elect a new moderator who will serve in the next triennium. Susan Beaver was one of the 10 moderator nominees. I deeply hoped that she could be our new moderator. I supported her because of her reputation and my own knowledge of her as a deeply spiritually-gifted person, and, as her colleague said, a “revolutionary pastor”. But those were not the only reasons for my support. I thought we needed her. The United Church discerns that now is a “Kairos time” for us to walk humbly towards reconciliation and to make two paths (the indigenous church and the settler church) become one journey. I believe we would be able to move closer to reconciliation when the wisdom for ‘making two paths become one journey’ comes from indigenous knowledge, and the leadership of the indigenous church. 

Susan Beaver and Richard Bott, who would be the new moderator, 2019-21, and for whom I have equal respect, were the last two waiting for the final votes to be made, before one of them would be announced as the United Church’s new moderator. 

The final votes were counted. 

At GC43, the commissioners used the clicker when they voted. Technology! 

The new moderator was announced. It had been planned for an indigenous group who were at GC43 to welcome the new moderator with a drumming ceremony right after the announcement. 

After the voting was done, feeling some deep emotions, I joined the Lodge gathering where Susan was scheduled to teach Indigenous wisdom to those who gathered during the lunch break, a meeting which was scheduled no matter whether Susan was elected or not.

If I had been Susan I most likely would have felt disappointed and tired, after the long election process, but she didn’t look like it. Quite the opposite - her teaching was densely embroidered with many inspiring words of wisdom, and one of them, in particular, touched me. She said, “We can do conflict like a ceremony.” 

“We can do conflict like a ceremony.”  

I asked her to say more, after the others left. 

“What do you mean by ceremony? How do we do that?” 

Susan said to me, “We can do conflict like a ceremony, if you have peace in your hands, peace in your heart, peace in your mouth, peace in your mind, because peace is the presence of the Creator.” 

I share this story with you because I believe this indigenous wisdom resonates well with Christ’s wisdom on peace, conflict and our mission as Christians. 

Luke 10:5, Jesus says, “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.” Luke 6: 11, “If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” the dust off your feet means, the dust raised by walking to that person’s home. 

In our lives, each of us has been a traveler, a stranger, a sojourner at some point, more than once, even if we may not have been travelling through a harsh, unfamiliar environment. We have been offered sustenance and shelter, and we have given the same to others. The hosts and homes of a community offer water, food, a place to rest, to those whom we don’t know. That’s called sacred hospitality. 

The tradition of sacred hospitality, the tradition of offering sanctuary for travellers, resident aliens, strangers, sojourners is not an exclusively Christian one. Judaism has it. Buddhism has it. I believe all world religions teach the tradition of offering kindness and sacred hospitality to travellers and strangers. 

Like sacred hospitality, especially before the first contact with the settlers, Indigenous people were practicing healing on a regular basis within their traditional ceremonies, offering them for themselves and others. Under the Potlatch Law & section 141 of the Indian Act those ceremonies were made illegal. People were imprisoned for practicing them. In our time, we see the immeasurable benefits of those ceremonies, because they could be useful in healing the effects of trauma that impacts Indigenous people today.

Joyce Underwood, an Indigenous elder, had a big influence on her students. “When you stop and do ceremony you literally clear your mind, your heart and your spirit; the answers come freely to you.” 

These sacred traditions of hospitality and ceremonies remind us that we are called to be the “healed healers.”

We have to accept that there will be times of conflict when we do the work our faith demands. For example, when we work for social change, when we engage in hard, important conversations, when we care for others and offer hospitality without conditions or prerequisites. On the page, it’s a beautiful idea, but in practice, doing anything unconditionally is very challenging! All works of love go through conflict at some point. (When I say conflict, I am aware that conflict is not always negative. In some circumstances, it is a necessary dynamic, a sign that we are dealing with the real concern seriously, in the right way.)

In this case, Indigenous elders and Jesus seem to point to the same Moon — a thin sliver of hope, waxing on the horizon). ‘We must struggle hard, but at the same time we must be the most easy-going beings in the universe”. Susan added, “We all deserve living a good, joyful life.” 

Peace is our mission. Mission means the small pieces of God’s work we can do. Our mission is to become a changed human being, in order to help others change. Jesus says, I send you two-by-two, to be healed and to be healers.

Luke 10: 5, “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.”

Luke 6: 11 “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” Don’t stay if you’re not welcome, but don’t run away at the first sign of resistance. Don’t assume that conflict is the end of the discussion – it may be the beginning. And remember peace…Do conflict like a ceremony. If you have peace in your hands, peace in your heart, peace in your mouth, peace in your heart, you’re ok. 

"So the disciples went out and proclaimed the peace of the Kingdom of God. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”  

Let us do everything in our mission like a ceremony. 

Amen.

"Are We Losing This Church?", Message at the Winnipeg Presbytery meeting on Sept 11, 2018, Matthew 9:35-38

Scripture: Matthew 9:35-38 (NIV)  

        The Workers Are Few

35 Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Reflection: Are we losing this church?

In today’s reading, Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into God’s harvest field.” 

In the context of The United Church, Winnipeg Presbytery, and our congregational lives, I call us to view these words through an intercultural lens. “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” Why are they few? Intercultural Ministries leaders suggest that we ask these questions, which you can find on the United Church’s website: “Who is missing? Who is not present at our table? Who is heard and listened to, and who is not? Whose leadership is respected, and whose is ignored? Who finds an easy place in our community, and who will pick up subtle signals that they don’t belong?” What I hear from these questions is a challenge to the multi-layered barriers that block the Others from fully participating in the United Church.

If I rephrase these questions in my own terms, they boil down to, “Who are considered as the Others (not capable to do the task, not familiar to the task) and therefore not invited to the table? And, who set up the table? Who calls it the Table for all, who puts out the chairs, who chooses the menu, who orders the food, who welcomes people to the feast at the table?” 

In the next triennium, The United Church will continue to go through the hard, challenging task of change and transition in order to build a new structure and to live in it. On the journey, we might complain, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” What is the issue? What can we do now? What should we do differently? I see that Jesus has the answer already for us, plainly. “Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into God’s harvest field.” We should ask God to send out workers. We should try hard to see who are the workers God calls to help us reimagine the church. We need to ask important questions through the intercultural lens: engaging difference. At the 43^rd General Council, Jordan Cantwell opened the meeting with these words: “If we want to be different, we can’t be the same.” Our responsibility is to make sure that there is no margin, no uncertain or inhospitable places in our community, and that no one feels they are left out from the important conversations at the table.

I am so grateful that I was able to go to Oshawa this summer to participate as a commissioner in the 43^rd General Council. Some of us might remember that I came in third in May’s election to be the GC43 commissioner (which means I was not elected, nor was I the alternate.) However, I was comforted and encouraged when a colleague of mine sent me these words, “God is not done yet! One of God’s habitual activities is creating possibilities for voices from the margin to be heard even when it takes a bit of wiggling to get them there.” 

God actually did get me there, through the new category of Racialized members composing 20 percent of the commissioners from the MNWO Conference. I was sent! In addition, in Oshawa, I was elected to be one of the fifteen who would serve on the General Council Executive, from 2019-21. I heard someone say both affectionately and jokingly, “So now Ha Na is in power.” My response is no, I didn’t work hard to be included, to simply seek power. Please don’t put me in that box. I was and am eager for participation; I am eager for conversation. Why? What conviction or desperation or background inspires that eagerness?

In answer to that question, I would like to share with you what I wrote on GC43 Conversation, this past June. GC43 Conversation is the Facebook page where 601 United Church members were invited to chat before and after GC.

I said “I think that why we feel that we are losing the United Church we knew in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s is because… 

We no longer sense eros, philia, fervor for wisdom and revolution…, And it is not our priority to bond passionate companionship for rebellious journey for equity, inclusion and justice, 

And because those of us who studied someone’s passionate whispers and thunders secretly and fervently, and committed themselves to friendship and solidarity with the marginalized Others, have come to no longer need survival, once they have climbed the mountain and seen the vista.

However, we need to remember that there are still the Others who study and desire the new languages of revolution, with fervor, for their own survival at the present. These new “We” dream and seek solidarity and the alliance of strength, where possible, with you all! 

We feel that our table is getting smaller, and workers are few. 

We have become small and tired because... 

even though we might break bread at the table with women, the queer, the poor, the immigrant, the racialized, we do it without intense love and interest to know the Others, and to converse with the Others… We might break bread with them, BUT WITHOUT such intense love that traditionally has been praised as eros, philia and fervor, these beautiful and powerful life forces, we do not let the Others influence us to change through love.  

Jesus says, “The harvest is plenty and workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into God’s harvest field.” 

Hymn:  VU 572 Send Me, Lord

Benediction 

Susan Beaver, Indigenous, queer spiritual future giant (I would call her like this) was among the seven Moderator nominees, this summer, and was a big inspiration to me. 

She said, "We can do conflict like a ceremony.” (now my words: Here, I understand Conflict as a positive dynamic; conflict as a sign that the real conversation, the most important conversation, is shared and taking place among the stakeholders.)

She said, “We can do conflict like a ceremony, if you have peace in your hands, peace in your heart, peace in your mouth, peace in your mind, because peace is the presence of the Creator,” 

Because… we must struggle hard, but at the same time we must be the most easy-going beings in the universe, because we all deserve a good life.

Therefore, … (now a Benediction), go in peace. 

We’re unravelling and are travelling to a place

of new-formed-patterns, 

as a fusion of loss, and hope, and pain and beauty. 

May the Creator be the master of ceremonies of our life and of this night. Amen. 

Hymn:  VU 964    Go Now in Peace  (singing in a round)