Sunday Service December 8, 2019 
​Second Sunday in Advent

With the icy weather last Sunday we missed gathering, but so hoping everyone had some quiet, contemplative time at home. This week, we will combine  both Sundays to celebrate Hope and Peace in the Advent Season. 
The Advent and Christmas season belongs to the poet - 
the artist who can imagine a reality other than the brutal and harsh one we are faced with day to day. 
It is the voice of the poet who gives us the picture of the lamb curled up with the lion, 
of the people of all races and creeds and religions 
streaming to God’s holy mountain to learn
to make peace, not war, 
to create, not destroy, 
to emerge, not to hide.

It is the storyteller who imagined for us the 
exquisitely beautiful Christmas story of Jesus’ birth.
No one can resist it. Its power sparkles with radiance. 
Even as the crowd claims not to believe in anything, 
still the story of a baby in a manger, 
somehow, 
touches them with the thought of new possiblity. 

It is the poets and the storytellers who take us by the hand and lead us 
through the season of waiting, 
through the season of rejoicing, 
through the season of wonder and anticipation. 

Oh, so much better than the world of worry 
and stress and business that the worldly rulers offer us. 

This Christmas remember the story of Easter. 
‘Rise and Resist.’ 
Rise in the morning and resist the rush and fuss and fury. 
Wait. Wonder. Imagine. Live in Possibilities. 

And if you have some extra money this year, 
I’d gamble it on the poets and the storytellers and the visionaries and the dreamers. 
Because they are the ones that hold the divine reality. 

The shopkeepers, they just have stuff.
“Dark Times lie ahead of us and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.” —Albus Dumbledore in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”

Sunday Service December 1, 2019
First Sunday in Advent

This Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, the Advent season lasting for the four weeks leading up to Christmas Day. Contrary to the busyness of the season in the world, the Christian calendar calls us to a time of reflection and contemplation. Advent is a time of waiting. As we wait for the symbolic celebration of Jesus' birthday on December 25th, we allow our hearts to be open to a new birthing of our own personal faith. Even in the midst of the added travel and gatherings of this season, try to find time for silence, reading of spiritual material, and gentle thought.
It is the season.
In our secret yearnings
we wait for your coming,
and in our grinding despair
we doubt that you will.
And in this privileged place
we are surrounded by witnesses who yearn more than do we
and by those who despair more deeply than do we.
Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our fingertips.
We do not want our several worlds to end.
Come in your power
and come in your weakness
in any case
and make all things new.
Amen.” Walter Brueggemann, Awed by Heaven, Rooted in Earth
Have a listen to some of our advent music and listen to Bishop Barron speak about the spirituality of Advent.
We invite you to generous giving this Advent Season - the giving of your heart to the divine dream that we might all walk in peace, hoping only for the very best others, and for ourselves, Generosity of spirit is the greatest of gifts, unleashing in the world a wild alchemy the births all manner of surprising gifts. 
Happy Giving.
The Shelburne/Primrose Pastoral Charge partners with
Partera Peace Builders International, The Shelburne Farmer's Market,
First Line for Syria, Soup Haus, KAIROS, and the Quiet Garden Movement. 
We support the work of the UCC Mission and Service and are part of the
​Dufferin Moves initiative in Dufferin County. 
We are supportive of the work of Streams Community Hub

We continue to look for partners and friends who are offering a
compassionate presence to the community and an uplifting and creative spirit.
Call or email if we can be of any help to you. 
shelburne.primrose.uc@gmail.com / 519 925 2233