AN AFFIRMATION OF FAITH    
(Written by The Rev. Dennis Posno)
We are a people of Faith.
We believe in God, who created the world in love;
we believe in God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and claim Him as our Saviour;
we believe in the Holy Spirit who is present with us in power.
We are a people of Hope.
We believe that with God nothing shall be impossible to us;
that all things are possible to the one who believes;
that every situation, every circumstance, every moment
can be met with confidence and courage because God is our hope;
and that nothing, nothing at all, can separate us from God’s love.
We are a people of Love.
We believe that God, in mighty love,
upholds and encourages us, and invites us to live a life of love –
a love that knows no limit to its endurance,
no end to its trust, no fading of its hope,
that can outlast anything.
We are God’s people in Christ.
We have responded to God’s call, and by God’s grace
we will declare the faith, and live the hope, and spread the love
we have found in God.
AMEN.
Colossians 3:12-17
The Message
12-14So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offence. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.
15-17Let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other. None of this going off and doing your own thing. And cultivate thankfulness. Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

Two little ordinary but beautifully unexpected things
have happened at our home this past couple of weeks.

This is one of them.
A male cardinal has been hanging around our deck.
Flying in and out the willow tree that shades the deck from the summer sun.
Sitting on a fencepost between our neighbour’s property and ours.
Flitting about.
Radiant in his red Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform.
Wearing yellow boots rather than the RCMP black issue boots.

I hadn’t heard him sing though.
There was just a sharp chirp, chirp, chirp as he sat in the tree or on the fence.

But it all changed the other morning.
There he was, sitting on a fencepost,
still dressed in his radiant red suit and yellow boots.
But he was acting differently.
He was almost popping the buttons on his red jacket.
He was kicking up his yellow heels.

And he sounded different.
Although he still sang his little note,
a beautiful melody had crept into his repertoire.
He was singing for all the world around him to hear.
And then I saw why he was acting differently and singing his song.

On the same fence, on the next fencepost, there she was -
a female cardinal, dressed in her subtle brown feathers with red tips.
And as they sat or flew about or found themselves on a fence post or in the willow,
they were both singing.
It was beautiful to behold.
It was wonderful to listen to.
As beautiful a song as I have ever heard.

And the other day, our granddaughter Riley
spotted and took a picture of another reason for the singing:
a cardinal chick was sitting on the fence –
one, she said, of several she had seen that made up the family.
They were living in a large lilac bush next door.

If we have eyes to see it
and ears to hear it
and hearts to welcome it in
the ordinary beautiful thing that happened that day became extraordinary.

The second little ordinary but beautifully unexpected thing happened at our front door.

On our front door a wreath hangs –
a lovely artificial wreath made of grape vines and leaves.
We don’t use the front door very often
because we enter and leave the house through the garage.
At this time of the year I would only use the front door
just to step outside to water the plants at the step
or to welcome guests into our home.

What I did notice the other day, however, was a lot of debris at the door step.
Not paper or plastic that blows around at this time of year
and gets caught in the alcove,
but twigs and plant debris.
I let it be until the next day.

And the next day, when I walked up the step to the front door, there it was: a nest ...
built at the top of the wreath right up against the door ...
beautifully finished as though a fine carpenter had built it.
Some little bird ... species unknown ... song unheard ...
had gathered up all of the building supplies
and flown them to this unlikely place
and diligently, piece by piece, flight after flight,
woven them into a thing of beauty, a place that would be home.

I have looked every day for some sign of the future residents
but, sadly, they have not appeared ...
not returned to the place that was built to raise a family.
I am hopeful.
But I think it may be a hope unrealized.

Still, if we have eyes to see it
and ears to hear it
and hearts to welcome it in
an ordinary beautiful thing that happened that day became extraordinary.

Part of a lovely song from “Charlotte’s Web,” sung by Sarah McLaughlin,
expresses the wonder of those moments.

“It's not that unusual when everything is beautiful  -
it's just another ordinary miracle today. 
The sky knows when its time to snow,
don't need to teach a seed to grow  -
it's just another ordinary miracle today. 
Life is like a gift they say, wrapped up for you everyday. 
Open up and find a way to give some of your own. 
Isn't it remarkable, like every time a raindrop falls  -
it's just another ordinary miracle today.”

“It seems so exceptional that things just work out after all  -
it's just another ordinary miracle today.”  

There are ordinary miracles all around us
if we have eyes to see them
and ears to hear them
and hearts to welcome them in.

There are ordinary miracles that can change things ...
ordinary miracles that can lift the spirit and lighten the load ...
ordinary miracles that really are quite extraordinary
because they have the power to transform us.

Today - Father’s Day - I want to talk about fathers and home ...
about the ordinary miracles that are possible and possibly quite extraordinary.

The remembrance I am about to share with you
happened a long time ago – almost 32 years ago.
But some memories  -
regardless of how old they may be,
no matter how the years have passed
to alter or reshape them in our minds and hearts -
are as fresh as though they happened only a moment ago.
This is a memory that has shaped my life.

My father was born in Amsterdam, Holland, on the 16th of March, 1912.
He died in St. Petersburg, Florida, on a late October day in 1979.
He was 67 years old – three years older than I am today.

My father left our home when I was a little boy in kindergarten
and except for those early years when there were cards and gifts
on birthdays and Christmas,
he was out of our lives ...
out of my life.

Little contact was made.
Little interest was shown.
In my grown up years any contact I personally had was initiated by me.
He met our girls once when they were quite little.

And then that October day came
when I received word that my father had died.
I wept in sorrow ... for him ... and for us ... and myself ...
wept for what could have been but never was ...
wept for what had been lost and never found again.

We met as a family at Mom’s home in London
and one of my sisters and I decided to fly to Florida for the funeral

Why did I go? 
What prompted me to go?
I went because I thought it was the right thing to do.
I went because I needed this piece of the puzzle of my life put in place.
I went because, distant or close,
we had once been a family and our father, no doubt, had once loved us.
I went for me.

After we arrived at the airport in Tampa
and settled in at our hotel on St. Petersburg Beach,
my sister and I went to the funeral home on South Pasadena in St. Petersburg.
No other visitors were there at the time.
We walked into the room where our father was.
They were hesitant steps.
Beautiful flowers surrounded a closed casket.

My sister and I talked and remembered and no doubt struggled.
It was then that the funeral director came over to where we were standing.
We spoke for a moment about the when of the service
and the where of the burial
and then I asked if it would be possible to have the casket opened
so that we could see Mr. Posno.
He politely advised us that the casket had been opened only to the family
and it was not to be opened for anyone else.

I told the funeral director that we were family,
that we were Mr. Posno’s children.
And we were courteously, albeit awkwardly told:
“Mr. Posno has no children.”

It was like a knife to the heart ...
a kick to the stomach ...
a slap to the face.
“Mr. Posno has no children.”

No acknowledgement of us.
No remembrance of us.
No claiming of us as his own.
We had been orphaned by a father a generation earlier
and we were orphaned by our father that day.

I told the funeral director that my sister and I were, indeed,
two of four children that were a part of Mr. Posno’s family
before he left Canada and us and moved to Florida where he made his new life.

The funeral director, perhaps because of the insistence in my voice,
opened the casket and left the room.
My sister and I stood there and saw our father for the last time.
We talked.
We remembered.
We wept.
And after a few moments
we left.

We did attend the funeral the next day.
We went to the cemetery and to place where our father was laid to rest.
We did go back to our father’s home where extended family,
aunts and uncles and cousins and his second wife and her daughter
whom I had not seen for years were present.
Then we flew back to Canada – and each found our way home.

Home.
When I arrived home
I wrapped my arms around the family I loved.
Wrapped my arms around Kim.
Wrapped my arms around my children.
The oldest, Shannon, was six,
about the same age I was when my father left.
Shawn was four and Denny was two.

 

 

How blessed I was, I thought.
Whatever else we had or didn’t have,
whatever else we had to deal with or live through,
whatever else would shape and reshape our lives,
whatever else would come,
whatever else ...
we had each other.

I felt like that cardinal dressed in his RCMP red.
I felt like singing.
Singing a song of thanksgiving for the blessings of my life.
Singing a song of joy for the family that was mine.
Singing a song of praise to God, from whom these blessings flowed.
Singing a song of love to those I believe God had given me to love.

And unlike that empty nest that sits atop a wreath against our front door,
an empty home with no one living there,
I felt like singing because our nest,
which began with just Kim and me, was full.
I felt like singing because our nest wasn’t just full of people,
it was full of people who loved each other.
I felt like singing because our nest,
built securely on the foundation of faith and love,
could weather the storms.

And the words of Sarah McLaughlin’s song ring true:
“Life is like a gift they say, wrapped up for you everyday. 
Open up and find a way to give some of your own.” 

 

 

 

 

 

And the words of “Salutation To The Dawn” ring true:

“Look to this day,” the poet writes,
“For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities
Of your existence
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendour of beauty
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday
A dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore to this day
Such is the salutation to the dawn.”

And the words of Paul read earlier ring true as well,
the words about dressing up,
not in a cardinal’s RCMP red uniform
but in ”the wardrobe God picked our for you:
compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline” ...
the wardrobe of being “even-tempered, content with second place,
quick to forgive an offence” ...
“And regardless of what else you put on, wear love.”

So on this Father’s Day, with your families and in your homes, like that cardinal, “cultivate thankfulness” ...
“And sing, sing your hearts out to God.”
_______________________________________

As a postscript to today’s message
I checked the empty nest at the front door of our home last night.
And then I called our granddaughter Riley to come and check it out.
I lifted her so that she could look in.
And there, neatly tucked into the nest, were two blue Robins eggs.
How surprised and happy she was.
Me, too!

And when we checked the nest this morning,
there, in the nest, was a robin – sitting on its eggs.

An ordinary, beautiful thing became extraordinary.
“It's not that unusual when everything is beautiful  -
it was just another ordinary miracle that day.” 
Hope springs eternal!

 

SOLI  DEO  GLORIA
To God Alone The Glory