United for Peace
West Hill United Church welcomes Karen Brothers and John Gilbert, representatives from the Toronto Conference Holy Land Action and Awareness Group. They speak to the colonizing impulses that underlie Zionism and the oppression this has wrought upon Palestinians. They call into question the legitimacy of claims made by Israeli Jews to land in the Middle East and they call into question the motives of Western powers that back such claims. For more information about their work, visit the web sites of both Toronto Conference and the United Church of Canada.
The Wileau Tool
Sometimes ideas arise from the collision of wildly different points of view (think of peanut butter and chocolate). Gretta Vosper introduces such a collision and comes up with what she calls the Wileau Tool for spiritual growth. She calls it the Wileau tool in deference to two ideas that she collides. There is the micro view of life presented by (entymologist) E. O. Wilson, and the macro view presented by Henry David Thoreau who celebrated the large species that frequented Walden Pond. The Wileau Tool allows us to assess situations in life that are offered as opportunities for spiritual growth. It’s about examining things from disparate points of view, both up close, and from a great distance, and finding something in the play between the two that presents either a place of comfort where you can rest at ease or a place of discomfort that motivates you to act for change. Gretta concludes her talk by applying the Wileau tool to some of the statements found in the church’s Visionworks II document.
It’s hard to think of thanksgiving
This is a prepared meditation (read rather than spoken). Gretta Vosper considers the ways in which thanksgiving can be problematic. She cautions that it is important for us to remember the source of the things that make us thankful. What does our thankfulness cost? It’s not enough to be simply thankful; we must strive to be mindfully thankful.
Download a pdf copy of this meditation.