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The Five Stages of Grief by Linda Pastan.
Rev. Clay Nelson © 13th May 2018
In Adult Religious Education this year we are exploring how to face death to live. Not surprisingly we have spent considerable time on the subject of grieving. Continue reading Grief is the canvas upon which we paint our lives
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Forged in the fire of our coming together is by Gretchen Haley.
Opening words are from It Matters by Robert R Walsh.
Rev. Clay Nelson © 6th May 2018
“May the sins of the father be visited upon his children.” This was the inscription in a book sent as a gift by my mother to my first born. The book was Dumbo. Confused by her sentiment, I called my mother to thank her and ask what she meant. She explained that when I was very young I insisted she read this story to me nearly every night. Sending this gift was her way of taking revenge, although she probably thought of it as balancing the scales of justice. Continue reading Once upon a time: The Power of Story
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Rev. Clay Nelson © 29th April 2018
Money and I have always had a complicated relationship.
My parents loved to tell the story about when I was four. We were visiting one of their friends during the Christmas holiday. Our host gave me a crisp one dollar bill as a Christmas gift. Apparently, I burst into tears, crying that I wanted “real monies”. He took the dollar back, went into his den, and came back with a roll of fifty pennies, which immediately satisfied my objections. I’m relieved to say I have no memory of the event, which gives me hope that the story is apocryphal. Continue reading A World Without Scarcity
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Kurt Payne © 22nd April 2018
On the 28th of February 1961, the small Catholic Hospital in Zambia where my uncle was due to be born was going to close due to violent uprisings and sabotage. My uncle was due on the 27th and my grandmother drove up and down-pot holed roads to make sure he came early!
The hospital packed up and a white doctor accompanied the nurses up country where they we all raped and killed. Life involved sleeping with guns under the pillow and doing housework with revolvers in their apron pockets. Continue reading Reflections on ANZAC Day
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As we gather together this morning is by Bets Wienecke.
Opening words are from The Miraculous Pitcher by Barbara Rohde.
Rev. Clay Nelson © 15th April 2018
Something was off when I woke up in my dorm room in late January 1969. I realised I couldn’t hear the ocean, which was only 75 metres from my bedroom at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The sea was silent. I and other early risers went to the cliffs overlooking the normally pristine coastline. The ocean waves were weighed down by oil and tar, unable to crash on the beach. Continue reading Reflections on Earth Day
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To this house we come bringing our boldest dreams is by Lawrence McGinty.
Opening words are from Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century by Paul Rasor.
Rev. Clay Nelson © 8th April 2018
I fear I’m a creature of habit. Most mainline Christian churches have a three-year lectionary that they, for the most part, share. A lectionary sets readings from both the Hebrew scriptures and Christian writings to be read on particular Sundays over the course of the year. After three years, if you have gone to church every Sunday, like every good Christian does, you have heard most of the Bible. There is one notable exception. It is on the Sunday after Easter. Continue reading A Doubtful Faith
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Rev. Clay Nelson © 1st April 2018
In one of my last Easter Day sermons at St Matthew’s I opened with how difficult I found preaching on the Day of Resurrection in a Christian context:
Look out! Here comes the preacher walking the Easter sermon tightrope!
Can he balance the life-giving message of joy and hope that the ancient story of resurrection suggests, with the progressive theology and openness St Matthew’s embodies?
Can he make it across safely to the other side without falling into either the dreaded, dogmatic pit of spirit killing, rigid orthodoxy, or the confusing fog of bland generalities that can mean just about anything?
We’ll know in about 12 minutes.
If I thought Easter sermons would be any easier in a Unitarian context, I was a fool. Continue reading April Fools Arise!
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Welcome into this circle of community is by Andrew Pakula
Rev. Clay Nelson © 25th March 2018
An occupational hazard of a minister’s vocation is needing to find the grace to be present to others in the midst of their sadness and grief; despair and disappointment. No one calls the minister to ask for a visit when, as Robert Browning wrote, “God is in his heaven, all’s right with the world.” Now I’m not complaining. There is no more sacred trust bestowed than to be invited into someone’s life when they are feeling most vulnerable, most fragile: most mortal. Continue reading Ode to Joy
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Invitation to join the journey is by Lyn Cox
”The Path” is from My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging by Rachel Naomi Remen (Thorndike Press, 2001)
Sacred Ground Chalice Lighting By Chrystal Hogan
Rev. Clay Nelson © 18th March 2018
Once upon a time I was working in a mental hospital doing my clinical training to become a minister. Part of that training required leading a worship service once a week for the patients in my ward. This ward held seriously ill schizophrenics, which meant they were mentally ill, not stupid. They had an uncanny knack of knowing if they were being fed BS. Continue reading We make the road by walking
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David Hines © 11th March 2018
I’d like to thank Sean for asking me to preach on Being Pākehā Now. (He won this prize in our parish auction). I have never called myself a Pākehā, but had never asked myself why not. So this was a challenge for me to investigate something new, and also to investigate my own attitude.
After studying it – I was surprised to find how controversial it is, and to discover that Pākehā is not a term I want to use myself … but I can understand why other people do.
So I want to look at three examples of New Zealanders who have or haven’t called themselves Pākehā. Continue reading Don’t call me a Pākehā