This Week's Messenger letter

Mine is the sunlight! Mine is the morning

born of the one light Eden saw play!

Praise with elation, Praise every morning,

God’s recreation of the new day!

Eleanor Farjeon

Summer is a time of recreation and relaxation. I have always loved the third verse of Eleanor Farjeon’s poem and am pleased that it has become a beloved hymn of our church. I also like how Farjeon gives us a second understanding of the word ‘recreation’. Perhaps we should say ‘re-creation’. Hopefully this summer while we recreate we can also pay attention to those things we need to re-create.

Too often, the church has dismissed ideas of the ‘big bang’ and evolution. One of the things that has always drawn me to the United Church of Christ is our ability to not see science as something to fear but as a way of more fully understanding God’s universe and our place in it.

There is a second hymn that was in the first United Church of Christ hymnal (that old temporary red one) which has a remarkable second verse which weds the concept of faith and science. I was pleased that it has reappeared, slightly altered, in The New Century Hymnal.

Praise to the living God, from whom all things derive,

Whose Spirit formed upon this sphere the first faint seeds of life;

Who caused them to evolve, unwitting, towards God’s goal,

Till humankind stood on the earth, as living thinking souls.

Curtis Beach

So when you are recreating this summer, spend a bit of time whether at the beach, while on vacation, or just enjoying your garden to look around you! You will see the signs of God’s continual creating -the never ending re-creation that inspires awe and gratitude in those of us who have evolved from those ‘first faint seeds of life.’

Have a blessed summer!

Ron