Greetingsin the name of Jesus Christ,

Adam Gopnik, a Canadian writerfor the New Yorker magazine, recently wrote a book called Winter.He read the book at the recent CBC Massey Lectures. I found the bookinteresting as he reflected how winter shapes us as Canadians, butalso how we shape the experience of winter. He has many insightsincluding how the secular celebration of Christmas has come about,and about how hockey influences us as a nation.

I also wantto mention two myths that he talks about. He says it is a myth thatthe Inuit have 30 different words for snow. They describe snowdifferently than southern Canadians, but they have only one word.Gopnik then tells his readers that all snowflakes begin the same inthe clouds. A researcher took a plane up into the clouds, and tookpictures of snowflakes, and magnified them, and found that they wereexactly the same at the beginning. As they fall, different climateconditions and different winds , and different angles with the sunchange their shape. It sounds like life; we all start the same, butlife events shape us into who we are. One word for snow, andsnowflakes are all the same. My world is turned upside down!!

Haveyou ever had the experience in your faith journey where youexperience something with God that you thought was exactly theopposite? In the Sermon on the Mount (a sermon from Matthew 5-7),Jesus says you have heard it said, .... but I say to you somethingdifferent. Growing up, I experienced God as a stern judge, but now Iam moving toward a God of everlasting love. I used to believe thatMennonite belief was the only way, but I now experience the Kingdomof God as much much larger.

When have you had to say goodbyeto a strongly held myth, to take on another way of believing? It is ascary thing, but it will deepen our understanding of the AlmightyOne, the Holy.

Shalom and strength in the journey of faith andlife,

Fred