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Wine Before Breakfast – Advent Ache, Advent Hope

My daughters think that I hate shopping. They are mostly right.

Not all shopping, but certainly the kind of shopping that might take me into a mall. Indeed, my overwhelming bodily experience in a mall is an overheated irritation that gives birth to a grumpy exhaustion. My body literally starts to ache if I’m in the shopping mode too long. And too long is something like five minutes.

Actually, I can start to feel that overheated irritation and soreness just looking at a store these days.

That is one kind of bodily soreness.

But there are other kinds.

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Wine Before Breakfast – Advent Waiting and “Groaning in Travail”

In what is perhaps the most remarkable turn of a phrase in the letters of Paul, the apostle tells us in Romans 8.22 that “the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now ….” This is a creation longing for redemption, longing to be set free from all that binds it.

Perhaps only the women in our community can begin to understand what Paul is talking about here, and even there maybe only the women who have given birth. I can tell you as a very concerned observer that there is an intensity in the groaning of labor like nothing else that I have ever witnessed. Groaning in travail was the way the older versions of the Bible put it.

But this is a travail, a work, a pain, born of hope. The smile on a woman’s face upon delivering her baby and holding that child to her breast is also one of the sweetest things that I have ever had the privilege to see.

All of creation is longing for that smile.
All of creation looks for the day of resurrection.
All of creation is waiting.
All of creation is in Advent.

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – Advent Waiting and “Groaning in Travail”

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Graduate Christian Fellowship – Christian Practices and Engaging Advent

Dear friends,
This week we welcome Jamie Howison as our speaker for the evening, the lead pastor of St. Benedict’s Table, a thriving urban church in Winnipeg, Manitoba. St. Benedict’s Table is a unique church community especially in its practice of an open communion table and in its honouring of the role of creativity and imagination in our church and faith lives. Several books have been published by members or groups from the community including works with an artistic emphasis, a book by Jamie Howison on the music of John Coltrane and an advent resource.

Jamie Howison will be speaking to GCF on “Christian Practices and Engaging Advent” as we prepare ourselves and our community for this time of faithful waiting for Jesus’ birth and reign. The St. Benedict’s Table community sees itself as “a community of Advent spirituality: always on the hinge between the old and the new, the known and the unknown to which God is drawing us.” Come and hear what Jamie Howison has to say about his community, about advent and about what God is drawing us to in our studies, in our work, in our ministry together, especially at this time of year.

Shalom,
Marcia

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Upcoming GCF Events:

Thurs Dec 6
End-of-Term Potluck and Advent Celebration

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Upcoming Campus Ministry Events:

Tuesdays, 7:22 am
“Wine Before Breakfast”
a weekly Eucharist service in the Wycliffe College Chapel,
followed by breakfast in the chaplain’s office

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Christian Reformed Campus Ministries
(University of Toronto)

Wine Before Breakfast (Tue, 7:22 am)
Graduate Christian Fellowship (Thur, 6:00 pm)

Brian Walsh, chaplain
Geoff Wichert (Rev.), chaplain
Marcia Boniferro, associate chaplain

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Wine Before Breakfast – On slaves, bastards, adopted children and Jamie Howison

The man who began his letter by identifying himself as a slave …
‘Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ’ …
and who has at times in his epistle called his readers to be …
‘slaves of justice’ …
comes to the heart of his correspondence by writing …
‘For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received a spirit of adoption …’

Slaves of Christ, even slaves of justice, but for those very reasons, not captivated by a spirit of slavery.

Obviously the apostle is playing with this (and many other) metaphors in this letter.

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – On slaves, bastards, adopted children and Jamie Howison

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Room at the Table: Urban Ministry from Justice to Imagination

Room at the Table, with Jamie HowisonUrban Remixed presents

Room at the Table:
Urban Ministry from Justice to Imagination

with Jamie Howison
st benedict’s table, Winnipeg
Facilitated by Brian Walsh of U of T

Monday, November 26 @ 7.00

Church of the Redeemer
162 Bloor St West, Toronto
(Bloor St & Avenue Rd)

Refreshments will be served

Read more Room at the Table: Urban Ministry from Justice to Imagination

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Wine Before Breakfast – “Gotta Serve Somebody” and Getting Wet

There have been a number of amazing musical moments in my life.

Moments when the joy fills the room, even as the artist leads us into deep places of pain.

Often enough, those moments happen on Tuesday mornings.
There is something about the Wine Before Breakfast bandhood that finds a way to reach deep into our souls; something that gives us voices to sing – even at 7.22 in the morning!

In my life the WBB band stands in a rich tradition of artists whose music they will often bring into our worship. Artists that I have had the good fortune to enjoy performing live:
Leonard Cohen, Bruce Cockburn, Josh Gritter, EmmyLou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Van Morrison, U2 and Bob Dylan.

And it is a Dylan concert that this week’s music will conjure up for me.

It was the late 70’s and Dylan had ‘got religion.’ In fact, the show that he was touring was nothing less than a gospel revival! And there he was on the stage of Massey Hall singing:

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – “Gotta Serve Somebody” and Getting Wet

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Wine Before Breakfast – Sin, Grace and What “Everybody Knows”

There was something sassy about how she delivered the lines. If you were there, you would know exactly what I mean. And only our own beloved Deb Whalen could actually pull off those lines in church:

“Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you’ve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows”

Read more Wine Before Breakfast – Sin, Grace and What “Everybody Knows”

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Graduate Christian Fellowship – Life in the Academy: What They Never Told Me

The Graduate Christian Fellowship invites you to:
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Life in the Academy: What They Never Told Me
Mathematics := a journey in faith
with
Natasha Dobrinen
Associate Professor of Mathematics
University of Denver

Thursday, October 18, 2012
Chaplain’s office, Wycliffe College (basement)

6:00 – Dinner
7:00 (or so) – Something After Dinner – discussion, etc.
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Dear Friends,
As we noted in our discussion of formation earlier this term, a university education shapes us in far more ways than just academically. And especially as graduate students, what we’re expected to learn stretches far beyond the curriculum, our courses, or our research. Read more Graduate Christian Fellowship – Life in the Academy: What They Never Told Me