Culture Care: Formed, Fed and Growing in God’s Beauty
Dear Faith Community,
As we begin to gain a vision for the community the Holy Spirit is building among us, and we seek to listen together for the direction the Holy Spirit is leading us into, we remember that to bear the image of God means we are becoming God’s Beauty Reflectors. This series explores the importance of considering God’s Beauty forming us, feeding us and growing us, into the new creation culture that is the Kingdom of God in this community of faith.
Throughout August, we will celebrate God the Artist who communicates to us through the wonders of all he has made. Each week we will be invited to reflect on God’s beauty, through the wonders of God’s creation and we will also be led through the poetry of Wendell Berry, with a poem that pertains to each week’s meditation.
Lord you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,
From everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.
May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendour to their children.
And let the beauty of our God be upon us!
~Psalm 90:1-2, 14-17a
Week 3: August 16
Scripture: Psalm 96:9-13
Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things
(Taken from “The Peace of Wild Things and Other Poems” (2018))
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Week 2: August 9
Scripture: Isaiah 61: 1-3, 10-11
Luke 13:10-17
Wendell Berry, Sabbath Poem V
(Taken from “A Timbered Choir: the Sabbath Poems 1979-1997”)
How long does it take to make the woods?
As long as it takes to make the world.
The woods is present as the world is, the presence
of all its past, and of all its time to come.
It is always finished, it is always being made, the act
of its making forever greater than the act of its destruction.
It is a part of eternity, for its end and beginning
belong to the end and beginning of all things,
the beginning lost in the end, the end in the beginning.
What is the way to the woods, how do you go there?
By climbing up through the six days’ field,
kept in all the body’s years, the body’s
sorrow, weariness, and joy. By passing through
the narrow gate on the far side of that field
where the pasture grass of the body’s life gives way
to the high, original standing of the trees.
By coming into the shadow, the shadow
of the grace of the strait way’s ending,
the shadow of the mercy of light.
Why must the gate be narrow?
Because you cannot pass beyond it burdened.
To come in among these trees you must leave behind
the six days’ world, all of it, all of its plans and hopes.
You must come without weapon or tool, alone,
expecting nothing, remembering nothing,
into the ease of sight, the brotherhood [and sisterhood!] of eye and leaf.
Week 1: August 2, 2026
Scripture: Ecclesiastes 3:1-14
Wendell Berry - To My Children, Fearing for Them
(From The Peace of Wild Things, Wendell Berry, 2016)
Terrors are to come. The earth
is poisoned with narrow lives.
I think of you. What you will
live through, or perish by, eats
at my heart. What have I done? I
need better answers than there are
to the pain of coming to see
what was done in blindness,
loving what I cannot save. Nor,
your eyes turning toward me,
can I wish your lives unmade
though the pain of them is on me.
May 31, 2026
Dear Church,
Grace and peace of Christ be with you! I've had my first week 'in office', and it's been like drinking from a fire hose: so much to catch up on. There's been a flurry of activity as a few of you gave the office a complete overhaul, and it looks wonderful! Thanks to the wonders of technology most of my library is digital and easily carried, so much of the space once taken up by bookshelves is now freed up as a comfortable seating area for meetings and coffees, and prayer times. A refreshing and reimagining of this space, much like the reimagining of this faith community we're embarking on! I'm looking forward to journeying with you in these transitional times, and rediscovering our joy in the Lord, joy in our spiritual lives and joy in community. I'm glad to be here and to be part of the great things our Loving God has already begun in this place! ~Pastor Michelle
Here's a link to the many Meanderings posts from Pastor Tony Maan from 2025 and earlier.
For previous posts older than than, contact the website administrator at kvanpopta@gardenschurch.ca.