Living in a Quiet World

Hi there!

Churchville residents seem to be happier these days with their village life.  Over a dozen years or so we have been anxious about the busy traffic flow.  When out mowing our front lawn, I would often count 40 plus cars per hour zooming past our house on their way to work in the morning or returning home at the end of their day.  Our road was used as a shortcut probably due to road construction in the area.  Then last year because of the placement of permanent speed bumps in four spots and no left turn signs from Steeles onto Churchville between 6-9 a.m. and 3-6 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, life became much quieter.  The City of Brampton got it right thankfully.

That is nothing compared to the world quietness suddenly and unexpectedly forced upon us all with the COVID19 health crisis since January.  Sometimes I feel like we are blindly tiptoeing through a field of cow paddies!  That is really hard to do without some nasty repercussions.  Social distancing (maybe better labelled physical distancing) is the norm leading to isolationism, fear or boredom – all not very healthy for the soul.  Someone recently posted a cartoon on Facebook, entitled “Your Choice.”  It was a picture of a man lying on the ground on his back six feet from another person with an additional picture of the same man lying six feet underground.  Our best choice is to abide by important restrictions that our governments have put in place through difficult decision-making.  On the bright side, more parents with their children are out walking through our village getting to know each other better.  We also don’t hear noisy airplanes flying by which often causes conversations to be disrupted in the backyard. And Sunday afternoon a Zoom meeting (better than Skype) occurred with 21/21 of our immediate family members.  It was neat to catch up with everyone.

Churches seem to be stunned throughout the land with this deadly virus that has caused service cancellations.  Pastors are scrambling to figure out how to preach to a quiet, empty auditorium.  Many find it hard to go on camera.  Some have been asking for Gary’s advice on how to develop a Zoom meeting or how to improve their Internet performance (one suggestion: raise the computer on the desk to eye level by setting it on a box).  As to our Hillside Church, since East Side Marios is closed to our Sunday meetings, we have moved to the living-room in our home.  Gary is conducting an online service – facebook.ca/hillsidechurchmilton – for our church members as well as those who happen to click on our website whoever they are. (Sadly, last Sunday he didn’t hit the record button and it didn’t work. Always something! He will redo it today.) Recently, we have applied to the government for summer student employment funding to help us with our outreach program.  Please pray that it will be approved by May for July/August, that we will be able to hire students for this important task and that the virus will have abated by then.  It could be that our new friends in Milton will now be more responsive to hearing about our new church start and what that can mean in their own personal lives.

One morning after breakfast Gary and I came upon Psalm 23 in our Bible reading.  I particularly like the first three verses, “The Lord is my Shepherd … he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.”  Maybe God is allowing this quietening virus to get us to pause and reflect on our phrenetic-paced lives for a while and even become creative for His Sake and others.

Take care of yourselves and stay healthy. It’s time to do some gardening!

Wendy

Wendy.carter@kainos.org