Thirty-Six Thousand Notes in a Symphony

Sometimes I feel it,

the green fuse that ignites us,

the wild thrum that unites us,

an inner hum that reminds us

of our shared humanity.

Belonging by: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Do you sometimes feel it too?  Our interconnectedness? The way when ‘one part suffers the rest suffer with it?’  It’s this interconnectedness that makes reconciliation and belonging so important.  

When people come together at the Canadian National Gathering in May of 2023 reconciliation will serve as the foundation for all of the discussions.  Many of us know what it’s like to feel like the odd person out. That sinking gut feeling in the spoken and unspoken messages from those around us.  Being excluded is a sensation we like to avoid.  And for many Indigenous people this sense has been particularly true.  Especially in the church Indigenous people have received the message to discard cultural ways  before entering a church community.  

Just as thirty-five trillion

red blood cells join in one body

to become one blood.

Just as one hundred thirty-six thousand

notes make up one symphony.

Belonging by: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

So what would it take for us to recognize that we can’t have a body or a symphony without people of every tribe, tongue and nation?  That by excluding certain people from the circle we change the body and we change the song?  And in being reconciled with Indigenous people can we be a church that lives out belonging in more areas?

As we shift from places of suspicion of one another to places of belonging, it informs the rest of our spiritual lives. Knowing belovedness within a community can inform all of the other ways we hope to grow as a church of salt and light in Canada today. This includes such areas of ministry as how we pray, our spiritual practices, our ability to engage intergenerationally, and how we plant churches.

Alone as we are, our small voices

weave into the one big conversation.

Our actions are essential

to the one infinite story of what it is

to be alive. 

Belonging by: Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

The prayer of the planning team for the 2023 CNG is that as fellow image bearers gather together, hearts will truly be exchanged, and people will return to their home churches with a fuller understanding of how to invite and experience belonging.  This includes space for you - will you join us in praying for the work of the Holy Spirit at the gathering, that belonging would ripple out into churches?