Banner Dedication: “Holy and Fertile Ground”
We welcome the family of Gary Ward as we dedicate our new liturgical banner that was made possible due to a generous gift from Gary’s family. It was created specifically for our church by fabric artist Karen Brodie and commissioned by the Worship and Christian Development Team. The banner will hang in our sanctuary during the liturgical season of “Ordinary Time”.
By Fabric Artist Karen Brodie
After some reflection on the life of your church in the annual report, your mission and vision statements, the welcome and scriptural statements you offer each week, and the season of Ordinary Time, my job was to distill it all. I came to a theme as a kind of summary of the life-giving church you have or strive to be. This design, called “Holy and Fertile Ground”, summarizes the way you interface with the world as God’s people. You strive to provide a place where all can be planted, all can find the nutrients for growth in the Spirit, all can find welcome in the garden of life, and all can be inspired to the transformations we are called to by God. The new growth of the seedling purposefully replaces the cross on the wall during this season in roughly the same place as the cross was. The symbolism is huge for this: the mystery of Easter is about the miracle of God’s transformative ways as we cycle through death and into rebirth again and again in our lives.
The seedling represents the cross on the wall but in the current phase, it is about rebirth and a nurturing, generous spirit. The seedling grows through the dark earth of life and into the light where it greens up.
Water is part of this necessary transformation. The embryonic shoot reaches upward and into the light of your skylight. The rainbow colours act as a kind of illustration for photosynthesis, showing us a miracle of transformation that we usually cannot see, but know to be there. Like God. When we strive to create a safe and nurturing community home, we provide the fertile and sacred ground that a journey of faith can thrive in.
On the outside edges, each piece is sewn with a stitching highlight of red. This is reminiscent of Moses and the burning bush, finding holy ground in the bush that never burned or was consumed. God continues to try to get our attention in a myriad of ways, just like God once did with Moses. While the rest of the church year is a focus on the life of Christ, this season is about our own journey of faith with the divine and with the community. No matter how many times we say ‘who me?’, we can find rest and renewal in knowing that that call is always there.
Thanks be to God.