These long months of dealing with COVID-19 have been a brand-new experience for all of us. Easter, summer holidays, Thanksgiving and now Christmas have come and gone and each time, we were hoping we would be back to normal. The isolation, distancing, wearing of masks and washing of hands, have forced all of us to adapt. These things have become part of the “new normal” we are incorporating into our lives!

The “new normal” for all of us in the parishes we have yet to experience! I know that many groups still have bale materials ready for packing from last April and May. We are praying that perhaps by this coming spring we will be able to pack our bales for our friends in the North. So, with the January sales upon us, feel free to check out the bargains and keep up with the news from Leslie and me!!! (We will surely know by January if we can go ahead.)

At the executive level, our financial arrangements have also changed. As you will remember, the Diocesan Executive was formally disbanded at the annual meeting in 2017. Consequently, Anglican Church Women of the Diocese of Ottawa is no longer considered a registered charity. In order for people in your group to receive tax receipts for donations, they would have to go through your parish treasurer. As a result, our bank account has been closed and the monies transferred to the Consolidated Trust Fund of the Diocese. It is still ACW money, and our designated officers, currently Marni and Leslie, can deposit it and access it through the Synod office, so we can continue to send bales to the North.

Many of you will remember that our long-time bales co-ordinator, Evelyn Presley, sadly died in the spring of 2018. Evelyn loved this work, being in touch with the clergy and the people in the North, preparing the list of needed goods and planning for our bale packing days. In her will, Evelyn had left the Diocesan ACW a wonderful gift of almost $15,000. We have decided to honour Evelyn’s legacy by using it for the people and ministries in the Diocese of the Arctic. In discussions with the three bishops of the Arctic, it was decided that these monies would be sent directly to their Discretionary Fund, to be used as needed. Perhaps as a bursary for the ATTS training school, perhaps as funding northern travel, perhaps as emergency food and lodging for overcrowded families during this pandemic, we know God will honour Evelyn’s gift of love.

As we close this note, Leslie and I want you all to know that we are committed to supporting each group, and we will keep you up to date with any news. Don’t forget to send the contact name and email for your group to acw@ottawa.anglican.ca

Marni Crossley – crossley_72@sympatico.ca ; 613-234-5833
Leslie Worden  – lesworden.on@gmail.com ;   613-747-2197                                     

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Much of our needful work, such as in-chapel worship and bedside Eucharist, has been suspended at both the Civic and General campuses, but one ministry is alive and active—that of our On-Call Clergy.  

While our Diocese’s team of nine clergy cannot visit in person, they can and do visit by Skype, Zoom, or whatever the nursing staff have on their smart phones. When a patient is very ill and/or dying, the nursing staff is willing to set up a phone call or an online meeting for clergy and the patient. A phone call request from patient or family to the Spiritual Care Department at either the Civic or General campus is all that is needed to arrange this ministry of presence and prayer.  

Please let your family and friends know that there are clergy available at TOH to help you or a loved one connect to God.     

Life goes on at TOH as patients receive life-saving treatment from the hospital’s skilled team of doctors, nurses, surgeons, and other care-givers. And our Anglican Diocese of Ottawa is there for all of them.

While it shall still be some time before TOH is open for the rest of our ministries, we are already seeking new volunteers to bring prayer and caring presence to all who need us.

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The embarrassment of Christ Church parishioners with their small outmoded house of worship was evident in their instructions to Arnoldi to design a structure “harmonizing with the improvements taking place in the architecture of the city”—an obvious allusion to the high Victorian Gothic Revival design of the parliament buildings.

It was no secret that Bishop Lewis from 1871 sought to create a new diocese based at Ottawa out of the eastern and northern half of the Diocese of Ontario. What Christ Church parishioners were about in building a large new church was to ensure their church would be made a cathedral. The city’s oldest parish was determined not to allow that honour to go either to Saint Alban’s in Sandy Hill or to encourage through its own inaction Lewis’s original plan of building a national cathedral at the corner of Sussex and George Streets in Lower Town.  

The new enlarged Christ Church featured a soaring tower and spire, with the eaves on the tower roof imitating fourteenth century English Gothic architecture so faithfully as to reproduce the three-petal ballflowers in the cornice as an allusion to the Trinity.

The ballflowers were matched inside by the flowers and ferns carved into the capitals of the slender marble columns holding up the stone clerestory walls we see here.  Those columns in themselves were an engineering marvel copied from those in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill, with the emphasis on the capitals making punning allusion to the ambition of parishioners to make Christ Church into a cathedral worthy of the capital. The stone clerestory walls contrasted with comparable walls constructed less durably of metal and tile on Notre Dame Basilica, Saint Patrick’s Roman Catholic and Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian churches.  

The rock-faced stone, the large buttresses, the stone finials, iron crosses atop gables, and the use of step-gables gave Christ Church a definite presence in the late Victorian capital, helping to ensure it became a cathedral when the Diocese of Ottawa was created in 1896.

Lauder Hall had not yet been envisioned. When Lauder Hall was put up in 1902, it served both as a Sunday School for the cathedral, as well as for hosting meetings of the annual synod.  The steps shown in the foreground led up into the original sacristy of the 1872 church, with a comparable size space across the width of the chancel serving as a choir vestry.  

The only failure in realizing Arnoldi’s plan was to build the chancel one quarter the size he proposed—a failure leading to a much larger chancel needing to be constructed in 1932.    

If you would like to help the Archives preserve the records of the Diocese and its parishes, why not become a Friend of the Archives?  Your $20 membership brings you three issues of the lively, informative Newsletter, and you will receive a tax receipt for further donations above that amount.  

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The beginning of a New Year for me, is a time of mixed feelings. As a New Year begins, it is both a time of reflection on the old year that has drawn to a close, with all its joys and sorrows and looking to the days that have yet to unfold.  In reflecting on the events of the past year in the world in which we live, it is all too easy to see only the troubles and sorrows, thearise of senseless destruction and disregard for human life. To see only the injustice and poverty of the human spirit and imagination. 

 In our own personal life we can be tempted to remember only our short comings and feeling of our inadequacies when we encounter the trouble and injustice of our world.  I wonder if all the top 10 lists make us feel that some how we should have done more, and we ask ourselves what mark, what difference did I make in the past year ?  

Looking forward can also be a very uncomfortable experience. Fears about the future of our family, our health and the environment,  employment and a myriad of other worries can quickly fill our thoughts. I often think about what kind of world are we leaving to our precious children and  grandchildren? Will they have the same quality of life that I so often take for granted?    

But we cannot let the loud voices of our fears and worries drown out the joyous songs of the angels and the celebration of Christmas and the Epiphany that we have just celebrated. In the midst of the seeming chaos of our world and at times own personal lives, we remember and affirm the message of Christmas – God with us.  The Incarnation, where in the living God took flesh and was born in a stable to share the joys, sorrows, doubts and questions of being alive in the 21st century.  For me the truth of the Incarnation becomes the focus of my way of seeing and understanding the world. When I stop and remember that my life has been redeemed and that I am a son of the living God by Christ’s death and resurrection a member of the Body of Christ, a sense of peace comes into my life. I realize that the temporary chaos around and within me will not overwhelm me, but that Jesus Christ has me and all who I love in His hands.  

Being a Christian does not mean that the brokenness of the world will not touch my life, or the lives of those I love,  but rather in the midst of the world I walk with and in Christ.    In a sense the turmoil in the world does not define me or you, but it is our membership in the Body of Christ that is the ultimate truth and reality. Just as the parable from the Gospel of Matthew 7:24-27 about building our house on the sand or the rock, our faith in Jesus is a sure rock on which to build our lives and that faith will withstand all the chaos and turmoil that we will surely meet.  That is why sharing week by week in our Parish Eucharist is so important, it is a constant reminder that we walk not alone but in the great company of disciples on earth and in heaven and that we are nourished and sustained by the grace, mercy and love of God which will never fail.   This new year, bring your fears, your hopes and worries to Him and allow the living God in our midst bring the gift of the peace of God which passeth all understanding.

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May I begin by wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.  At time of reading, I expect that we are in the middle of the Christmas and Epiphany season marking in our spiritual journey the presence of the living God in our lives. Advent, Christmas and Epiphany were and are, without doubt, my most favourite times to preach; seasons of deep challenge, comfort, hopefulness and promise. The seasons in which we hear The Story of God.  From the caustic, challenging, confrontational and yet hopeful call of the Baptist; to the gentle intimacy of the Christ-Child coming to us, then and now, in the midst of violence, instability and fear; yet who by His very presence, as prophesied by the prophets, offers us peace and purity of Spirit.  In Epiphany, this Word is shared with the world.  We are all called to the river – the river of justice, compassion, love and forbearance.  

May I thank you for the time you listened to my preaching and teaching. For sharing with me some of my dreams for the Church. For being patient with me as I tried my very best to hear and respond to your dreams for our Church and our Diocese.  For our struggle to be faithful to the ministry God called us to exercise together.

May I thank you for your prayers for me and for Catherine, in sickness and in health.  Sunday after Sunday, I would hear from the person leading the prayers of the people, “… and for our bishop, John.”  It always moved me and humbled me.  I often thought that that was more attention than what any person deserved so, thank you.

May I thank you for your warm welcome that you extended to Catherine and to me after a lengthy 30-plus-year absence from the diocese.  Catherine and I are so grateful for your welcome and your warm hospitality throughout my thirteen-year episcopacy.

While I did my very best, and I pray that I made you proud, we are all human and I know very well my mistakes and blunders.  Thank you for your patience and your understanding and forgiveness.

Finally, may I thank you for your most generous farewell gift – more than anyone deserves.

Catherine and I cannot wait for the day when community life resumes in a more intimate way, so that we may see you all again.  But in the meantime, please know that the people of the diocese, clergy, diocesan staff and Bishop Shane and Katherine remain in our prayers daily! 

God speed, Merry Christmas and may God bless you.

Yours in Christ

? John

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Kevin Maynard, VP and COO of CFEE, guided those who attended through a broad range of topics that offered many useful starting points and resources for people at different stages of life and financial planning. While the presentation included lots of facts and figures, such as the average amount the Canada Pension Plan provides retirees and a chart showing the differences in the amount paid by CPP depending on the age of the person when they begin to draw on it, Maynard made the discussion a personal and relatable one. He shared insights from his own experience losing a partner at a young age and helping his parents with financial planning and end-of-life issues. 

A quick survey showed that almost two-thirds of those who signed on to attend the workshop were 70 years old or older, but others were in their 50s and 60s. Another survey question revealed that participants’ concerns included worries about not having enough retirement income or outliving their savings, increasing expenses, and not having a legacy to leave to loved ones or valued groups such as churches.

The workshop included information on sources of retirement income, budgeting, planning for changing financial and health conditions, making wills, designating executors and power of attorney, and estate planning. Throughout, Maynard reminded participants to focus on what was important to them as individuals, looking for ways to match their goals and values to their spending and planning.

Steve Gobel, a certified financial planner with IG Wealth Management, was also available to answer more specific financial questions from participants.  Kathryn Smith, a giving advisor with the Lutheran foundation ELFEC and Jane Scanlon, director of communications and stewardship development with the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, were also online to answer questions about planned giving and legacy gifts.

More workshops are planned for 2021. 

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During 2020, many generous people supported Today 4 Tomorrow both financially and through volunteer efforts.  All of the Community Ministries and the people they serve as well as the participants in the Youth Internship Program, the Refugee Program and All My Relations are grateful to our generous and loyal donors. Thank you for making a difference in people’s lives!

Plans for T4T 2021 are underway, and more information will be published in Crosstalk when the appeal is launched during Lent and Easter. In the spring, our annual fundraising event and silent auction will be advertised to take place early in the fall. If you would like to support the T4T partners now, please visit www.today4tomorrow.ca to make a donation, and if you would like volunteer, please call Jane Scanlon, Director of Communications and Stewardship Development at 613-232-7124, ext. 225.

Thank you, in advance, for contributing to building a community of hope!

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I thought it might be a good idea to ask people in the diocese about the things — small and simple or bigger and more ambitious— that bring them comfort, peace, joy, inspiration… and to share those thoughts and ideas. And once that brought to mind the song and movie image of Julie Andrews singing to seven children on a stormy night, I couldn’t resist the title (or watching that scene on YouTube.) And since it will be some time before this “silver white winter melts into spring,” please do write to Crosstalk and share your own remedies for COVID fatigue.

Marian McGrath
St. Mary Magdalene, Chelsea

I just got back from skiing in the Gatineau Park from P5 on Trail #1 Ridge Road to Kingsmere. I started my ski season on Nov. 23 and today was my 5th day in a row. My goal is to go skiing (cross-country or downhill)  100 times this winter. I call it “snow-cial distancing.” I love to ski and the Gatineau Park is such a blessing! Stay safe.

Sending you good cheer from Chelsea, Marian McGrath

Jane Waterston
Crosstalk Designer

Small group activity has always been one of the best things about church and other parts of life, and I find it to be wonderfully alive and different during the era of social distancing. Thanks to Zoom. 

St. Margaret’s Sunday School, which I coordinate, meets for 15-20 minutes on Zoom before the 10 a.m. church service. While only a handful of families participate, I am loving having parents as well as children in the conversation. 

Every Monday at 11:30 a.m., I meet up with my four siblings and mother for 40 minutes online. Because interrupting and talking over each other spoils any Zoom session, we are now structuring the thing a bit — we each tell a little story (with a beginning, middle and end) from our daily life. There are way more laughs and insights, the bond is strengthening, and the bonus is we are all getting to be better raconteurs.

My other small groups happen monthly. 

The friends I used to go to art galleries with in pre-COVID times meet up for an hour of Art Thoughts via Zoom. The four of us, from the comfort and security of our homes, visit illustrious galleries (Louvre, New South Wales, Tate, MOMA…) enjoying their digital collections and virtual tours, and sometimes taking lovely deep dives into Google images.  Dawna, the artist among us, chooses the subjects and kindly does some advance research. I host the sessions and manage the screensharing.  A totally enjoyable way to hang out together — COVID Culture.

And then there is the Cathedral labyrinth guild—meeting on the 22nd of each month for a spiritual, intellectual and social stretch.  What a super group that is.

There is nothing like dance and music, however, to bolster spirits when the day is grey and the stats are high.  My go-tos on YouTube are: 

• Two step Cowboy boots (2.39 minutes — I must have watched it 200 times), and

• Thirteen Strings Respighi’s Bergamasca (6 minutes, recorded in November at dear old Dominion-Chalmers. Together for the first time since the pandemic and glad.

The Rev. Aigah Attagutsiak
St. Margaret’s Vanier

Sewing is something I like to do. I can make anything. You name it, I can make it—slippers, mittens, kamiks, keychains….That’s our culture. Nobody really taught us when we were kids, we just learned by looking at our parents.

Donna Rourke
Youth Internship Program (YIP)Coordinator

What brings me comfort and joy during these COVID days are when my young adult kids and their partners come to visit Rick and I. I also enjoy listening to music and podcasts while I walk on my new treadmill and time spent with YIP and Seniors in Conversation participants.

Naomi
Intern for St Albans     

To keep my spirit during this time, I’ve been participating in a Christian Zoom hang every Saturday. I recently discovered that I enjoy Youtube dance workouts. They’ve helped me stay active and happy.

Lizzy
Alumni and 2020/2021 Mentor 

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of crafting in my spare time, things like knitting, crocheting, cross-stitching, and digital art. To try and make this holiday a bit extra special, I also decided to send out homemade Christmas cards for the first time. And of course, I’ve been playing my favourite video games online with my friends too!

Emily
Intern PWRDF 

What is keeping my spirits up in this pandemic that has started to feel endless is the daily walk with my mom. It has almost become a pilgrimage we make around the neighborhood, watching the seasons change and meeting neighbours doing yard work or walking their dogs. Some days it feels like all we have to do! Getting outside and active is super important to me.

Steven Heiter
2020 Supervisor/Mentor

To cope with COVID I am engaging in several of my favourite hobbies, which includes silversmithing and lapidary, painting, drawing, playing live music with friends in my “bubble,” birdwatching and watching U.S. College football on television. I’m a warden at Epiphany Parish, and an active and involved member of the YIP program.

Jefferson
Intern for Epiphany

I have been getting involved in physical activities in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. I am working out as much as possible and going to football training. I also play video games and watch Youtube videos when I am not busy with school work.                                                                                                                                            

The Rev. Dr. Peter John Hobbs
Director of Community Ministries

The challenges during the pandemic have been very real.  Taking care of ourselves at home has been a source of blessing.   Long talks, many walks, staying connected with loved ones (lots of Zoom), home prayers, good meals, and lots of projects around the house have helped to lift our spirits. 

Garth Hampson
Christ Church Cathedral

For the past 56 years I have performed monthly at the chapel service at St. Vincent’s Hospital at the top of the hill near the Cathedral. Last fall, before COVID, I met Dick Clark. He and his wife Margie had retired to Victoria. While working on his house, he fell off the roof and broke his neck, leaving him totally immobile. They moved back to Ottawa to be nearer family and, of course, he will have to remain in St. Vincent’s. Now trained as a caregiver, Margie attends to him from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day. Last Thursday was his birthday, and I just could not let it go by without some sort of celebration, so I told my fellow RCMP veterans (about 600 of them) who in turn told members of the Lutheran church. Letters, cards, emails and stories came in from across Canada. There was even a card from the former commissioner of the RCMP, Phil Murray. There must have been close to 70 messages of good will sent to Dick [from people he didn’t even know]. I feel so bad for those who are alone or isolated, and this action lets people know that just the signing of a card to a shut-in can bring great pleasure. One of the larger packages came from Vegreville where I used to police back in the ‘60s. It will be good when the pandemic is over, and our little group can get back to providing music for chapel services at the hospital. I’m sure the residents will appreciate that.

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Elizabeth Kent
Walkathon organizer and St. Matthews representative on Centretown Churches Social Action Committee CCSAC 

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