Change is the only constant

I had my 82ndbirthday last weekend. I’m headed for 100! Wooo-hooo!

Anticipation makes me think back to how things have changed over the last century, or two. My wife Joan’s grandfather arrived from Sweden a century ago with an axe-head, a plane blade, and a handsaw. With those, he made all the rest of his carpenter’s tools.

I wonder what he would think of modern chainsaws.

A century before that, my ancestors arrived from Scotland, to farm 40 acres in southern Ontario. I wonder what they would think of tractors with air-conditioned cabs. Of hay-balers and combines and automatic milking machines.

Nothing stands still. Ever. And it shouldn’t.

Not even religion.

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Categories: Soft Edges

Tags: birthday, Evolution, change

Jun

2016

A uniquely Canadian church has a birthday

Author: Jim Taylor

The United Church of Canada had its 91st birthday this last week. On June 10, 1925, the United Church of Canada came into being when 10,000 representatives of the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches of Canada met in the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto for the inaugural meeting of a new denomination. As far as I can tell, it is the only Canadian church formed by an act of parliament -- the United Church of Canada Act, passed July 19, 1924, to come into effect June 10, 1925. Other churches have been incorporated, usually for the purpose of owning property without vesting it in individuals, but they already existed as churches connected to international denominations.

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Categories: Sharp Edges

Tags: United Church, birthday

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Change is the only constant

A uniquely Canadian church has a birthday

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