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Page THE HERALD OUTLOOK Saturday December Religion Motherhood a good metaphor for dicipleship By JIM RYAN Fourth Sunday In Advent 2638 Dec 23 1900 SOME TROUBLE CONCEIVING In the many post apocalyptic novels written today women have trouble conceiving This is not a new problem for literature The Bible has numerous stories about women who have difficulty Religion and Reality By JIM RYAN Isaac Samuel John the Baptist United Church opposed to MidEast conflict The United Church of Canada s Toronto Conference is mobilizing support for a negotiated settlement of the Gulf cr sis Church members will send postcards to Prime Minister Brian and External Affairs Minister Joe Clark calling on them to declare Canada s absolute commitment to a negotiated resolution of the Gulf crisis The postcards also appeal for Canada to n committed to the use of sanctions rather thar military action In a letter to the Conference congregations President Rev Dr David says it is imperative that we give sanctions me to work It is critical that we not be drawn into armed aggression out of frustration or political expediency It would be tragic if people were to die either because of our or our inability to think of other ways of conducting the affairs of the world writes Such an atrocity be resisted in every way possible Bible digest Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread and your labour for that which satisfieth not Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness Isaiah 55 2 Driving in the fast lane of materialism and selfishness will not bnng you joy Spend your time money and on that which has eternal dividends Two things have I required t thee deny me them not before I die Remove far from me vanitj and lies give me neither poverty nor feed me with food convenient for me Lest I be full and deny thee and say Who is the Lord or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of God in vain Proverbs 9 realized that the ex of both poverty and wealth could turn our focus away from the Lord Be sure to crown the Lord a King in every area of life no matter what it may be and Mary are all old and barren For these women the possibility of conceiving and giving birth is at least the case of Sarah laughable When it happens it is certainly unexpected and a sign of God s intervention When we consider the concep tion of Jesus we find that the unexpected has become the possible Mary does not have a sexual partner In all of these stories childbirth and disclpleship are linked Each story presents a passage in salvation history and the people in the stones share in the making of that history In the case of Mary we see that the Gospels have presented her absent to do the will of God as the very model of As Abraham is the father of the faith because of his willingness to enter the mysterious paths of God Mary is the mother of the church MOTHERHOOD AS METAPHOR Motherhood is a good metaphor for discipleship because with her assent to do the will of God responsibilities follow inex A mother role is not finished at childbirth She must feed clothe and nurture the child When we read the Gospels we see that Mary follows the mysterious life of her son constantly meditating as Luke writes on the meaning of his life She follows him when the others have fled to the very foot of the cross and beyond to the origins of the church at Pentecost A POST APOCALYPTIC NATIVITY SCENE Mary is still a model of for us In a recent novel by Roberta Morns Vigil we watch a tattered community which has survived the nuclear blast and is trying to cope with the contamination of its food and water supply Up to point no woman has been able to conceive and successfully carry a child to term because of the genetic damage caused by the radiation ITS CHRISTMAS To all our wonderful friends we wish a holiday blessed with peace happiness and good plain fun Many thanks 10th LineS River Rd across from Georgetown Golf Course 8772254 The community wonders if it is the remnant of human kind bear ing within itself the seed of new life or only the pathetic leftovers of the nuclear age The communi ty waits hopefully as one woman draws closer to her delivery date Finally she gives birth Their hope is replaced with horror however and one onlooker utters the words of the centurion at the foot of the cross Surely this is the son of God Consider this carefully This new Mary consent to bear a child carries with it the respon sibihty to attend the child crucifixion a crucifixion that takes place her own womb This woman t have time to nurture and love her child or to contemplate the meaning of its life in such an age where birth means crucifixion indicates that our assent to do God s will will bring sudden and unsettling results LITERATURE AND LIFE We ve been thinking about literature and the Bible What does this have to do with our daily lives The function of literature ac cording to Viktor Shklovsky in his book Theory of Prose is to make us Literature chief techm que in achieving this end is what Shklovsky calls estrangement Literature makes the familiar strange so that it can be freshly perceived To do this it presents its matenal unexpected even outlandish ways the shock of the new Conception isn t new for humankind neither is reading the account of the Annunciation during Advent new for Chris tians but conception and the an nouncing of conception whether biological or metaphorical is new for humankind every time it happens Endnote Material on Viktor Shklovsky is taken from a book review by Michael Dirda in the Manchester Guardian Weekly Dec 16 1990 MYGENmVTION Fashions For The Young At Heart 115 MAIN ST S GEORGETOWN Across From Knox Church 873 GIC RATE 1 1 Rata Subject To Change Without Notice MONEY r CONCEPTS uHCAt old ID YELLOW CAB HALTON HILLS HOUR SERVICE SERVING HALTON HILLS Airport Pare Delivery 8732931 Trafalgar We andutstatCtt right 71 Rd ft Georgetown Ontario 41687360171 I DENOMINATIONAL PENTECOSTAL ALL PEOPLES CHURCH DELIVERANCE CENTRE SW Corner Bible Study Worship Deliverance Sunday 10 30 a m 7 00 p m Wednesday m We Provide Children s Church Nursery Service Translation MI Pastor George A ISC 2176 CHURCH BOARDS Advertise Your Worship Times With Us CaflKhMat 8772201 CHURCH OF ST THE MARTYR Angle Own of L WMIam 4168776323 ten Dec ADVENT Eucharist Eucharist Dec 7pm Fimtfv Eucharist piUCtmaf Eucharist Dec 25th 30 in Eucharist HOLY CROSS RC CHURCH 224 Maple An n TwUl AlhlH be Ar fla JO Mm 1M0MMI DO ml M MASS SCHEDULE fm II 11 Mm Our i