Jeff Cook

Resurrection
By Jeff Cook

Ushered in
by the day of fools
comes Eliot’s cruelest month

cruel in the bleak severity
of the joke

that dead land
hosts new life

teases past promise
into present place

that life
emptied of dreams
and prayers fulfilled

still
must be lived
endured
in all its hollowness

A month for fools
who know
that foreboding
and forbidding
Grace

that does not let
the dead stay
buried

that haunts
with a hallelujah
whispered in
depths of darkness

that won’t let death
be
the last joke.

Poetry is therapeutic for me. Poetry provides an avenue for thoughts and feelings to tumble onto the page, to form words, to shape a dance of sounds and syllables. Poetry is both a playground and a prayer, helping me explore the ways I am shaped by faith.

Ministry is also both playground and prayer – exploring and experiencing faith in community.

Ordained in 1984, I served a multiple-point pastoral charge in Saskatchewan before Carol and I came to Transcona Memorial in 1988. I have served on committees at all levels of The United Church.

In 2007 I enjoyed a three-month sabbatical. During that time I traveled and studied the Emerging Church movement in North America. I believe that God is stirring something within the life of the church.

I think God is inviting us to transformed and renewed ways of being the church, of being companions of Jesus the Christ in our time. The church is both our playground and our prayer for that transformation and renewal.

As The New Creed says, “We live in God’s world” and God has “created and is creating.” We are haunted by hallelujahs. Thanks be to God.

Carol Fletcher

Serving this congregation since 1988, I am honoured to be a co-pilgrim on the journey of faith with the people of TMUC This congregation is an exciting and enlivening community, with a tremendous commitment to the Mission and Service Fund; a genuine presence to the community; and a faithful and faith-filled sense of God’s presence.

I have Church roots in the congregation of Westworth, in Winnipeg, at Queen’s Theological College,in Kingston, Ontario, and in Saskatchewan Conference where I interned with Walter Farquharson, and served on the Cutarm Pastoral Charge, living in Esterhazy. These experiences laid a firm foundation for the vision of community based ministry and presence which I have come to embrace. I strive for faithful ministry that engages the Good News and encourages others (and myself) on the journey of faith.

Along with leadership and responsibilities in our congregation, in our community I am actively involved in our congregation’s support of the Transcona Parent Child Centred Coalition (a partnership with Healthy Child Manitoba); with the Transcona Council for Seniors, the Transcona Community Network, and the Transcona Editorial Board for the CIMNET web site. I believe that the Church needs to be a partner and a leader in our world in ministry. God’s love must lead us to faith, reflection and action.

I have a great love of the Church, and have served on a wide variety of Presbytery and Conference Committees both in Manitoba and Northwestern Ontario and in Saskatchewan. I have taken study leave time to be a visitor at General Council meetings, and have delighted in participating in events such as Renovations, Lead2004, Worship Matters, and Berwick Camp. I firmly believe in a hopeful future for our Church, here at Transcona Memorial and in the whole of The United Church of Canada.