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The Link

A Word from the Manse

9/3/2022

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I thank God daily, not just for the beauty we see each day that surrounds  us, but also for each other, those we share our lives with. I say this because  I have just come in from a lovely walk along the back of Blackford Hill with New College friends; it has been a wonderful afternoon, with the sun shining in a fading winter sky. On the way we saw emerging displays of spring flowers, snowdrops, aconites, crocuses and budding daffodils,  standing out against the soil and grass. There was a real lightness in the  steps of those people I passed, all enjoying the sunshine and fresh  air. There was a sense of Spring in the air and subliminally maybe a sense  of new beginnings. Our circumstances are changing and hopefully we can  look forward to warmer and longer hope filled days. 

It got me thinking, March is just around the corner and the season of Lent is  upon us and, for us as Christians, it is significant that the season of Lent  always coincides with the arrival of spring; all around we are seeing signs of  new beginnings as the earth wakes up from its winter sleep. But the  purpose of Lent is traditionally more than just a period of beginning again,  it is also a period of reflection, a time for taking stock of our life and our  relationship with God. It begins with Ash Wednesday, when we start on  our Lenten journey with Christ to the cross, and then on to the joyous  Easter dawn and his resurrection. Many Christians, under normal  circumstances would celebrate Ash Wednesday saying sorry; resolving with the help of God to turn around their life, change in life’s direction, with the  intention to be different from this point forward in a renewed decision to  live as disciples of Jesus serving others and renewing efforts to pray. March therefore is a busy month, what with Lent, Mothering Sunday, the clocks  going forward an hour, and looking forward to Holy Week and Easter. It is  with this in mind that we have much to be grateful for in our parish. 

Like many of you I am very relieved that COVID-19 and its effects are slowly dissipating and that we can gather as a worshipping community each  Sunday. The work of the congregation continues, many groups are now returning to use the building and the issues of the Presbytery Plan are  slowly being resolved.

On a positive note, we hope to appoint Brigitte
Harris as our new organist. She has a great deal of experience and was  formerly organist at St Andrews and St George's. She is an excellent  musician and will work with Evan Cruikshank to re-establish a singing 
congregation. I am especially happy with the news from the Government that we don't have to wear masks after 21 March. This means people can participate fully in worship and sing and read with gusto, and best of all, we  can celebrate the sacraments in person. 

March will also see us kick off several new events and groups that will hopefully deepen the spiritual life of the church and congregation.
  • We will  launch our Lent Appeal to raise money for good causes, details of which will  be available in the first week of March.
  • On Thursdays we hope to have music and reflection for Lent and a Bible study. This is an opportunity to  explore the Christian faith and ask those burning questions I know we all  have about life, faith, our purpose and how we might live.
  • The fortnightly coffee morning for people especially older members or those connected  with the Parish care homes has recommenced.
  • Edinburgh Napier University Chamber Choir will hold an Easter concert for us at the beginning of April  
  • Christian Aid book sale : in May, the Christian Aid Book Sale will happen in a changed format
  • At  some point in the next couple of months we shall share worship with  Christchurch, Marchmont St Giles, St Catherine’s and the German speaking  congregation.
  • I also know that we are invited to some of the Romanian  Orthodox concerts and worship for their Lent and Easter which will be later than ours because of their use of different calendars.
  • We also will be hosting the Malawian Christian Community prayer and fellowship meetings  on some Sunday afternoons.
New life is happening in the Church, and this  has been cemented by the fact that we have received 8 new members since November. 

These events that I have outlined are all part of a bigger plan that I believe the Lord is leading us into this year. The church doors at MUC are open to  allow people into the building ecumenically serving people of the parish  and University. It is my prayer that we will see more doorways open into the church for those in our community who do not yet know the redemptive love of Jesus. Because that, dear friends, is why we are here: to share that same love with our neighbours, so that they may find themselves caught up in the great story of God. So may you find a way to become a  “door” for someone else this Spring so that MUC becomes a true place of  welcome in Christ’s name. 

With every blessing,
 

Rev Steven

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God's Masterpiece is Mother

9/3/2022

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God took the fragrance of a flower… 
The majesty of a tree… 
The gentleness of morning dew… 
The calm of a quiet sea… 
The beauty of the twilight hour… 
The soul of a starry night… 
The laughter of a rippling brook… 
The grace of a bird in flight… 
Then God fashioned from these things… 
A creation like no other… 
And when his masterpiece was through… 
He called it simply - Mother.  

by Herbert Farnham
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A Thought for Lent

9/3/2022

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Prayer habits and routines are key to life. Not having to think first thing in  the morning; alarm…cup of tea…ablutions…dress…breakfast…action! Just  think what life would be like if we had to work out our options every day!  God has graciously given us a routine for prayer too, not to pray thoughtlessly, but to follow a pattern known as the Lord’s Prayer. 

We start with God who Jesus reminds us is ‘our father’, and in this  individualistic world we are part of something - and someone - bigger than  us. 

He is in heaven, the place that is our destination, where the ‘father’s house  ’is, as John reminds us. And although God is spirit and has no gender,  embodying both male and female characteristics, Jesus has revealed him as  father, not mother, for psychologically very specific reasons. 

To hallow the name of God is to treat it with due reverence, and this first  part of the prayer brings us to worship. So as part of your worship, why not  sing songs or hymns celebrating that we are part of the family of God and  he watches over us. Give thanks for who he is, what he’s done, and begin  to find that meditating on this takes us to God’s kingdom and his will, which  our worship will encourage us to want to see on earth. 

It gives us the reminder to pray for our world, its leaders, people and  circumstances, and particularly our brothers and sisters under persecution. 

The short sentence in the middle brings our daily needs before God. What  are your daily needs, and it’s possible they may stretch beyond bread. How  do you need your father’s provision for this day? 

Jesus takes us on into one of the key elements for our healing; forgiveness.  Confessing our own failures before God and being forgiven is immensely  freeing; but the condition is that we forgive others. We should do this on a  daily basis and not let things build up. Where people have irritated, hurt or  upset you, give your feelings to the Lord and let them go in forgiveness. For  those severely hurt this can take time, and your Father in Heaven knows. 

Then we look at our journey for the day. Bring your plans to your father for  his guidance, blessings and involvement, seeking protection from the evil  that is in the world, and also in us! In Psalm 23, God leads us in paths of  righteousness, but they also include a trip through the ‘valley of death/deepest darkness’. The paths of righteousness are not always easy. We  finish with remembering that the kingdom to which we belong, the power/  dynamic which empowers and enables us, along with the glory of our daily  walk with Jesus, is all about him, not us, and hopefully it keeps him in our thoughts, words and deeds through the day. Another time of gratitude and  praise. Jesus knew how busy life would get, and gave us a pattern we can use in our chapel (!), front room, bus, car, coffee shop or work place  canteen. The key is to make it a habit so that the pattern needs no thought,  but the prayers flow from our hearts to our father.

Happy Lent! 

Rev Paul 
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Church Life at MUC – An Update

9/3/2022

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  • Book Group – will be held on 10 March 7pm-8.30 in the Vestibule. If you’d  like more information please contact Rev Steven. 
  • Coffee Mornings – Our next coffee mornings will be Thursday 10 and 24  March from 10.30am – noon in the Small Hall. All are welcome.
  • ​Holy Week Service - This will be annouced 6 March.
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Charitable Donations 2021

9/3/2022

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Thank you so much for the generosity of members and friends alike, who, although it was a difficult year, continued to make donations throughout  2021. It is really appreciated by everyone who benefits from our fund  raising. Our Lent collection and our Advent collection both raised an  incredible amount, and we cannot thank everyone enough for your support  and kindness. 

  • Eric Liddell Centre : £1424 
  • Salvation Army Gorgie Foodbank : £1423 
  • Refugee Survival Trust : £1343 
  • Rev Annie Kapinda (Malawi) : £1343 

Those who have been joining our coffee mornings that recently restarted,  helped to raise £180 for Save the Children’s Afghanistan appeal, and a concert arranged by our previous organist, Max, raised £95 for Marie  Curie. 

Once again, thank you. 
Lesley Donald 
Church Treasurer

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Flowers for March 2022

9/3/2022

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6 March - Mrs Jeanette White

13 March - Mrs Sheila Cadger

20 March - Mrs Elizabeth MacGregor

27 March - Mrs Yvonne Burnett

​

Thank you so much to those of you who have offered to do flowers this month and to those who have helped in previous months. As we approach Spring it is lovely to see the daffodils, tulips and snow drops. If you would  like to help arrange the flowers one week, please speak to Maggie McKenzie on 0131 261 4908. Your help would be much appreciated.
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Book Reviews for Lent

7/3/2022

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The Print of the Nails by Hugh Hillyard-Parker (Ed.) 


By Hugh Hillyard-Parker (Ed.)
  (
£18.99) 

All the writings in The Print of the Nails appeared in the Church Times between 2000 and 2021, and have been edited and collated by Hugh Hillyard Parker, accompanied by a witty introduction from Paul Handley – 67 pieces in all, from a galaxy of  accomplished writers with their fingers on the  pulse of Christian thinking: modern but orthodox, original yet devotional, full of wisdom and light.  

This book will enrich your life, for it reminds us in this soundbite age that thoughtful written words and well-constructed arguments are still powerful forms of communication.  The essay is not yet dead. 
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Enjoy this book – it will illuminate the Easter season for you, not just in  2022, but in the years to come. 

All royalties from this book will go to the Church Homeless Trust. ​

Women of Holy Week: An Easter Journey in Nine Stories

By Paula Gooder (£9.99) 

This little Lenten treasure is a joy to read and handle, with beautiful illustrations of the nine stories of these women by Ally Barrett. The author leads us through Lent with a collection of the women’s stories - women whose names are lesser known from the Bible and whose lives have not been explored in detail – until now!

​Each woman’s story is given to us 
in simple everyday language using the Bible’s information but written in an imaginative, modern way. And each story is imaginatively illustrated with particular insight and  understanding; the collection then forming a triptych.  

Enjoy and give respect to these women…you will not regret treating  yourself or a dear one to this book!
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Christian Aid Week: 15 -21 May 2022

7/3/2022

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The Christian Aid Week activity that MUC hosts is the annual Booksale. 

Before Covid, we were able to raise sums in the order of £15k, and  obviously, Covid has prevented us from being able to run any kind of sale  over the last two years. However, now there is a plan to run the Booksale in 2022. The sale is organised by a committee that spreads wider than MUC, who have spent time thinking and discussing what might be possible.
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Our intention is to hold a sale in the Main Hall on Saturday 14 May  throughout the day and then in the afternoon of Sunday 15 May. We will  have best-selling topics from our previous sales – Scottish books,  collectibles, paperback fiction and possibly one or two others. 

If you have only been at the booksale as a browser or buyer, you may not  be aware of all the activity that goes on behind the scenes collecting, sorting, moving books and setting up the Sanctuary. There are a lot of  books that were collected for the 2020 sale and for this year’s sale no new books are to be taken in. Disposing of what doesn’t sell has become a more significant issue. Unfortunately, the social enterprise, BookDonors, which we worked with before no longer exists. 

At the last booksale in 2019 there were about 50 volunteers from local  churches - Christ Church, Greenbank, St Peters, Marchmont St Giles, Reid Memorial and St John's and many with no direct connection with a church.  Obviously with Covid not all of these feel able to return to help. 
The aim is of course to raise as much money as possible for Christian Aid.  And to this end we really need help in moving the large volumes of books  up and down from the basement. If you can help to move books before  and after the sale, it really would be appreciated. There are other less strenuous tasks as well, but that is the main need. 
​
More information is available from David and Lesley Donald if you are  interested in helping (churchoffice.muc@gmail.com). You can also use the  contact form on the Booksale website.  (https://holycornerbooksale.wordpress.com/)

Other Christian Aid week activities may be planned later along with Marchmont St Giles and St Catherine’s Argyle in our cluster grouping.
​
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A Prayer for March

7/3/2022

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Eternal God and Father,

We thirst for your love,
We long for your presence,
We yearn for your peace.
Come, Lord, refresh, renew and restore us in your service
That we may live to your glory;

Through him who gives us the water of life,
Jesus Christ our Lord.

​Amen.
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“WEAR THE LEEK UPON ST DAVIDS’S DAY”

7/3/2022

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The 1st of March is St. David's Day.

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I was asked to write about the saints in the Link for the next few months. It  seems good to start with a fellow Celt and Patron Saint of Wales. St David  stands among the British and Saxon saints of the early days of Christianity in the UK. Much of St David’s life is today a mix of mystery and legend, but  he lived in Wales in the 6th century, preached the Gospel to the Celtic tribes of western Britain, and founded several religious communities,  notably one at what is now St David’s. His rules for the monks were  austere, even by the standards of the time, and legend has it that, as happened to St Benedict, his strictness made him so unpopular at one  monastery that his monks tried to poison him – but, as with St Benedict, he  came to no harm. 

It is also said that St David travelled as far as Jerusalem and that he was consecrated Archbishop by the Patriarch there – a story that may have its  roots in later propaganda, as it would have indicated that the Welsh church  need not be expected to take instructions from Canterbury. Be that as it  may, he appears in many Welsh churches wearing headgear different from what we expect to see on an Archbishop, and about his neck is a priestly  breastplate of the kind we associate with Aaron. These features seem likely  to have a connection with the Jerusalem story. In Wales, St David is often  depicted with a white dove on his shoulder – for it is said that once, when he was preaching outdoors, the ground miraculously rose into a mound so  that he could be seen and heard more easily, and at the same time the  dove alighted upon him.
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Particularly in Wales, St David is remembered for his last words to his monks: “Be joyful, keep the faith, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do.” His countryman, and former Archbishop of  Canterbury Rowan Williams, comments that this farewell speech “reminds us that the primary things in life are the relationships around us, the need  to work at what’s under our hands, what’s within our reach”. 
“We can all strengthen our domestic, our family relationships, our national  life to some extent, if we do that with focus and concentration in the  presence of God." 

​Happy Saint David's Day to all with Welsh connections.

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