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Note from the Pastor, December 11, 2011

  As a teenager living in Willowdale, Anthony, my high school buddy, and I would often head downtown Toronto in December to take in the sights. Last Saturday, the Steve Bell concert at Massey Hall (amazing!) provided me an opportunity to relive those experiences.
  At City Hall, Marja and I watched the skaters. My eyes were immediately drawn to the three arches over the ice pad and I remembered the day Anthony and I climbed them. Today they’re guarded by gates. Back then they were very accessible.
  “How high did you climb?” Marja asked. Not wanting to exaggerate I said, “About a third of the way up. That’s when a security guard called us down.”
  Anthony had a clearer memory of that day. We met him and his wife for supper before the concert. When I mentioned the arches he said, “No way, man. We climbed all the way to the top. And it was a police officer who called us down. The first thing he said to us, “What’s your name?” And when we told him, he said, ‘I’ll remember that name if you ever try that again!’”
  A City Hall arch wasn’t the only thing we climbed as teens. We also climbed the towering chimney of the secondary school across from the Willowdale Christian School on Hilda Avenue. By jumping, we were able to grasp the lowest rung. We climbed up, up, up and then crawled onto the ledge. To prove that we had actually done it, we took pictures in all directions with an old black and white camera.
  I still feel queasy whenever I think about the trip back down. Clinging to a sooty duct, I lowered myself over the side and pivoted my foot in space until it made contact with a rung. My stomach churned. Slowly I climbed back down, my heart racing, my palms sweating, praying for a safe return to solid ground. Anthony made it, too. Relieved to be back on terra firma, I vowed never to do it again. Since then, I have always had a fear of heights.
  As we recounted these stories last week, shaking our heads about the foolish risks we took, I thought about God’s protection despite our own stupidity. “Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways,” the psalmist once wrote. I’m glad that God not only forgives but also forgets our youthful mistakes. I hope that we can extend the same grace to our children and youth when they test the boundaries.
  In downtown Toronto last week, I was reminded not only of the thrills we used to seek, but also the wonder we would experience as kids as we pressed our noses to the Christmas display windows in the original Eaton Store on Yonge Street. Today, it is The Bay that offers five windows of indoor and outdoor Christmas scenes alive with moving parts and playful figures that capture the holiday season. Marja and I found them and stood mesmerized, especially delighting in the miniature mice sleeping in matchboxes below the floors of a decorated Victorian house. Unfortunately, other than three miniature carolers whose carol sheets were too small to decipher, the window displays made no specific reference to the birth of Jesus. Politically incorrect, I guess.
  Re-visiting both the arches and the Christmas window displays got me thinking of a way to be rebellious without risking our lives. What way? Let’s say “Merry Christmas” wherever and whenever we can. It is a greeting that, in our culture’s Christ-free approach to Christmas, is just foolish enough to earn some disapproving looks, yet brave enough to get some adrenalin flowing and make Jesus proud.
- Pastor Peter

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