Pain breeding beauty and Circles of Compassion

An excerpt of the sermon by Dean Peter Elliott March 23, 2008 Christ Church Anglican Cathedral Vancouver BC.

What I'm noticing is that in so many ways people are coming together to care about each other in genuinely helpful ways. This Easter weekend,across the street from the Cathedral at the Hyatt Hotel, there are over 2000 members of AA groups from BC's lower mainland meeting to provide each other with support on their journey of recovery. Here at the Cathedral we seek to express our care about the homeless both through our support of projects of social housing, and in our commitment to feed the hungry. Through the commitments of many everyday hundreds of people are housed and fed through the ministries of this church. Circles of compassion extend beyond this too to reachout to those who are sick, or lonely, or in hospitals, or nursing homes: teams of Cathedral folks visit and offer healing touch or healing prayers or friendly words—all seeking to extend the good news of the Risen Christ to those in need.

A son of this Cathedral parish, Scott Harding, living in New York, working as a musician was recently in a terrible car accident: his spine is broken and he may not walk again. Being a musician he did not have health care, but his friends have come to his aid and recently held a benefit concert to raise funds to help with his medical expenses. It was successful beyond their expectations, and a friend, ( Leif Arntzen) in an email describes what happened in these words, "One of the strangely beautiful things is that…it's all somehow happening completely outside the box, commercial free, no front page pictures of bitter tears of pain, frustration and despair. Pain breeding beauty…The question begs, 'why isn't life more like this all the time?'

The answer, 'It is'."

Everyday we widen the circle of compassion that Dean Elliot speaks of. More friends join the Facebook group Work Hard Pray Hard Scotty Hard. More people read this blog, and more people are donating to the Scotty Hard Trust. http://www.scottyhardtrust.com/

Personal donations can be made directly to the Scotty Hard Trust, payable to "The Scotty Hard Trust” and sent c/o Heesok Chang, 970 Kent Ave #401, Brooklyn NY 11205.

Soon there will be a number of benefits in Vancouver for our Boy in Brooklyn. Stay tuned and put your hands together for the man they call Hard. Scotty Hard. He's been shaken, but you've been stirred.