Posts by graceviewoffice (Page 6)
Bits and Bytes at Graceview
Have you ever thought about how dependent we have become on computer technology that we once shunned as totally unnecessary? About how the Presbyterian church managed to get along just fine for five hundred years, without screens or microphones or live streamed services? Or, for that matter, about how most of us now walk around with a computer in our pockets that is a million times more powerful than the room-sized computer proudly owned by York University in the sixties…
Memoirs of a Christian Education
I am the product of a thoroughly Christian education – Catholic elementary schools through Grade 8, and Saint Joseph’s High School, a private, all-girls convent school, through Grade 12. Public funding was not fully extended to Catholic high schools until 1984, under Premier Bill Davis. Whether this should be the case in our modern diverse society is an argument for another day, but the first British North America Act of 1867 guaranteed public education support (up to Grade 8) to…
September 1, 2025 – Minister’s Message
This past August, I was given the privilege of being one of the selected scholars to participate in the annual Guder Scholars gathering at St. Andrew’s Hall, University of British Columbia. This year’s event, which centred around missional leadership and discernment, brought together pastors from across Canada, along with some from the United States and other traditions beyond the Presbyterian Church. It was a four-day immersion of prayer, learning, and conversation that became one of the highlights of my summer.…
August 21, 2025 – Weekly News
Download the PDF August 20, 2025Having spent last week in Prince Edward County on the shores of West Lake, I am stunned, every year that I am there, how close to God I feel. The sheer beauty of nature, of the sunsets (as seen above), of the quiet, one cannot avoid the feeling that God is all around and that he has produced these wonders so that all who see them cannot help but feel his presence. Hymns kept popping…
July / August 2025 Newsletter
Download the PDF here
One Bowl Chocolate Cake
Ingredients Chocolate Frosting (Optional) Preheat oven, prep pans, and combine dry ingredients: Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray and dust with flour two 8-inch round cake pans. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add wet ingredients: Whisk in eggs, buttermilk, water, vanilla, and oil. Move batter to pans and bake: Divide batter evenly between prepared pans. Bake until tops spring back when lightly pressed, about 30 minutes.
You Have Voice Male – a Review
Oh, what a night!!! Nothing prepared me for the initial sight of the curtain rising and the stage being filled to the brim with row upon row of men prepared to sing their hearts out. With the first notes of the first selection, I was wrapped in the warmth of those wonderful voices as they sang one of my all-time favourites, Homeward Bound. After performing 3 pieces “en masse”, we then got to hear each choir individually. They were not…
Clara Barton, Angel of the Battlefield
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead With help from an essay by Joanna Strong and Tom B. Leonard, from The Book of Virtues, edited by William J. Bennett. The year was 1862. The Civil War was raging in America. In the battlefields of the country, men were dying, left maimed and bleeding on the field until the battle was…
Happy Canada Day!
Since you-know-who took office you-know-where, Canadian patriotism has been soaring. In honour of Canada Day 2025, and in honour of Simcoe Day, celebrated in Ontario on the first Monday of August every year, let’s find out just who Simcoe was. John Graves Simcoe was a British army officer, politician and colonial administrator who served as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (Ontario) from 1791 to 1796. He founded York, now Toronto, and was instrumental in introducing courts of law, trial by jury,…
Morning Has Broken – Eleanor Farjeon
Kathy Twynam Morning has broken, like the first morning;Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird.Praise for the singing, praise for the morning,Praise for them springing fresh from the Word. (Interesting note: I looked up the lyrics on the internet in two different places, and in both cases the last word of the first verse was “world”. Our hymnbook uses “Word”, which I believe is the correct version, but requires some knowledge of Christianity to understand.) At our May Outreach meeting,…
Outreach – May & June
On Monday, June 2, Outreach had its final meeting before the summer. The short “wrap-up” meeting was preceded by a pot-luck supper at the church – a first for our Outreach Committee. It featured great food, as all pot-lucks do, great conversation, and general good fellowship among its hard-working members. Our esteemed leader, Sheila Thomas, celebrated her birthday that week, and to mark the occasion Jean Ross made a birthday cake, which was our dessert. The cake was magnificent, so…
The Witch and the Wardrobe – But No Lion
On May 21, Bob and I went to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see the Shaw production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the first book in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series. I went with trepidation, because the Narnia series is very dear to my heart and I was afraid the stage production would ruin it for me, just as the Mirvish production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child managed to ruin Harry Potter. (My opinion only –…