Metropolitan United Church

   "This will take fifteen minutes", he said, "so do you want to hear it now or later?" There was no room for refusual, so we all opted for now. He set the scene. This musical composition which he had recently completed, was written in response to a play, crafted to commemorate the martyrdom of an American nun in El Salvador in 1980. His lap-top computer leapt to life and delivered a synthesized version of a strong and haunting theme in two movements.

    When it was over no one spoke. We were all there with her in some steamy jungle clearing as her life of service to the poor was torn away by some pig-headed militiamen. They doubtless laughed and spat as they loaded their weapons. Yet she lives. Here among us, on this remote Scottish island, her story was being brought to mind in a moment.

   A murdered nun, whose life was roughly taken before the composer was even born, is carried to we few listeners who never knew of her, through a radio-play overheard by a young, bright musical prodigy in another part of America. There is a loose weave among us. The things that connect us all, the things that must be remembered for our sanity and our salvation, the things that make us choose, again and again, between the angels and the devils in us for the world's sake, are given to us by the hand of chance, surprise, and inspiration. In a moment we hear an old or distant tale, and far from being spent, it rises to inspire us, to awaken us to the things that truth and right might hold. We become its child, its servant, as we sing, chant, speak, stand, move to serve the needful cause.

   It is not just the obvious threads that make the pattern of lives; the money, the name, the role, the prominence. It is not only the big and splashy deeds that tell the tale; the mergers, the wars, the riots, the surface wins and losses, but some subtler thing, some vast movement of vision and self-sacrifice that calls for a whole-life response. Our life is held in this timeless meshing. So to is our death. We need not content ourselves with living small, as if doing other would make us lose it all. We can live "real". The loose weave that holds the real story of us and all will link all together in a timely way and employ our courage well.