Yesterday I had the opportunity to tour the Alex Colville exhibition at the National Gallery. The paintings are really quite remarkable, and all the more so once I better understood their context. The scenes are of the ‘ordinary’ of the east coast of Canada – a dog leaping to greet a child returning from school, a couple lounging on the deck of a ship with the woman looking straight at us through her binoculars, a horse running past a clapboard country church. Colville spent a lifetime documenting, even celebrating, the ‘ordinary’ as a result of his experiences as a young man. After graduating in 1942 from Fine Arts at Mount Allison University, he had enlisted to serve in the Canadian War Art Programme. The scenes of the terrible devastations of war, and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, remained with him upon his return to Canada and through all his years. It was as he remembered those scenes that he appreciated, and painted, and celebrated, the ‘ordinary’ scenes of daily life and relationships of loyalty and love … with deep gratitude for the security he dared not take for granted, and that he knew could so easily unravel.

The Holy Table of St. Andrew's 'Do this in remembrance of me'

The Holy Table of St. Andrew’s
‘Do this in remembrance of me’

This morning we continue our custom of sharing bread and wine around the Lord’s Table. With these ‘ordinary’ realities, we celebrate the extraordinary grace of these days – we did not choose to be born but we have life, before we were born our God came in Jesus to show us the love that will not let us go, whatever our season or circumstance our God assures us that evil will not triumph over good and that life is the enduring, ultimate reality. Around the Lord’s Table, we ‘do this’ (1 Corinthians 11:17-26) and we remember most of all that he lives, and that in him we live.

Have a look at the order of service, and join us if you are in the area, as we remember and rejoice!

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