How Lucky I am….

“On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.” – George Gordon Byron

On Saturday last, Catherinanne threw an awesome party at Boston Pizza in honour of my graduation from McCormick last month. It was a great day. Many of you came and I was pleased to see of you. I wish there was more time to spend with each of you. It would be fair to suggest that we adopted the slogan, “Let Joy be unconfined.” It was a good and informal day of fun and frivolity… I think there may have been too many ‘glowing hours.’ That being said, I enjoyed every minute. Thank you Catherinanne for your kindness and love in throwing me such a great celebration — you have been such a great support in all of this. Thank you as well to Kirsten and Rob Haglund, owners of Boston Pizza — my favorite locally owned sports bar and restaurant for your help with a great party. Not to be forgotten — To Kelly and Jessica managers extraordinaire, you are the best — thanks for everything.

(my world was made complete when my fav locally owned Chinese Restaurant – Fong’s Villa sent the best Hot and Sour soup in the world to BP — Chinese food at Boston Pizza — you gotta love Margaret and Lucy!)

Now we move on to our plans for one more celebration. The parish of St. Mark’s by-the-Lake has planned a Roast as a farewell for me and Catherinanne. I would be most pleased to see our friends from within the parish as well as our many friends and partners in the Windsor Essex Community. Our church has grown in no small measure in these past years because of the the partnerships with have built. We look forward to seeing as many of those community partners together in celebration on June 22 at the K of C Hall on Lesperance. Tickets are $30 and can be purchased from the church office by calling 519 735 4921 or by emailing bobhubbard@cogeco.net. As tickets were understandably restricted to parishioners only until this past weekend you should call or email early to get your seats as space is limited.

It is hard to believe that we are now down to four more Sundays before we move on to our next home to new challenges as rector of St. Aidan’s in London. As each week ticks by it is increasingly more emotional to think of walking out the door of St. Mark’s by-the-Lake for the last time as rector. I pray that you have opportunity to join us for these last few weeks of worship together. I hope we see as many of you we can before we depart. On July 1^st we will have a Celtic Mass at 10:30 am with loads of music and loads of fun. Plan on being there for what will be a memorable time of worship.

This entire saying goodbye business can be tiring. At the same time, I am reminded of Winnie the Pooh’s words, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” These next few weeks will no doubt remind me of how very lucky and how very fortunate I am to have something so special in my life. I will endeavour to take opportunity each day that I have left with the people of St. Mark’s to give thanks for the many ways in which God is made manifest in this wonderful community. May God give us good time together in these next few weeks.