A Crack in the Wall in Summerland — Check it out

Since October 2024 Summerland United Church (SUC) has shared costs and facilities with the congregation of St. Stephen Anglican Church on our site at 9311 Prairie Road in our beautiful little town of Summerland in the BC interior. The move has enabled SUC to make their former property available for an innovative affordable housing project. This transition has created opportunities and benefits for our town and for both congregations.

Both the church sanctuary and hall complex now pulsate with dynamic programming, creative worship, book clubs, textile art and music groups, and a warm welcome, all exhibiting good will, creative expression, and lots of laughter. Yes Virginia, “church” can be fun!

SUC Minister, the Rev. Anne Ellis, continues to create multiple opportunities for shared projects, most recently including the erection of a prayer wall. Previously situated on the former SUC site proximate to the old building’s cornerstone, an invitation to members of both congregations, and to the community as a whole on the SUC Facebook page reads:

“You’re invited to visit our prayer wall. Write a prayer and leave it tucked in a crack in the wall.”

Located in the Courtyard of the Stone Church, members of both congregations donated bricks for construction of this new wall which incorporates bricks and the cornerstone from the previous Summerland United Church building on Henry Street. The St. Stephen’s cornerstone remains in the present location on the Prairie Valley Road side of the 1910 fieldstone Anglican parish church. The two cornerstones can wave at each other. 😊

Anne writes: “I wanted to build a wall here after witnessing how many people used the prayer wall at my former congregation in North Vancouver during COVID. We saw so many people from the community come and leave prayers in the wall over that time. The prayers that were left were deeply heartfelt and meaningful.”

Based on social media comments, there is widespread local interest in making use of the wall as a means and a place to express spiritual needs and concerns. Many are intrigued by the relationship our two congregations now enjoy, not a traditional “shared ministry” as we each wish to retain our own traditions and practices.

So far, it’s good, so very good.

We hear a lot about walls these days. Donald Trump loves to talk about walls — an cruel way of life built on understandings of exclusion — Keep the “bad guys out” which for Trump means any person of colour, minority identity, the poor, the elderly (Hi Donny), the infirm, and the disabled. A song often sung in our worship proclaims the exact opposite intention:

Though ancient walls may still stand proud
and racial strife be fact,
though boundaries may be lines of hate,
proclaim God’s saving act!

Walls that divide are broken down;
 Christ is our unity!
 Chains that enslave are thrown aside;
 Christ is our liberty!
— Words By Walter H. Farquharson

Speaking of singing, how many 1970s rockers remember Pink Floyd and their signature album, The Wall, “a rock opera which explores Pink, a jaded rock star, as he constructs a psychological “wall” of social isolation [Wiki].

I have not visited myself, but I wonder how many readers have visited Jerusalem, with its Western Wall, one of the world’s most famous and visited pilgrimage sites. “The Western Wall, in the Old City of Jerusalem, a place of prayer and pilgrimage sacred to the Jewish people. It is the only remains of the retaining wall surrounding the Temple Mount, the site of the First and Second Temples of Jerusalem, held to be uniquely holy by the ancient Jews.”

Can we then expect wailing at our newly established Stone Church wall? Well, possibly; lament has a place in prayer and ritual. There is much to wail about these days. For many right now, life seems increasingly complex. For better or for worse, media brings the world to us if we choose to engage it — The climate crisis, disasters such as fires and floods, political upheaval, economic challenges, human rights abuse — you choose. Individually, we all must respond in time and circumstance to concerns around health, relationships, addiction, physical and emotional experiences, loss, and to the presence of “the other” in our lives.

Instructions for using the wall are quite simple. Write something on a scrap of paper, anonymously, and honestly. Stick it in the wall. That’s it.

As is the case with the Jerusalem Wall, after a time the wall will be cleaned up. Here at the Stone Church paper slips will be stored and likely burned on All Souls Day (Nov 2) of each year.

The wall is a place to go, no questions asked, no cost, apart from a few minutes of the time of your life.

I have often joked that as in medieval times (Glastonbury, Canterbury, Lourdes) we need either a miracle or a holy relic to encourage folks to make a pilgrimage to our site. Well, my comic ambition may now come true. Give it a try. See you at the wall.

---

Before I forget, other projects shared between our congregations possibly of interest to the broader community include this forthcoming concert by the creek. Coming soon, very soon.

---

Visit the takenote.ca HOME page for a colourful display of hundreds of other blogs which may interest or inspire you.