THURSDAY Conversation – July 8 at 9:00 am
Zoom – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7538449219

That doesn’t sound right … ???

The following statement appeared on the Philosophy of Science’s Instagram post this week:

“A day on mercury planet is twice as long as it’s year.’

Yes, that says what we think it says: One day on the planet Mercury lasts for two years!!!

This puzzling statement caused us to recheck the definitions of ‘year’ and ‘day.’

A ‘year’ is the measurement of time it takes for a planet to complete one orbit around the sun.

A ‘day’ is the time it takes for a planet to rotate around its axis.

It takes Earth 23 hours and 56 minutes to rotate around its axis – basically giving us a 24 hour day.

It takes Earth 365.25 days to rotate around the sun – which is why every four years we have a leap year of 366 days rather than 365 days.

It takes Mercury 88 days to orbit the sun; therefore, a year is 88 days long on Mercury.

It takes Mercury 59 days to rotate around its axis. However, because of the speed of its orbit and proximity to the sun, Mercury’s sunrise and sunset occur briefly and in varying places on the planet at different times, so that one day-night sequence occurs every 175 days! So a day is twice as long as a year.

All of which is enough to send us into orbit – or, at least, to make our heads spin.

We have read this a couple of times and it still seems somewhat impossible – but, then again, others might say the same thing of the Christian faith. Afterall, we trust in one God that we describe as Three-in-One; we follow the way of Jesus who was dead and then was alive; we trust that sitting quietly and praying can affect the world; we are told that we can find life by losing life; and we believe that a carpenter from a small village in Galilee was a messenger from the Creator of universes!

We don’t always understand…but we can still be amazed! We can still be awed! We can still say ‘Wow’!

And according to author Anne Lamott, ‘Wow’ is one of the three most basic prayers (the other two being ‘help’ and ‘thanks’).

So, this week, look up at the clouds, or the stars, or the moon, or just look around wherever you are …or just read some passages from the Bible…and say ‘Wow”…and let your ‘wow’ be offered as a prayer to God.

While we cannot yet gather for in-person worship, the ministry and the work of TMUC continues.

The following message comes from our Administration and Sharing Team:

We know this has been a difficult time for our Church congregation but have been very pleased with the ongoing support. It is appreciated. We continue to evolve our donation options to try and keep pace with technology changes. Our Preauthorized Remittance Program (PAR) remains very important to provide regular givings through all times of the year. We are pleased to advise you that the PAR program now accepts monthly credit card donations as well as automatic monthly bank withdrawals. However, the church pays a 2.5 percent fee for credit card donations. Single and monthly donations by credit card can also be done through Canada Helps. There is a 3.5 per cent fee for monthly donations through Canada Helps. We are also able to accept e-transfers if there are times that this method works better for you. Just send the e-transfer to the church’s email address: tmuc@shaw.ca. Cash and cheques continue to be the preferred method for many in our congregation and that also works well from our perspective. Thank you again for all of your support through this period.

Thank you to everyone contributing in many ways to the ongoing ministry and work of TMUC.

While we cannot yet gather in person, we can continue to visit via TMUC’s ZOOM chats.

Our weekly Thursday morning ZOOM is from 9 to 10 a.m. Everyone is welcome to participate.

TMUC ZOOM link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7538449219

By phone:
Meeting ID: 753 844 9219
+1-204-272-7920

We keep you in our prayers,
Carol and Jeff