Yesterday was Ash Wednesday — the day in the Christian liturgical calendar that marks the beginning of Lent. The day we remember our mortality — we are dust, and to dust we shall return. The day we confess repentance and our need for God’s forgiveness. The text for the day was from Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 — Jesus criticising the religious…
There’s nothing quite like the fluid warmth of candlelight. One small flame illuminates a dark space with a nonjudgmental gentleness — its light welcomes everyone regardless of our crimes and misdemeanours, our successes and glories. It is fully itself. It shines. No other questions asked, no responses needed. There’s so much anger rising up in the world that this gentleness…
We need prophets today. We look for the clairvoyants who can somehow test the shadows of the future and, returning to the present, assure us of what is to come. We look to those folks claiming to be able to discern shades and spirits of future events, displaying power and control over the uncontrollable. No. We need those blossoming…
I first met Joel at a justice weekend in British Colombia. His poetry and activism were beautiful and broken. Check out his musings via The Helplessness of the White-Saviour.
This silent prairie morning will explode into an irrational flurry of colourful vestments, litanies, songs, and the tender laying on of hands The day will burn on, hot and furious, (even as the church is quiet, peopled with intense gazes) and will raise a fire of “Now! Now! After twenty five years of toil, loss, confusion, suffering, joys, wonders, and…
I’m thumbing through my worn copy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Letters and Papers from Prison”. Good book. Classic book. Powerful book. When the world seems way too bleak for my tired heart to comprehend, I can find solace — sorrow and joy — in Bonhoeffer’s words. But it’s not just Bonhoeffer’s words that bring comfort and light. The book had a…
It’s another day of hitting the ground running. Making connections, contacts, finding space for a huge shipment of food, hearing horror stories, & making backup plan after backup plan. Lac La Biche has been amazing. During one of the worst crises Alberta has ever seen, the County has facilitated a tremendous relief effort. And who can forget the forest firefighters?…
My First Nations and Metis friends often tell me how bereft of ceremony white culture is. Having been honoured over the past decade to be a part of indigenous ceremonies to varying degrees, I would have to agree. We gloss over coming-of-ages, the starting of new homes, or the journeys we take in our pursuits of God. However, even within…
