On doors and shores and sides of roads
I stared at the headline for a while in mute silence: “Austrian police say up to 50 migrants’ bodies found in truck.” It’s the kind of headline that you read and think, “whatever awful realities will...
View ArticleBetting on love
We are bargain hunters, all of us. We make bargains with God, with reality or the cosmos or karma or whatever. We are convinced someone or something out there is keeping score, and that our lives are...
View ArticleFollowing Jesus on His Nonviolent Path of Peace
The first Anabaptists died for their conviction that each and every human being was free to choose for themselves when it came to matters of faith. They realized that faith is not an extension of one's...
View ArticleFish wars in a drive-by world
Vancouver Island is not a place known for being a hotbed of some of the “culture wars” that take place south of the border. As far as I’ve been able to tell, it is a very post-Christian environment...
View ArticleChristians, Muslims and welcoming refugees to Canada
The relationship between Muslims and Christians have been in the news a lot lately, whether because of the Syrian refugee crisis, the attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, or more recently, in the the...
View ArticleSometimes you have to smile
It was nearly 7:00pm and I was staring down a long evening of back to back meetings (bible study, followed by a refugee information meeting) in the midst of a pretty frantic few weeks dominated by all...
View ArticleWhat does it mean to be a ‘good’ Christian?
Most of us who fall into the “Christian” category of humanity walk around with at least some concept of what a “good Christian” should look and sound like. It might not be a very good conception. It...
View ArticleHow do we measure a human life?
I've had some version of the same conversation a number of times over the past few weeks (over the years, I’ve learned to pay attention to this phenomenon—it seems to be God’s preferred means of...
View ArticleWhy do you call me good?
When I was a kid, I was often puzzled by the way Jesus responded to people in the Gospels. From callously telling someone to “let the dead bury their own dead,” to calling a Samaritan woman a “dog,” to...
View ArticleSuffering in the face of a God who looks like Jesus
Most pastors know that the time immediately following a service can be a black hole for anything resembling deep conversation. This is probably appropriate, on some levels. A busy foyer full of people...
View ArticleA Christmas commandment – Do not be afraid
Each year around Christmastime for the last decade or so, our family has a tradition of watching the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. We spread it out over six nights—a full week immersion into Middle...
View ArticleEngaging with a shrinking Canadian church
When her father died she had immediately stopped going to church. If prayer could not even keep your family alive, she did not see what good it was. But after she and Hank moved to Houston, she had...
View ArticleChrist did not die for the good and beautiful
I finally got a chance to see Silence a few weekends ago. The film arrived late in our town, and even then only in the second-run theatre (I imagine its themes were probably deemed “too religious,” and...
View ArticleHow is it possible to admire Jesus so deeply yet be such an abject failure in...
It was cold last Sunday, and it started to snow minutes before the morning’s activities at church were to begin. I threw on a hat and some gloves and went outside to shovel the entrance to the church...
View ArticleSomething like the grace of God
Whenever I drive through the reserve, I’m always struck by how little seems to have changed over the last thirty years. I remember coming to play hockey here as a kid and how it seemed like a different...
View ArticleMust we choose between faith and science? Or is there a better way?
There’s a well known scene in the 2006 cult classic Nacho Libre where Nacho, a hapless monk who aspires to be a Luchador, and Esqueleto, his emaciated unbaptized sidekick, are in conflict about life...
View ArticleWheelchair ramps and Jesus
In these hazy, lazy days of mid-summer, I find myself pondering the deep mysteries of wheelchair ramps. Naturally. Last night, our little church made the decision to move ahead with plans to add a ramp...
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