Jun 9
I think it was around day ten or eleven of the Camino when we found ourselves talking to two Estonian women on a sun-baked terrazza near Pontevedra, Spain. It had been a long hot day of walking, and the patio appeared like an oasis as we emerged from a heavily treed, hilly section that seemed to go on and on. Rarely had the sound of laughing voices and clinking glasses sounded so welcome! Read more
A middle-aged dude recently wrote in to the advice columnist for The Atlantic. The columnist is James Parker who is, I imagine, some kind of therapist? A secular wellness guru? I actually have no idea who James is or the nature of his credentials. Maybe he’s just the staff writer who drew the short straw at the team meeting. Nonetheless, James was asked the following question from the aforementioned middle-aged dude (I guess I don’t know for sure that the writer is male… for the purposes of this post, I’m sticking with “dude” because it seems like a vaguely dude-ish question and because, well, I, too, am middle-aged and would occasionally like to feel more rock and roll than I do!): Read more
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything here. As you may know, I’m on a three-month sabbatical and I’ve spent roughly the last two weeks walking the Camino de Santiago (Portuguese Way). On May 27, we reached the Cathedral in Santiago! I even received the Latin documents to prove it. I may have a few more reflections on this experience at a later date. It was a rich and rewarding one in many ways and I’m still sifting through a few stories along the way. What follows is a bit unpolished as it is gleaned from some handwritten journal reflections over the last few days.
The last thing I did before heading out on sabbatical was spend a few days at a Roman Catholic retreat centre in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I was there for a retreat with a group of pastors from our denomination. The setting was idyllic, the hospitality warm, and the sessions meaningful. We were led by a Catholic spiritual director who invited us to consider our various journey, vocations, and lives through the lens of “pilgrimage.” My ears obviously perked up at that as I will be heading off on a very non-metaphorical pilgrimage in a few days (walking the Camino de Santiago, Portuguese Way). In one of the sessions, she used a phrase that has stuck with me: “Sometimes our pilgrimages are not chosen; sometimes we are conscripted.” Read more
I felt a touch of weariness as I stared at the request form on my desk at the jail recently. A woman had seemingly requested every item that could conceivably come from the chaplaincy department. A bible, correspondence courses, bookmarks, address book, diary, notebook, colouring sheets, word searches, a rosary, calendar, inspirational verses, pencil crayons, stamped envelopes… She almost ran out of room on the form. Near the end, almost as an afterthought, she wrote, “Oh yeah, and I would also like to talk to a chaplain. I’ve been going through some hard things I want someone to pray for me.” I grabbed as many of the items as we had and trudged off to the women’s unit. Read more
Apparently, the kids are turning back to Jesus. That’s a bit of an overstatement, perhaps. We’re not talking about Jesus People 2.0 or mass waves of feverish Pentecostal revivalism (at least not yet). But the data does seem to point to a significant trend. According to a recent Barna survey, Gen Z and Millennials are driving a significant return to Christianity in America (around 10-15 percentage points from 2019 to 2025). A British study pointed to a similar trend, noting that “the proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds who attend church at least monthly has risen from 4% in 2018 to 16% in 2024.” No, the overall numbers are not huge and, yes, statistics and surveys are malleable, but still. Something does seem to be afoot.
I had a conversation this morning with a young woman in a bad place. Abusive boyfriend, unstable living arrangements, struggling to afford groceries. I offered her a grocery card, my best wishes. Prayer. She looked at me sheepishly at the mention of prayer, meeting my gaze for almost the first time since our conversation began. “Thanks… You know, it’s been a while since I’ve really done the church thing.” “Well, no time like the present,” I said. “You’re always welcome.” She said she’d think about it. A lot of people say they’ll think about it. Read more
We didn’t have a television in our home in my early childhood. I think my parents (wisely) had principled objections to it and so we were left to read books, listen to their music (the Beatles’ “Revolution” may have started a lifelong love affair with distortion guitars!), play ball hockey or ping pong (until this led to warfare with my brother), and probably be bored now and then. I remember drawing pictures and custom designing hockey uniforms and even entire leagues on paper. It’s amazing what you’ll come up with when TV isn’t an option. Read more
I was in a social context the other day where a few of us were grumbling about 90/10 conversations. You know the kind, right? One person takes up 90% of the conversational space. It’s pretty much one-way traffic. You feel more like you’re being talked at than with. Your 10% contribution mostly involves nodding and emoting at the appropriate times. I was in gift shop in Montana last summer that hawked various knickknacks (coffee mugs, tea towels, greeting cards) containing funny, often irreverent little sayings on them. One of them said: “I’m sorry I slapped you, but it didn’t seem like you’d ever stop talking and I panicked!” I’ve never considered physical violence to end a conversation, but I have had my moments of desperation! Read more
I was asked to give a last-minute presentation at a regional denominational gathering last weekend. The guest speaker was ill, so a bunch of pastors were tapped to plug the gaps. 2025 has been designated as the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement so this was a focus throughout the weekend. How we mark these things is, of course, at least somewhat arbitrary. The people who make such decisions have designated the beginnings of our branch of the Christian tree as the date of the first believer’s baptism in Zurich in 1525. But of course, threads of Anabaptist thought run throughout Christian history. And to whatever extent “Anabaptism” can be spoken of as a monolithic movement, the 2025 version looks very different than whatever was bubbling up in 1525. History is poorly behaved and stubbornly resists our desire for clean lines and unambiguous markers. Thus, has it ever been, I suppose. Read more
Around the circle at the jail recently we were talking about the God who meets us at our lowest point. It’s not particularly difficult for the guys to think about their lowest point. It’s not exactly a remote hypothetical for many for them. They’re living it. They’re at the bottom. They know precisely what most people think of them—they often think it of themselves. They are well aware of their weaknesses and proclivities, their addictions and destructive habits, their character flaws and worst impulses. They know who they are, they know where they are, and they know why. Read more
Over the last few days, my commutes have been spent listening to a series on The Rest is History called “Horror in the Congo.” It’s grim stuff, to put it mildly. In my last post I talked about how words like “Nazi” or “Hitler” are often used to refer to a special incontrovertible category of evil. After listening to this series, I wonder if we ought to use “Leopold” (as in the king of Belgium) in a similar way. The savage butchery and myriad cruel hypocrisies, not to mention naked greed and overt racism that defined his ownership of the (ironically named) Congo Free State from 1885-1908 boggles the mind. One is tempted to wonder if Leopold would have ranked up there with Hitler and Stalin in our cultural imaginations were his victims white and literate. But I digress. Read more
Words like “Nazi” or “Hitler” are regularly invoked as a kind of test case for any number of things. Claim that God will forgive even the worst offenders? Well, what about Hitler? Argue for some form of universalism (everyone gets saved in the end)? Surely not a Nazi? Talk about how every human being bears the image of God and contains something of a “divine spark” within them? Well, you know. Nazis are the worst of the worst. They’re on the very top of the shelf marked “morally reprehensible”—they’re the category we reach for when we want to argue that there are some people who are beyond the pale. Read more
For at least the last year or two, two Englishmen have been fighting in my head. Well, maybe “fighting” is too strong a word. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that my brain has been hosting a “lively discussion” between two visions of what Christianity might be in and for the world in the twenty-first century. These visions are not entirely incompatible with one another; there is significant overlap, to be sure. But they are different enough to cause some tension. And it’s a tension that I feel as one tasked with leading a church in these strange times. Read more
So, the year 2025 has arrived with a bang. Literally. Shocking violence and increasingly confusing mayhem in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Two deeply troubled souls lashing out at the world in one last spasm of rage or sadness or nihilism or self-hatred or righteous religious fury or resignation or… well God only knows. These sorts of stories still hold the capacity to shock us (I hope), but they are also steadily taking their place in a long list of very angry people exiting this world in one last destructive conflagration. Read more
Well, the last sands of the year of our Lord, two thousand twenty-four are slipping through the hourglass. Soon we will enter the second quarter of the first century of the third millennium after the birth of Jesus Christ. As most years end, I find myself in a reflective space, but this is even more the case this year. 2025 will be the year (God-willing) that I conclude my fiftieth trip around the sun. It will also include the completion of my fourteenth year serving as pastor in my current role as well as my eighteenth year writing here on this blog. All of this has me feeling rather old mature seasoned. And of course, as all these numbers add up, it is natural to ponder the road already walked, what might lie on the path ahead, and what God might be saying through it all. I have been doing this over the past weeks and anticipate more in the days ahead. Read more
Around fifteen years ago, the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered her famous TED Talk called “The Danger of a Single Story.” It was hugely popular and influential. It’s among the more popular TED Talks of all time, approaching nearly 40 million views at the time of this writing. In it, she talks about discussed the problem of reducing human beings and cultures to a single narrative. We are all more complicated than the “single story,” whether that story is what it means to be black or African (in her case) or any of the other identities that we associate with or are defined by. Human beings are complex. Human cultures are complex. A single story rarely tells the whole story. Read more
A child is placed here at the midpoint of world history—a child born of human beings, a son given by God. That is the mystery of the redemption of the world; everything past and everything future is encompassed here. The infinite mercy of the almighty God comes to us, descends to us in the form of a child, his Son. That this child is born for us, this son is given to us, that this human child and Son of God belongs to me, that I know him, have him, love him, that I am his and he is mine—on this alone my life now depends. A child has our life in his hands.
— Dietrich Bonhoeffer
A very Merry Christmas to all who drop by here!
 | inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
 | Ryan on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
| inquisitivelypinkcd4… on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
| Ryan on Can a Bot Long for its Ma… |
Rumblings 