Jul 29
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
If we have a memorable experience in the age of smart phones and social media and don’t digitally capture and share it, did it really happen? Read more
We’re hanging out in North Vancouver over the next few weeks (house sitting for some friends who are off to Europe) so I’ve been straining to acclimatize myself to lazy mornings on a sun-drenched patio overlooking the ocean with good books and strong coffee, leisurely strolls through lush mountain forests, meandering through breathtakingly manicured multi-million dollar neighbourhoods on the way to pick up some bread for supper, etc., etc. It’s been challenging, but I will do my best to bravely soldier on. Read more
I have always been a lousy sleeper and I lay awake at night a lot. This proves to be fertile space for all manner of thoughts to flit in and out of my brain, some good and useful, many not so much. I think about my kids and their future. I think about philosophy. I think about soccer. I think about people who are suffering. I think about the meaning of life. I think about the many people who I have been blessed to know and who are a part of my life. I think how we end up in the places we do, doing the things we do and about what the point of it all is. Read more
This has been a week of some pretty spectacular spring weather in our neck of the woods. Violent thunderstorms, torrential rains, hail, wind… virtually every night has witnessed the pyrotechnics of heaven. Today there are declarations of states of emergency, flood warnings, and evacuations across southern AB. It’s been a pretty incredible few days.
After last night’s storm—which was the most violent one of the week, by far—I heard someone remark about how this kind of weather is evidence of the power and glory of God. I somewhat sullenly bit my tongue. Perhaps it was because I spent part of last night trying to stem the tide of water that was flowing into my basement bedroom and scrambling to rearrange furniture. Perhaps it was because I spent another, much later part of last night teetering on a rickety ladder, trying to unclog my eaves troughs with frozen fingers in the blinding rain and darkness split open by periodic flashes of lightning. Perhaps it was because all this rain is wreaking havoc with my soccer season! Whatever the reasons, there were many things going through my mind during the storm last night, but mouthing paeans to the God of creation for his wondrous displays of power and glory was not among them. I was mostly just wishing someone would turn off the tap. Read more
The following comes out of an experience I had yesterday. I try to be very careful in deciding if/how to share about stuff that I encounter in my daily work. There are issues of privacy, of course, in addition to the simple fact that not every experience I find meaningful necessarily needs to be shared—especially in an online/cultural context where over-sharing is reaching almost epidemic proportions.
Having said that, I think it is important to hear the stories of our world and our communities—perhaps especially the unsettling ones. Stories move and change us. At the very least, it’s important for me to hear/tell them. There are so many things that I cannot do in light of the many problems in our world, but one thing I can do is simply to write, to tell stories like this one. It is especially relevant, I think, in light of my recent posts on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (here, here, and here) and yesterday’s post on “Normal Unhappiness.” All the names below have, of course, been changed. Read more
I had one of those semi-awkward, overly familiar God-talk conversations today… You know the ones right? Conversations punctuated by words about “what God is doing” and breathless declarations that “it was such a God thing” and “God just showed up” and “it’s so amazing how God is just moving.” Now that I am a pastor, these kinds of conversations are even more awkward than they once were because, rightly or wrongly, I get the overwhelming sense that I am supposed to be eagerly expressing my approval of such language. Kinda like a professional requirement or something—like if I don’t understand and affirm the words and the experiences, then I get a failing grade as a pastor. I usually mostly smile and nod while inside I am rehearsing a thousand objections and criticisms and mostly wishing my interlocutor would just take their enthusiastic fervour somewhere else. Read more
A good reminder for Good Friday, from Thomas Yoder Neufeld’s Killing Enmity. And, perhaps, a bit of a rebuke for all of us who are tempted to explain how the cross “works” on this day when the lights go dim and God gives himself away: Read more
I am scrambling to gather a few odds and ends from my office before heading out of town for a weekend conference. Downstairs is the mingling of voices and the tinkling of spoons and plates and coffee mugs as a group of people gather for Friday morning coffee and conversation. I look out my window as a few latecomers straggle in. One dear couple catches my eye. There was a stroke years ago that has changed their reality in irreversible ways. I watch them share a smile as he gently helps his wife out of the vehicle, into the wheelchair, and down the snowy path toward the church. All around there is the hum of traffic and industry, all of this frantic busyness hurrying by unaware of this simple, unobserved, holy moment—this “ordinary” scene in an extraordinary story that is simultaneously awe-inspiring, heartbreaking, and profoundly hope-filled. I feel like I should take my shoes off. Or something. Read more
One does not typically expect to encounter theological inspiration at a church finance meeting. Well, I suppose some might, but I do not number myself among such strange creatures. For most of this week’s church business meeting, things proceeded according to the script. There were facts and figures and updates and PowerPoint slides and motions and seconders to motions and questions and clarifications and dialogue and decisions and then we were done.
Our daughter belongs to a swim club, and swim clubs mean—hooray!—fundraising. Bingo, specifically. I have discovered that one of the (very few) benefits of spending five hours at the Bingo hall on a Thursday evening is the opportunity to catch up on a bit of reading (I was the “pay runner” last week, which meant that I basically sat around waiting for people to yell, “Bingo!” before springing enthusiastically into action). Last Thursday, I brought along a book that had regrettably slipped to the bottom of the veritable mountain of unread books on my desk—Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist? Read more
I watched part of the Grammy Awards last night. The decision-making process was a tortuous one. I had serious reservations about the worthiness of the Grammys to occupy my Sunday evening time due to, a) the overhyped, oversexed, undertalented spectacle it seems to have become; and b) the fact that I was far from convinced that I needed to spend over a third of the next few hours subjecting myself to mindless advertising. As it happens, the stasis produced by a fairly exhausting weekend full of church activities won out over my myriad principled objections to watching the Grammys. The best laid plans, and all that. Read more
So, this one has been making the rounds in the social media universe… Apparently, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has “defeated” the world’s leading atheist evangelist Richard Dawkins in a recent debate at Cambridge University. Quite handily, in fact—324 votes to 136. The resolution under discussion was “religion has no place in the 21st century.” Apparently it still does. Rowan Williams has saved the 21st century… or at least the day. We can all take a deep breath and relax. Religion will be around for a while.
I spent my day off this week at the ski hill ninety minutes or so west of town. I skied a decent amount growing up, but once our kids arrived and I decided to back to school, skiing wasn’t really much of an option any more. It’s not a cheap sport, obviously, and certainly beyond the reach of a student trying to juggle studies with work and a young family. I don’t think I skied more than a handful of times during the first decade or so of my kids’ life. Read more
It is a dangerously humbling thing to read a book on preaching by Frederick Buechner the day before preaching. The man possesses an imagination and a gift for words that never ceases to impress and inspire me. Perhaps more importantly, he has a way of speaking about the gospel to everyone from doubters and cynics to believers and those trying to believe, and everyone in between—and all in such a way that makes both faith and its object seem plausible and possible, maybe even real and true. Reading Buechner is good for the soul. He convinces me that I am not crazy to believe or to write and speak about this crazy story week after week. Read more
A busy Christmas Eve is complete. Bundling up with the kids for skating on the pond, a lovely candlelight service at church, a delightful evening full of games and goodies with family, friends, the kids safely tucked into bed, the last presents put under the tree… And now, all is silent as I sit beside the Christmas tree, staring out into the bone chilling early morning darkness, processing a full day indeed. Read more
In response to the previous post, Tyler asks a question about why my writing here has shifted away from more philosophical interests and toward more of an emphasis on faith. I actually haven’t noticed a pronounced shift in my writing, to be honest, but I am not always the most reliable or accurate assessor of myself, so I will happily leave such questions to others. I provided a long-ish answer to Tyler’s question in the comment thread of the previous post, but I think the shorter answer just walked out of my office door. Read more
I spent a good chunk of this week at a denominational pastors retreat in the Alberta foothills just north of Calgary. One of the things we did during our worship times each day was spend some time “dwelling in the Word.” The specific text we focused on each session was Luke 7:36-50, the story where Jesus is anointed by a “sinful woman” at the home of Simon the Pharisee. It’s a scandalous story—a woman of ill repute showing up a bunch of religious elites, crashing their party with her sensuous, inappropriate display of penitence, love, and devotion. Even more scandalously, Jesus praises her as an example to emulate, claims to forgive her sin, and sends her away in peace. One can only imagine what must have been going on in the minds of the esteemed, religious host and his respectable dinner guests! Read more
One of the interesting things about participation in the wild world of social media and online interaction is the many and varied mediums through which feedback and conversation can take place. Blogs are synced with Facebook and Twitter and who knows what else, and feedback can (and does) arrive from any number of sources.
I believe the correct term for this—the usage of which would undoubtedly make me sound far smarter and more technologically savvy than I really am—is “multi-platform engagement.” I am only scratching the surface on these matters, having recently linked my blog to Facebook (and having thus far resisted the madness of Twitter), but it’s been very interesting to interact with the same content in multiple contexts. “Likes” and comments and “re-posts” and “pins” and “tweets” and “re-tweets” “+1’s” and before you know it my head is spinning. I remember the good old days back in 2007 when all I had to remember to check was if there were any comments on my blog. Read more
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