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Posts from the ‘Ethics’ Category

Mar 24

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A Gift is for Giving

This past weekend, we were privileged to have Cheryl Bear from the Nadleh Whut’en First Nation community in northern British Columbia as a special guest here in Lethbridge at both our Mennonite Church Alberta Annual Assembly on Friday and Saturday, and at our morning worship service on Sunday.  The timing of the event was significant here in Alberta, as the Truth and Reconciliation’s final national event will be taking place in Edmonton this week (Mar 27-30).  Cheryl is gifted musician and storyteller, and it was delightful to both hear from and get to know her over these short few days.

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Mar 14

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The “Self-Aggrandizing Fairy Tale” Upon Which We All Depend

Earlier this week I turned the last page of Joseph Boyden’s highly acclaimed third novel, The Orenda, recent winner of CBC’s Canada Reads and, to the great consternation of many, long listed, but not shortlisted, for the prestigious Giller Prize. It is, as many have said, a remarkable book about the seventeenth century Huron-Iroquois wars in what is now Eastern Canada, and the French Jesuit colonial missionary enterprise that inserted itself into the mix. It is gripping, insightful, heartbreaking, and, yes, at times almost unspeakably violent.

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Mar 5

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Riding with Richard in the Land of Atheist Devotion

It’s Ash Wednesday, a day for sober reflection on, among other things, what it is to be a human being. And what better person to usher us into a conversation on this weighty and important matter than… Richard Dawkins. Wait, what? Richard Dawkins? As in the crusading evangelist for atheism? As in that famous biologist who holds any and all religious beliefs in utter contempt and never allows an opportunity to heap scorn upon supernatural belief to pass him by? As in the self-proclaimed champion of all things rational and scientific? That Richard Dawkins. Yes, that one. Read more

Feb 24

Monday Miscellany

Hockey is Canada’s Religion! So blared the headlines yesterday after the second of our nation’s triumphs with skates and sticks on the Sochi stage. For much of yesterday, Canadian media outlets were aglow with videos and tweets and updates about brave, patriotic Canadians getting up at ungodly hours of the morning and braving frigid temperatures to heroically make their way to the pub (sometimes, without even the lure of alcohol, if you can believe it!) to watch the big game. There were even heartwarming video clips of mosques and churches that decided to show the game before morning worship. The overall mood was exultant. This is what it means to be Canadian, we rehearsed to ourselves over and over again in myriad ways.  Read more

Feb 20

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On Being Perfect

There was an hour to kill between appointments last night, so my daughter and I went to grab something to eat. It had been a day—not particularly good, not particularly bad, just, I don’t know, acceptably mediocre—and we were both a little tired. We sat mostly in silence, munching on our sandwiches, me thinking about the evening meeting ahead, she thinking… well, what was she thinking. She stared absently past me, for the most part.  Neither of us seemed much in the mood for conversation.

“Does it ever make you sad that people have to eat alone?”  Read more

Feb 10

8 Comments

Sin

Our church has spent two hours over the past few Sundays wading into the potentially stormy waters of dialogue about human sexuality as part of our national church’s ongoing discernment process. Among the many interesting things that came up over the course of a very stimulating (although far too brief) conversation was the question of the boundaries of sin. “Why are we so hesitant to use ‘sin’ language?” was one question. Why indeed. It’s a good question. Read more

Feb 4

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All Apologies

In order to relieve the tedium of trudging aimlessly around the house in a fog of sinus-clogged misery, I spent part of yesterday watching Mitch Miyagawa’s 2012 documentary, “Sorry State.” Miyagawa figures that his family might just be the most apologized-to family in history, at least when it comes to official government apologies. His Japanese father was apologized to by the Canadian government for being shipped off to southern Alberta during World War II. His Chinese step-father was apologized to in 2006 for the head tax in the early twentieth century. And, finally, his Cree step-mother was on the receiving end of PM Stephen Harper’s 2008 apology for government run residential schools. That’s a lot of apologizing.  Read more

Jan 29

13 Comments

Time to Talk

I deleted my Twitter account today. I had been a Twitter-er or a tweet-er or whatever the right term is for just under two months during which I produced a grand total of fifty-five tweets.

I apologize to both of my followers.  Read more

Jan 26

10 Comments

Play Without Me

I’ve spent a good chunk of the past day and a half or so in a hotel room while my wife attends a conference. This has afforded me the delightful privilege of uninterrupted time for catching up on a bit of reading, napping, going for short walks. And for watching sports.

I love sports. I have always loved sports, whether this meant playing or watching. As with many Canadian kids, when I was younger it was mostly about hockey, but I could watch pretty much anything—football, basketball, skiing, tennis, track and field…. Even baseball, if I was particularly desperate. Not curling or golf, though. Never those. And not boxing (we had mercifully not yet been presented with the disgusting abomination that is UFC at that point). Even as a child, I understood that one must have standards. Read more

Dec 28

8 Comments

2013 in Review (And a Thank You!)

So, 2013 is drawing to a close, which means it’s time to take a peek in the rearview mirror and reflect a bit on the year that has nearly passed.  In the blogging world, this means—what else?!—highlighting the most read posts on this blog over the past 365 days or so.  It’s an imperfect tool of evaluation, obviously—a cursory count of clicks and page views hardly provides an accurate assessment of meaningful or substantive engagement—but I suppose it give some sense of the themes that drew people here over the year.   Whenever I look at statistical summaries on this blog, I find myself scratching my head.  That was my most-read post?!  I don’t even like that one!  Why didn’t ____ make the list? Posts that I am convinced are the best thing the internet has seen since, well, two hours or so ago languish in obscurity while others that I dashed off in twenty minutes generate more traffic than I would ever have expected.   I suppose such is the nature of blogging. Read more

Dec 17

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Making Straight

I think that the main problem with our world right now is that there’s just not enough spirituality.

I had gone to a local café to get out of the office and try to get some reading done, but I quite literally couldn’t help but overhear the preceding assessment/diagnosis of the plight of the planet and its inhabitants taking place at the table beside me. It was a couple of university students, if their meticulously dishevelled and painstakingly ironic appearances were anything to go by. The more enthusiastic of the two—the one doing most of the talking—had evidently taken a few introductory philosophy and religious studies courses, judging by the peppering of his discourse with references to Gandhi, Jesus, Plato, and the Bhagavad Gita (not to mention a reference to that most estimable of Zen masters, Phil Jackson). The other young man seemed more interested in the Shakespeare he was trying to read, but he seemed content enough to allow the spiritual wisdom to pour forth unabated from his friend. Read more

Dec 6

2 Comments

We Want to Be Where Goodness Lives

So, Nelson Mandela has died and the tributes are deservedly pouring in. The world is undoubtedly a poorer place for Mr. Mandela’s absence.  His story inspires and compels on so many levels. His legacy is sure and strong. Read more

Nov 14

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Thursday Miscellany

Let’s see if you can follow the Thursday afternoon rabbit trail….

I spent part of this afternoon hearing the story of an Anglican minister who recently participated in the El Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. We talked about the nature of pilgrimages, about history and tradition and communion with saints who have gone before us, about silence and prayer and participating in something deep and wide and long…

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Nov 12

16 Comments

“You’re Just a Dirty Indian”

There are horrible stories set loose in our world, stories that should not be, stories that should never have been, stories that make the eyes burn and the ears bleed simply to read or to hear them. Stories that can make one embarrassed to be a human being. Read more

Oct 31

Planted: Book Review

I distinctly remember the first time I heard about the work of A Rocha, a Christian conservation and stewardship organization that began in Portugal through the work of Peter and Miranda Harris, and has since branched out around the world. I was sitting in a first year Christian Thought and Culture class at Regent College in 2005 and Peter Harris was lecturing on creation care. Read more

Oct 21

6 Comments

“A Loser Like Me”

I was talking to a boy the other day who was trying to put together an intramural team at school. The team had to have a mixture of both boys and girls on the roster, regardless of whether or not they actually played. “I went and asked a few girls that I knew would never play if I could use their names for my team,” the boy said. “Why did you do that?” I asked. He looked at me with a kind of resigned look on this face. “Well, what girl would ever want to play with a loser like me?”

A loser like me. Read more

Oct 16

12 Comments

The Backfire Effect

Attention! Brace yourself. A major announcement from the world of science came down yesterday morning.

Are you ready?

Apparently, people are not always, or even often persuaded by the facts when they are involved in an argument over an issue they feel strongly about.

Stunning, I know. Read more

Oct 14

4 Comments

Jesus is Hard to Find

Jesus is hard to find. 

The words came from my son as I collapsed into my seat after delivering the sermon yesterday morning. It was about the last thing I wanted to hear near the end of a worship service that came at the end of an exhausting week. I’d been single parenting for the past few days (my wife was on Vancouver Island running a half-marathon), while trying to finish preparations for the Sunday service and dealing with a bunch of other issues that were taking far more time and energy than I had to give. About the last thing I wanted at this point in the week was a crisis of faith from my son. All I wanted to do was finish the service and stumble home to bed. Read more

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