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Posts from the ‘Hope’ Category

Dec 23

The Offense of Christmas

It’s a strange thing that, as followers of Jesus, we are dwellers in a story.

Religion is often conceived and described as ideology or a philosophy or an ethical system that provides answers to deep questions about the meaning of life and the nature of salvation. But as Christians, we are not given a generic, universal set of principles or techniques or transcendent truths or ethical absolutes by which to live.

We are, rather, thrust into a story—and a grubby, disheveled story, at that. Read more

Dec 20

19 Comments

There is Nothing Ordinary About This

Advent is not about arrival.
Advent is about waiting in hope.
Advent is about prayer for the coming Kingdom.
 
Advent is about saying,
often with trembling lip,
wavering voice,
and with tear-filled eyes,
Come soon, Lord Jesus, come soon. 
 

Brian Walsh, Advent Pain, Aching Hope

 

I sit in a sterile hospital room with a dear old saint who will be spending this Christmas where nobody wants to spend Christmas. Outside is a gloriously clear, crisp, winter day full of snow and lights and pre-Christmas goodness. Inside, there are bare, yellowing walls, cracked ceilings, cheap, generic pictures on the wall. We speak of what the doctors say, of what the next steps will be, about what is going on at church, about who has visited and who will be coming. We speak of what her kids are doing for Christmas. Read more

Dec 17

3 Comments

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 11

Here is Your God

This morning I sat in a dark hospital room with someone I love who is in a dark place. Months upon months of crushing, debilitating, body and soul-sucking migraines. Often she can barely open her eyes. The smallest shaft of light makes her skull feel like it will explode; the most innocuous of everyday sounds assaults her ears like the trumpets of Armageddon. She spends day upon day of groping around in a morphine-tinged fog. My heart aches for what she is going through. I pray for her often. Read more

Dec 10

2 Comments

Thirty Things I Like About Christianity

We are halfway through Advent, and I’ll confess to occasionally feeling just a little bit restless and uninspired.  The same texts from Isaiah and the gospels that we rehearse every year.  The same rituals and routines, the same hopes and promises voiced, the same baby in the same manger with the same cast of characters.  The same hymns and readings.  Over and over again.  Consequently, I was delighted to come across Ben Myers’ post today called “Forty Things I Like About Christianity” over at Faith and Theology.  It was a lovely reminder of the beauty of this faith, this God, this story that we are a part of.

And it inspired me to scrawl out my own list.  This list is by no means exhaustive.  These are just some of the things that came to mind this morning.  Feel free to add to the list!

(I’m not as smart or sophisticated as Ben Myers so I stopped at thirty :).)

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

Dec 3

2 Comments

Not Everyone Can Wait

Here in southern Alberta, we find ourselves in the grip of quite the blizzard. It’s been snowing for about a day and a half and there’s more on the way. With the wind chill factored in, it’s -26 degrees out there. My wife and I woke up early today to check on the status of the roads and the schools and to peer curiously out our window. Surely no one would try to get out today, would they?! Well, it’s 8:30 am, and we have already pushed/shovelled out two neighbours who were determined to head out into the wintry wonderland, despite all the warnings to stay home and wait out the storm. Not everyone can wait, it seems. Read more

Nov 26

5 Comments

The Way Things Work

I spent part of this morning catching up on some reading on “leadership” for a conference call later in the day. I have a tough enough time convincing myself that I am a leader at the best of times, but the task is made even more difficult when I spend even a minimal amount of time reading articles peppered with words like “visionary” and “outcome analysis” and “dynamic action strategies.” But good leaders use (and understand) words like these, apparently. Leaders look and sound a certain way. That’s the way things work. Read more

Nov 7

4 Comments

Jesus Lived For Your Sins

 What is the gospel?

You would think that a room full of pastors would be able to offer a pretty concise and comprehensive answer to so basic a query, but when the question was posed at a gathering I was a part of yesterday, the silence was deafening. Maybe we thought it was a kind of trick question, that it was too easy. Maybe we were afraid that we would omit some important detail and look foolish in front of respected peers. Maybe we were mentally sifting and sorting between all the competing answers out there.  Maybe we just didn’t want to be the first to speak. Or, maybe it was a genuine struggle to articulate something so basic to our identity. I don’t know.  Read more

Nov 5

7 Comments

Resurrection Words

It struck me, as I was standing at the graveside of a family friend last week, what a truly staggering thing it is to proclaim the resurrection of the dead.

I was staring at the wet, squishy ground, wiggling my toes, trying to stay warm in the typical British Columbia November drizzle, listening to the pastor reciting familiar words from the Psalms, from the Gospels, words about how death is a beginning not an end, words about how this person is with Jesus now, about how we have a living hope. I looked at the coffin and thought about the person we all knew and loved who was about to be lowered into the ground. I stared back at my shoes. More words from the pastor. I remember thinking, “God, I’m glad I’m not in his shoes today. I’m glad I am not faced with the task of speaking these wildly counterintuitive resurrection words into the yawning chasm of death today.” Read more

Oct 29

10 Comments

Hope, Obviously

“There are no atheists in foxholes,” goes the famous aphorism. It’s meant, I suppose, to get at the idea that when you’re face to face with darkness and death and horror and suffering, atheism suddenly becomes a less credible option. The reality of death makes believers, or at least desperate hopers out of us all. When our lives are under threat, God seems more palatable. That’s the idea, as I understand it at least. Read more

Oct 25

1 Comment

In Love He Will Mend Us

For dear friends on the passing of a father and friend… Dear friends whose steps must today begin to beat the well-worn path through the valley of the shadow…

But if death is the end in Christianity, it is not the final end; it is the end of an act only, not the end of the drama. Once before out of the abyss of the unborn, the uncreated, the not-yet, you and I who from all eternity had been nothing became something. Out of nonbeing we emerged into being. And what Jesus promises is resurrection, which means that once again this miracle will happen, and out of death will come another realm of life. Not because by our nature there is part of us that does not die, but because by God’s nature he will not let even death separate us from him finally.

Because he loves us. In love he made us and in love he will mend us. In love he will have us his true children before he is through, and in order to do that, one life is not enough, God knows.

Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark

Oct 22

6 Comments

Imagining

I was standing in a line at the hospital check in desk today when I decided to start imagining. As I was standing there watching the receptionist mechanically dispensing room numbers, I found myself imagining getting to the front of the line and hearing her say, “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, there’s been a mistake. The man you’re looking for isn’t here! He was discharged yesterday. He’s perfectly healthy, you see. He’s been made well, and he won’t be coming back here soon. You should have seen him when he left—he was beaming!” That’s what I imagined as I was waiting in line.

But she didn’t say any of that. What she said was, “Room 419.” Read more

Oct 18

3 Comments

Holy Interruptions

A wise friend and mentor once told me to be very careful to cultivate what he called a “theology of holy interruptions.” “Sometimes God speaks in the unplanned, unexpected, even apparently annoying human interjections in our days,” he said. “Make sure you don’t allow your other ‘important work’ to trump the divinely appointed conversations that might cross your path when you least expect or want them.”  While this is obviously a maxim that can be (and is) abused, the wisdom of my friend’s words has been borne out on numerous occasions in my relatively brief time in pastoral ministry. Read more

Oct 10

16 Comments

“If We Pray, Dad Will Come For Us”

I’ve written a fair amount here about Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the work being done to address our nation’s history of Indian Residential Schools. Most of this writing took place in or around a trip I took to Montreal last spring to attend one of the seven national events taking place across the country (see here, here, and here). Today, however, the TRC came much closer to home. For the past two days, the TRC has been holding hearings right here in Lethbridge, AB. So, this morning I trudged off to the local hotel armed with my notebook and a stiff cup of coffee, and prepared to hear more difficult stories.

Read more

Oct 7

13 Comments

Crumbs and Stains

Yesterday was World Communion Sunday, a day when all kinds of churches from all kinds of places celebrate the sacrifice of love that unites us rather than the myriad petty walls that we are so determined to erect between us. Walls like, oh I don’t know, who gets to participate in the Lord’s Supper? To pick one random example. Read more

Sep 26

5 Comments

(Un)kindness

I watched the kids play at recess today. I was waiting to pick up my daughter for a dentist appointment, and I was a few minutes early. So I just sat and watched. I noticed a girl, off to the side, standing by the corner of the building, all by herself. Around the corner, other kids were laughing, playing, kicking/throwing balls, wrestling, goofing around. She just stood there, looking at her feet. Playing with the string on her hoodie. Every once in a while she would peer around the corner at the other kids, and then she would quickly duck back, look away, back down to her feet. The bell rang. She waited until all the other kids had left, before slowly making her way toward the door. She never stopped looking at her shoes. It was an utterly ordinary scene. And it broke my heart. Read more

Sep 25

6 Comments

Speaking Personally

This morning’s tour through the aggregator yielded a couple of pieces that gently admonished self-indulgent blogger-types for their propensity to write about blogging. Nothing too serious, just a kind of slap on the wrist for those prone to indulging their already hyperactive narcissistic tendencies by making oblique (or explicit) reference to their popularity and influence (or bemoaning their lack of popularity and influence), or who commemorate blogging “anniversaries,” milestone posts and comments, or who just generally seem to assume that their blog is quite a bit more important to the world than it really is. Read more

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