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Posts from the ‘Stories on the Way’ Category

May 6

2 Comments

We Talk Crazy Talk

One day I will probably need to offer to pay for my kids’ therapy given the number of times that I have used them and the stories and conversations they inhabit as fodder for my writing and speaking. I can imagine the script already: It was literally like we could barely open our mouths about anything God-ish without dad pouncing all over it and subjecting it to tortuous analysis in some sermon or on his blog or something. It was like he was always waiting for us to produce some “moment” that he could exploit for his own ends. It was kinda pathetic, really. And they would be right. Mostly. In my meager defense, I would say that I have always tried to look at everyday life as the raw material through which God speaks and, well, my kids just happen be involved in most of the days of my everyday life. Not much of an excuse, I know. It’s all I got. Read more

Apr 27

5 Comments

Frozen: A (Whiny) History of Suffering

I spent part of yesterday morning in the dentist’s chair. Now, I know that nobody enjoys going to the dentist. But I really, really, really don’t like it. I am, undoubtedly, the worst of scaredy-cats and neurotically frightened of pain, but in my (meager) defense, my cowardice has a back-story. Read more

Mar 23

9 Comments

Girl

Ever since I returned from Palestine and Israel a few weeks ago, I’ve been trying to come up with some kind of a summary post or report or analysis or something to kind of tie a nice little bow on my experience, to have some finished product to point to that summarizes the things I saw and experienced while over there. Read more

Mar 21

12 Comments

Set the Table

Why do we eat soup during Lent? The question from a church member caught me a bit off guard as I was scrambling to get a few things together for a soup and bread Lenten lunch that our church was hosting last week. I don’t remember exactly how I responded. I think I vaguely gestured toward Lent being a season for embracing self-discipline and simplicity. “The general idea,” I said, “is that we choose not to eat as much or the same as we might during other times of the year as a way of remembering that we do not live on bread alone—to acknowledge, even in the context of abundance, that our deepest hunger is for God.” I pointed to the idea that fasting is a way of acknowledging that there is an unfinished quality to our world and to our human experience—that things are not yet as they should be, that we are not yet as we should be.  Read more

Mar 4

18 Comments

A Stone’s Throw

Another restless sleep in Bethlehem interrupted by the 4 am call to prayer… In lieu of tossing and turning frustratedly for the next hour, I thought recording a few stories lodged in my brain from yesterday might be a more profitable use of my time.  Read more

Mar 2

5 Comments

Call to Prayer

My first night in the West Bank came to a rather abrupt, if expected end with the Islamic call to prayer (adhan) outside my window at 4:00 am. The song from the muezzin was haunting and beautiful. And rather longer than I expected. Given that I had collapsed into bed around 9 pm the previous evening after a long (and sleepless) few days of travel, and given that going back to sleep in the circumstances would prove spectacularly unlikely for me (I have a hard time sleeping well at the best of times, never mind when traveling), I decided I might as well do what I was told and get up to pray. Read more

Feb 3

9 Comments

Faces

I dropped in on our local English training centre for newcomers to Canada today. It wasn’t a planned visit, but I was having a conversation at a downtown coffee shop about how the Syrian families we sponsored are doing, and I said something to the effect of, “Well, they’re across the street right now in English classes. Wanna wander over there and see?”  Off we went. Read more

Jan 27

2 Comments

Sometimes You Have to Smile

It was nearly 7:00 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 manner of logistics with helping our new Syrian friends make their way in this new land. I had been up early for another refugee meeting at City Hall (I’ve been collecting committees as a hobby over these past few months) and the day had been a long one already. The kids needed to be driven hither and yon, there was a church AGM to get ready for the following day, and, as always, a sermon to prepare. And there was the looming prospect of the remainder of the week sans spouse as my wife left town this morning for a conference that will occupy the remainder of her week. All in all, I was not particularly looking forward to the evening ahead. Read more

Jan 11

7 Comments

Found in Translation

trans·la·tion

noun: the process of translating words or text from one language into another; the conversion of something from one form or medium into another.

Over the past few days, our local sponsorship group has begun the process of helping our new Syrian friends take their first steps in Canada. We welcomed them to our city on a brutally cold and foggy Friday afternoon. Several times as I was driving them from the airport to the home we had prepared for them, I wondered what must have going through their minds as they looked out on the frosty white scenes that greeted them. Have they dropped us off at the North Pole?! Read more

Jan 6

23 Comments

Common Bonds

The relationship between Muslims and Christians has been in the news a lot lately, whether because of the Syrian refugee crisis or the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino or, more recently in the Christian world, the theological controversy generated by a Wheaton College professor Larycia Hawkins’ comments about Muslims and Christians worshiping the “same God” (and her being subsequently placed on administrative leave). There are no shortage of polarizing opinions out there and no lack of enthusiasm in sharing them. Read more

Dec 1

4 Comments

“I’m a Person with No Address”

I was sitting in a hospital room this morning with a dear old saint whose last few years have involved being shuffled from home to home, to the hospital and back again, and whose next destination is unclear. At one point, this person looked at me with a mixture of sadness, resignation, and nearly defeated longing and said, “I’m a person with no address.” Read more

Oct 12

10 Comments

Keeping One Another

I voted today. I spent forty-five minutes in an advance polling line to plunk my little x beside the candidate that I thought might do the best job of representing our little corner of the country in Ottawa. Or, at the very least, the one that I thought might do the least damage. Read more

Oct 6

3 Comments

A Future for Others

Amena* is very warm and personable. She speaks clearly and confidently. Her smile is infectious. We have met several times now to discuss the possibility of our local refugee sponsorship group helping to bring members of her family who are currently refugees in Lebanon to join her in Lethbridge. Our conversations seem like such strange and weighty things. There is so much that hangs in the balance. Probably more than I can even know. 
Read more

Oct 1

4 Comments

The Stories We Need

In a post last week I reflected a bit on having the “heart of a stranger” when it comes to how we think about the present Syrian refugee crisis. I wondered if some of our unwillingness to welcome the stranger might be due to the fact that many of us have never actually been strangers in any meaningful sense. I ended with a discussion of the twin biblical injunctions to remember and imagine well—to welcome the stranger either because we remember being strangers ourselves or because we can imagine what it would feel like to be one and how we would want to be welcomed.

Remembering is probably easier than imagining. Personal experience is worth a lot.  But imagining is a lot easier when you are thinking not of abstract “refugees” or “immigrants” or “victims” out there but real human beings with names and faces. Imagining has not been difficult for me these last two days, mainly because of two conversations. Read more

Sep 30

5 Comments

The World is Mess

Hassan is short, slight, quiet. He says little as he approaches the counter at the soup kitchen. He’s wearing black pants, black hoodie, and a black hat pulled down over his ears. He smiles, almost shyly, as I give him his plate, but does not hold eye contact for long. He takes his food to a table where he sits, alone, and eats his lunch. Read more

Aug 25

2 Comments

Battle Scars

It was probably one of those Internet memes that flits about the ether, and gradually enters the aggregate stream of quotes and pop inspiration that we collectively contribute to and maintain. This one, however, had the ring of truth to it. I don’t know the source, but it was something to the effect of:

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Read more

Jul 26

5 Comments

If You See Something, Say Something

“Hey, man, can I see your book?” I’m sitting in the Amtrak station in Harrisburg, PA waiting for the train to New York. I look up and see an African-American guy with a broad smiley face, his head covered by white bandana. “Sure,” I reply. I’m not sure if it’s the title that caught his eye or something else. “It’s just a fantasy novel,” I say. “Pretty light stuff.” He picks up the book and holds it up to eye level, examining its thickness. He opens the back cover. “Aw, man, that’s a lotta pages,” he says. “Yeah, I guess,” I reply, not sure what else to say. Read more

Jul 2

7 Comments

Jamie

My friend and I spent the last two and half days or so meandering through the inferno that is the Las Vegas strip in early July while our spouses sat in the conference that brought us down there. Big city streets are fascinating to wander in general, but Las Vegas, of course, takes things to a different level entirely. Maybe the heat had fried my neural circuitry, but after about a day or so of wandering, I found that I had lost the ability to be amazed. Floating flower balls in hotel lobbies? Ho hum. Fake replicas of ancient Greece… and Paris… and Venice… and New York? Obviously. Artificial thunderstorms with rainfall in a shopping mall? Yawn. Ok, who wants to impress me next? Read more

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