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Posts from the ‘Travel’ Category

Jun 25

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Without Spot or Blemish

Around a month ago, I was in Zürich, Switzerland to participate in events celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement. It’s difficult, of course, to pin a precise date to a movement as amorphous as “Anabaptism” (the word itself was only embraced much later, and with varying degrees of enthusiasm). But something significant began around 1525. For the purposes of this celebration, the beginnings of our movement were tied to the first believers’ baptisms (or “rebaptisms,” according to their opponents) which took place in a little apartment in Zürich. George Blaurock, Felix Manz, and Conrad Grebel had embraced the teachings of reformers like Ulrich Zwingli but increasingly felt they didn’t go far enough, specifically (but not exclusively) when it came to baptism. They found no warrant in Scripture for infant baptism and so in defiance of local regulations, they baptized one another January 17, 1525. Read more

Jun 19

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The Duomo vs. the Toilet (Where is God Found?)

On my walks this week, I’ve been listening to a series on The Medici family on The Rest is History podcast. After I finished walking the Camino last month, my wife and I spent six days or so in Italy with some friends. We toured around places like Florence, Pisa, Livorno, and Siena—the heart of Tuscany, where the Medicis rose to power in the twelfth century. So, my curiosity was piqued if for no other reason than recent proximity to the region. Read more

Jun 14

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Mercy is the Way

When you walk the Camino, you hear the same phrase repeatedly. From locals, from fellow pilgrims, from whoever: Bom Caminho (in Portugal) or Buen Camino (in Spain). Literally, these both translate into English as “Good Way.” More colloquially and contextually it means something like “Have a good journey.” It was nice to hear these words and to speak them to others. Read more

Jun 9

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The Flower Thief

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

May 30

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The Lord is Near

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.

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Oct 17

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But Please, Don’t Forget to Find the Human in Your Enemy

I’ve had a few conversations recently about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book The Message. Coates is, of course, massively popular due to books like Between the World and Me, among others. He was a correspondent with The Atlantic and has garnered a large audience due to his writings on social and political issues, specifically on matters of racial injustice and white supremacy.
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Aug 24

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After All That I Put You Through

A few days ago, my wife and I were bombing through the mountains at the tail end of a holiday in British Columbia and had exhausted all other conversational options. So we decided to discuss the problem of evil and free will. It seemed like a nice, light holiday topic, a welcome break from what I think about most days. Read more

May 12

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Mixed Motives

Earlier this week, I set out on a rather mundane and (I thought) noble task. I wanted to buy local. I had a relatively ordinary purchase to make, but it was one that I knew I could either get at some anonymous big box store that’s already made buckets of money during this pandemic or a local shop that I imagined would have been having a harder time of it. Over the course of this pandemic, I have rid myself of Facebook and sworn off Amazon. I’ve tried to avoid Wal-Mart and other big box stores. This would be the next step in my evolution as a conscientious consumer. Or at least some reasonable facsimile, thereof. Read more

Dec 2

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The Last Normal Thing     

A podcast I was listening to this morning asked the question: “What was the last normal life experience you had before the pandemic lockdown hit?” What stands out in the memory of the days before normal life experiences became few and far between? For the host, it was attending a sporting event—a college basketball game between Virginia and Duke. And indeed, these collective experiences—sports (with fans), concerts, conferences, etc.—are what many feel no small amount of nostalgia for as this difficult year staggers toward its conclusion. Read more

Sep 8

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ABBA Essentials and the Perils of Unlimited Choice

“What do you wanna listen to now?” My wife asked me this question a handful of times from the passenger seat as we made our way over the Rockies and back to help our kids settle into college last weekend. Twenty-five hours in transit gives you plenty of time for listening to stuff, whether it’s podcasts, audio books, or music. Each time the question came, I would half-heartedly ponder the request for a few seconds and then respond with something along the lines of, “Um, I don’t know, nothing’s really coming to mind… I kinda need to see my options.” My wife would then furrow her brow at me, scroll through Apple Music on one of our phones, and then usually end up picking either something that one of us had downloaded recently and was thus near the top of our screens or something we had listened to in the past. Read more

Jun 2

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Wagging White Fingers

I’ve hesitated to say much in response to the grim spectacle of America ablaze with protests against the racism, police brutality, and appalling murder of George Floyd last week in Minneapolis. My justifications for silence often wander down familiar trails. What can I say that others can’t say or haven’t already said better? I’m not American; what right do I have to say anything about a social reality that is not my own? What good does adding to an amorphous chorus of condemnation/white guilt really do? Isn’t ninety percent of what’s going online today a flailing combination of virtue signalling and emoting out loud? What good is one more wagging white finger against racism? Read more

Mar 20

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Memento Mori (Or, a Few Thoughts while Social Distancing Through the Rocky Mountains)

I spent two of the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic practicing social distancing in my van. My daughter was attending college in British Columbia this year and late last week the directive came that dorms would be emptying, and students would have to return home. So, twenty-five hours in a forty hour period were spent bombing over the Rocky Mountains and back. Read more

Nov 6

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The Crowd

On Saturday afternoon, I was gloriously lost in the crowd. The scene was the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, Germany, where I was watching the match between the home team, Eintracht Frankfurt, and German and European powerhouse FC Bayern München. I was there with a group of lifelong friends who had convened in Europe to reconnect and watch a few soccer games.

The previous weekend we had been at a game in Madrid, which was fantastic, but the atmosphere in Frankfurt was electric. At times, the entire stadium seemed to be shaking and roaring in lusty approval as Eintracht demolished the hated rivals from Bavaria 5-1 (for non-soccer fans, Bayern would be kind of like the New York Yankees of German football—the phenomenally wealthy team that poaches everyone else’s best players and who everyone loves to hate). Even though we were ostensibly there to see Bayern (they are our German friend’s team and they have a kid from Alberta with a fascinating and inspiring story playing for them), it was a riotously good time and an experience to remember. Read more

Jun 6

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How the Bible Sounds in Occupied Territory

One more reflection based on my time spent in Palestine and Israel over the past few weeks. After this, I shall endeavour to give this “blogging sabbatical” thing another, better try.

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It’s an interesting thing how geography and social location affects the way you read and hear Scripture. Most Sundays, I am reading and hearing Scripture as a relatively comfortable, white, middle-class Christian in a more or less peaceful country where religion often occupies a peripheral (at best) role in most people’s thinking and living. This affects how I read and hear the words of the Bible. My default, whether I want this or not, tends to be to listen in ways that will more or less endorse and validate myself and those who are like me. This is, as I said, most Sundays. Last Sunday, however, I worshiped in Palestine.

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May 30

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Somewhere to Be

I know I’m technically on a “blogging sabbatical,” but I decided to interrupt it to offer a few reflections and observations on a trip I’m presently on to Israel and Palestine. One of the things we consistently hear wherever we go in this conflicted area is, “Tell others what you have seen and heard with your own eyes and ears.” It’s a serious call, and one that I feel an obligation to respond to given the privilege that I have of being here. Here are some assorted stories and reflections from my first few days here. Read more

Aug 23

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Wednesday Miscellany (Detritus of Summer)

The end of summer (sadly) draws nigh and, like many, I have spent these dwindling days of August attempting to tidy up the clutter, whether it’s physical, mental, or spiritual in nature. I’ve tried to achieve a bit of focus, clarity, and equilibrium before September arrives This has meant tackling my physical desk, rearranging unread books and recycling correspondence that has been rendered irrelevant by inattention, and trying to wrest a bit of order out of the chaos of random files and documents on my computer’s desktop. Things need to be put in their proper place, after all. Here are a few bits and pieces whose proper place is, evidently, another “miscellany” post.  Read more

May 29

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On Admiration

I was in Germany last week visiting friends and celebrating my brother’s completion of his PhD. I consequently spent a lot of time on trains and planes and had ample time for looking out of windows and thinking big thoughts. Among the things that occurred to me as I whizzed through the springtime Bavarian countryside is that you can tell a lot about someone by what or who or how they admire. The shape of our admiration speaks volumes. And of course it (almost) goes without saying that we tend to admire badly. I do, at any rate. Read more

Mar 9

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Save the Pigs

Some churches have the best locations. When I lived on the west coast I would gaze longingly at the sight of little churches with ocean views or in the heart of leafy green neighbourhoods with fruit stands and local markets and beaches nearby. When I’m in the Alberta Rockies, I often sigh plaintively at the sight of houses of God that dwell in the shadow of snow-capped mountain peaks. During my travels in Europe or South America or the Middle East, I frequently marveled at majestic cathedrals in historic cities or sturdy stone sanctuaries in quaint seaside towns or humble chapels in the midst of touristy cities devoted to more hedonistic pursuits. It would be so much easier to serve the Lord and his children in such impressive and inspiring surroundings, I often wistfully imagined.

My church, as it happens, is a stone’s throw from a meatpacking plant. Read more

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