It’s been a dark year, wouldn't you say, what some have called the year of fear - disease, wars, refugees, all too much ugliness, violence, and generally un-evolved humanity. Into that story of darkness and fear, the world as we often experience it, comes God-with-us: the Christmas story in all its wildness and weirdness (yes,… Continue reading Have yourself an untamed Christmas
Ours is an age of anxiety; we idolize security, seeking to live ruling out risk or failure. Exhibit # 1,043: helicopter parents hovering protectively over their children's bubble-wrapped lives. Doesn't that seem a bad way to live? Jesus seemed to think so. I love Eugene Peterson's paraphrase of Jesus' parable of the talents, the master says… Continue reading The crime of living cautiously
This is the irrational season, when love blooms bright and wild. Had Mary been filled with reason, there'd been no room for the child. Madeleine L'Engle Most of us have a favourite Christmas movie, one you haul out every Christmas holiday season. Sure, part of the reason for Christmas movie watching is to disarm tense… Continue reading Wonder
A saint is one who exaggerates what the world neglects. G. K. Chesterton No, Virginia, that paunchy, red-suited, white-bearded stranger who breaks into people’s houses once a year is not real - he’s an imposter, a sham and serves as the front-man for the consumer empire we live in. But yes, Virginia, Saint Nicholas is… Continue reading A saint, a dude and an ordinary joe
So long as we imagine it is we who have to look for God, we must often lose heart. But it is the other way about - he is looking for us. Simon Tugwell, Prayer Isn't this the heartening hope, the deep gladness of Advent? It's not up to us; this salvation business doesn't depend… Continue reading Sought After
Today begins the Christian season of Advent and here are a few words of introduction to Advent from my book Seeking God's Face: Advent (from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival”) is the four-week season of preparation for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. A good celebration requires proper preparation for us to fully… Continue reading Ready my heart
Human suffering is the great gadfly for every philosophy, worldview, religion and person. How each responds to the problem of suffering is emblematic of its spiritual depth and humanity. Whenever suffering intrudes into our lives, a very personal question quickly surfaces - “why me?” Why is the universe picking on me, hand delivering this misery? … Continue reading The flip side of “why me?”
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I was born on this day. OK, not so long ago and not so far away - Sunday July 21 at 8:15 am. at the Humber Memorial Hospital in Toronto. A birth like most others, welcomed into this world with a frantic race through traffic… Continue reading On birthdays
Have you ever thought of the tight connection between God's joy and evangelism? Luke 15:7 outlines it fairly clearly when Luke writes: "There will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who do not need to repent." The context is the hope of lost things found… Continue reading A joy evangelist
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, a great and merry soul, called joy the gigantic secret of the Christian life. Near the end of his classic, beautiful book Orthodoxy, he writes on the veiled joy he finds in Jesus: "The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers… Continue reading God's great mirth
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