Only One Thing
“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.” Reflecting on the challenges of the modern-day Parenting Juggling Act, the assault of the entertainment and marketing industries, and the slipping-sliding-ever-changing landscape of the institutional church, this blog journeys through the headlines, the hurry and headaches to re-discover the ‘one thing’ of which our Saviour speaks.
Zumba
If we can carve out time for Zumba, surely carving out time for church is also possible? We haven’t figured out what commitment looks like without either persecution or Christendom. Continue reading
God is a Blue Jays’ fan, right?
“…. and thank you for letting the Blue Jays win tonight,” my daughter Cecilia prayed at bedtime after the Jays won Game Five of the American League Division Series to advance to the Championships… In the end, what I Lift Up is laughter. God is a Jays’ Fan in the same way that God is a Martha Fan. Continue reading
Audrey Conard
The church lost a priest and I lost a friend this week—The Reverend Canon Audrey Conard. Audrey was a colleague, mentor and friend. Continue reading
Running the race
Suffering. It’s a word that is routinely considered negative. We do not want to suffer. We do not want the people we care about to suffer. We want to avoid, alleviate, end the suffering we experience. But suffering can also be positive. Continue reading
Top three (unconventional) tips for church shopping
I certainly know people who have church shopped prayerfully and faithfully and have found a community where they have been able to put down nourishing and long-lasting roots. But I also know that approaching church as just one more consumer choice in a whole life of soul-destroying consumer choices can lead to worship communities that become bound, not to the life and sacrifice and resurrection revealed in Jesus, but to meeting a wide variety of individual consumer preferences. Continue reading
Are we having fun today?
As our family made our way East across the country on summer vacation, it was the rallying cry we heard from those we met – from Orillia, Ontario to Montreal, Quebec to Antigonish, Nova Scotia. Continue reading
Buying the magic
Do I regret taking my children to a Disney production on March Break? Readers may judge, but I will no doubt invest in other shamelessly corporate production consumables, imagining that a modern day parent has to give in to some of the junk. But I’m glad that I have a people and a prayer to which I can turn (repent) in order to receive true sustenance. Continue reading
Confession Tuesday
Our Lenten walk may be at odds with the norms at work around us, but if for a moment we can pay attention to what we actually experience, not just what we believe, but what experience reveals as real, then we know that these forty days might feel shadowy and strange compared to the bright lights, blaring music and petty nattering of the world around us, but that we are nonetheless encountering undeniable truth about who we are and what this life is for. Continue reading
Older sister
There are very serious breaches of trust, grave hurt, that human beings can inflict on one another and from which we need healing… how do I interpret my relationship with my brother in the kingdom of God? Continue reading
Grandma
Grandma is now sharing in God’s eternal life, and it’s not even just about that. It’s about the possibility of what our lives are for. It’s about a God who chooses to be powerful in our world because now and again there is an open heart that finds the capacity to say yes. Let it be with me according to your word. Continue reading
