It doesn’t feel like one person’s illness—even if they are famous—should be so newsworthy… Human mortality isn’t actually news, and it is naïve to suggest it is. And yet, “There is nothing left to do but sing.” Continue reading
We need to stop saying “change is coming, but…” It’s coming. It’s here. You, me, and every single person who goes to church and identifies as a Christian needs to be more like the Jesus we follow. Continue reading
Our dog died last month. I am not tempted in his death to gloss over his faults and claim he was a better dog than he was. His faults made him real. We loved him as the strange and unique and challenging dog that he was. Each one of Cliff Barnes’ eccentricities, each of the funny and lovely and obnoxious ways he had of being in this world, thunders its absence in our lives now that he is gone. He wasn’t some platonic ideal of a dog. He was very specifically our dog. And his specificity demanded that we encounter him and love him, not our idea of him. Continue reading
I hope death will not be soon for any of us, but it will happen at some point. So while we are living here on this earth we have a choice to make: to deny or embrace the responsibility we have as watershed disciples, even over our dead bodies. Continue reading
In the midst of this life we are in death; yet our Easter message promises us that in the midst of earthly death, we are in the promise of eternal, spiritual life. Continue reading
It’s not pretty this time of year. Death and endings in our lives rarely are. They look bad, they feel bad, they sound bad and sometimes they even smell bad. Our own seasons of change, transformation, and death push our senses and our hearts beyond our capacity. Sometimes it feels like we have been buried in snow with no hope of emerging. But a season never lasts forever. Continue reading
It is easy to thank God for our blessings. But what about all those people who don’t have those blessings? Does God love them any less? Or worse, do they somehow deserve the rotten end of the stick they got? Am I blessed with rewards or privileges while God takes them away from others? Continue reading
I’m a 34 year old Anglican priest. I grew up in the days of large confirmation classes and cozy traditional worship services, but within my lifetime all of that has changed. My sorry claim to fame as a young minister is that I have witnessed the deconsecration of 41 Anglican churches and counting. Continue reading
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
The picture. Yes—“that” picture that started circulating yesterday of the 3 year old boy washed up on the beach in Turkey. One of God’s children without hope is too many and every refugee on this God given earth, is one of God’s children. Continue reading
The Community is a ministry of the Anglican Church of Canada
privacy policy • forum rules and guidelines • contact us
