There’s a moment, usually somewhere between the second cup of coffee and the first squirrel sighting, when the morning walk becomes something more than exercise. It sneaks up quietly, disguised as routine — the same stretch of cracked pavement, the same grumbling garbage truck, the same faint smell of toast drifting from a neighbour’s kitchen. And then, quite without fanfare, grace happens.

It might be the light catching a puddle just so, or the sudden awareness of your own breath keeping time with the rhythm of your steps. It might be the old dog on the corner who greets you as though you were the Second Coming, or the stranger who nods and smiles in that brief, wordless communion of shared humanity. For an instant, you realize that this—this stretch of sidewalk—is holy ground.

We often speak of sacraments as those formal, polished moments when heaven touches earth: water poured in baptism, bread broken in communion. But perhaps there are smaller sacraments, unofficial and unsanctioned, that happen right underfoot. The Sacrament of the Sidewalk is one of them. It’s the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace that arises when we realize God is not confined to the sanctuary, but is rather out for a walk.

Of course, we Anglicans are a cautious people when it comes to holiness underfoot. We like our holy places tidy, preferably with kneelers and a well-maintained flower rota. But sidewalks are another matter—chewing gum fossils, mysterious stains, the odd bottle cap communion token. And yet, it is here, amid the imperfections, that God chooses to stroll. After all, the Incarnation wasn’t a divine retreat to higher ground; it was God moving into the neighbourhood, sandals dusty, heart open.

There’s something sacramental about walking itself. It’s slow enough for the soul to catch up. It forces us to notice—leaves underfoot, frost on fence posts, the small acts of life carrying on all around. It teaches humility too: nothing like a misplaced paving stone to remind you that pride goeth before a twisted ankle.

In an age when everything rushes and hums, walking invites reverence. It turns the ordinary path into a pilgrimage, the corner store into a shrine, and the morning greeting into a liturgy of belonging. You don’t need vestments or a thurible—though a good scarf in November might count as both. You just need to step outside, breathe deeply, and remember that every square of sidewalk is stamped, invisibly, with divine presence.

So next time you lace up your shoes, take it as an act of faith. The Sacrament of the Sidewalk awaits. The liturgy is already in progress: birdsong as the opening hymn, wind as the psalm, and your footsteps as the steady “Amen

The Sacrament of the Sidewalk
Reflections on how ordinary walks reveal holy ground underfoot

There’s a moment, usually somewhere between the second cup of coffee and the first squirrel sighting, when the morning walk becomes something more than exercise. It sneaks up quietly, disguised as routine — the same stretch of cracked pavement, the same grumbling garbage truck, the same faint smell of toast drifting from a neighbour’s kitchen. And then, quite without fanfare, grace happens.

It might be the light catching a puddle just so, or the sudden awareness of your own breath keeping time with the rhythm of your steps. It might be the old dog on the corner who greets you as though you were the Second Coming, or the stranger who nods and smiles in that brief, wordless communion of shared humanity. For an instant, you realize that this—this stretch of sidewalk—is holy ground.

We often speak of sacraments as those formal, polished moments when heaven touches earth: water poured in baptism, bread broken in communion. But perhaps there are smaller sacraments, unofficial and unsanctioned, that happen right underfoot. The Sacrament of the Sidewalk is one of them. It’s the outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace that arises when we realize God is not confined to the sanctuary, but is rather out for a walk.

Of course, we Anglicans are a cautious people when it comes to holiness underfoot. We like our holy places tidy, preferably with kneelers and a well-maintained flower rota. But sidewalks are another matter—chewing gum fossils, mysterious stains, the odd bottle cap communion token. And yet, it is here, amid the imperfections, that God chooses to stroll. After all, the Incarnation wasn’t a divine retreat to higher ground; it was God moving into the neighbourhood, sandals dusty, heart open.

There’s something sacramental about walking itself. It’s slow enough for the soul to catch up. It forces us to notice—leaves underfoot, frost on fence posts, the small acts of life carrying on all around. It teaches humility too: nothing like a misplaced paving stone to remind you that pride goeth before a twisted ankle.

In an age when everything rushes and hums, walking invites reverence. It turns the ordinary path into a pilgrimage, the corner store into a shrine, and the morning greeting into a liturgy of belonging. You don’t need vestments or a thurible—though a good scarf in November might count as both. You just need to step outside, breathe deeply, and remember that every square of sidewalk is stamped, invisibly, with divine presence.

So next time you lace up your shoes, take it as an act of faith. The Sacrament of the Sidewalk awaits. The liturgy is already in progress: birdsong as the opening hymn, wind as the psalm, and your footsteps as the steady “Amen.”

A Prayer for the Sacrament of the Sidewalk

Holy One,
who walked the dusty roads of Galilee
and blessed the ground beneath every weary foot,
teach us to find You in our daily steps.

Consecrate the sidewalks and side streets,
the crosswalks and cul-de-sacs,
where we meet neighbours, nod to strangers,
and discover, quite by surprise, that grace is underfoot.

Forgive us when we hurry past beauty,
when we tread carelessly over wonder,
and when we forget that You are already out ahead of us—
waiting at the next corner, smiling beneath the streetlight.

Grant that our walking become a kind of prayer,
our pauses moments of praise,
and our return home an act of thanksgiving.

May our soles be mindful,
our steps steady in love,
and our hearts open to the holiness
that hums in every inch of ordinary ground.

In the name of Jesus,
who turned every road into a revelation,
Amen.

We are still within the Octave of All Saints, which is a period generally known as All Hallowstide. There are several lesser observances during that octave like Saints of the Reformation Era, or Saints of the Old Testament, that help to keep our focus on giving thanks for those who have kept the faith alive for us, and often for keeping the faith alive IN us.

If the saints in stained glass are the Church Triumphant, then the saints in the church kitchen are surely the Church Indispensable. Every parish has them: the ones whose names are rarely on the front of the bulletin but whose fingerprints are on everything from the altar linens to the percolator. They are the saints who keep the coffee hot, the casseroles coming, and the community quietly stitched together by faith, humour, and a deep, practical love of God’s people.

You know the type. Mrs. Thompson, who has chaired the funeral lunch committee since before Vatican II (and she’s Anglican). Or Dave, who always shows up early to set up the chairs but insists he’s “not much of a church person.” Or those mysterious elves who somehow replace the Advent candles exactly when needed, as though by liturgical osmosis. They are the ones who don’t ask for recognition — indeed, they’d run for the broom closet if you tried to give them any — but without them, the whole ecclesiastical contraption would grind to a halt by Epiphany.

It’s fashionable these days to talk about “servant leadership,” but these saints have been quietly modelling it for decades — without ever attending a seminar. They embody the theology of the towel and basin, the sacrament of the coffee pot, and the holiness of the humble chore. They may not have halos, but they do have dishcloths, and they wield them like sacred instruments.

Sometimes I think the Kingdom of God looks less like a celestial throne room and more like a parish hall after a potluck: plates clattering, laughter echoing, everyone pitching in, and someone calling out, “Who took my spatula?” In such holy commotion, grace abounds.

So, in this All Hallowstide season, as we celebrate the saints known and unknown, let’s give thanks for these everyday apostles of hospitality and hope. Their creed may be simple — “someone’s got to do it” — but it’s as Christ-like as any sermon ever preached.

And when the last hymn is sung and the last light switched off, and there’s still one last stack of coffee cups to wash, you can be sure there’s a saint somewhere humming “For All the Saints” under their breath, faithfully finishing the job.

After all, the Church was never meant to run on perfection — it runs on grace, good humour, and a steady supply of caffeine.

A Prayer for the Saints Anonymous

O God of the towel and the teapot, we give you thanks for the quiet saints among us — the ones who arrive early, stay late, and make Your love known through casseroles, coffee, and kindness.

Bless their hidden labours and merry spirits. May they know that in serving others, they serve You. Grant us grace to follow their humble example, that in all things—great and small—Your glory may shine.

Through Jesus Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve.

Amen.

(Finding meaning and freshness in the liturgical ‘in-between’)

Somewhere around the second or third Sunday after Pentecost —just after the last “Alleluia” from Eastertide has faded and the clergy have dutifully packed away the white vestments — there comes a curious feeling among church folk. It’s the same feeling you get when you’ve put away the Christmas tree, vacuumed up the last of the tinsel, and looked around the living room wondering, “Now what?”

Welcome, friends, to Ordinary Time — the long, verdant stretch of the Church’s calendar sometimes affectionately (and accurately) known as The Long Green Season. From Pentecost all the way to Advent, it stretches before us like an unending prairie highway — green as far as the eye can see, with nary a liturgical hill or festival in sight.

This is the season that can make even the most faithful parishioner glance at the calendar and sigh, “Are we still in Ordinary Time?” Yes. Yes, we are. And we will be… for quite a while.

But don’t let that verdant sameness fool you. There’s more life in this season than meets the eye.

Ordinary Time, you see, is not a pause between the big stuff — it IS the big stuff. It’s the time when the fireworks of Easter settle into the steady flame of discipleship. The Holy Spirit, having made its grand entrance at Pentecost, now rolls up its sleeves and gets down to the quiet business of growing us into Christ’s likeness — inch by inch, Sunday by Sunday, like tomato plants in a patient gardener’s care.

That’s why the liturgical colour is green. It’s the colour of slow, steady growth — of chlorophyll, renewal, and photosynthesis. It’s the hue of the Spirit’s sanctifying persistence. God does some of the best work in the long middle — between the thunderclaps of Pentecost and the trumpet of Advent.

If we think of Christmas and Easter as the feasts, Ordinary Time is the family dinner table — the place where we learn how to live with each other, how to love one another, how to pass the peas without resentment.

It’s where faith stops being an event and starts being a habit.

In the Long Green Season, there are no angels singing in the fields, no stone rolled dramatically away. Just the steady rhythm of prayer, service, and community. It’s the time of the Church at work: choir rehearsals, coffee hours, parish council meetings (heaven help us), and the small, holy heroics of ordinary Christians showing up, week after week, with open hands and open hearts.

One might compare it to life between paydays — steady, uneventful, but utterly necessary. For it’s in these “ordinary” stretches that we discover whether faith has truly taken root, or whether it was merely an emotional high from the feast days.

So, if you find yourself growing weary of green, take heart. Ordinary Time is not spiritual filler — it’s formation. It’s the holy middle where the Gospel seeps deep into the soil of our lives and grows something lasting.

The saints, after all, were not forged on Christmas morning or Easter Day — they were formed on the long, green road between them.

So press on, my friends. Sing another hymn, brew another pot of after-church coffee, and let grace do its slow, faithful work. Ordinary Time may be long — but so, thank God, is the patience of the One who walks beside us through every shade of green. But also, take heart, friends, There are only 3 more Sundays until Advent… and one of them is white.

A Prayer for the Long Green Season

Gracious and ever-patient God,

you are Lord not only of our feast days,but of our Tuesdays, our errands, and our coffee hours too.

Teach us to love the long, green stretches of life — those steady, unremarkable days when faith must grow quietly or not at all. When we yearn for fireworks, give us roots. When we crave novelty, grant us depth. When we tire of “ordinary,” remind us that your grace is anything but.

Bless the slow work of your Spirit in us — the humble habits of prayer, the unseen kindnesses, the steadfast turning toward love.

Make us faithful in the small things, content in the in-between things, and joyful in all things, until we see your harvest come in full.

Through Jesus Christ, who walks with us through every season, and makes even the ordinary holy.

Amen.

It is a truth universally acknowledged (by clergy, at least) that the word “yes” is one of the most powerful tools in ministry — and one of the most dangerous. Parish life, after all, runs on a steady diet of “yes”: yes to baptisms, yes to funerals, yes to committee meetings, and yes to someone’s very creative idea for a “Liturgical Puppet Ministry” that meets weekly in the church basement.

“Yes,” we are told, is the currency of service. “Yes” makes us approachable, kind, compassionate, and ever-ready shepherds of the flock. But after about the third “yes” of a Tuesday morning, when the coffee has gone cold and the inbox has begun breeding like rabbits, we discover the perilous truth: unrestrained “yes” is the highway to pastoral burnout, emotional exhaustion, and a mysterious twitch in one’s left eyelid that only manifests during Vestry meetings.

The pastoral art of saying “no” gently is, therefore, not a refusal of compassion — but a preservation of it. It is, in fact, one of the most loving things a priest or lay minister can learn to do.

Consider Jesus himself: he was not perpetually available. He said “no” in holy ways. He walked away from crowds, withdrew to pray, and sometimes just took a boat across the lake without a word of explanation. When the disciples came chasing after him with urgent matters (“Everyone is looking for you!”), Jesus calmly replied, “Let us go on to the next towns.” Translation: No, I won’t do that right now. There’s something else I’m called to do.

That wasn’t selfishness; it was sacred boundary-setting. It was the Son of God reminding us that ministry is not about omnipresence, but about obedience.

The trick, of course, is learning how to say “no” in a way that doesn’t leave the other person feeling as though you’ve just slammed the church door in their face. A holy “no” must be cloaked in grace. It’s the difference between:

“Absolutely not, I’m far too busy for that.”

and

“I’m so grateful you thought of me for this, but I don’t have the capacity to take it on right now. Can we explore another way to make it happen?”

The first response ends the relationship. The second keeps the door of compassion open — while firmly declining to set up a folding chair in the doorway.

A gentle “no” is best delivered with a touch of humour and a dash of humility. “I’d love to,” one might say, “but my bishop has strictly forbidden me to clone myself.” Or, “That sounds wonderful! Unfortunately, I’ve already given my last ounce of energy to next Sunday’s sermon, which — God willing — will be short.”

Holy boundaries, after all, are not walls but fences — permeable, flexible, and marked by kindness. They define where our ministry ends and God’s sovereignty begins. They remind both pastor and parish that we are finite creatures in the service of an infinite grace.

If we never learn to say “no,” we eventually run out of the capacity to say “yes” with sincerity. Compassion without boundaries curdles into resentment; ministry without rest becomes mere performance.

So perhaps the next time someone approaches us with a request, we might take a breath, whisper a quick prayer for discernment, and channel our inner Jesus on the lakeshore: serene, grounded, and unafraid to disappoint for the sake of love.

Because sometimes the holiest thing you can say is:

“No, but I love you.”

And then — because we are Anglicans — offer them tea

A Prayer for Holy Boundaries

Gracious and Gentle Lord,

You who rested by the well and withdrew to the mountain, teach us the sacred rhythm of service and stillness. When our hearts would say “yes” to every need, remind us that even You paused to pray.

Grant us wisdom to know our limits, and courage to honour them without guilt. Let our “no” be spoken with kindness, our “yes” with conviction, and both with compassion.

Guard us from the pride that thinks the world cannot turn without our effort, and from the weariness that comes when we try to prove it can. Fill us instead with the quiet joy of those who serve within the bounds of grace. May our boundaries be not walls, but holy fences where love and sanity may flourish.

And when we must disappoint another, let it be done in such a way that both hearts are still drawn closer to You. Through Jesus Christ, who said “no” to the crowds so that He might say “yes” to the Cross.

Amen

On Incarnational Ministry in the Five-Minute Conversations of Daily Life

There’s a small store near my parish — one of those places where the coffee is perpetually just on the edge of lukewarm, the lottery machine is always chirping like a happy cricket, and the owner knows every customer by name, shoe size, and preferred brand of bread. It’s the kind of place where the real work of theology often sneaks up on you while you’re debating whether to buy the good butter or the one that’s on sale.

Somewhere between “How’s your day going?” and “Can you believe this weather?”, the Kingdom of God tends to show up unannounced — right there beside the gum rack.

Now, we clergy are trained to think of ministry as something that happens in well-defined spaces: the pulpit, the altar, the pastoral visit — perhaps even over a coffee that involves actual fair-trade beans and not powdered creamer. But the older I get (and the more corner stores I frequent), the more convinced I am that ministry lives just as vibrantly in the aisles of the everyday.

Take, for instance, the brief conversation at the cash register. It’s easy to dismiss it as mere chatter—“small talk.” But I suspect that in those few moments, something deeply sacramental happens. When you ask someone how they are, and actually mean it, you are—if I may put it in lofty theological terms — participating in the ministry of Christ, who made a career out of stopping for people in the middle of their ordinary lives.

Jesus, after all, did not confine His ministry to the synagogue or temple. He taught beside wells, along dusty roads, on fishing boats, and in living rooms cluttered with bread crumbs and sibling rivalry. He didn’t wait for people to come to Him in reverent silence; He met them where they were — in the middle of errands, complaints, and ordinary conversations that turned out to be sacred.

So when you greet the cashier with warmth, or commiserate with the regulars over the rising price of milk, or share a laugh about the weather that everyone pretends to be surprised by, you are doing incarnational ministry. You are saying, in effect, “God is here, in this moment, among these people, with this discount on tomatoes.”

It’s not grand, but neither was the manger.

We sometimes think evangelism requires eloquence, courage, or a well-organized committee. But in truth, it begins with kindness. With presence. With taking the time to be human with another human being. The good news of God’s love rarely begins with a sermon — it usually begins with a smile.

So the next time you find yourself making small talk at the corner store, don’t rush it. Don’t think of it as wasted time. Think of it as liturgy in plain clothes. A five-minute Eucharist of community, laughter, and shared humanity.

Because if the Incarnation means anything, it means that God delights in showing up in the checkout line — where saints and sinners alike pause for a moment to chat about the weather and remember, perhaps without even knowing it, that they are not alone.

All Saints’ Day always sneaks up on me like that one parishioner who can move absolutely silently through the church hall and suddenly appear behind you asking where the extra coffee urns are kept. One minute it’s Thanksgiving; the next minute the calendar gently taps us on the shoulder and whispers, “Ahem… it’s time to remember all the saints.”

Now, “all the saints” is a rather sweeping category. Scripture gives us a roll call of the great and the grand: prophets, apostles, martyrs, and the occasional bewildered fisherman who somehow stumbled into sainthood simply by hanging around Jesus long enough. But the church, in its infinite and occasionally mischievous wisdom, insists that we remember all the saints — not just the gilded, glowing ones who get starring roles in stained glass.

That means the saints you and I have known — the ones who sat in our pews, sang slightly off-key in the choir, and never once found the correct page in the bulletin before the hymn was half-over. The ones whose holiness was not marked by halos, but by casseroles, committee minutes, and the distinct ability to make a child feel at home in God’s house.

I’ve met saints who carried burdens heavier than the church boiler (and if you’ve ever had to negotiate with a church boiler, you know that comparison is not made lightly). I’ve known saints whose quiet faithfulness held whole generations together. They never preached a sermon, but their lives proclaimed the Gospel with more clarity than any of us up at the pulpit could ever hope to muster.

And then there are the saints whose holiness was… let’s call it eccentric.

The saint who rewrote hymn texts on the fly when she didn’t like the theology.
The saint who politely informed me that the sermon “was lovely, dear, but about nine minutes longer than necessary.”
The saint who insisted on photographing every church supper, “just in case we need evidence later.”
And the saint who managed, without fail, to push open every door marked “Do Not Enter — Alarms Will Sound.”

Holiness, it seems, is not always tidy.

But here’s the astonishing gift: God remembers every one of them.
In fact, God remembers them better than we do. The psalmist says, “The righteous will be had in everlasting remembrance.” That doesn’t mean God keeps a celestial scrapbook. It means that their love — however imperfect, however quirky — is held forever in the heart of God.

All Saints’ Day isn’t about perfection. It’s about perseverance. It’s about the people who kept showing up. The ones who prayed when their words ran dry. The ones who risked kindness in unkind times. The ones who sat at hospital beds, washed dishes after funeral teas, taught Sunday school with three children and a felt board older than Confederation. The ones who held the church together not by heroics, but by habits of grace.

And here’s the profound truth:
We remember the saints so that we can remember who we’re called to be.

Not flawless.
Not famous.
Not always in tune.
Just faithful.

Faithful enough to trust that God is still at work.
Faithful enough to love one another.
Faithful enough to run the race that is set before us — sometimes jogging, sometimes limping, sometimes stopping entirely to read the map — but always, always keeping our eyes on Jesus.

So today, give thanks for the saints who shaped you — those you knew, those you miss, and those whose names you’ll learn only in eternity. And then remember this:
Somewhere, someone is giving thanks for you, too.

Blessed All Saints’ Day, dear friends.
May the light of the saints guide your steps, and may God grant us all the grace to shine—even if just a little—along the way.

A Prayer for All the Saints

Holy God,
On this All Saints’ Day,
we give you thanks for all those—great and small,
famous and utterly forgotten—
whose lives have shone with your light.

We remember the saints who stood boldly for justice,
and the saints who quietly carried casseroles to those in need.
We remember the ones who prayed with eloquence,
and the ones whose most honest prayer was simply showing up.
We remember those whose faith was majestic,
and those whose faith was held together with threadbare hope.

Gather our memories of them into your mercy, O Lord,
and remind us that not one of them—
not the polished saints nor the peculiar ones—
is ever lost to your love.

Grant us grace to follow in their footsteps:
to persevere when it would be easier to quit,
to care when the world rushes past,
to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

Make us mindful, O God,
that even now we are part of that great cloud of witnesses—
ordinary people who, by your Spirit,
are being shaped into signs of your kingdom.

Bless us with the courage to be faithful,
the humility to learn from those who’ve gone before,
and the joy of knowing that your saints surround us still.

We ask this in the name of the One
in whom all your saints find their rest and their rising—
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

There are moments in life when holiness sneaks up on you. Sometimes it’s in the hush of the church before morning prayer, or in the solemn beauty of a Bach chorale. And sometimes — heaven help us — it’s when you are knee-deep in laundry that appears to have bred in the night.

Having spent a couple weeks in hospital, I returned home, not remembering the number of household chores that I had planned on doing the day I got admitted. I came home in particular to a rather large pils of laundry in need of my immediate attention.

I don’t know what kind of metaphysical mischief goes on inside laundry hampers, but I am convinced they are portals to a parallel dimension where unmatched socks conspire, tea towels multiply, and every t-shirt you own takes on the texture of a medieval penance garment. Somewhere, the Psalmist is sighing, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord” — while holding a damp towel.

Folding laundry, for me, has become a kind of psalmody. There’s rhythm to it, a gentle repetition, like chanting. You lift, you smooth, you fold, you stack. (And if you’re feeling especially pious, you roll the socks together instead of stuffing one into the other like a wrestling match.) Each motion becomes a stanza in the quiet liturgy of daily life.

If you listen closely, there’s a hymn in the background hum of the dryer. The sheets billowing in the breeze outside sound suspiciously like the Magnificat. Even the stubbornness of a fitted sheet can feel like an opportunity for sanctification — “My grace is sufficient for you,” says the Lord, as you attempt to align the elastic corners for the twelfth time.

The Psalms, of course, are filled with the full range of human emotion — praise, complaint, thanksgiving, lament. Laundry folding, oddly enough, is much the same. There are moments of despair (“How long, O Lord, shall the socks be mismatched?”), of confession (“I will never again wash that red towel with the white shirts”), and of praise (“Bless the Lord, O my soul — this towel actually smells like lavender!”).

Perhaps this is what monastic life has always understood — that ordinary tasks, done attentively and with gratitude, are prayers in motion. The hum of the dryer becomes a kind of Amen, a soft punctuation at the end of the day’s efforts.

So the next time you’re staring down Mount Laundry, remember: you are standing on holy ground (albeit covered in lint). The sacred doesn’t only dwell in stained glass and sanctuaries; sometimes it hides in sock drawers and laundry baskets. And if you find yourself grumbling, muttering, or even laughing in the process — well, that too is prayer. After all, the Psalms were never meant to be tidy.

Amen — and pass the fabric softener.

A Prayer for the Folding of Laundry

Gracious God,
you who clothe the lilies of the field
and number even the socks that go astray —
grant me patience and humour as I face this basket once more.

Bless the shirts that will soon shoulder the work of the day,
the towels that will dry faces fresh from sleep,
the sheets that will cradle tired bodies at day’s end.
May each folded piece become a quiet act of love,
a soft sacrament of care in the ordinary rhythm of living.

Forgive me when I grumble at the endlessness of it all,
when I forget that holiness hides in the humdrum,
and sanctity may be found between spin cycle and rinse.

Teach me to see this humble task as prayer in motion—
a small offering of order amid the world’s wrinkles.
And when the last item is folded and the basket stands empty,
remind me that resurrection always follows the wash.

In the name of Christ,
who wrapped himself in our humanity
and left the linens folded neatly behind him at Easter morn.
Amen.

Dear reader, you know that my last two weeks has involved an extended stay in hospital. The initial Doctor had ordered absolute bed rest. Within 8 hours, I had given orders to my sister, and found myself in bed with phone, iPad, laptop, and iPad keyboard — everything that I needed to be able to work from that bed. I couldn’t feel good about just lying there resting. I desperately needed to feel that I was accomplishing something — that I was productive — even as I was trying to prepare for a huge surgery, and the recovery to follow.

There’s a certain holiness, I’m convinced, in crossing something off a list. That tiny motion of the pen — the triumphant slash through “send email,” “call plumber,” or “clean the drawer of unidentified keys” — is accompanied by the faint sound of angels humming a victory chorus. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I ceremonially mark off “write sermon,” only to immediately add “revise sermon,” “polish sermon,” and “pray sermon actually makes sense.”

We live in an age that worships productivity. If the Apostle Paul were writing today, someone would have marketed his journeys as “Paul’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective Missionaries.” There’d be an app for his epistles (“Track your discipleship progress — get push notifications from Corinth!”). And yet, I suspect the Lord, gazing down upon our colour-coded calendars and bullet journals, might sigh lovingly and say, “Children, I created you to be human beings, not human doings.”

Let’s imagine, for a moment, the divine take on our to-do lists.

1. “Have you considered adding rest to that list?”

God, you may recall, managed to create the entire cosmos in six days — and then rested. Not “checked email during a quick Sabbath breather,” not “caught up on unread messages from the Seraphim Slack channel,” but rested. No wonder the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy sits right there with all the other big ones; the Creator was serious about rest.

Yet here we are, elbow-deep in productivity hacks, trying to fit a Sabbath in between “fold laundry” and “update expense spreadsheet.”

It’s as if we fear the world will stop spinning if we take a nap. The truth, of course, is that the world will keep turning — and our neighbours will probably appreciate us more if we’ve had a good rest.

2. “Whose glory is this list for?”

We love the satisfaction of being “on top of things.” But the Kingdom of God operates on a different kind of logic. The first shall be last, and the last shall — well — probably still be behind on their emails, but they’ll be loved nonetheless.

Productivity, at its best, is stewardship: doing what needs to be done so love can flow more freely. At its worst, it’s pride in disguise — our way of proving to the world (and perhaps to ourselves) that we are indispensable.

If God can run the universe without our constant help, perhaps we can trust the divine economy enough to occasionally sit down, breathe, and simply be.

3. “I didn’t create you for checkboxes.”

When Jesus called his disciples, he didn’t hand them a clipboard. There was no “Mission Objectives” spreadsheet:

• Recruit twelve apostles
• Feed multitudes
• Walk on water (stretch goal)
• Defeat death (deadline: Easter)

Instead, Jesus invited them into relationship, into the unpredictable rhythm of grace — sometimes active, sometimes contemplative, always purposeful. The divine to-do list is written not in ink but in love, and its first line always reads: “Be present.”

4. “Productivity is not holiness.”

This one hurts. We often equate being busy with being faithful. Parish priests are notorious for this — after all, there’s always another meeting, another sermon, another pastoral visit, another email thread titled “Quick Question” that turns into a 47-reply theological debate about coffee hour logistics.

But holiness is not busyness. Holiness is attention — attention to God, to others, and to the moment right in front of us. Sometimes that means getting things done. Sometimes it means letting them go.

5. “Grace, not guilt, should guide your day.”

Perhaps that’s the heart of it. God’s list for us isn’t about tasks, but about trust. The work that really matters — the forgiveness given, the kindness offered, the prayer whispered over a cup of lukewarm tea — is often invisible to our planners. Grace doesn’t need a checkmark. It only asks for an open heart.

So next time you find yourself staring at your endless list, take a cue from our divine Editor-in-Chief. Cross off “save the world” — that’s already been handled. Add “give thanks,” “take a walk,” “laugh,” and maybe even “do nothing for five minutes.”

Who knows? You might just discover that in God’s eyes, the most productive thing you can do is rest in grace.

In conclusion:

If there is a heavenly to-do list, I suspect it looks something like this:

1. Love God.
2. Love neighbour.
3. Nap if necessary.

And perhaps, in the margins, written in divine handwriting:

“Don’t worry so much. I’ve got this.”

A Prayer for the Theology of the To-Do List

Gracious and patient God,

You who shaped the stars and then took a day to rest, teach us again that Your Kingdom does not run on deadlines, calendars, or colour-coded charts.

We confess that we often measure our worth by what we accomplish, and forget that You delight in us simply because we exist.

Forgive our frantic striving, Lord, and calm the restless ticking of our inner clocks.

When we are tempted to worship productivity, remind us that You call us not to perfection, but to presence — to sit at Your feet as Mary did, to breathe deeply, to remember that grace cannot be scheduled.

Bless our lists, O God, but bless them lightly.

Let them serve love rather than pride, and help us to see each task, great or small, as a chance to join You in the quiet work of compassion.

When our day is done and some boxes remain unchecked, teach us to rest without guilt, trusting that the unfinished work of our hands rests safely in Yours.

Through Jesus Christ, who accomplished the greatest work of all — and still took time to pray, to walk, and to share a meal — we offer this day, and every day, back to You.

Amen.

Today I finally go home from my extended hospital stay. I know that there is not a thing in the refrigerator, and so the first stop on the way will have to be at the grocery store to re-stock. It’s funny that such a simple stop could become something that I would so look forward to, but after two weeks of beef patty and herbed chicken, I am really excited to make something creative. But that anticipation of a grocery trip got me really considering the grocery store, or perhaps more, the grocery store parking lot.

There are few places where the human condition is more clearly displayed than in the parking lot of a grocery store. Some theologians explore the mysteries of divine transcendence; others probe the depths of the Trinity. I, however, seem to spend an inordinate amount of my pastoral life contemplating… grocery carts.

If you want to understand original sin, human frailty, the hope of redemption, and the entire Epistle of James — all in under three minutes — simply observe what happens when someone unloads their groceries. A curious drama unfolds:

There is the Saint in Training, who returns the cart dutifully, even though the cart corral is three postal codes away. They persevere like Hebrews 12 incarnate, pushing their cart with the resolve of a pilgrim bound for Santiago.

There is the Optimist, who positions the cart “close enough,” vaguely in the direction of the cart return, perhaps hoping that a strong wind will cooperate with their moral intentions.

There is the Theologian of Chaos, who leaves their cart precisely where their car was moments earlier — as if the act of vacating the parking space transfers all cosmic responsibility to the next person.

And, of course, we have the Mystic, who gently nests their cart with another but in a creative new location unburdened by signage, order, or the labyrinthine laws of the parking lot. A sort of “new monasticism of metal and wheels.”

As I watched this liturgy of carts one afternoon, I began to wonder whether grocery carts are one of God’s more underrated sanctifying tools. Returning a grocery cart is a tiny, almost invisible act of courtesy — remarkably unglamorous and entirely unmonetized. It will not earn you sainthood, social media followers, or even a polite nod. In fact, most of the time, no one sees you do it.

Which is precisely what makes it holy.

Our faith traditions are filled with reminders that grace is found in the small gestures — cups of cold water, mustard seeds, widow’s mites, greetings offered, burdens shared. Courtesy is the quiet cousin of charity: modest, unassuming, but profoundly Christian. It builds community in ways so subtle we almost miss it.

To return a grocery cart is, in a way, to practise incarnational theology: grace with wheels. You’re saying, “I occupy this world with you, and my small actions affect your daily life.” It’s the spiritual discipline of not making someone else’s day harder. And while no one may canonize you for it, the angels probably smile and say, “Look — there’s one of ours, pushing holiness uphill.”

The truth is, we’re all cart-leavers sometimes. Life gets busy. Children get cranky. Rain falls horizontally. And every so often we find ourselves thinking, “Surely someone else will take care of this one.” Which is just another way of saying, “I’m human.”

But on the days when we do return the cart — when we take the extra thirty seconds to leave a small corner of the world tidier than we found it — we participate in the slow, steady mending of our common life.

Community is never built in grand gestures alone. It is built in parking lots, grocery aisles, and the tiny courtesies we offer one another, over and over again, quietly and without applause.

So the next time you find yourself standing at the back of your car, staring at the cart and contemplating your options, just remember: you are engaging in one of the great unheralded spiritual decisions of modern life.

Push the cart. Return it home.

And smile, knowing that holiness sometimes squeaks a little on the pavement.

Prayer

Holy and gracious God,

You meet us not only in sanctuaries and chapels, but in parking lots, grocery aisles, and the small, unremarkable corners of daily life.

Teach us the sacred art of courtesy — to choose kindness when no one is watching, to return the carts that aren’t ours, to lighten the load for a stranger without expecting reward.

Make our hands willing, our steps mindful, and our hearts generous in the little things, that your Kingdom may be built not only with grand gestures,but with simple mercies offered in love.

Bless our community with patience, with humour, with compassion in unlikely places, and with grace that rolls gently toward others. In the name of Christ, who meets us in every ordinary moment.

Amen.

There is a line I’ve used more than once in sermons, pastoral visits, and the occasional hospital corridor ramble: “Sometimes the grace of God needs skin on it.”

What I mean, of course, is that God’s mercy, love, and tenderness often arrive not in thunderclaps or angelic choruses (though I wouldn’t object to a cherub or two), but through ordinary humans doing extraordinarily kind things — sometimes completely by accident.

I’ve been thinking a great deal about this during my latest chapter of “Don in the Hospital: The Miniseries.” When one is lying flat on a bed that seems to have been engineered by a committee who never actually tested it, there is ample time to ponder the ways God slips into our day disguised as people who are, frankly, no more qualified to be angels than the rest of us.

The Grace of the Unintentional Saint

Take, for example, the nurse who came in one evening to take my vitals. She was cheerful, energetic, and utterly convinced that I had the blood pressure of “a man ten years younger.”

Now, this was all highly encouraging — until she added, “Of course, the machine is acting up again, so who really knows?”

Still, I’ll take the compliment. Grace with skin on sometimes comes wrapped in a faulty blood pressure cuff and a well-meaning grin.

The Ministry of the Man Who Brought the Wrong Tray

Then there was the young fellow delivering meals who regularly brought me the tray meant for another patient entirely. I would stare down at something described optimistically as “beef stroganoff,” while my actual gluten-free order was no doubt being enjoyed by a bewildered gentleman down the hall.

But here’s the grace: the young man would always clap his hands, laugh at himself, and say, “Well, sir, someone is eating better than usual today, even if I haven’t the faintest clue who.” Then he’d run off down the hall to rescue my gluten-free meal before it was gone

There is no theological term for this kind of compassion — the compassion that simply shows up, smiling, apologizing, and bringing with it the faint whiff of institutional gravy — but it is grace all the same.

The Compassion of the Cleaner with the Gift of Prophecy

One of the housekeeping staff, upon seeing me trying to reposition myself without disturbing the increasingly complicated system of hospital wires, tubes, and medieval torture devices attached to me, simply patted my shoulder and said, “It gets better, love. It always gets better.”

I am almost certain she was quoting the Book of Common Sense, chapter 12, verse 7 — one of the lost texts of Scripture we clergy wish we had. But whether she knew it or not, she was proclaiming gospel truth: God sends comforters who know nothing of theology but everything of kindness.

The Theology of Human Tangibility

There is something profoundly Anglican — and profoundly Incarnational — about discovering grace through the very ordinary humans around us.

God did not choose to love us from a distance.

God took on flesh.

Moved into the neighbourhood.

Ate with us.

Cried with us.

Healed us.

And, very possibly, chuckled at us.

So it should surprise no one when grace comes walking in wearing scrubs, or delivering the wrong supper, or whispering words of comfort entirely unsanctioned by any formal liturgical text.

We often pray for signs, miracles, or radiant epiphanies. But most often, the Holy Spirit nudges someone nearby — someone tired, someone worried, someone late for their break — and says, “Go. Be kind. And don’t worry, I’ll handle the rest.”

A Final Story (Because Grace Is Contagious)

Just yesterday, a volunteer — one of those indefatigable souls who looks like she’s been fueled exclusively by goodwill and lukewarm church-basement coffee — paused in my room. She didn’t have to. She wasn’t delivering anything, collecting anything, or checking anything.

She just stepped in, smiled, and said, “You look like you could use a little cheer.”

Then she handed me a tiny handmade card with a cheerful sun drawn on it by a local primary school class. The sun had seven rays, one eyebrow, and what I think was meant to be a smile but looked suspiciously like it needed dental intervention.

It was perfect.

Grace with skin on — and with a box of crayons.

Nothing Fancy, Just Love

These small, human gestures — unpolished, unplanned, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious — are where I’ve seen God most clearly this week.

Grace doesn’t always come robed in splendour.

More often it comes wearing sensible shoes.

It comes carrying a mop, or a food tray, or a half-functioning blood pressure machine.

It comes through people who don’t even know they’ve been deputized into divine service.

And it always comes at just the right moment.

Thanks be to God for compassion found in unlikely places — and for the beautiful, stumbling, hilarious ways we become grace for one another

Grace With Skin On

Let us pray.

Gracious and ever-present God, we thank you that Your love does not stay distant, hovering somewhere beyond our reach, but comes close — close enough to wear human hands, human humour, and human imperfection.

Thank You for the quiet angels who show up disguised as nurses, cleaners, volunteers, and all who carry kindness without even knowing it.

Bless those who bring comfort unintentionally, who share compassion without training, and who reveal Your grace in smiles, apologies, mismatched meal trays, and words of encouragement whispered in passing.

Teach us, O Lord, to recognize You in these ordinary saints, to welcome Your presence in the gentle interruptions of mercy, and to become, ourselves, grace with skin on — for those who are weary, frightened, lonely, or in pain.

Make our laughter holy, our clumsiness redeemable, and our small acts of tenderness a window into Your great love.

And as we continue our own journeys of healing, grant us patience, wonder, and the ability to see Your light shining in all the unlikely places You delight to inhabit.

In the name of Jesus, who became flesh so that we might know Your heart,

Amen.