It’s winter in Ontario. Whether we like it or not, that means that we need to renew our acquaintance with the snow shovel.

There is nothing quite like the first snowfall to remind a parish priest of two great spiritual truths:
    1.    Winter has arrived with all the subtlety of a brass band, and
    2.    The Lord loves us, but apparently expects us to shovel.

I maintain that every congregation has a parish snow shovel — sometimes two, occasionally seventeen, depending on how many enthusiastic parishioners felt moved by the Spirit during a Canadian Tire clearance sale. Ours is the humble, slightly bent, eternally loyal instrument of winter sanctification. It leans in the narthex like a weary monk, waiting for the next call to service, or possibly just hoping someone will fix its wobbly handle before Easter.

Now, shovelling the church walkway is no small thing. It is a peculiar blend of vocation, perseverance, and cardio. One moment, you are a serene person contemplating the mysteries of the Incarnation; the next, you are locked in mortal combat with a drift that appears to be actively resisting conversion. If snow has spiritual gifts, stubbornness is surely one of them.

I have learned over the years that the parish snow shovel teaches us ministry in miniature.
It reminds us that:

1. Vocation is often discovered at the bottom of the steps.
   God may indeed call through burning bushes, but more often the call arrives as a text from the junior warden saying, “Father, the steps are a skating rink again.” And suddenly, you discover that vocation includes the prophetic, the pastoral, and the mildly heroic.
2. Perseverance is a fancy word for “keep going.”
   Shovelling is a sacrament of persistence. Just when you clear the last step, a gust of wind topples a fresh load of snow upon your newly minted masterpiece, as though the weather itself is testing your eschatology. Ministry, too, has this recurring quality: finish one task, and three more drift in.
3. The spiritual gift of not slipping is under-appreciated.
   Let us be honest — nothing humbles a priest faster than performing an involuntary liturgical dance on icy stone. Yet each careful step becomes a prayer: “Lord, plant my feet on higher ground — or at least a dry one.” Grace abounds, but so does ice.
4. Service done quietly is sometimes the holiest of all.
   When the early parishioners arrive and walk safely inside without noticing the labour that made their welcome possible, there is a gentle joy in that hidden kindness. The Kingdom grows as much through cleared steps as through soaring sermons.

So let us take heart, friends. Whether you wield the parish snow shovel yourself or pray fervently for those who do, remember this: God is somehow in the shovelling. In the small, cold, persistent tasks that keep a community moving forward — one step, one scrape, one determined heave at a time. And in this, we find the quiet beauty of vocation lived faithfully, boots crunching on fresh snow.

Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
Bless all who labour in winter’s chill—those who clear steps, shovel paths, and make safe the way for others.
Grant us perseverance when the drifts are deep, humour when the ice is slippery, and gratitude for every unseen act of service that builds your Kingdom in gentle ways.
Keep our feet steady, our hearts warm, and our spirits joyful in all we do for love of you.
Amen.

There is an unmistakable moment every year — usually sometime around the first Sunday of Advent — when the Advent wreath appears in the sanctuary like a seasonal celebrity making its grand entrance. One minute the chancel looks perfectly ordinary, and the next there it is: a fir-sprigged crown of theological symbolism and mild fire hazards, perched proudly as if to say, “Yes, I am evergreen, thank you for noticing.”

In many parishes, the placement of the Advent wreath is accompanied by a level of ceremonial care normally reserved for coronations, royal weddings, and the changing of the toner cartridge. It is carried in with a reverence suggesting that if one drops it, Christmas itself may be delayed until further notice.

I remember one late Advent Sunday when the Christmas Tree had already been set up in the church ahead of the pagaent that would happen the following Sunday. It was placed in the front windos of the church, alongside the beautiful Advent wreath. On that almost ill-fated Sunday, as the children left for Sunday school, the Advent wreath with its many lit candles was knocked over into the 12 foot of blue spruce that was our annual Christmas tree. Fortunately a nearby warden jumped in quickly and extinguished the nascent fire on the tree. t would require a little turn to conceal the singed bits, but overall, escaped relatively unscathed.

But setting minor fire hazards aside, what a beautiful, hope-laden thing that Advent wreath is. Round like God’s unending love; green like the promise that life somehow refuses to quit; and studded with candles that bravely stand upright even when the heating vents conspire against them.

Of course, the lighting of the candles can be… shall we say… spiritually character-building. If Stephen Leacock had been an acolyte, he’d have written a multi-volume tragicomedy titled On the Futility of Matches. Anyone who has tried to coax an uncooperative candle to ignite in front of a watching congregation knows that nothing tests one’s sanctification quite like a lighter that sputters or a wick that seems made of Teflon. And yet — somehow — the flame eventually catches, to the quiet relief of clergy, servers, and parish fire marshals alike.

Each week we light another candle. Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. And the middle one — Christ’s candle — if your wreath is so equipped, the great show-stopper of Christmas Eve. They glow with a gentle stubbornness in the early winter darkness, preaching a sermon even before the rector can clear their throat.

Hope: the kind that wakes us up.
Peace: the kind the world keeps forgetting it needs.
Joy: the kind that sneaks up on us between harmonies in “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”
Love: the kind that knows our names, our stories, and our need for a do-over.

And in that small circle of flame and evergreen, the church is saying something bold:
We are waiting, yes. But we are not waiting hopelessly.

We are leaning toward the Light.

Sometimes we may feel like one of the candles that just doesn’t want to catch — a bit windblown, a bit weary, wick perhaps trimmed too short by life’s shears. But every Advent wreath reminds us that God keeps trying. God keeps leaning close, whispering that spark of grace, coaxing us toward our own small brilliance.

By Christmas, the wreath has done its work. It has counted down the holy days, endured the drafts, and — if yours is like most parishes — has shed more greenery than a nervous hedgehog. But it has held the circle. It has held the light. And it has held us in the promise that God is coming close, again and always.

May our lives glow with something of that quiet courage, that gentle defiance, that evergreen hope.

A Companion Prayer

Holy One,
As the candles of the Advent wreath mark our waiting,
kindle in us the flame of hope that does not fade,
the peace that steadies us,
the joy that bubbles up unexpectedly,
and the love that circles us round.
Light our lives with the coming of Christ,
that we may shine with your grace
in a world longing for warmth.
Amen.

From my very earliest memories, this has been a time of year that was truly centred in the kitchen. All through the month of December, my mom would be baking and preparing things for entertaining friends, and for events for the church. I try to do the same traditional recipes every December, even though I shouldn’t eat those sweets, and I don’t do nearly the entertaining that my mom did. But as a result of those evenings spent in the kitchen, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on the ministry of baking.

There are few things that reveal the spiritual condition of a parish more clearly than the potluck sign-up sheet taped to the parish hall window. You can tell who the optimists are—those who sign up for “Dessert” with a flourish, as if chocolate squares alone might usher in the reign of God. You can also spot the realists: the ones who quietly write “Caesar salad,” knowing full well they’ll pick one up at the grocery store while still wearing their choir cassock.

And then, of course, there are the competitive casserole artisans — the saints who treat every potluck as though it were the Great Anglican Bake-Off. They sweep into the hall bearing their creations like medieval relics: the tuna casserole topped with precisely aligned cheddar triangles; the lasagna layered with such architectural integrity that one suspects a retired engineer has been at work. These parishioners never say they “made” something. They crafted it. They “prayed over it.” They “let it rest,” as if it were a spiritual retreatant at the Diocesan Retreat Centre.

I once watched a parishioner place her macaroni-and-cheese on the table with the quiet solemnity of a high-church procession. She bowed slightly — as did two others who followed her with shepherd’s pie and an ambitious quinoa salad no one quite trusted. Somewhere deep within this holy casserole convergence lies the Anglican doctrine of “things done decently and in order,” though admittedly “order” becomes more theoretical than practical when the kids reaches the table first.

What fascinates me most is that despite the gentle competition, despite the whispered boasts (“It’s my grandmother’s recipe — you know, the one I won’t share”), something holy happens. People gather. They sit down together. They find themselves receiving grace ladle by ladle, spoonful by spoonful. It turns out that the Kingdom of God looks suspiciously like a long folding table covered in mismatched slow cookers.

The Great Anglican Bake-Off, in its own way, rehearses the Eucharist: we bring what we have, however humble or over-spiced, and discover that in community it becomes more than the sum of its parts. God’s abundance has a delightful habit of bubbling up right where our casseroles meet.

And on the rare occasion when someone forgets to take their leftovers home, even the raccoons go away blessed.

A Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
You who fed multitudes with loaves and fishes,
bless the hands that stir, mix, chop, and season
in the service of fellowship.
Teach us that every casserole shared,
every pie offered, every store-bought salad bravely placed on the table,
is a sign of your generous heart.
Make our gatherings places of laughter, warmth,
and the holy companionship that nourishes body and soul.
In Jesus’ name, the Bread of Life, we pray. Amen.

There are certain smells that are so sacred, so deeply woven into the fabric of our spiritual memory, that they should probably be bottled and sold in the vestibule under the name “Eau de Diocese.” Alas, the Anglican Church of Canada has yet to approve such a liturgical fragrance line — though I suspect General Synod would send it straight to committee, where it would sit until 2037 beside the report on “Innovations in Pew Cushions.”

Step into any parish church on a Sunday morning, and if you pause long enough, you’ll notice three scents quietly telling the story of who we are.

First, Chrism oil — that glorious blend of olive oil and balsam that wafts through baptisms, confirmations, and ordinations. It’s the aroma of belonging, the fragrance of being chosen and sent. If heaven has a signature scent, I strongly suspect it’s Chrism. It lingers in the wood grain of the font, in the sleeves of cassocks, and once, memorably, on the rector’s hands during coffee hour, leading to a parishioner politely asking whether I’d switched to a new “spicy cologne.”

Then there’s lemon oil, the unsung hero of every sacristy cupboard. It keeps the pews gleaming, the pulpit dignified, and the altar rails smelling faintly like a well-behaved orchard. When the vergers get enthusiastic with it, the sanctuary positively sparkles. Lemon oil whispers, “We prepared a place for you,” even if the pew you settle into wobbles ever so slightly because someone removed a kneeler bolt in 1984 and no one remembers why.

And finally, the one scent we never manufacture, never apply, never polish: the aroma of prayer.

It’s subtle — quieter than Chrism, softer than lemon oil — but unmistakable. It rises from whispered hopes in the back pew, from the tremble in the voice of someone lighting a candle for a child or a diagnosis or a future uncertain. It gathers in the rafters, woven into the dust motes that dance in the sunlight. It lives in the silence after the Peace, when for a brief moment we remember that God actually meant it when He promised to dwell among us.

If you inhale deeply enough, you might just catch hints of old hymnals, winter coats thawing after a snowy walk, and the coffee percolating in the parish hall — proof, perhaps, that sanctity is not separate from daily life but stitched right through it, like the symbols stitched onto a chasuble.

And so the sanctuary becomes a kind of holy recipe:
    •    one part sacramental Chrism,
    •    one part lemon-oiled elbow grease,
    •    and one part the gathered prayers of God’s people, simmering quietly in the heart of the parish.

The result? A fragrance far richer than any scented candle shop could bottle. A scent that says, “Here, you are at home. Here, you belong.”

May we carry that aroma with us—on our coats, in our spirits, in our conversations long after we’ve stepped back into the world God calls us to love.

Companion Prayer
Holy One, breathe upon us the fragrance of Your presence.
Let the scents of sacrament and service, of polished wood and whispered prayer,
remind us that You are near—
in the ordinary, the beautiful, and the deeply human places of our lives.
Make us living sanctuaries of grace,
bearing the aroma of Christ into every corner of the world.
Amen

There are certain rooms in parish life where the veil between heaven and earth grows thin. The sanctuary at the Eucharist. The parish hall during a potluck. And, of course, the sacristy — where holy chaos and divine order meet for tea at 8:00 a.m. sharp.

If you’ve ever ventured behind the curtain on a Sunday morning, you know the sacristy is a place of deep mystery. It is where half-burned candles go to retire, where purificators multiply like rabbits, and where at least one drawer contains so many unlabeled keys that I’m convinced some of them open doors in Narnia.

It’s also the place where I, the rector, stand heroically juggling chasubles, last-minute announcements, and the occasional acolyte who has “just remembered” they can’t carry the gospel book today because they “sprained a wrist petting the cat.”

Sacristies, for all their clutter and comedy, are sacred spaces of preparation. Here, between the frantic hunt for a matching set of chalice veils and the discovery that someone has stored a tea towel inside the thurible (don’t ask), we breathe and remember why we’re doing any of this.

It is the sacristy that holds our vulnerability. It sees us before the procession dignity kicks in: clergy adjusting collars, servers negotiating candle lighter etiquette, wardens muttering prayers that sound suspiciously like, “Oh Lord, not this again.” The sacristy is the workshop of reverence, stitching together the small human surrenders that make worship possible.

And in those moments — amid the lint rollers, rogue surplices, and the mysterious stain on the fair linen (origin unknown, inquiry ongoing) — God meets us. Not after we’ve perfected things, but right there in the holy mess. Grace shows up between a crooked stole and a mismatched burse, reminding us that God has always done God’s best work with people who are trying their best while tripping over the occasional alb hem.

So here’s to the sacristy: the backstage of the Kingdom, the cradle of preparation, the spiritual equivalent of a family kitchen just before company arrives. It may never make the tour brochure, but it’s where half our ministry happens. And sometimes — just sometimes — when the right candle lighter appears and the choir is on time — you can even feel the angels chuckling.

Companion Prayer

Holy and gracious God,
You who meet us in the sanctuary and in the sacristy,
in the polished moments and the wonderfully unpolished ones,
Bless all who prepare for worship—clergy, servers, sacristans,
wardens, musicians, and those who straighten the hymn numbers
at the very last second.
In our holy chaos, grant us calm; in our fumbling, grant us grace;
and in all things, let your joy be our strength.
Make our preparations acts of love, our mistakes occasions for mercy,
and our worship a true offering of praise.
Through Christ, who meets us in both reverence and laughter.

Amen.

There are days when the church feels less like a stately spiritual institution and more like a community-run emergency landing strip for hearts that have run out of altitude. If you’ve ever watched someone wander into the nave after a week of emotional turbulence, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Sometimes they look as though they’ve fought dragons. Sometimes they look like the dragons. And sometimes they look like they’ve misplaced their boarding pass of hope entirely.

Yet somehow — miraculously — the parish becomes a soft place to land. Not because we’ve got padded pews (those were strictly vetoed by generations of churchwardens determined to keep people awake), nor because we have state-of-the-art counselling suites (though the sacristy chair has absorbed enough confessions to qualify as an honorary therapist). It’s softer because the people are.

A parish, at its best, is a place where the weary can lean without fear of toppling; where the anxious can breathe in the liturgy’s rhythm; where the grieving can let their tears fall into the carpet and know it won’t be mentioned at Vestry. It’s a place where someone will gently slide over in the pew, offer a smile of recognition, and whisper, “You sit here often enough — you should probably consider leaving your name on the seat.”

In truth, being a soft place to land doesn’t require grand programs or dazzling innovations. It requires the slow, unhurried compassion of Jesus — the Jesus who never told exhausted disciples to “buck up,” but instead invited them to sit down on the grass while He fed them; the Jesus who looked at the crowds “harassed and helpless” and met them not with irritation, but with gut-deep tenderness; the Jesus who let weariness rest against Him without judgment.

In our time, mental health struggles are no longer the hidden guests of parish life — they walk right in the front door, often singing alto in the choir or helping make the coffee. And they should. Because a church that cannot welcome the anxious, the depressed, the wounded, the burnt-out, and the merely-trying-to-hold-it-together is not, in fact, the Body of Christ. It’s more like a poorly-run airport with no emergency response team.

Being a soft place to land means we give people permission to not be okay. It means we listen more than we fix. It means we bless the shaky, honour the fragile, and trust that God does some of God’s best work with cracked clay pots like us.

It might even mean restocking the Kleenex supply more frequently — though, in true Anglican fashion, we’ll blame the shortage on seasonal allergies.

So here’s to the parish: kneelers for the faithful, coffee for the fellowship, and compassion for the weary. May we be a place where bruised spirits catch their breath, where the overburdened are gently held, and where every person — no matter how turbulent their week — can find enough peace to try again.

Companion Prayer

Loving and Gentle God,
You know the weight we carry, the worries that wear grooves in our hearts,
and the quiet exhaustion we often hide from others.
Make your Church a soft place to land —
a refuge of kindness, a shelter for the anxious,
a home for all who are weary in body, mind, or spirit.

Give us compassion that listens, patience that steadies,
and grace that embraces without condition.
Gather us into your healing love
and help us offer that same love to all who enter our doors,
trusting that in You, every burden can find rest.
Amen.

There comes a moment in every parish’s weekly rhythm when someone, with a mixture of hope and mild resignation, wanders into the office and asks: “Has anyone turned in…?”
What follows is rarely simple. It could be a set of keys with a fob the size of a small canoe paddle. It could be a casserole dish, last used in 1998. It could even — yes — be one lone baptismal sock, barely large enough for a newborn toe, yet treated as a relic of great significance.

Thus begins the pilgrimage to the parish Lost-and-Found Bin, that mysterious wicker basket or plastic tub sitting somewhere between the coat rack and the photocopier — a kind of ecclesiastical purgatory for objects awaiting redemption.

Opening it is rather like discovering an archaeological dig site curated entirely by Stephen Leacock.

Inside you may find:
    •    A pair of reading glasses held together by determination and tape.
    •    A travel mug whose former owner has long forgotten both the mug and whatever was once inside it (and we shall speak of that no more).
    •    A child’s mitten, whose partner has clearly fled to join another congregation.
    •    Three umbrellas—one of which is only half an umbrella, but remains hopeful.
    •    A nametag reading “HELLO, I’M…”, filled out in pencil and then erased, as though the wearer had an existential crisis in the narthex.

I must admit that the most hopeful item I ever saw in our lost and found was someone’s walking stick which appeared in the days following our regular service that offers anointing and prayers for healing. Has someone “picked up their bed and walked”? Sadly, it was claimed the following day.

And of course, the aforementioned baptismal sock, which appears annually like a liturgical season.

But here’s the thing: the Lost-and-Found bin is not merely a collection of misplaced objects. It is a tiny sacrament of the human condition. Jesus told parables about lost coins and lost sheep — and if He’d ever visited an Anglican parish hall during coffee hour, I’m certain He would have added a few parables about misplaced bifocals.

The truth is, we all lose things — objects, yes, but also patience, courage, joy, and the sense of God’s nearness when the world feels particularly draughty. And in those moments, the Gospel assures us that God is even more persistent than the most determined usher who asks, “Is this yours? Are you sure? It was on your pew.”

God searches for us with holy thoroughness.
God notices us even when we are the ecclesiastical equivalent of a single sock.
God gathers us back, dusts us off, and says, with the divine equivalent of a smile: “I’ve been looking for you.”

And perhaps that is why the Lost-and-Found Bin brings such strange comfort. It is a small reminder that nothing is too insignificant to be sought after. Not even a mitten. Not even us.

Companion Prayer

God of the lost and lovingly found,
Gather us when we misplace our purpose,
restore us when we lose our footing,
and remind us that we are never forgotten,
never discarded, and always cherished by You.
Help us notice and recover the small things —
acts of kindness, sparks of joy, glimpses of grace —
that point us back to Your heart.
Amen

There is something delightfully unremarkable about a Tuesday afternoon. It lacks the noble ambition of Monday, which always insists on “fresh starts” whether we want them or not, and it hasn’t yet acquired the hopeful aroma of Wednesday, which whispers that perhaps — just perhaps — we may actually survive the week. No, Tuesday afternoon is the quiet middle child of the calendar, sitting politely in the corner, stirring its tea, and hoping no one asks it to lead the meeting.

And yet, in God’s peculiar economy, Tuesday afternoon is often where holiness sneaks in through the side door.

It’s in the stack of emails that mysteriously regenerates every time you look away — an ecclesiastical version of loaves and fishes, except without the miracle or the satisfaction. It’s in the pastoral phone call you weren’t expecting, the parishioner who drops by “just for a minute” that turns into a tender half-hour of shared grief or laughter. It’s the moment you discover that the photocopier, like the human heart, works best when treated gently and occasionally forgiven.

These are the small sacraments of the everyday: quiet reminders that we are not meant to float from mountaintop to mountaintop. Most of life, and most of ministry, happens in the valley of the gloriously ordinary: brewing a cup of coffee, wiping down a counter at the church hall, or rescuing a bulletin from the recycling bin because someone printed the wrong version and now it must be saved like an endangered species.

But here is the grace of Tuesday afternoon: God is already there.

Christ meets us in the mundane long before we think to look. In the hum of fluorescent lights. In the shuffle of parish hall chairs. In the relentless — almost liturgical — rhythm of everyday tasks that seem to say, “Be faithful here. Just here. This is enough.”

It mirrors the truth of the Incarnation itself: God choosing not the spectacular, but the small. Not the extraordinary, but the everyday. Holiness goes undercover in the ordinary until it begins to look as familiar as our own hands. One need only think of the Incarnation that we will soon celebrate to see that this is true — All the power and wonder of God, set in a tiny poor human baby.

So the next time a Tuesday afternoon ambles into your life and you catch yourself sighing, take heart. You may be standing on the threshold of grace disguised as boredom. God may be whispering through the to-do list: This ordinary moment is beloved, too.

After all, if the Lord can transform water into wine, he can certainly make something beautiful out of a half-finished mug of lukewarm coffee and a calendar reminder you forgot to set.

Companion Prayer

Holy One,
You dwell not only in the shining moments but in the small, unnoticed hours of our lives.
Teach us to see you in the mundane —
in the emails, the errands, the conversations we didn’t plan.
Slow our steps, soften our hearts,
and let the quiet holiness of this ordinary moment
draw us into your extraordinary grace.
Amen.

It may not come as much of a surprise to anyone, but we have had a fall seaason with untld troubles with the office phone system. Some will have noticed that for some reason our voicemail even defaults back to a pre-recorded message — in french — that is singularly unhelpful. For this reason, I thought I would take some time to reflect on the parish office phone.

There are certain sounds in parish life that can raise the blood pressure of even the most seasoned cleric. The thump of a hymn book falling during silent prayer. The unmistakable metallic clang of the thurible lid coming loose mid-procession. And, of course, the parish office phone ringing at precisely the moment you’ve settled in with a cup of tea and a moment’s peace.

Ah yes — the parish office phone. That humble black and grey rectangle (or in some parishes, a rotary relic older than the rector) perched on the desk like a silent guardian of the Church’s mysteries. It is, in many ways, a portal: a ringing gateway through which all manner of pastoral surprises arrive.

One moment, it’s someone asking for the time of the Christmas bazaar — a date which, despite the posters, website, bulletin, and sandwich board outside, remains a tightly guarded parish secret. The next moment, it’s someone who “used to attend back in 1973” and remembers “a sermon about sheep” and wonders if you’d mind repeating it.

And then, of course, the deeply holy calls: the person seeking prayer in a time of crisis, the young parent wondering how to get their newborn baptized, the neighbour who needs a food voucher, the grieving widow asking gently if you might come. These calls arrive without warning — without any liturgical “The phone be with you” — and yet they carry the weight of ministry in ways nothing else does.

But let us not forget the classics. My personal favourites include:
    •    The person who wants to know who shovels the walkway, and whether the rector can come take a look “just to make sure they’re doing it properly.”
    •    The caller who begins with, “I don’t want to bother you, but…” thereby ensuring they already have.
    •    And the inevitable telemarketer who mispronounces the parish name so creatively that it becomes a sort of spiritual charism: “Hello, may I speak to the pastor of Saint Androo’s Anglican and Fishery?”

In all these things — between the laughter, the sighs, the pastoral pivots — the parish office phone remains a sacramental object of sorts. Not in any official church doctrine sense (though I’m sure we could footnote our way there), but in the lived sense: it becomes a meeting place between God and God’s people, mediated through a surprising number of voicemails that begin with, “I’m not sure if this is the right number…”

Every time that phone rings, something is being asked of us — sometimes patience, sometimes clarity, sometimes pastoral imagination. And beneath it all, always, the gentle truth that ministry is rarely scheduled and never tidy. Grace, like phone calls, tends to arrive unexpectedly, at inopportune hours, and with great persistence.

Companion Prayer
Holy One,
Thank you for every voice that reaches out in need, in hope, in curiosity, and even in mild confusion.
Bless the calls that interrupt our plans and open our hearts.
Give us patience for the strange ones, tenderness for the heavy ones, and joy for the surprising ones.
May every ring be an invitation to serve you with grace, humour, and love. Amen.

There are certain objects that inspire deep spiritual reflection: a well-worn prayer book, a perfectly brewed cup of tea after the 10 a.m. service, and — of course — the humble name tag.

Yes, the name tag.
That small rectangle of adhesive (or the lanyard version, if one is feeling particularly ecumenical) that promises clarity, connection, and, occasionally, comedic disaster.

Somewhere in the lore of Anglicanism, we developed an unspoken belief that God knows our names, and therefore no one else needs to. This works well for the Almighty but proves challenging at coffee hour, where one may find oneself trapped in a polite conversation with a parishioner whose face is familiar but whose name dances just beyond the reach of memory. It is in these moments that the Holy Spirit surely whispers, “A name tag might have helped.”

Of course, name tags come with their own perils. Sticker tags tend to curl at the edges and fall off at inopportune moments, usually mid-conversation, prompting the wearer to fetch it from the floor like a dropped sacramental wafer. Lanyards, on the other hand, have a mild whiff of diocesan synod about them. One cannot don a lanyard without feeling both important and slightly exhausted.

But the real challenge is convincing Anglicans to actually wear them. There is something about placing a sticker on one’s chest that feels suspiciously like drawing attention to oneself, and we are a people formed by the spiritual discipline of modest invisibility. When asked to put on a name tag, many respond with an expression typically reserved for being voluntold to join a new committee.

Yet — here is the mystery — the name tag is a tiny, holy instrument of hospitality. It makes the newcomer feel less like the lone penguin at the wrong end of the pew. It allows us to address each other with dignity rather than resorting to conversational strategies like, “And how long have you been coming here?” (which is Anglican for “I can’t remember your name to save my life.”)

In a world aching for belonging, it may be that the name tag — simple, unfashionable, persistently sticky — can serve as a small sacrament of welcome. A reminder that we are known, seen, and remembered — even by those of us who sometimes forget where we left our reading glasses.

So the next time the parish hosts a brunch, special service, or visioning workshop, embrace the lost art. Peel the sticker. Loop the lanyard. Wear your name with joy. After all, Scripture tells us God calls us by name — surely we can give each other a head start.

Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
You know us by name and call us your own.
Give us grace to welcome one another with warmth, honesty, and gentle humour.
Bless the humble name tag — the tiny tool that helps us build community and remember the gift of each person you send our way.
May our gatherings be filled with kindness, recognition, and the joy of belonging.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.