There are many things in a church that quietly teach theology without ever once consulting a textbook. Stained glass does it with colour. Pews do it with posture. The thermostat does it with conflict.

And then there is the baptismal font.

The baptismal font, for reasons known only to God and the building committee of 1897, is almost always in the way. It stands just inside the door in many churches, minding its own business, quietly daring you to trip over it while carrying a casserole, a bulletin, or a small child dressed in alarming amounts of white.

On the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, this is not an accident. It is a lesson.

Because the font exists to interrupt us.

You cannot get very far into the church without passing it. You cannot enter worship without brushing past the water. You cannot pretend that faith is merely something you think about privately while sipping coffee later. The font insists — politely but firmly — that identity comes before activity.

Before you sing, before you serve, before you sit, before you sort out where your committee meets, you are reminded who you are.

“You are baptized,” the font says, without ever raising its voice.
“You belong,” it adds, with a splash of holy restraint.

Boundaries, we are often told, are about keeping things out. But baptism teaches us that holy boundaries are first about knowing what we are already in. We are in Christ. In grace. In mercy. In a love that has already claimed us long before we got our act together or found our name tag.

Jesus himself submits to this interruption at the Jordan. He steps into the water not because he needs to be corrected, but because identity is declared there. “You are my beloved,” says the voice from heaven — before a sermon is preached, before a miracle is performed, before the cross is even imagined.

Beloved first. Everything else follows.

The font teaches us boundaries by reminding us that not everything is demanded of us all at once. We do not earn our place. We do not negotiate our belonging. We are named before we are tasked. Marked before we are managed.

And yes, occasionally we stub our toe on it. That too is instructive.

Because faith that never interrupts us is probably too well tucked away to be of much use. The font stands where it does to say: Slow down. Remember. This is not just a building you’re entering — it’s a life you’re living.

On this feast day, may we allow the water to do its quiet work again. May it interrupt our rushing, redraw our priorities, and gently remind us that the most important boundary we ever cross is the one into grace.

And it’s already been crossed — for us.

A Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
who met your Son in the waters of the Jordan
and named him Beloved,
meet us again at the edge of your grace.

When we forget who we are,
interrupt us with holy water and holy memory.
When we rush past what matters,
slow us down with love that will not be ignored.

Teach us the boundaries that give life —
where identity comes before effort,
belonging before busyness,
and grace before everything else.

We ask this in the name of Jesus,
who stepped into the water for us all.
Amen.

There are few places on earth where time behaves quite so strangely as it does in a hospital elevator.

You step in, press a button — usually the one with the most syllables and the least reassurance — and suddenly you are suspended between floors, between outcomes, between what you know and what you fear might be waiting when the doors open.

Hospital elevators are not long journeys. In fact, they are often over far too quickly. And yet, in those few seconds between Ground and Fourth, I have witnessed more theology than in many a well-attended committee meeting.

People do not waste time in hospital elevators.

No one chats about the weather. No one says, “Busy day?” unless they are immediately ashamed of themselves and stare very hard at the floor numbers to atone. Instead, there is silence — holy, heavy, expectant silence — broken only by the gentle ding that announces either mercy or more waiting.

I have learned that elevators are places of prayer, even when no one is praying out loud.

A hand grips a coffee cup like a flotation device.
A shoulder sags under news not yet fully understood.
Someone exhales in a way that says, God, if you’re anywhere near, now would be a good time.

Hospital elevators teach me that God often meets us between things. Between diagnosis and treatment. Between hope and dread. Between “we’ll see” and “I’m sorry.”

There is no altar in the elevator. No stained glass. No hymn number helpfully printed on the wall. And yet — God is there. Not as an explanation. Not as a solution neatly wrapped in pastoral language. But as presence.

Elevators also teach brevity.

These are not long, eloquent prayers. They are elevator-sized prayers:

Please.
Help.
Be with us.
Hold them.
Hold me.

There is something deeply faithful about prayers that fit between floors.

And perhaps that is the lesson: God does not require a sanctuary or a carefully worded collect. God meets us in vertical boxes with flickering lights and slightly unsettling floor mats. God listens just as attentively to prayers whispered while staring at a panel of buttons as to those spoken beneath vaulted ceilings.

I have also learned that when the doors open, we are rarely finished praying.

We carry those prayers with us — down hallways, into rooms, past curtains, toward bedsides. The elevator prayer becomes the courage we need to take the next step.

So if you ever find yourself in a hospital elevator, unsure of what to say or do, take heart. You are already in a thin place. God is already there. And the shortest prayers are often the truest.

A Companion Prayer

Holy and Present God,
You meet us in places we did not plan to linger.
In the pauses, the silences, the in-between moments,
You draw near without explanation or demand.

Hear the prayers we barely know how to name,
The ones spoken with a sigh, a tear, or a trembling breath.
Ride with us through these short journeys
And stay with us when the doors open
And the road ahead feels longer than we hoped.

Hold us, and all whom we love,
In your steady, faithful care.
Amen.

There are many moments in the life of a priest that invite deep contemplation: the silence before Morning Prayer, the pause before the absolution, the breath taken just before announcing “The Lord be with you.”

And then there is the kettle.

The kettle, I have discovered, is a rigorous spiritual director. It does not respond to encouragement, stern looks, or passive-aggressive hovering. It does not boil faster because one has places to be, emails to answer, or a sermon half-written and already late for its own deadline. The kettle simply is. And it boils in God’s time, not mine.

I confess that I wait for the kettle with a degree of theological inconsistency. I believe in patience, preach about patience, commend patience to others with great enthusiasm — and then stand tapping my foot as though the laws of thermodynamics might be persuaded by clerical urgency.

Waiting for water to boil is a surprisingly honest mirror of the soul. It reveals how quickly I want grace to hurry up, prayer to be efficient, and God to get on with things. It exposes my quiet hope that holiness might arrive on a timetable, preferably one that fits neatly between meetings.

And yet, the kettle refuses to be rushed. It hums. It rattles slightly. It offers a small sermon in steam: “Be still. Pay attention. This will take as long as it takes.”

In that pause — mug ready, teabag patiently waiting its own turn — I am reminded that much of the spiritual life is kettle-shaped. Transformation does not happen instantly. Wisdom takes time to steep. Even resurrection waited three days.

Tea, after all, is not made by force. Boiling water must pour itself out over the leaves, linger, and then wait again. Too short a steep and it is weak. Too long and it is bitter. Timing matters. Attention matters. So does restraint.

Perhaps this is why so many holy conversations happen in kitchens. The kettle gives us permission to stop moving just long enough to notice that God is already present, leaning against the counter, unhurried, perfectly content to wait with us.

And when the kettle finally clicks off — triumphantly, as though it has accomplished something very important — I pour the water, breathe in the steam, and remember that impatience, too, can be offered to God. Even holy people fidget. Especially holy people.

So I wait. I fail at waiting. I learn to wait again. And somewhere between the click of the kettle and the first sip of tea, grace quietly boils over.

A Prayer

Gracious God,
you are not in a hurry,
and yet you never waste a moment.

Teach us to wait without resentment,
to pause without panic,
and to trust that your work in us
is unfolding at exactly the right pace.

Bless the small pauses of our days —
the kettles, the crossings, the quiet minutes —
and meet us there with your steady presence.

We ask this through Christ,
who waited, watched, and loved us into life.
Amen.

There is a particular moment in ministry — and, if we’re honest, in life — when someone begins to share a problem and you can feel it rise up within you like a reflex.
A tightening of the shoulders.
A sharpening of the mind.
A quiet internal voice saying, “Ah yes, I know exactly how to fix this.”

This voice is persuasive. It has diagrams. It has bullet points. It has, occasionally, a laminated flow chart.

And yet, one of the quiet spiritual disciplines I have been learning — slowly, imperfectly, and with much backsliding — is the holy art of not fixing everything.

This is deeply counter-cultural. We live in a world that rewards solutions, celebrates efficiency, and applauds those who can swoop in with a wrench, a spreadsheet, or a seven-step plan before the kettle has finished boiling. Even in the Church, we can confuse faithfulness with productivity, and compassion with problem-solving.

But Scripture, inconveniently, keeps telling a different story.

God, it seems, is less interested in being our divine handyman and more interested in being present. When Moses panics at the burning bush, God does not hand him a comprehensive leadership manual. When Elijah collapses under the weight of despair, God does not offer motivational slogans — only sleep, bread, and the sound of sheer silence. When Jesus meets people in pain, he often begins not with solutions, but with questions: What do you want? Do you see this? Will you stay?

Sometimes the most faithful thing we can do is resist the urge to fix, manage, tidy, or resolve — and instead remain present. To sit. To listen. To pray quietly. To trust that God is already at work in ways that exceed our competence and bypass our best intentions.

Stephen Leacock always delighted in pointing out how seriously we take ourselves while making a terrible mess of things. I suspect he would have enjoyed the spectacle of clergy and laity alike rushing about with theological duct tape, earnestly patching situations God never asked us to repair.

There is, after all, a difference between loving care and anxious control. One grows out of trust; the other out of fear. One leaves room for grace; the other crowds it out entirely.

Not fixing everything does not mean indifference. It means humility. It means remembering that salvation is, mercifully, above our pay grade. It means stepping back just far enough to let God be God — and discovering, to our surprise, that the world does not collapse without our constant intervention.

Sometimes the greatest gift we offer is not an answer, but our presence. Not a solution, but a prayer. Not a fix, but faith.

And occasionally, the bravest thing we can say is:
“I don’t know. But God does.”

A Prayer

Gracious God,
Save us from the anxious need to fix what we do not fully understand.
Teach us the patience of presence,
the courage to trust,
and the humility to step aside when you are already at work.
Help us to listen more than we speak,
to love more than we manage,
and to rest in the truth that the world is held — securely and lovingly — in your hands, not ours.
Amen.

There was a time when I believed that walking was primarily about getting somewhere. Preferably quickly. With purpose. Possibly with a fitness tracker judging me from my wrist like a tiny digital Pharisee.

Then life, ministry, and a few stubborn joints suggested otherwise. As I’ve endured a very long recovery from the infection that has plagued me since returning from my walk along the Camino, I’ve had to learn some very new lessons about walking.

These days, many of my walks happen along the Humber River Trail. It is not a place that rewards haste. The path bends without apology. Tree roots rise up like small theological objections. The river itself moves at a pace that would never survive a performance review in modern society. And yet, it gets exactly where it needs to go.

Walking slowly, I have discovered, is not the absence of purpose. It is the presence of attention.

When I rush, I miss things. The flash of a cardinal in the underbrush. The quiet heroism of someone picking up litter with a grocery bag and a sense of civic righteousness. The sound of water moving over stones, preaching its one-sermon sermon: You don’t have to force this.

Faith, I am learning, behaves much the same way.

We often imagine faith as decisive, efficient, and brisk — preferably with clear milestones and measurable outcomes. But much of the life of faith looks suspiciously like a slow walk with no particular urgency and plenty of pauses. It looks like stopping to listen. Like circling back. Like admitting you don’t quite know where the path goes next, but trusting that it goes on.

The Humber River has taught me that progress is not always dramatic. Sometimes it is simply faithful movement — step by step, breath by breath — held within a larger grace that does not panic.

Pilgrims know this. Not the glossy brochure pilgrims with perfect backpacks and inspirational quotes, but the real ones. The ones who blister, backtrack, and occasionally stop for snacks that feel spiritually necessary. Pilgrimage is not about speed. It is about showing up, staying present, and letting the road do some of the teaching.

Walking slowly has also reminded me that God is rarely in a hurry. Scripture gives us burning bushes and parting seas, yes — but also long deserts, extended waits, and conversations that unfold over miles of road. God seems deeply committed to processes that take time, and strangely uninterested in our obsession with efficiency.

Along the Humber, I walk slower than I used to. I notice more. I pray less urgently and more honestly. I trust that if I keep walking — gently, attentively — I will arrive where I need to be, even if I can’t yet name it.

And if not, well… the river will still be there tomorrow, flowing patiently past all my very important plans.

A Prayer for the Slow Path

Gracious God,
You who walk with us at a human pace,
teach us to loosen our grip on urgency.
Slow our steps when we rush past grace,
and open our eyes to the holiness
hidden in ordinary paths.

When we are tempted to measure faith by speed or certainty,
remind us that love takes time,
and trust grows one step at a time.

Keep us faithful on the road,
attentive to your presence,
and content to walk with you —
slowly, honestly, and in hope.

Amen.

There is a particular moment in parish life that is not mentioned in any rubric, canon, or vestry minutes, but which every priest, warden, and long-suffering volunteer knows intimately.

It is the moment when you are standing outside the church — often in weather that can only be described as “biblical” — holding a key that you know is the correct key, attempting to persuade the lock to agree with you.

It never does.
Not on the first try.
Rarely on the second.
Almost never while someone is watching.

The key will slide in smoothly, with confidence, as if everything is going according to plan. And then — nothing. No turn. No click. Just quiet resistance. A spiritual standoff.

You jiggle.
You rotate the key ninety degrees the wrong way, then back again.
You remove it entirely, inspect it (as though it may have changed shape out of spite), and try once more — this time with prayerful seriousness.

Still nothing.

At this point, most of us begin negotiating with God.

“Lord,” we say, “I am only trying to open your church.”

And the lock, unmoved, offers its own silent theology: Yes. And?

Eventually — usually after the third or fourth attempt, and sometimes after you have muttered something that would not look good embroidered on an altar frontal — the key turns. The door opens. The Kingdom is revealed. Or at least the narthex.

I have come to believe this is not accidental.

Church keys are not broken. They are formational.

They teach us perseverance in small, humbling doses. They remind us that faith is not a swipe card, that ministry does not run on efficiency, and that God is not impressed by our confidence but seems rather fond of our patience.

The lock resists not because it is angry, but because it insists that we slow down, pay attention, and remember that even holy work begins with waiting.

And perhaps that is the deeper lesson: that the Church itself is not opened by force, certainty, or speed. It opens — slowly, stubbornly — through persistence, humility, and the willingness to try again without giving up or storming off to find another door.

So if you find yourself outside the church someday, key in hand, feeling mildly foolish and strangely reflective, take heart.

You are not failing.
You are being taught.
And the door will open.

Eventually.

A Prayer

Patient God,
you meet us at locked doors and jangling keys.
When our first try fails, and our second try humbles us,
teach us not to hurry past the lesson.

Give us perseverance without frustration,
faith without force,
and trust that your doors open in their time.

Form us in the waiting,
shape us in the trying,
and remind us that grace often turns the lock
only after we have stopped rushing.

Amen.

There is a particular chair in every parish office that deserves to be canonized.

It is never the newest chair. It is never the matching chair. It is almost always the chair that wasn’t thrown out during the last office clean-up because “it still mostly works.” This chair has opinions. It announces those opinions audibly. It groans when you sit. It sighs when you lean back. It squeaks during moments of deep pastoral reflection, usually right as someone is sharing something tender and important.

The parish office chair is not designed for comfort. It is designed for endurance.

It has borne the weight of stewardship meetings that ran long, council agendas that ran longer, and conversations that began with, “I don’t want to complain, but…” It has supported countless cups of coffee, several theological crises, and at least one emergency biscuit retrieved from a desk drawer in the name of self-care.

The chair remembers everything.

It remembers sermons drafted and redrafted. It remembers emails written, deleted, rewritten, and wisely left unsent. It remembers the meeting that could have been an email, and the email that somehow turned into a meeting anyway. It has listened patiently to phone calls that began cheerfully and ended with, “Well, we’ll keep that in prayer.”

And through it all, the chair has creaked faithfully.

There is something almost sacramental about that sound. A holy reminder that ministry is not always sleek or ergonomic. Much of it happens sitting slightly crooked, adjusting your weight, learning not to lean that way again, and discovering — usually too late — which squeak echoes loudest during silence.

The parish office chair teaches us that faithfulness is rarely glamorous. It is persistent. It shows up. It holds steady even when one bolt is clearly questionable. Like much of parish life, it functions not because it is perfect, but because it is present.

And perhaps that is why the Gospel feels so at home there.

God’s work is often done in unremarkable places: at desks cluttered with papers, in meetings where patience is the primary spiritual discipline, and on chairs that have seen better days but still bear the weight of love, listening, and care.

The chair does not complain. It squeaks — but it stays. And in that quiet, creaky faithfulness, it preaches a sermon of its own.

Sometimes, the Good News sounds like a well-timed creak reminding us to shift our posture, stretch our patience, and trust that grace does its work even in long meetings.

Especially in long meetings.

A Prayer

Gracious God,
who meets us not only in sanctuaries but in offices and committee rooms,
we thank you for the ordinary places where your work unfolds.

Bless the chairs that hold us,
the desks that gather our labour,
and the meetings where patience is practiced as prayer.

Teach us to endure with grace,
to listen with love,
and to find holiness even when things squeak.

May our work — however unglamorous —
be offered faithfully,
and may your Spirit sustain us,
bolt by bolt, creak by creak,
for the sake of the Gospel.

Amen.

There is a particular moment in the church year — usually somewhere between the last stray Christmas cookie and the sudden appearance of Ordinary Time green — when someone looks around the sanctuary and says, with genuine concern, “So… is that it?”

The Magi have gone home by another road.
The star has been carefully packed away in the same box as the Advent wreath candles (one of which is mysteriously shorter than the others).
The poinsettias have either been bravely composted or quietly adopted by the Altar Guild.

Epiphany, it seems, is over.

And now what?

Now we discover the awkward truth: Epiphany was never meant to be a seasonal light show. It was a training exercise.

Epiphany teaches us how to see. Not how to stare reverently at a star — anyone can do that — but how to notice God once the star has disappeared. It prepares us for the real work of faith: finding light when there is no spotlight, no soundtrack, and no angelic choir humming obligingly in the background.

This is where the Magi are quietly helpful. Scripture tells us they went home “by another road,” which is the Bible’s polite way of saying, life did not return to normal. Once you have encountered Christ, “normal” is no longer an available option. You don’t stop being a stargazer; you just learn to look lower — to kitchens and crosswalks, hospital corridors and parish halls, to lives that need mercy more than spectacle.

Epiphany ends not with fireworks, but with instructions:
Go home.
Pay attention.
Look for light in smaller places.

Which is unfortunate for those of us who prefer our holiness with glitter.

The trouble with post-Epiphany life is that it is stubbornly ordinary. There are lunches to make, emails to answer, sidewalks to shovel, and meetings that could have been emails but weren’t. And yet — this is precisely where the light has gone ahead of us. Not vanished. Not dimmed. Just relocated.

God, having revealed himself to the nations, now seems content to be found in quieter ways:
In faithfulness that doesn’t trend.
In kindness that isn’t announced.
In prayer that feels dry but keeps showing up anyway.

This is the season when the Church says, gently but firmly, “Right then. Back to work.”

And it turns out that work — this patient, ordinary, unspectacular work — is where Epiphany finally makes sense. The light revealed to the Magi is not meant to be admired like a museum exhibit. It is meant to be carried, reflected, occasionally smudged, and shared — especially when the decorations are gone and no one is watching.

So if you find yourself wondering where the light has gone, the answer is inconvenient but hopeful:

It has gone exactly where you are.

A Prayer

Holy God,
when the stars have faded
and the songs have quieted,
teach us not to stop looking.

Give us eyes to see your light
in ordinary days,
steady courage for faithful living,
and hearts willing to carry what we have received.

When the season feels plain,
remind us that your glory
has not ended —
it has simply moved closer.

Amen.

There is a particular sound that belongs to the Church, and it is not the organ, the choir, or even the boiler coughing into life at precisely the wrong moment. It is the unmistakable scrape of folding chairs being dragged across a parish hall floor.

That sound is theology.

It usually begins just after someone has confidently said, “I think we have enough chairs.” Within minutes, more people arrive — friends of friends, cousins passing through town, neighbours who heard there might be pie. Suddenly the tables look smaller, the room looks fuller, and someone says the holiest phrase in parish life:
“We’ll make it work.”

This, I am convinced, is how the Kingdom of God actually arrives — not trumpeted from the clouds, but quietly ushered in by someone unfolding an extra chair and squeezing it between the cranberry salad and the mysterious casserole.

Jesus spoke often about banquets and feasts, about guests invited from highways and hedges, about tables where the expected seating plan collapses entirely. He never once mentioned matching place settings or colour-coordinated napkins. The miracle was never the menu. The miracle was the room.

Potluck meals are, in this way, deeply sacramental. No one arrives knowing exactly what will be served. Some dishes are beloved classics; others require a leap of faith and a very small first helping. Everything is offered, nothing is ranked, and all of it somehow becomes enough.

At a potluck table, hierarchy dissolves. The CEO sits beside the retiree. The child with sticky fingers negotiates space next to the elder with careful hands. Everyone eats the same bread, even if some of it is gluten-free and slightly perplexing. This is not chaos. This is communion with elbows.

Making room is not always elegant. It involves lifting, shifting, counting plates again, and occasionally realizing that someone has taken your chair and you are now standing awkwardly with a fork in your hand. But it is holy work nonetheless.

Because the gospel does not ask us to curate perfect tables. It asks us to open them.

The Kingdom of God looks suspiciously like a parish hall where no one is turned away, where there is always one more chair to unfold, and where the question is never, “Do you belong here?” but rather, “Have you eaten yet?”

And if we run out of chairs? Well. Someone can always sit on the edge of the table. We’ll make it work.

A Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
you who set tables in the wilderness
and welcome saints and sinners alike,
teach us the ministry of making room.

Give us generous hearts,
strong hands for folding chairs,
and joyful patience when plans overflow.

May our tables be wide,
our welcome sincere,
and our trust deep enough to believe
there is always enough when love is shared.

Through Christ,
who invites us all to sit and be fed.
Amen.

There is something reassuring about the front door of a church. It is large, dignified, and often heavy enough to make a theological point all by itself. Front doors announce intention. You arrive there knowing precisely what you are doing — or at least pretending convincingly. You have come to worship. You have come on purpose. You have come at a respectable hour.

Which is precisely why God so often ignores the front door entirely.

If Scripture and parish life have taught us anything, it is this: God has a fondness — some might say a holy weakness — for side doors. Back entrances. Service corridors. The small, poorly lit doorway marked Staff Only that nobody reads properly.

Think of Bethlehem. Not the palace entrance, but the stable out back. Think of Easter. Not the triumphant front gate of empire, but a borrowed tomb tucked away like an afterthought. Think of Pentecost. Not a scheduled press conference, but a group of bewildered disciples upstairs, minding their own business and possibly arguing about lunch.

Even in parish life, grace rarely comes through the main doors at 10:30 sharp. It slips in sideways:

• during coffee hour conversations that were supposed to last two minutes and stretched into healing,
• in the sacristy while hunting for a missing stole,
• through a quiet visit when no one knew quite what to say and said it anyway.

Side doors are where we arrive unprepared. We are not polished. We are not entirely sure we belong. We have not rehearsed our prayers. We may not even be convinced this is the right building.

And God seems to delight in that.

Side doors bypass our expectations. They duck under our certainty. They avoid the carefully managed entrances where we control who gets in and how. At a side door, grace does not wait for us to be ready. It simply opens the latch and steps inside.

There is also something merciful about side doors: they are accessible. They are closer to the kitchen, nearer the boiler room, more forgiving to those who arrive late, weary, or carrying more than they meant to bring. Side doors understand real life.

Perhaps that is why Jesus so often meets people at the edges — on roads, by wells, at tables, on the margins of crowds. He does not demand a ceremonial entrance. He simply shows up, as if to say, This will do nicely.

Which is good news for most of us, because we are rarely entering life through the front door with confidence and poise. More often we are slipping in sideways, hoping no one noticed, carrying questions, regrets, grocery bags, and the vague sense that we might be lost.

And there God is. Waiting. Smiling. Holding the door.

A Prayer

God of unexpected entrances,
you meet us not only in grand moments
but in quiet corners and overlooked places.
When we arrive unsure, unprepared, or late,
open for us the side doors of grace.
Help us to notice your presence
in the ordinary, the awkward, and the unnoticed.
Teach us to welcome others as generously as you welcome us,
through every door we open.
Amen.