There are few places in the parish more mysterious — and more perilous — than the Sexton’s closet. Open the door just a crack, and you’re greeted by a wave of scents ranging from “Easter lilies past their prime” to “lemony-fresh optimism.” It is the one space in the building where the mop leans like a contemplative monk in silent vigil and where the dustpan waits faithfully for its next small resurrection.

The closet itself is usually wedged between the furnace room and the sacristy, which seems fitting. Holiness has always preferred to settle in the borderlands — the places where practicality meets mystery. And what is more practical than a mop bucket? What is more mysterious than discovering it has been filled to the brim right after you’ve walked through the hall in muddy boots?

There’s a kind of sacramental logic at work in that cramped, slightly damp little room. Consider the mop: its strands frayed from years of pastoral labour, gently swishing away the evidence of last night’s youth-group pizza party. Or the broom — always slightly bent, like an usher who has greeted a few thousand Sunday mornings and come to terms with the inevitability of glitter after any parish craft event.

I once found myself seeking refuge in the sexton’s closet during a particularly intense week of ministry. (I would like to say it was for a moment of prayer, but, truthfully, I was hiding from a malfunctioning photocopier that had begun speaking in tongues.) As I stood there, surrounded by bottles labelled “Do Not Use Except When Absolutely Necessary,” I noticed something: this humble little space felt holy.

It wasn’t because of the aroma, which was equal parts disinfectant and “something spilled here in 2009.” It wasn’t because of the lighting, which flickered like an Advent candle unsure of its purpose. It was holy because it was a room dedicated entirely to service — the unnoticed, uncelebrated, utterly necessary work that keeps the rest of the church shining.

God, I realized, is very often found in such places. In small spaces. Ordinary corners. Rooms where the chaos of community meets the quiet faithfulness of someone who cares enough to clean it up. The sexton’s closet is a tiny parable reminding us that grace is not only in the great cathedral moments but also in the whisper of a broom, the steady slosh of a mop, and the gentle humility of those who serve without fanfare.

So the next time you pass that humble door — perhaps labelled “Staff Only” or “Beware of Wet Floor Signs” — pause for a heartbeat. Offer a prayer of thanks for the hidden saints who labour there. And remember that holiness often smells faintly of lemon.

Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
You meet us in every corner of our lives —
in sanctuaries filled with song
and closets filled with mop buckets.
Bless all whose quiet work keeps our communities clean, safe,
and ready for worship.
Teach us to notice the holiness of humble places
and the grace hidden in ordinary tasks.
May we, too, serve with such gentle faithfulness.
Amen.

There are mysteries in the Church that have stumped theologians for centuries: the Trinity, the Incarnation, and why the parish calendar continues to behave like a mischievous woodland creature determined to hide acorns in every available liturgical nook. I have long suspected that our calendar has a mind of its own — one that enjoys slapstick far more than canon law.

Now, we clergy do our best. We enter events with great solemnity. “Bible Study at 7:00,” I type into the scheduling system with the reverence of a medieval scribe. “Funeral Planning Meeting,” I add, confident — foolishly so — that the system will respect our earnest labour. And for a few shining hours, it looks promising.

But inevitably, someone discovers that the Youth Group’s Pancake Night has been booked precisely when the Finance Committee scheduled its Special Budget Review. And the only room left is the one currently occupied by the Choir, who are rehearsing an anthem requiring at least fourteen square feet per soprano for proper expression of the Spirit.

This is where miracles are born.

Because as the calendar collapses like a badly pitched tent, the saints among us — the Altar Guild — arrive with their calm, otherworldly grace. I don’t know which gifts of the Spirit they received, but I suspect it includes both interpretation of cryptic Google calendar entries and patience beyond mortal measure. These are the people who quietly sidestep the chaos, preparing for Sunday as if nothing at all has gone wrong. You know the type: serene, organized, and entirely unimpressed by clergy drama.

They will smile gently as they tell you that the flowers you thought were for the baptism have been repurposed for the funeral, and then — without skipping a beat — transform the chancel from “joyful thanksgiving” to “solemn remembrance” in the time it takes the rest of us to find the key to the linen cupboard.

And somehow, mysteriously, everything works out. The Youth Group flips pancakes in the narthex. The Finance Committee relocates to the choir loft. The choir, with a resilience bordering on heroic, rehearses in the church kitchen, competing valiantly with the sound of sizzling batter. “Make a joyful noise,” indeed.

And the Altar Guild? They glide past it all with the serene expression of those who have seen things — liturgical things — and have come through the other side with a quiet wisdom reserved for the truly holy or those who have repaired a frontal seconds before the opening hymn.

Watching it unfold, I am reminded that the Church is less a well-oiled machine and more a lively family dinner: someone always knocks over a cup, someone always forgets the potatoes, and yet the meal is served, grace is said, and all are fed.

In the chaos of overlapping committees and rogue calendar alerts, God still manages to stitch together something beautiful. The Holy Spirit, it turns out, is remarkably good at improvisation — and quite patient with human scheduling software.

So take heart. Our parish calendars may wobble like a three-legged stool, but the people who fill them — our faithful, our volunteers, our indefatigable Altar Guild — are small miracles walking among us. And through them, God transforms our comedy of errors into a joyful dance of grace.

Thanks be to God for divine flexibility — and for those blessed souls who know exactly where the spare candles are kept.

Companion Prayer

Gracious and Ordering God,
In the clutter of our calendars and the chaos of our committees,
teach us to find Your quiet rhythm of grace.
Bless all who serve with patient hearts
and calm spirits—especially those
who bring order to the sanctuary
and peace to our bustling parish life.
When we double-book, overlook, or over-commit,
remind us that You are never disoriented
and that Your Spirit weaves beauty
from even our most tangled plans.
Grant us humour, humility, and holy flexibility,
that we may follow You with joy.
Amen.

There are moments in ministry — and, truthfully, in everyday life — when someone approaches us radiating the unmistakable aura of Holy Chaos. You know the look: eyes slightly wild, hair a bit askew, papers fluttering like the wings of distressed seraphim. They say, “Do you have a minute?” which, in ecclesiastical translation, means, “Prepare yourself for an odyssey.”

This is precisely the moment when the clergy heart wants to serve, but the clergy brain whispers, “If you enter this swirling vortex, you may never be seen again.”

Blessing chaos — other people’s chaos — is, in fact, one of the sacred competencies of pastoral ministry. The trick is doing so without adding our own particular brand of chaos to the mix. After all, nothing quite derails an already wobbly parishioner like a rector who mutters, “Oh dear… oh dear,” and then drops their pen in a moment of empathetic collapse.

Over the years, I’ve discovered three spiritual principles that help keep both feet on the ground (or at least pointed in roughly the same direction).

1. Keep Your Inner Turbulence Off the Check-In Counter

When a parishioner arrives bearing news that resembles a plot rejected by biblical editors for being too dramatic, the temptation is to join them in their melodrama. But wisdom says: keep your turbulence inside the fuselage.

If someone comes in worried about their adult child, do not respond with your own story about the time you misplaced your passport, your sermon, and your sense of direction all before 9 a.m. Empathy does not require matching chaos for chaos like a liturgical auction.

Blessing their chaos begins with not contributing additional plot twists.

2. Use the Ministry of the Calm Cup

There is a pastoral superpower hidden in plain sight: the quiet, deliberate act of making tea or coffee. When someone is in chaos, and you calmly fill a kettle, you are not merely preparing a beverage — you are performing a sacramental slowing-down.

Some might say we do this because nothing dreadful ever happens at exactly the same speed as boiling water. And they’d be right. The ministry of the calm cup says, without words, “We will proceed at the pace of steeping, not spiralling.”

3. Bless — Don’t Fix — What’s Before You

Often people simply need someone to bear witness to their chaos, not tame it like an ecclesiastical lion tamer.

You can bless their swirling storm by listening deeply, holding space gently, asking the occasional clarifying question such as, “Is this the whole story, or the version you tell before lunch?” And then — most importantly — pray with them.

A blessing is not a solution. It is a reminder that God inhabits even the most tangled plotlines, working quietly in ways that do not require our heroic improvisation.

In the End…

To bless someone else’s chaos without adding our own is really an act of holy restraint. It is choosing presence over performance, calm over commentary, and compassion over control.

It is also, if we’re honest, choosing not to say the sentence that sits at the tip of every clergy tongue: “My goodness, that’s a mess.”
Instead, we take a breath, smile, and proclaim with gentle faith, “Let’s invite God into this.”

Because the truth is: Christ specializes in meeting people in chaotic places.
And — thanks be to God — the Saviour does not require us to tidy up beforehand.

A Companion Prayer

Holy One,
Give us the grace to stand steady amid the swirls of others’ lives.
Grant us calm hearts, listening spirits, and humour enough
to remember that we are not the Messiah—
we are simply the ones who point toward the Light.
Bless our presence, that it may bless others
without adding our own chaos to their burden.
In your peace we serve,
Amen.

Our parish Christmas pagaent will be held on Sunday. Lots of people are busy making the final preparations for this amazing celebration that places us in the final days leading up to all the excitement of Christmas. I am thankful that here at Christ Church we have some amazing Pagaent presentations that can be done in extreme simplicity and avoid the pitfalls of Christmas pagaents past.

In the years of my early ministry, as surely as the Wise Men would follow the star and the shepherds follow the sheep, the parish Christmas Pageant would arrive — glorious, unpredictable, and possessed of a remarkable ability to turn grown adults into nervous wrecks armed with safety pins and bribes of hot chocolate.

The pageant, of course, is meant to be a serene retelling of the Nativity. What it actually became was a delicate dance of incarnational theology and crowd control. It’s the one liturgical event where the Holy Family used to be played by a twelve-year-old who is suddenly “too mature” for this but has agreed under protest, Joseph tried to look stoic while his crook poked him in the ribs, and Mary prayed the Baby Jesus wouldn’t escape her arms like an errant curling stone.

And then there’s the angel contingent — an entire chorus line of celestial beings, each flapping their tinsel wings with the unrestrained enthusiasm of a flock of over-caffeinated seagulls. Somewhere behind them, a sheep is chewing on the edge of a costume left carelessly within reach, and a camel made of two fifth-graders in a burlap sack is contemplating a career change. I have had experiences of a shepherd who was brought into the cast on the very day of the pagaent because the director felt that every child in the parish would be a part of the show, and who — every time a parent would point a camera at the action on stage would forget his non-speaking role, and begin to loudly shout “Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeese” until the picture had been taken. Another year, the tiny innkeeper hearing the beautiful carols played on the Cathedral organ began a wonderful interepretive liturgical dance that brought the house down.

In my experience, pageants unfold in three sacred movements:

1. The Rehearsal of Great Frustration

This is when we realize that no one can remember their lines, the costumes itch, and the baby donkey is allergic to wool. The rector (that would be me) offers reassurance: “It will all come together on the day.” This is, of course, not based on evidence but on the theological virtue of hope.

2. The Pageant of Controlled Chaos

The sanctuary fills. Cameras rise. The organist prays the children won’t start the opening hymn on a note only molars can hear. Mary and Joseph shuffle down the aisle with all the gravitas of two preteens walking into gym class. Something will fall over. Someone will cry. An angel will sneeze glitter. And the congregation will love every second of it.

3. The Benediction of Pure Grace

Because at the end of the day, amid the crooked halos and unevenly stuffed sheep costumes, something holy happens. God chooses to arrive again—not in perfection, but in all our earnest imperfection. The pageant reminds us that the Incarnation isn’t a polished performance. It’s the outrageous truth that God enters our world as it really is: wiggly, uncoordinated, full of surprises, and absolutely overflowing with love.

So, to all who wrangle shepherds, pin wings, mop glitter, and whisper lines from the front pew—take heart. You are participating in one of the holiest forms of chaos the Church has ever known. And the good news is that Emmanuel comes anyway. No perfect staging required.

Companion Prayer

Holy and Joyful God, Bless all our Christmas pageants — the wandering shepherds, the nervous Marys, the Josephs who didn’t want a speaking role, the angels shedding tinsel like confetti, and the adults holding it all together with tape, prayer, and a sense of humour. In the beautiful chaos of this holy season, let us glimpse again the wonder of your Incarnation: that you come to us not in perfection, but in our real, ordinary, joy-filled lives. May our laughter be prayer, our mistakes be grace, and our pageants be portals to your love made flesh.

Amen.

There is a moment, usually sometime between the organist’s warm-up and the choir’s collective decision about what key they will be singing in today, when the light catches the sanctuary window just so. It’s the sort of moment that makes even a long-serving rector stop mid-announcement, forgetting entirely what he meant to say about next Thursday’s potluck. The window glows. The dust motes dance like the heavenly host — albeit a somewhat arthritic host — and one is reminded that God has an astonishing tendency to break through our ordinary days with an entirely unreasonable amount of glory.

And this glory if not reserved to stained glass. I vividly remember attending the induction of a friend and colleague in a neighbouring church. It was the most recent church built in our Diocese, and all the windows in the space were clear glass. My very traditional spirit loooked around and thought “It is sad that they haven’t had the budget to put stained glass in those spaces.” As that induction carried on, clouds rolled in and the evening changed into one of those late-summer thunder storms with grey clouds and lightening flashing. And after having the opportunity to simply see the beauty of God’s creation lived out in the windows of that worship space, I found myself thinking instead, “I hope they never clutter up this space with stained glass.” That window over the altar was radiant as an opening onto seeing God moving all around us.

Of course, the sanctuary window was not originally installed for my spiritual benefit. It was, according to the Building Committee minutes from 1857, “to provide natural illumination while reducing the need for artificial lighting and thus lowering costs.” The saints through the ages have spoken of light as divine revelation; succeeding generations spoke of it as a merciful reduction to the electrical bill. And yet — God works with what God is given.

You see, the window holds a theology all its own. Light pours through it uninvited, unregulated, and entirely unfazed by our human attempts at liturgical control. It will fall boldly on the cross whether it’s Lent or not. It will illuminate the lectern on a Sunday when the preacher is, shall we say, not at their very best. And it will bathe the baptismal font in a radiant glow even when the baby is fiercely objecting to the Christian life by way of a bellowing protest.

Light, you see, does what light does: it reveals, it warms, it pushes back shadows gently but with purpose. It refuses to scold us for our dim corners but quietly fills them. No wonder Jesus was so fond of the metaphor. No wonder the early church built its sanctuaries with windows high and wide — somewhere between an architectural offering and a practical apology for not having invented LED bulbs yet.

And isn’t that just like grace? Beautifully indifferent to our self-consciousness, unwilling to be boxed in by our rules, arriving through the cracks of our careful living. I’ve often thought the sanctuary window preaches the shortest, loveliest sermon imaginable: “Let me in. I will do the rest.”

Even on the cloudiest days — those grey Canadian mornings when the sun seems to have taken a personal day — the window still gathers what little light there is and shares it with the room. Hope doesn’t need much to get started. A thin ray. A shy glimmer. A small mercy refracted into something larger. It’s architectural evangelism: the building itself proclaiming that God will find a way to shine.

And so we sit beneath the window each week — joyful or tired, certain or bewildered — and allow the light to fall where it will. On the beloved. On the broken. On the latecomers and the early arrivers and the rector who forgot to charge his microphone again. There are no favourites in the economy of radiance.

If you ask me, churches should worry less about filling the pews and more about noticing the light that’s already filling the room. For wherever light is, there is Christ — quietly insisting that beauty still matters, that hope is not foolish, and that God’s love remains far more luminous than anything we can manufacture.

May our lives, like that window, always find a way to let the Light in.

Companion Prayer

Holy Light,
Shine through the windows of our hearts —
even the ones we have forgotten to open.
Chase away the shadows of worry and weariness.
Fill us with your warmth, your clarity, your unwavering hope.
Make us bearers of your brightness
in a world too accustomed to dimness.
Amen.

There are Sundays — rare, miraculous Sundays — when a baby in the third pew manages to preach a better sermon than the rector.

I say this without resentment. Well… perhaps a manageable hint of clerical envy. After all, I studied theology, parsed Greek verbs, and once wrote a paper on the eschatology of the subjunctive mood. Yet on any given Sunday, along comes a gurgling eight-month-old who, without a single footnote, distills the entire mystery of the Incarnation into an unrestrained squeal of delight at the Gloria.

Now, I grant you, infants are not known for their homiletical structure. They don’t lead with an anecdote, offer three tidy points, or quote Augustine in a way that makes the wardens nod approvingly. Instead, they preach with the sort of spontaneous theological charisma that makes you wonder why seminary doesn’t offer a course entitled Advanced Babbling for Liturgical Impact.

Consider the sacred moment just before Communion.
I stand at the altar. The choir inhales. The congregation settles into that reverent silence that suggests deep spiritual intention… or the sudden realization that no one remembered to plug in the kettle for coffee hour.

And then — right on cue — the baby preaches.
Not with words, of course, but with a tiny squawk of anticipation that seems to say, Something good is happening, people! Lean in! Somebody’s about to feed us, and this is excellent news!

It is hard not to hear echoes of Luke’s Gospel: “Out of the mouths of babes…” which, translated into Anglican, means, “This child knows exactly what’s going on, and the adults should try keeping up.”

What Infants Know About Joy

Infants have not yet learned the fine art of dignified restraint, which is sometimes mistaken for holiness in our circles. Their joy is not measured, polite, or synod-appropriate. It erupts like a liturgical fountain at the most unexpected moments — mid-sermon, during the Nicene Creed, or just as I’m trying to say something profound about the prophets.

And perhaps that is precisely the point: joy, real joy, does not wait for the right moment. It simply is. It bubbles up as freely as a baby discovering their own toes.

What Infants Know About Incarnation

While we wax eloquent about the Word made flesh, infants simply live it.
They remind us that God came as one of these: small, needy, noisy, occasionally sticky, and profoundly present. If you’ve ever held a baby during worship, you’ve already understood more about the Incarnation than the most sophisticated Christological treatise could offer — because God chose to come close enough to hold.

What Infants Know About the Timing of Communion

Babies do not worry about liturgical sequence.
They do not mind whether we stand, kneel, or adopt the “Anglican lean.”
What they do know is that when someone offers you love, nourishment, and belonging, the correct response is always the same:

“Yes, please! And could we do that again soon?”

In this way, the baby in the pew often understands Communion with more clarity than the rest of us combined. For them, it is not ritual — it is relationship. Not duty, but delight. Not a theological puzzle, but a meal where love becomes edible.

And every so often, when we are paying attention, that tiny preacher reminds us what the sermon has been trying to say all along: that we are loved into being, welcomed without precondition, and invited again and again to feast on grace.

So if, next Sunday, you find yourself distracted mid-sermon by the delighted squeal of a baby, do not fret.
The Spirit may very well be whispering through that little voice:

“Take heart. This faith of yours is supposed to be joyful.”

And maybe — just maybe — the baby has preached the better sermon.

A Companion Prayer

Gracious God,
You come to us in surprising voices —
in Scripture, in sacrament,
and sometimes in the joyful noise of the smallest among us.
Teach our hearts to welcome wonder,
to embrace joy without reservation,
and to come to your table with the eager trust of a child.
Make us attentive to your presence
in the pew beside us and within our own lives,
for you are always drawing near.
Amen.

By the Wednesday after the Third Sunday of Advent, we find ourselves in the precise middle of everything—and in charge of very little.

Half the candles have been lit. Half the days remain. Half the preparations are finished, while the other half are waiting patiently in a pile labelled “I’ll deal with that later.” Wednesday has a way of doing that. It stands firmly between intention and completion, reminding us — without apology — that we are not nearly as organized as we had hoped by now.

This is not a failure of Advent. It is, in fact, its preferred operating system.

Advent at midweek is not about dramatic gestures or heroic spirituality. It is about learning to wait while the world keeps interrupting us. It is about holding hope in one hand while answering emails with the other. It is about discovering that God is perfectly willing to arrive while we are still mid-sentence.

The scriptures around this time do not offer us a checklist so much as a promise: God is drawing near. Not once everything is polished. Not once the schedule settles down. But right here, in the middle of the week, in the middle of the mess, in the middle of our best-laid plans.

It is such that this blogger might observe that humanity, having been promised salvation, immediately responded by inventing spreadsheets and wondering why joy refuses to be itemized. And Advent gently chuckles at our efforts, reminding us that the coming of Christ is not something we manage — it is something we receive.

So this Wednesday, if you feel caught between anticipation and exhaustion, take comfort. You are not behind. You are simply mid-Advent. And God, it seems, does some of God’s best work precisely in the middle of things.

The miracle is still on its way.
And somehow, wonderfully, so is the grace to wait.

A Companion Prayer

Faithful God,
in the middle of this week
and the middle of this season,
meet us where we are.
Calm our anxious planning,
steady our distracted hearts,
and teach us to trust your timing.
As we wait for the coming of your Son,
help us to notice your presence
already among us—
in the unfinished,
the interrupted,
and the ordinary moments of our days.
We ask this through Jesus Christ,
our hope and our joy.
Amen.

There is a peculiar holiness in those ten minutes before the next thing. You know the ones I mean. The ten minutes before choir practice, when the altos are searching for their tuning forks like archaeologists unearthing relics. The ten minutes before the parish advisory meeting, when everyone is still hopeful and charitable, blissfully unaware of any agenda items involving budgets or roof leaks. The ten minutes before Sunday worship, when the church is quiet — except, of course, for the rumble of the coffee percolator and the occasional acolyte sprinting past like a startled gazelle.

It is in these rare and precious pockets of time — those ten-minute intervals that appear between the good, the chaotic, and the divinely unpredictable — that we are invited into rest. Not the grand rest of sabbaticals or spa retreats or the mythical “slow weekend” we promise ourselves every June. No, I mean the rest we can actually get: the holy pause, the sacrament of stopping, the spiritual deep breath that arrives before the next thing barrels toward us with all the subtlety of a thurible swung by an enthusiastic novice thurifer.

Scripture, of course, is full of moments where God moves in the margins. Elijah hears the still small voice not in the storm, but in the quiet after it. Jesus sneaks away before the disciples can ask Him one more clarifying question about the parables. Even the psalmist whispers, “Be still, and know…” as if knowing God requires stillness — or at least ten uninterrupted minutes of it.

The trouble is that we often treat these in-between moments as disposable. “Oh, I’ve got ten minutes! I can answer three emails, reorganize my entire life, and possibly rework the sermon illustration so it no longer involves sheep in quite such a dramatic fashion!” But rest, true rest, rarely barges in uninvited. It prefers to slip gently into the room like a kindly parishioner carrying a plate of cookies you didn’t ask for but are deeply grateful to receive.

What if — just imagine — what if the ten minutes before the next thing were not simply the warm-up act for the main event, but the very place where God is already waiting for us? What if these moments are less about preparation and more about presence?

Rest isn’t the absence of activity; it’s the presence of peace.

So I offer this modest proposal: let us reclaim the ten-minute window. Let it be a moment to sit down before someone asks why we’re standing. Let it be the deep breath before the hymn, the whispered prayer before the meeting, the smile shared with no one in particular simply because grace showed up and sat down beside you.

And in the Anglican tradition, resting for ten minutes is essentially the same as keeping a minor feast day — optional, reverent, and best accompanied by tea.

My friends, life will always give us the next thing. God gives us the ten minutes before it.

May we have the good sense to notice.
And perhaps — God helping us — the courage to rest.

Amen.

Companion Prayer

Holy God, You meet us not only in the great moments of life, but in the quiet pauses before the next thing. Teach us to rest in You — to breathe deeply, to be still, and to welcome Your peace into the small spaces of our day. Help us receive these ten-minute graces as gifts, not accidents; as invitations, not interruptions. Refresh our spirits, steady our hearts, and prepare us gently for whatever comes next. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Every December, as faithfully as the magi following their star and as inevitably as the choir breaking into spontaneous disharmony during warm-ups, our parish assembles the Outdoor Nativity Scene on the church lawn.

It is, I must say, one of our holiest annual undertakings — where devotional intention meets meteorological mischief and a surprising amount of zip-ties.

Act I: The Unboxing of Holiness

There is nothing quite like retrieving the Nativity figures from the depths of the parish storage room. Each year, I open the boxes with the same reverence devotees bring to sacred relics — only to find that Joseph’s nose has once again detached itself and migrated mysteriously into Mary’s veil. The shepherds emerge looking slightly shell-shocked, which is fair, given they’ve been living in a Rubbermaid tomb for eleven months.

The Wise Men always appear particularly regal, though one of them — Melchior, if memory serves — has a leaning problem. Every Advent he slowly tilts to the left, as though pondering a deep theological question or perhaps simply giving up on posture until Epiphany.

Act II: Installation on the Lawn (Also Known as the Annual Wrestling Match)

Setting up the Nativity on the lawn is something between a liturgical dance and an episode of Survivor. The wind, as a rule, is against us. The stakes (literal and metaphorical) are high. And every year, like clockwork, someone asks, “Should we just wait until the ground isn’t frozen?”

To which the proper Anglican response is, “Oh no, we couldn’t possibly.”

Once arranged, the Holy Family stands serenely, as though they have no idea they will shortly become the unwilling adversaries of winter storms. Baby Jesus lies swaddled in His cradle, blissfully unaware that within days He may be gently relocated by a well-meaning toddler visitor — or an over-curious neighbourhood raccoon. (We do love our outreach ministries.)

Act III: The Seasons of the Nativity

There is a moment — usually right at dusk — when the lights switch on and the Nativity scene glows with that peaceful, impossible calm that makes every passerby pause. For all our fussing, zip-tying, frostbitten fingers, and attempts to persuade Joseph to face due east instead of gazing forlornly at the shrubbery, the effect is beautiful.

This little tableau on the lawn becomes a small sermon in itself. A reminder that God shows up not in curated perfection but in fields, stables, church lawns, and even in our lopsided attempts to proclaim good news with plywood saints and Styrofoam sheep.

Each year someone asks me if the Nativity will ever be replaced with something more modern — perhaps inflatable, perhaps illuminated, perhaps interactive. I simply smile and say, “If the Holy Family has survived two millennia, they can surely withstand another Canadian winter.”

And they do.
With dignity.
With grace.
With occasional rescue missions after a windstorm.

And we love them for it.

A Pastoral Thought

Our outdoor Nativity reminds me that incarnation isn’t tidy. It happens in the cold, in the awkward, in the wind-blown, in the delightfully human. It happens wherever we dare to place Christ visibly in the world — even on the front lawn.

May our own lives shine with the same slightly-askew but deeply sincere proclamation:
Emmanuel has come. God is with us. Even here. Even now.

A Companion Prayer

Holy God,
As we look upon the Nativity on our lawn,
steady in the wind and shining in the dusk,
grant us the grace to make room for Christ
in the ordinary and the unpredictable.
Bless all who pass by and glimpse Your love,
and make our lives joyful signs of Your presence.
In the name of the Word made flesh. Amen.

If one had accidentally looked in on our most recent Parish Advisory Committee meeting one might have been excused for the laughter that might have ensued. There we were, gathered around the table with gloves and mittens. Some still wore their winter coats, or at the very least, had them drawn around their shoulders. We had arrived for the meeting to discover that the furnace was not functioning, and that the parish hall was incredibl;y cold. As it turned out, at some point in the previous few days, some well-meaning individual had attempted to raise the temperature on the thermostat, and in-so-doing, had managed to take the furnace out of heating mode altogether.

Every parish has its theological flashpoints — questions that have shaped Christian discourse for centuries. Incarnation, Trinity, ecclesiology, and of course the perennial mystery: who keeps turning the church thermostat up (or down, or in this most recent experience, OFF)?

If St. Paul had been writing to a modern congregation, I’m convinced there would be an additional epistle tucked somewhere between Galatians and Ephesians entitled, “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, to the congregation most grievously afflicted by temperature fluctuations.” He would begin, as always, with grace and peace — but he’d quickly get to the heart of the matter: “Brethren, I hear that some among you insist the sanctuary is too warm, while others declare it is colder than a Canadian February — this should not be so!”

Friends, the church thermostat is not merely a beige rectangle on the wall. No, it is a spiritual barometer of the community. In any given parish, there are at least four factions:

    1.    The Perpetually Frozen
These are the saints who arrive wearing scarves knitted during the first Trudeau administration and who sit in the pews shivering like penitents at the gates of heaven.
They insist the church is “an icebox” and whisper urgent prayers: “Come, Holy Spirit — and bring warmth!”

    2.    The Radiantly Overheated
This group fans themselves with the bulletin until it resembles a tropical palm frond.
They claim that the temperature has reached “the fourth circle of Dante’s sauna” and ask if the rector is preparing us for life in the desert — or perhaps another dire place where temperatures are said to be warmer still.

    3.    The Secret Adjusters
These are the sneakiest of parishioners. They move silently during fellowship hour, sidling up to the thermostat like a liturgical ninja, adjusting it by two degrees and hoping no one will notice. Alas—everyone notices.

    4.    The Switzerland Contingent
These blessed souls sit in equanimity, apparently unaffected by temperature at all. They are the living embodiment of Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom: the lamb lies down with the lion, and apparently the sweltering sit comfortably beside the freezing. These are the people we aspire to be… but usually only after coffee hour.

And then, of course, there is the rector — caught in the middle, like a referee in an ecclesiastical climate summit. I have found that explaining the intricacies of the building’s HVAC system (“It’s actually on a timed cycle,” “It takes two hours to adjust,” “The Spirit blows where it wills”) elicits the same response as preaching a 45-minute sermon on Levitical purity laws: nodding, smiling, and absolutely no change in behaviour.

But here’s the thing: Temperature wars, in all their absurdity, illuminate something true about being the Church. We are a people who gather despite our differences — political, theological, and yes, thermal. We come together because Christ has drawn us into one Body, not by making us the same, but by teaching us how to love each other in our delightful, quirky, contradictory humanity.

When we can sit beside one another — one person wrapped in a shawl, the other peeling off layers like an onion — and still say “Peace of Christ,” we glimpse the Kingdom.

Warm or cool, drafty or cozy, overheated or downright Arctic — the miracle is that Christ meets us there.

And so, the gospel according to the church thermostat is simply this: Love one another, even when you strongly suspect the person next to you just turned the temperature up three degrees.

A Companion Prayer

Holy God,
You who created fire and frost, warmth and coolness,
Teach us to live peaceably with one another—
even when we disagree about the temperature.
Grant patience to the overheated, comfort to the chilly,
wisdom to the secret adjusters,
and grace to all who navigate the climate of community.
Make our hearts warmer than our arguments
and our fellowship cooler than our frustrations.
In all things, knit us together in the perfect harmony of Christ.
Amen.