Some mornings begin with a bang—the alarm clock louder than the trumpet at Jericho, and the kettle sputtering as though to say, “Not today.” Other mornings begin with silence, but it is the silence of forgetting: forgetting appointments, forgetting one’s glasses, forgetting even which day of the week it is.

Life, in short, is not a straight path. It meanders, it stumbles, and on occasion, it doubles back on itself. We may begin the day with determination only to find ourselves, two hours later, wondering why on earth we walked into the kitchen. It is into this wilderness of ordinary living that the Daily Office comes as a compass for the soul.

The Church, in its wisdom, gives us this rhythm of psalms, readings, and prayers not because it expects us all to be monks with perfect schedules, but because it knows us better than we know ourselves. Left to our own devices, we veer — sometimes wildly. The Daily Office is not so much a rigid rule as it is a steady orientation, always turning us back toward true north: Christ himself.

When I pray Morning or Evening Prayer, I am reminded that I do not pray alone. Even if the pews are empty, or I am in my study with only a dusty bookshelf for company, I know that my voice is joining a great chorus that stretches across time zones and centuries. Somewhere, even as I fumble my way through the canticles, someone else is whispering those same words. The compass is communal as much as it is personal.

Of course, there are days when I come to the Office distracted, tired, or, dare I say, cranky. My prayers resemble less a soaring hymn and more a shopping list hastily read aloud. And yet—here lies the grace — the compass still works. Even when I do not feel particularly holy, the Office quietly reorients me. It draws me back to scripture, back to prayer, back to God.

Think of it this way: sailors once steered their ships by the stars. On cloudy nights, they could not see the heavens, but the compass remained faithful. So it is with the Office. Some days the psalms blaze with clarity; other days they pass over me like rain on a roof. But always, always, the words hold me steady.

The Daily Office is a bit like one’s spectacles. You may not always notice you are wearing them, but without them, you stumble into furniture, misread the fine print, and mistake the neighbour’s dog for your own. So it is with the Office: it corrects our vision, helping us see the world and ourselves a little more clearly.

In a world that rushes us from one thing to the next, that celebrates busyness as if it were a sacrament, the Daily Office reminds us that time belongs to God. Each psalm, each reading, each prayer is a quiet recalibration of the soul’s compass needle, pointing us home.

So whether prayed faithfully at dawn or whispered hurriedly over a late cup of coffee, the Daily Office is not about perfection. It is about orientation. It is about remembering which way is north when life pulls us in every other direction. And perhaps, in its quiet and steady way, it is about finding the kitchen again — glasses in hand, kettle humming, and soul turned toward God.

A Prayer for the Compass of the Daily Office

Gracious God,
You are the true North of our wandering hearts.
In the psalms and in the prayers,
in the Scriptures read morning and evening,
You set our compass steady.

When our days spin in distraction,
when we lose sight of what matters most,
when our spirits grow weary and unfocused,
draw us back through the rhythm of Your Word.

Teach us to trust the quiet faithfulness of the Daily Office —
not as a burden, but as a gift,
not as a law, but as a lifeline.
Remind us that even when our voices falter,
we pray in chorus with saints and strangers,
across places and centuries.

Hold us steady, O Lord,
that in all we do and in all we are,
our lives may be oriented toward You,
through Jesus Christ our compass and our guide.

Amen.

There is something about the sound of a church bell that stirs the soul — or at least stirs something. For some, it stirs the heart to prayer; for others, it stirs memories of being marched off to Sunday School against their will. For the neighbour’s dog, it stirs an unshakeable conviction that the apocalypse is beginning on Nancy Street.

When I served at the Cathedral, I learned firsthand that bells stir more than nostalgia. A woman moved into a lovely home exactly halfway between the Roman Catholic and the Anglican cathedrals. What she thought she had purchased was peace and quiet. What she actually bought was a front-row seat for surround-sound bell ringing — Anglican peals on one side, Catholic chimes on the other. Very quickly, she began to lodge energetic complaints about this “noise pollution.”

I confess, I struggled to keep a straight face. Buying a house between two cathedrals and complaining about the bells is a bit like moving in beside Niagara Falls and asking the government to turn down the water pressure. But such is the human condition: God calls, and we’re often more irritated than inspired.

And yet, the bell’s very purpose is interruption. It rings across the hum of traffic, lawnmowers, and leaf blowers, insisting: Excuse me — eternity is happening right now. Would you care to join? Some respond with joy, others with groans, but the bell makes no distinction. It calls everyone — the faithful, the forgetful, the curious, and even the determined latecomer who waits until after the bell to sneak into church.

But here at Christ Church, I encountered a story that revealed the deeper truth. Our Presbyterian neighbour, in the final decline of her life, would ask her son to drive her over by Christ Church — not to come inside, (She was far too weak to attend an entire service) not to sit in a pew, but simply to hear the bell peeling. That sound, for her, was comfort and assurance. It was memory and hope all at once. It was, quite simply, the voice of God calling her home.

When I travelled in the holy land, the bells there had been long silenced. By an edict of Saladin, churches were forbidden from ringing bells to call the faithful to worship. Instead you would often hear intricate songs hammered out with sticks on the church doors to make that call to the faithful.

And that’s the mystery of the bell. For one person, it’s an annoyance. For another, it’s the very echo of eternity. It is both interruption and consolation, both nuisance and grace.

The church bell is, in its way, a sacrament of interruption. God uses bells—whether made of bronze, laughter, a child’s question, or even a smartphone notification—to pull us back into awareness of God’s presence. Always untimely, always inconvenient, and yet always grace.

So the next time you hear a bell—whether it annoys you or draws you to tears—pause and remember: it is not just marking time. It is announcing that God is here, and God is calling.

And if you happen to be the one tugging the rope in the bell tower, take heart: you’re not just ringing metal. You’re ringing grace.

A Prayer at the Sound of the Bell

Gracious and Eternal God,
your voice reaches us in ways both gentle and insistent.
Like the bell that rings across streets and hearts,
call us from distraction into your presence.

Help us to hear your invitation in the ordinary and the unexpected,
in sounds that stir irritation and in sounds that bring comfort.
Grant us patience when your call interrupts our plans,
and gratitude when your grace reminds us we are not alone.

May every peal, every chime, every gentle echo of your love
draw us closer to you,
until we recognize your voice as the guide of our days
and the hope of our hearts.

Through Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh,
who calls us each by name. Amen.

Each year, as September comes around, churches and communities across Canada pause for Orange Shirt Sunday. We put on our orange shirts, and with those shirts we carry a message: Every child matters.

It is a simple phrase, yet it stands against a history of profound injustice.

Between 1831 and 1996, Canada ran 139 Indian Residential Schools. Their purpose was not education, but assimilation. Their legacy is one of grief, trauma, and lasting harm.

To date, the grounds of only a few of these schools have been searched. Four have been carefully investigated, while another twenty have been examined with ground-penetrating radar. Nearly 4,000 unmarked graves have already been discovered. And there are many more schools still waiting to be searched.

Archbishop Mark MacDonald, the first indigenous Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Canada, , when speaking in my parish in Kingston, asked the painful question: “Why should a school have a graveyard?” It is a question that pierces the heart, a question that will not and should not go away.

Orange Shirt Sunday calls us to remember this history, but remembrance alone is not enough. Wearing the shirt is a good and necessary gesture, but reconciliation requires more. It requires us to hear the truth, to honour the survivors, to lament the lives lost, and to commit ourselves to change.

Because the injustices did not end when the last residential school closed. Today, many Indigenous communities still do not have access to safe drinking water. Indigenous patients are too often treated with prejudice in our medical system. In courts and legal proceedings across the country, Indigenous people continue to face systemic inequality.

So yes—wear your orange shirt. Wear it proudly, and wear it prayerfully. Let it remind you that every child matters. But let it also be more than a shirt. Let it be a call to action.

• Speak out for the voiceless.
• Work for fair treatment of every child, in every community.
• Stand alongside Indigenous brothers and sisters in their struggle for justice, dignity, and healing.

As people of faith, we know that every person is made in the image of God. Every child is beloved. Every child deserves to be safe, to be valued, and to be treated with respect.

Orange Shirt Sunday is not only about the past — it is about shaping the present and the future, so that never again will a school have a graveyard, and never again will the lives of children be treated as disposable.

Every child matters. And every one of us has a part to play in making that truth a reality.

As I continue to reflect on the life of ministry, I find that God has a way of sending perfect examples straight into my daily life — sometimes with the subtlety of a whisper, and sometimes with the force of a nurse wielding a blood-pressure cuff.

Yesterday, as many of you already know, I spent the better part of the day in the hospital. It was a day of spectacularly long waits punctuated by brief bursts of medical efficiency: a nurse for three minutes, followed by an hour on an uncomfortable hallway chair; a doctor breezing in and out like he was auditioning for a cameo in a medical drama; another hour on the chair; and so forth. It was like being in an airport, only without the possibility of a duty-free Toblerone to soften the blow.

Now, frustration is always an option in these circumstances. But frustration, I’ve discovered, never makes the line move faster, the chair feel softer, or the antibiotics taste better. What it can do, however, is rob me of the opportunity to be who I am called to be: a priest, yes — but also simply a baptized Christian, living out the promises we’ve all made.

And so, when a nurse came to take blood, apologizing profusely for the delays as if she were personally responsible for the global shortage of chairs with adequate padding, I decided this situation was in need of grace. Instead of snapping or sighing, I simply told her, “I know you’re all doing the very best you can. You’re doing a fantastic job.” Her dour expression cracked into a radiant smile, and I realized just how little effort it takes to transform a moment.

It became a bit of a theme for the day. Another nurse, visibly carrying the weight of the entire ER on her face, relaxed into a smile after a few words of thanks. A third, who despite exhaustion managed to be kind and cheerful, received in return my gratitude for being a bright spot in an otherwise weary day. Each exchange cost me nothing. But it was ministry — small, ordinary acts of blessing in a place where patience and kindness can be in short supply.

By the time I was finally released — antibiotics in my system, stomach protesting, body tired — I thought the day’s lessons in patience and gratitude were complete. Owen and I were halfway to the exit when God interrupted yet again. A woman came running down the hall, spotted my collar, and asked, “Are you a priest?”

Now, when someone asks you that in a hospital, it is never because they want your opinion on the coffee machine. Her mother-in-law had just been brought in, in very bad shape, and was near the end. Would I come and pray?

I was tired. I was hungry. I wanted to go home. But ordination, you see, is not something one clocks in and out of. I was taught that Ordination leaves an indelible mark on the soul, with responsibility to be available in those unexpected encounters. So of course, I went. I prayed with the woman, anointed her, and stood with the family. When they discovered I was not hospital staff but a fellow patient, they apologized profusely for troubling me. But there was no apology needed. God had placed me in that hallway at that moment, collar and all, not for my own purposes but for theirs.

And that, I think, is the very heart of ministry. Not the grand plans or the scheduled meetings, but the interruptions. The hallway prayers. The moments when our own agendas collapse, and God’s agenda quietly unfolds.

So, if you find yourself today waiting — whether on a hard chair, in a slow line, or in some season of life that seems to drag — remember this: the waiting may not be wasted. God may have someone for you to bless. And all it might take is a simple word of thanks, a smile, or the willingness to pause when someone calls out, “Are you a Christian?”

Because ministry, more often than not, looks less like a pulpit and more like a hallway.

Prayer

Gracious God,
you meet us not only in the sanctuary,
but in the waiting rooms, the hallways, and the interruptions of life.
Teach us to offer kindness where there is weariness,
gratitude where there is strain,
and prayer where there is need.
May we be ready, in every unexpected encounter,
to share your love with patience and joy.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

This past weekend I had the joy — and let’s be honest, the sheer terror — of performing a wedding. Now, I should clarify that the terror wasn’t about the couple. The bride, Erin, is someone I’ve known since she was about eight years old, when she arrived in Sunday School with her blond hair, determined expression, and an iron-clad certainty that she was not there to be taught. No, Erin had come to teach.

Her mother and I, in a moment of clerical improvisation that would make even St. Paul scratch his head, quickly devised a plan: Erin’s mother would “teach” the class, and Erin would be her “assistant teacher.” In truth, Erin ran the show. She prepared lessons, asked her mother theological questions over breakfast, and likely considered herself the youngest licensed catechist in the Anglican Communion. Frankly, I think the Church owes her back pay.

But ministry is never just about one Sunday morning. A few months later, the phone rang at the rectory. It was the hospital switchboard: they needed an Anglican chaplain immediately. I bolted to St. Mary’s at breakneck speed, imagining dire ecumenical emergencies — perhaps a bishop stuck in an elevator. But it was Erin’s grandfather, David, who had suffered a heart attack. He did not survive. Suddenly, the young “Sunday School assistant” and her family were walking through grief. And I walked with them.

Over the years, I prepared Erin for her First Communion, and then Confirmation, proudly presenting her before the bishop like a farmer showing off a prize sheep — though considerably more dignified. A few years later, after I had moved on to a new parish, I was called back to officiate the funeral of Erin’s grandmother. Once again, we walked through grief together.

And then came the call this year: Erin wanted me to perform her marriage. At that moment, St. Paul’s words from his letter to the Corinthians rang in my ears: “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” That is the work of ministry. We walk alongside people for a season, plant a few seeds, water a few more, and then entrust the rest to God. More often than not, we never get to see what blossoms.

This time, I did. On the day of her wedding, I stood there in my vestments, struck not just by the beauty of the day or the dress or the music, but by the grace of seeing that tiny, determined eight-year-old girl now a radiant, confident, loving woman.

Of course, all of this reflection happened in the car, on the long drive back through Toronto traffic. There’s nothing like a wedding followed by gridlock on the 401 to bring a priest to deep spiritual truths. Truly, nothing sanctifies the soul like sitting immobile on the highway long enough to learn all the lyrics to an insurance jingle.

But here’s what stayed with me: ministry is seldom glamorous, usually unpredictable, and always about trust. Trust that God takes the ordinary things we offer — our prayers, our teaching, our companionship in grief — and works them into something extraordinary. And every now and then, when we least expect it, God lets us glimpse the fruit of those seeds.

Thanks be to God for Erin, for her family, and for the privilege of these rare, grace-filled glimpses.

Prayer

Gracious God,
we thank you for the seeds of faith you plant in our lives,
for the chance to walk with one another through joy and sorrow,
and for the glimpses of grace you grant us along the way.
Bless Erin and Jeff in their new life together,
and bless all of us with patience to plant,
faith to trust,
and eyes to see the growth that comes from you alone.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I thought that for the next couple of days I might reflect on the ordinary, everyday realities of parish ministry — the kind of things that never make it into the seminary prospectus, but which, in their way, are just as sacramental as anything that happens at the altar.

Take this past Tuesday, for example.

Tuesdays are always busy in our parish office. The doors open for the first time after Sunday, and it seems that every parishioner, committee, and well-meaning soul decides it is the ideal moment to descend with their bit of urgent business. If I ever need a test case for the doctrine of original sin, Tuesdays will do nicely.

But this particular Tuesday had an added wrinkle: it was also the day of our Community Supper. That means one hundred or so neighbours arriving hungry and, God willing, leaving full—not only of food but of fellowship. And, as if that weren’t enough, I had promised to provide the gluten-free French bread. Now, promising bread is easy; baking gluten-free French bread is another matter altogether. Especially when you’ve never done it before and suddenly discover your kitchen lacks several crucial implements. My kitchen, it turns out, was equipped to make toast but not bread of such ambition. So, new pans, flour blends, and thermometers were acquired, and the oven stood ready like a soldier on the eve of battle.

But then came the wasps.

It seems that a particularly industrious colony of yellow-jackets had decided to build a summer residence inside the church wall, with a convenient vent serving as their front door. They were pouring in and out as though attending their own kind of community supper, albeit with considerably more buzzing. Someone pointed out that a hundred folks arriving for a supper and an equal number of angry wasps made for a less-than-ideal dinner party. I imagined the headlines: “Community Supper Ends in Stinging Defeat.”

And so I remembered the words from my ordination service. They are noble words, full of grandeur: preaching the Word, administering the Sacraments, caring for the flock of Christ. And then comes that little line at the end — easy to miss unless you’re paying attention: “…and other duties as may from time to time be given you.”

Other duties.

Which is how I found myself, in full clerical dignity, armed with a can of insecticide in the church parking lot, waging a war of extermination against a buzzing enemy. My black clerical suit was not designed for this kind of combat, nor do I think St. Paul had wasps in mind when he spoke of “principalities and powers.” But there I was, engaged in wholesale slaughter, wondering how it all squared with the vows of love, care, and the sanctity of creation.

Ministry is like that. One moment you’re preparing bread for the hungry, the next you’re dispatching wasps for their safety. Servanthood is seldom neat, and holiness rarely comes wrapped in a tidy package. Sometimes it comes with flour on your hands, sometimes with wasp spray.

And perhaps that’s the deeper lesson. The Kingdom of God is not built on the grand gestures alone but on the small, strange, and sometimes absurd acts of service that keep people safe, fed, and cared for. If Jesus washed feet, then surely there is room in the holy work of the Church for the occasional battle against wasps.

Besides, if heaven does hand out second chances—as I firmly believe it does—I trust the wasps are now in a better place, buzzing happily, far from my parish hall.

Amen.

Prayer

Gracious and patient God,
you call us to serve you not only in the pulpit and at the altar,
but also in the kitchen, the office, and even the parking lot with a can of insect spray.
Grant us joy in the ordinary, courage in the unexpected,
and faithfulness in the tasks that never make it into the ordination vows.

As bread rises and wasps swarm,
remind us that your grace holds us steady,
that no labour done in love is ever wasted,
and that you are present even in the busiest Tuesday.

Bless the meals we share,
the people we welcome,
and the quiet, unnoticed duties that build your Kingdom.

Through Jesus Christ our Servant Lord. Amen.

It is a truth universally acknowledged (to borrow from another writer, who never had to endure dial-up internet), that a person in possession of a smartphone must be in want of a strong Wi-Fi signal.

Whether it’s at home, in the coffee shop, or furtively trying to log on in the church hall basement — where concrete walls seem to repel the internet the way my great Aunt’s cat repelled visitors — we know the frustration of a weak connection. The page buffers. The spinning wheel turns. Hope begins to fade. And in those moments, one feels less like a saint in prayer and more like Job on a bad day.

I’ve had a few days of dealing with wi-fi troubles in the house. I woke one morning, and the Google Home was no longer able to control all the lights in the house on my voice command. That night I sat down in the living room and the TV would not log on to any of the streaming services that I use. It didn’t take long to diagnose that the Router was having troubles. Fixing those troubles has been much slower than the process of diagnosis.

I suspect our spiritual lives sometimes resemble Wi-Fi more than we’d care to admit. There are days when we feel the connection is strong, prayer flows easily, the scriptures speak with clarity, and we’re certain that God’s Spirit is closer than our next breath. Then there are days when everything feels patchy, and we wonder if heaven has accidentally changed the password.

Scripture, of course, doesn’t mention routers or wireless fidelity, but it does speak endlessly of connection. Jesus tells us in John 15, “Abide in me, and I in you… apart from me you can do nothing.” Paul reminds us that the Spirit intercedes for us when words fail, like the best kind of divine tech support. And the psalms are full of honest cries that sound suspiciously like: “Lord, are you still there? Can you hear me now?”

What’s comforting is that God is never the one who disconnects. The Spirit is constant, pulsing with grace, closer than the faintest signal bar on your phone. But our attention wavers. We wander out of range. We try to log onto networks of self-reliance, distraction, and anxiety, and then wonder why the connection feels so weak.

Here’s the good news: when our hearts buffer, when the signal flickers, the Spirit is still holding the line. Sometimes the pauses are not disconnection at all, but space given for us to slow down, breathe, and remember that God is not an app to be launched but a Presence to be received.

So, friends, the next time your Wi-Fi sputters, let it be a parable. Don’t despair. Instead, let it remind you of the One who is always seeking connection, who never drops the call, and whose Spirit patiently waits to flood our hearts again with peace, hope, and love.

And if you’re reading this in the church hall basement, where the Wi-Fi is more parable than reality, take courage. The Holy Spirit requires no password.

Prayer

Gracious God,
You are always present, even when our hearts feel disconnected.
When life seems to buffer and our spirits falter,
remind us that your Spirit is steady, sure, and unfailing.
Draw us close, renew our connection in love,
and keep us abiding in you,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Every so often, a book comes along that refuses to let you put it neatly on the shelf and move on. The rev. Canon Maggie Helwig’s Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhomed Community is one of those books. It is not a “read and file” book. It is a “read and wrestle” book. And, if we are faithful, it is also a “read and act” book.

Helwig writes not from a safe distance but from lived proximity—with the community of those who have been pushed to the margins, who pitch tents under bridges, in city parks, on church lawns. She gives voice to lives our society too often tries to render invisible. Her storytelling is both sharp and tender: sharp in its truth-telling about systemic injustice, and tender in its attention to the humanity, resilience, and faith of those our world would rather not see.

Now, you might think this is the sort of book that will make you feel guilty. And yes, it probably will. But here’s the grace: guilt is not the final word. Helwig shows us that even amid precarious lives and fragile shelters, the God of Israel—the God who “tabernacles” among the people—continues to pitch the divine tent right in the midst of those encampments. This is not simply a book about housing policy; it is a book about incarnation. About the scandal of a God who does not set up shop in marble halls, but rather, as the Gospel tells us, makes a dwelling among the poor.

Reading this, I found myself uncomfortably reminded of how much of my own life is lived behind locked doors and well-insulated walls. And yet, as Helwig makes clear, the church is called not to barricade itself in comfort, but to open itself in solidarity. The Body of Christ is most visible when it risks proximity, when it chooses presence.

Helwig’s prose is luminous, but her message is relentless: this is not about “them”; this is about “us.” Because, in the end, an “unhomed” community is simply the family we have forgotten we belong to.

So let me encourage you: buy this book, borrow it, pass it around. Read it in your parish book group, your Bible study, your vestry. Let it make you uncomfortable, let it make you laugh, let it make you weep. Most of all, let it bring you nearer to the God who is already waiting for us in the tent city down the street.

Because holiness, as Helwig reminds us, may be closer to a sleeping bag on the ground than to a gilded altar. And if you have eyes to see, you might just discover that grace looks a lot like a tarpaulin stretched out against the rain.

There is a lovely invention in the game of golf that I am convinced was inspired by the Holy Spirit, even if it isn’t recognized by the Rules of Golf: the mulligan.

For the non-golfer, let me explain. A mulligan is the blessed reprieve after your first drive slices so spectacularly that it lands three fairways over, frightening small animals and possibly invalidating your insurance coverage. In the spirit of Christian charity, your playing partners look at you, sigh deeply, and say: “Take another shot.”

I have to tell you though that in my usual golf group, there was one guy who was known to take a huge number of mulligans. Every shot he took that wasn’t good was quickly written off the score sheet. He would come in after hacking up the course, and proudly announce that he shot a 76, and we would all shake our heads. We instituted a new rule. Every mulligan cost a dollar toward the annual end of season banquet. It didn’t slow down his use of mulligans, but it saved us all a lot on the admission to the dinner.

Now, purists will tell you that a mulligan doesn’t exist in the official rulebook, that it’s cheating, that the honour of golf demands you play the ball where it lies—even if where it lies is in a pond that is now home to both your golf ball and your dignity. But I maintain that the mulligan is nothing less than a sacramental sign of grace.

Because let’s be honest: life is full of bad swings. We say the wrong word at the wrong time. We make decisions that land us in rougher patches than the groundskeepers at St. Andrews have ever seen. And when we survey the result, we want to stand there, head in hands, crying out like the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord?”

But then, comes grace. God, in infinite mercy, leans over like a kindly golf partner and says, “Take another shot.” That’s the heart of the Gospel: in Christ we are given a fresh start, not because we deserve it, but because God loves to give second chances. And God isn’t going to add a $1 rule for those fresh starts.

Now, the apostle Paul never wrote about mulligans (though I secretly believe he might have been quite handy with a seven-iron). But he did say, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has passed away; see, everything has become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Which is essentially a theological way of saying: “That first swing doesn’t define you. Pick up another ball. Try again.”

Of course, as with mulligans, grace doesn’t mean we should make a habit of aiming for the water hazards of life. St. Paul also asked: “Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!” In other words: don’t keep swinging wildly into the woods just because you’ve got a bag full of golf balls and a generous God. Grace is meant to transform us, not enable our recklessness.

And yet, I find comfort in knowing that the God we worship is not keeping score like a stern golf marshal with a clipboard. Instead, God delights in our learning, our growing, our fumbling swings. God is not tallying double bogeys but whispering encouragement: “Get up. Try again. You are loved.”

So perhaps the most Christian thing you can do on the golf course is not sink a long putt or land on the green in regulation, but to offer someone else a mulligan — to extend to them the grace that you yourself have received. Because that’s the real Kingdom game: not perfection, but forgiveness; not competition, but compassion; not final scores, but fresh starts.

And if, on some Saturday morning, you happen to find yourself with a driver in hand, squinting into the rising sun, may you hear not just the birdsong and the sound of sprinklers, but also the quiet, steady voice of God, saying to you what He has said to generations before: “Take another shot.”

Amen.

A Prayer for Mulligans and the God of Second Chances

Gracious God,
You are the Lord of fresh beginnings,
the Giver of second chances,
and the One who sees us not for our worst swings,
but for the children You call us to be.

When we drive our words and deeds
into the rough of selfishness,
or slice our intentions so far astray
that even the angels shake their heads,
You are there—
leaning over in mercy,
placing another ball before us,
and saying gently: “Try again.”

Teach us, O God,
not to fear our mistakes,
but to learn from them;
not to keep score against ourselves or others,
but to rejoice in grace freely given.

And give us courage, Lord,
to offer mulligans to those around us:
forgiveness where there has been failure,
patience where there has been frustration,
and compassion where there has been conflict.

For in Your Kingdom,
love is stronger than any out-of-bounds,
mercy runs deeper than any water hazard,
and Your grace is the true fairway home.

Through Jesus Christ,
our Saviour and Redeemer,
the Eternal Lord of the Second Chance.

Amen.

With a big out-of-town wedding yesterday, I must admit that it ended up being a rather late day for me, and that when the alarm clock screeched out the message that it was now time to get up and get moving, it was not the most welcome sound in the world.

I confess, dear reader, that my alarm clock and I have a complicated relationship. I seldom need an alarm. I wake naturally very early in the morning. But on days such as today…? It promises to rouse me in the gentlest way possible, yet its shrill voice suggests otherwise. In my more charitable moments, I think of it as a faithful little prophet, crying out in the wilderness of my bedroom, “Prepare the way of the day!” In less charitable moments, I consider the theology of throwing it against the wall.

Alarm clocks, of course, are not biblical inventions. Nowhere in the Gospels do we read, “And lo, at the cock’s third snooze button, Peter arose reluctantly.” Yet the theme of waking and watchfulness is woven throughout Scripture. Paul tells the Romans: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep” (Romans 13:11). Jesus warns his disciples to keep awake, for we do not know the hour when the Lord will come (Mark 13:35-37).

In other words, alarm clocks are deeply theological objects. They remind us that time is not infinite, that our days are numbered, and that each new morning is both gift and calling. They summon us not simply to consciousness, but to faithfulness.

But let’s be honest — sometimes, when the alarm rings, faithfulness looks a lot like fumbling for the snooze button. And here lies another little parable: how often do we, spiritually speaking, hit “snooze” on God’s call? We sense the nudge to prayer, the invitation to forgiveness, the tug toward justice — and we think, “just a few more minutes, Lord.”

And yet, by God’s mercy, the alarm sounds again. Grace persists, even when we are groggy and grumpy. The morning comes, even after the darkest night. And every sunrise is, in its way, a resurrection — an invitation to rise and walk again in newness of life.

So perhaps tomorrow morning, when the alarm shatters your dreams and insists you face the day, you might pause before the muttered complaints. Instead, you could whisper a prayer: “Thank you, Lord, for the gift of waking. Help me to rise not only from my bed, but into the life you call me to live.”

And if you still hit the snooze button? Well, remember: even disciples dozed off in Gethsemane. The miracle is that Christ woke them — and us — up again.

Prayer

Lord of mornings and Master of time,
thank you for the gift of waking,
for each new day that calls us into life with you.
When we are tempted to “snooze” your call,
stir us by your Spirit to rise with courage,
to watch with faith,
and to walk in the light of your love.
Through Jesus Christ, who is our dawn and our day.
Amen.