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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 notContinue reading “The Daily Office as a Compass for the Soul”

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 apocalypseContinue reading “The Sound of the Church Bell – Echoes of God’s Call in a Distracted World”

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 IndianContinue reading “Orange Shirt Sunday: Every Child Matters”

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 spentContinue reading “Ministry in the Hallway: Grace, Waiting Rooms, and God’s Timing”

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,Continue reading “Seeds, Weddings, and the Odd Traffic Jam”

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.Continue reading “Bread, Wasps, and the Call to Ministry”

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 —Continue reading “Wi-Fi and the Holy Spirit – On Connection, Disconnection, and the Occasional Buffering of Our Spiritual Lives”

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, ifContinue reading “Encampment, Grace, and the God Who Dwells With Us”

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 threeContinue reading “Golf and Grace, Part II – On Mulligans and the God of Second Chances”