Category: Musings
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Helping People Watch the News
It was the conversation in the church kitchen about a certain political leader and the parishioners “sinful” feelings about that leader. This is what got me thinking about how Christian Leaders have an important voice in the church community about how to process the massive amount of information that is…
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Illness and Morality
It may go without saying that illness is amoral, but the reality is that we often – consciously or subconsciously – tie morality to illness. Illness is often experienced as a spiritual punishment. I’ve been asked far too many times why would God ‘do this to me’, or ‘let this happen…
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The Plague of Productivity: How the Church Finally Did Me In
[ I wrote this back in 2021. The following year, 2022, I would take a 3 month leave of absence for my own “burnout”. It is now drawing to the end of 2023, and I remain exhausted. Now the excuse is “Long Covid”. I am currently reading a compelling and…
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How do we hold our suffering?
Yesterday at church a woman whose husband has just received a devastating cancer diagnosis said to me as she choked on her tears, “Why would God be so cruel to us by punishing us in this way?” Though a common enough belief that God indeed works in this manner, the…
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The Church is Dead
There are a series of three photographs hanging on the wall of the rectory living room. I bought them at an art shop in Toronto a number of years ago. They are of a church in Detroit. I can’t remember if I ever knew what kind of church, but obviously…
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The Sight of the Eyes
Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire; this also is vanity and a chasing after wind. Ecclesiastes 6:9 (NRSV) So much of life seems to be about waiting for or anticipating what is next. What we hope for. Something better. Better than this. More.…
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I need to play with words
There is a quality to midlife that feels like an immense need to crawl out of one’s skin. Sometimes (I’m told this is due to hormones, but who really knows) it is most evident at the end of the day when I lay down, turn the light out and cease…
Never Fearing Wild Things 