on the Pilgrimage

The Difference a Day Makes ... or 12 of Them We are in unprecedented times .. for our time, anyway. We, who have become accustomed to living as 'I' see fit, and disregard anyone that does not fit 'my' way of thought ... we, as a globe, have been brought to our knees. Within a month, or less, an international pandemic has become the reality for everyone, except Antarctica (at this time). Our world will never be what it once was. The thing is, this is not the first world pandemic and not the first time everything has come to a halt. It's just the first time in about 100 years. And what a wake-up call it is! I should have started to document this when I first heard about 'something' in China. In December 2019. Then, I remember hearing something in the new year about a cruise ship that was infected. And then the reports throughout the world became more frequent. China, Italy, Iran, and now Switzerland all are in dire straights. For a long time, the USA was repo...

Changing your life is not easy. Old habits can be very entrenched in the day to day living. What do they say - a new habit can be made in 20 days, but it takes a lifetime to break them? Well, I'm not even sure about that. I have a couple of books on habits ... maybe I should read them and see what they share with me.  Look for a review later on The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and Gretchen Rubin's Better Than Before. I own them both but have yet to read them. This last week has been a challenge ... it seems that has become the title for my life - "A Challenge"! ... and yet I look at the stories of others and I know mine is ... well, it's mine. And I don't think it would be right of me to compare mine with others. That would also mean that mine is for me to manage, to deal with, to overcome, and to build upon, right? I did sit and reflect on those words for Lent 2020 that I put forth last time - Sacrifice, Reflection, Contemplation, Preparation. And here...

I wish I had thought about this sooner and marked this year with contemplation through the liturgical season. I sort of started ... but it never registered to become a conscious journey.  Until today. Last week (February 25) marked Shrove Tuesday ... and then Ash Wednesday, to begin the 40 days. Today is 35 more days, and I think I can still do something and make these days count for something. I remember when I fasted with Pathways (see here  for the experience), and I learned that fasting is not only the removal of food but a conscious replacement with prayer. Lent is a time for reflection and preparation by replicating the sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for these days.  Perhaps this is a good time to embark upon what I need to embark upon .. Before Christmas, I made a rather significant discovery of self. In part, it has to do with cleaning, but it also has to do with preparing for death, for living this next chapter in fullness of what is possible. It seemed...

This is, hands down, my favourite Christmas story. It was read to me and all who went to the Christmas service in my freshman year of college. Pastor Carl Lee (now passed) would read a few stories to the students. This one was my favourites. I'm not sure why, because it's not a particularly happy story. But somehow, it resonated with me. And it warmed my heart. And, through the years, I would read it to my students, too. For me, this is the Christmas story.  What follows is the version I remember from my college days. There are slight variations that Pastor Carl included. The original story is by Martin Bell. I hope you find the beauty in it that has found me.  Barrington Bunny   Once upon a time in a large forest there lived a very furry bunny. He had one lop ear, a tiny black nose, and unusually shiny eyes. His name was Barrington. Barrington was not really a very handsome bunny. He was brown and speckled and his ears didn’t stand up right. But he c...

Love - such an easy word to say, such a difficult way to live. I had a discussion with a friend yesterday and a few things came up. Among them included the unpacking of the following thoughts: (1) How atheists really do have this time of the year down perfect; they know it and do it the best. They know Christmas trees and decorations, they know Hallmark movies and packed shopping malls (or online ordering), they know how to do a family feast and they know giving, creating their mountains of gifts into credit cards of debt. (2) The Christmases of George Bailey are gone, the people like George Bailey are no more ... we honour liars and manipulators, we fill our media with 'fakery' and disingenuous behaviour and we set that on a pedestal of high respect and esteem. We select people to run our country, not by the quality of the person but by how popular they are, how good they look, how pretty they talk. The strength of the male is being erased and condemned to be replaced with th...

Gaudete Sunday - Rejoice! ... the Joy Candle. It's interesting that all three other candles can have slightly different meanings depending on where you look, but this one, this Third Sunday in Advent, is always the same - the Gaudete Candle. The text that comes with it is from Philippians 4, where the writer writes, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say Rejoice!". Find your joy in this relationship, in this connection. A joy that passes all understanding. I remember when my father passed. My brother told me that, at the end, he did not want to 'let go' until he knew that God's promises were true. He lived a Godly life, and still, at the end, he needed to know that that which he believed in all those years was true. I believe that truth was revealed to him upon his passing. Oh, what an experience to have that assurance now, in the midst of life's trials! Maybe that's what this candle is about. A way to give us, through the ages, that assurance...

Today, the reading was from Matthew, the story of John the Baptist. He was not a popular dude, as he probably smelled and looked quite shocking. Living in the desert and living on locusts and wild honey can do that to a person. Yet, it was him that was given the task of calling for people to repent, the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. People came to him, and he seemed to be of interest to the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, as he had quite the choice words for them! I wonder what John would say to us in the Church today? Would he be welcomed? Would they let him preach at the pulpit? Would he see how we are preparing for Christ's coming? Or maybe people would shun him, and he would point to us and call us a brood of vipers? I wonder what he'd say to those who think they know all the answers.  I wrote on my FB page today: I heard something about this time - it is about God coming towards us, always moving towards us, and never does God turn God's back on us. During this ...

Advent, as I was taught, is a time of anticipation, of preparation. For what? For the coming Christ - the baby incarnate and the Christ Godhead. Over the years, I've searched to enrich that understanding, ground it in history, and ignite it with more than a simple understanding. Today, I reflect back on the year, nearly gone. And the path my feet have taken me. I come to this point, this place, and I pause. Not only over the last year but the last life ... from birth to now. I read somewhere that Advent is divided into 4 Sundays - the first two, to look forward to Christ's ultimate coming, and the last two, to look back at the point in time when He became one with humanity. Maybe I can use that as a bit of a guide for my reflections over the next four weeks. Maybe I can anchor myself in those constructs, therein giving dimension to this time, of pausing, of meditation, of receiving. Let my heart be humbled and let me be open and sensitive to what is around me, both in spiri...

The Bethlehem Candle: Love I was pondering on the birth of Christ this last week. Somewhere, I came across a blog article on what the world was like at that time. Things were very volatile. The leader was absolute and you did not question him. He was known to be 'the Son of God'. There are more similarities between the Absolute and Christ, and when you peel back the layers of the story, what you find is something quite subversive and attacks the establishment of the time. What I find fascinating is that this message, this radical missive that Christ brought that turned everything upside down, and ... eventually got him killed for it ... is quite unbelievable. I mean, think about it ... I don't think Jesus came to create another religion. He came ... in the humblest, lowly of ways ... a baby. A dependent, crying, vulnerable infant. And who is the first to learn of this birth? Shepherds - the dregs of society. And then a year or so later ... astrologers. Mystics. Oh, there...

Emmanual, Come.  Advent - a word that means 'coming'. In the historic church year, it referred to the four weeks before Christmas, the four weeks of preparation and expectation before Christmas. The four Sundays prior to Christmas. That was Advent.  But the world seems to have moved past this - Advent has become a box of chocolates, with 24 little boxes to pop open. This time of the year has become synonymous with consumerism. Gifts and decorations, bigger and more glitz. And yet, we are becoming more and more broken. Drug overdoses, addictions plentiful, suicides, sky-high divorces (of marriages that maybe should not have happened to begin with), people seeking connection but so lost in the world, thinking their smartphones are going to work a miracle, and instead, they contribute to our addictions. People don't need God anymore because they've created their own. And we can see how that's working for them. So, if I were to put on my imagination hat, how could I spe...

Time passes ... as time is meant to do. I have decided to return to this blog so I have a space to challenge myself and my God. A place to wrestle with theology and my relationship with my Lord. What it means to be a Christian if that is what I am. A place to reflect and contemplate God's fingerprint on my life.  It is my current desire to make a massive change in this area and begin a pilgrimage of a sort, one that goes inward to a space I have yet to discover. Here I want to share that journey.  I began this blog, my first one, so long ago. The purpose was for a place to write about my journey at that time. And, as journeys tend to do, they wander ... all over the place. And sometimes, after years of journey, you also return. Not to the place you left, but to a new place that is like the old place but not. Today I return.  But here's the thing - today is actually February 12, 2023. Fourteen years after the last entry. In this time, much has happened - my father has pass...

I feel that it was not that long ago that I wrote something here - low and behold, I check, and it was two years ago. TWO years ago! I reflect on what was happening in my life when I last wrote, and compare it to now ... in so many ways, little has changed. And in a few ways, much has changed. I feel as if I'm waking from a deep sleep - coming to discoveries and epiphanies that I might have brushed up against in the past, but are slamming home now. Looking back over my 45 years, there have been difficult years that stand out for their own reasons. Years where it seems there's been more struggle and anguish than symphony and roses. I can identify 2 such times - one being my 2nd year of teaching and one being my last year of teaching in Manitoba. One for personal difficulty, one for professional challenge. There were a couple of blips on the radar screen since then, but nothing that quite compared to it ... until now. From about Sept. 2007 through to ... oh, June 25th ...

Two days ago, another student walked into a school and shot and killed his fellow students. The tally stands at 33 - 30 classmates in one building, 2 students in the dorm, and himself. The news is full of this - much like when Columbine happened in 1999. The same questions are being asked. Much has changed ... yet much has not. There are things I would like to reflect on ... but not at this point. At this point, here are the words of another person, giving their answer for 'why'. Some good thoughts, I would say.  FROM WHERE I STAND: A Teenager's Voice from Inside the Culture of Death by Sarah Roney On April 20, 1999, there was yet another gruesome shooting in Littleton, Colorado. Kids killing kids. And again, the entire nation in its uproar is trying to figure out why. I am eighteen years old. I live in a small town near Madison, Wisconsin. A small town just like the ones where these horrifying shootings always seem to take place. Every time those stories come on the t...

Well, here we are ... 2007 is upon us. A new year, pregnant with possibility. What shall be birthed this year? What new roads shall I take? What new sights shall I see? What new lessons shall I learn? What new friends shall I make? What new life shall I live? Resolutions - the making of resolutions date back many moons. As far as the Babylonians, apparently! Dictionary definition? to resolve to do something, a course of action determined or decided upon. Common New Year's Resolutions for us include things like losing weight, or quitting smoking ... for the Babylonians, it was returning farm equipment! Oh, how far things have come since then! Theirs seemed to be about community relationships and growth; ours seems to be about self improvement and betterment as compared to others. Over the years I have made resolutions; but like most people, by the time December rolls around, they are all but forgotten. In the last few years, I have altered my thinking a bit and decided to give my ...

Merry Christmas - Unto us a Son is given, unto us a Saviour is born. God moved into the neighbourhood! O come, let us rejoice in the Lord as we declare this present mystery: The partition wall of disunion has been destroyed, the flaming sword is turned back, the cherubim withdraw from the Tree of Life, and I partake of the food of Paradise, whence I had been expelled because of disobedience. For the immutable Image of the Father, the Image of His eternity, takes the form of a servant, having come forth of a Mother unwedded, yet having suffered no change. For that which He was, He remains, being very God; and that which He was not, He has assumed, becoming true man because of His love for humankind. Unto Him let us cry aloud: O God, who was born of a Virgin, have mercy upon us! (Vespers Sticharion,Tone 2) AN URBAN CHRISTMAS By Bill Senyard The “Land of the Free”?? He wondered what that meant. The Department of Homeland Security was becoming more and more powerful. No one was real...