Net zero ethics
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Net zero ethics

Last month, world leaders convened in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, for COP27. COPs have been held annually since 1995 by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This year’s was the fifth to be hosted in an African nation. Africa is increasingly the focus in climate related news, and not for the normal reasons. Last…

Cathedral Grove
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Cathedral Grove

“Mount Doug is a good short hike. If it’s a clear day you should be able to see the Olympic mountains in Washington,” Meghan texted me. “You’ll find lots of arbutus trees – a rare species only on Vancouver Island and parts of Vancouver. They have funky multicolour bark and look almost biblical.” I’m writing…

Waste not
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Waste not

I went duck hunting with Mr. Dave Gregory of Langley, B.C., on the Nicomekl River, a lazy stream in south Surrey. It was about 1982. We normally hunted puddles in flooded fields but a cold snap had frozen everything except the ocean marshes and the tidal portions of a few rivers. Dave had chest waders…

A Mysterious Presence
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A Mysterious Presence

For those who crave certainty and are comforted by unchanging traditions, these past two years have been unkind. The experience of living through a global pandemic has disrupted most of our routines and heaped anxiety and uncertainty upon our everyday living. Churches have not been immune to this disruption and many congregations now find themselves…

Mail-order tree
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Mail-order tree

This morning, my doorbell rang, and a man handed me an apple tree. I’d ordered it from the local nursery and been surprised to learn that they could deliver it by mail. Now it is sitting in my kitchen, all wrapped in brown paper with red cotton stitching at the top like a bag of…

High hopes
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High hopes

A kid in a candy shop – there I stood in front of the rack of flower seeds. Any of them would look spectacular in my garden. Decisions, decisions. But really there was no contest – sunflowers were the obvious choice. Tall. Tenacious. Irresistibly cheerful. They would stand rustically elegant in front of the cedar…

Pigweed Prayers
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Pigweed Prayers

I really would like to have “just the right number” of dandelions in my lawn. And I’d like to exert this control with organic, non-chemical means. But if I succeed, I may find that I still have a problem: No hyssop growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. The Hebrews apparently were more tolerant of…