“Each morning comes along and you assume it will be similar enough to the previous one – that you will be safe, that your family will be alive, that you will be together, that life will remain mostly as it was.” That’s from Cloud Cuckoo Land, American author Anthony Doerr’s new book. “Then a moment…
Most religions address the challenge of death with some concept of an afterlife. Islam presents the goal as paradise. Eastern religions speak of reincarnation, then escape into the great universal spirit. Most Materialists say, “When you’re dead, you’re dead,” with hope being in the next generations. Christians sometimes talk of life after death as “heaven,”…
During the Christmas season many of us are drawn into the world of miniatures, though we might not call it that. Ornaments hang on our trees depicting, at a hand-held scale, Jesus nestled in a manger or the wise men visiting a stable. Each year we carefully unwrap the figures of our nativity scenes –…
Picture God. We might have a mental picture, but the commandment against graven images tells us not to limit God with our pictures. The Scriptures are full of metaphors to help us relate to God: Father, King, Lord, Shepherd, Rock. When theologians describe God, they often use negatives. God is independent, immutable, infinite, indivisible, and…
My childhood church Christmas pageants ended with the distribution of treat bags to all the children. Capping a collection of nuts, hard Christmas candies, and chocolate drops was a mandarin orange. As a child I first searched for the longest cinnamon-flavoured ribbon and counted the number of chocolate drops; only later would my attention turn…
It was an annual tradition back in my days at College Street Public School. Every Friday morning from mid-November until Christmas break, the whole school – grades one through eight – crammed into a makeshift auditorium. We had no gym back then, only two adjacent classrooms with a removable wall between them. Chairs and desks…
Medieval Christmas traditions would seem a little weird to most of us. In fact, the kind of Christmas that my ancestors likely observed in the fishing villages of Medieval North Holland probably looked a lot more like Halloween than Christmas. Take caroling, for example. We think of caroling as a joyful, cheer-sharing pastime meant to…
Wendy is the person in our church who takes care of the details. She is the one who sorts through the candles after the Christmas Eve service, taking out the ones that burned too low, cleaning the ones that are discolored from the smoke. Wendy irons the drapes we hang on the front wall. She…
The property we move to when the baby is 18 months old borders a grassy, city-owned alley. It is a secret garden, a lost green plot turned into a tiny community park. Eight properties back onto this narrow stretch of land. Neighbors take turns mowing the grass, half-heartedly tending the gardens, letting their dogs run…
Christmas feels different when you’re grown up. I see this with my own children. Gone are the days when they would get excited over decorating the tree with pipe cleaner candy canes and angels created from dry pasta noodles. I fully relied on my older two to help share the cheer with Rachel and Janneke….
During Advent and Christmas, we celebrate the first coming of Jesus Christ into the world. The ancient creeds and the Reformation confessions tell us that Jesus is God incarnate, the second person of the Trinity, whom the Father sent to live among us, to take upon himself our sins, to pay the price for them…
On Thanksgiving Monday, Peter Elgersma and his family rolled up their sleeves to cook for Richmond Hill Community Christian Reformed Church’s second “to-go” thanksgiving dinner. I chatted with Elgersma, a CC board member, about the dinner. Peter and his family, five in total, volunteered to cook and individually package 150 meals for the church’s 28th…
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