A young couple has bought the house next door and they’ve spent the end of the summer taking it apart. I feel as if there should be a banner flying somewhere over our street: everything must go! Curtain rods and carpets, sliding doors, mirrors and the bathtub, all the kitchen cabinets and the sink and…
“If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain” (1 Cor. 15:13-14). I’ve often wondered why Easter celebrations are not nearly such a big deal in our culture (or even in…
My father had a green thumb. It seemed whatever he planted flourished – vegetables, fruits, flowers, shrubs and houseplants. He loved all things horticultural. Our dining room looked like a greenhouse. I recall tables full of various plants, a huge rubber tree in one corner, a thriving schefflera in another, and the wide sills of…
We’re all hungry. Some are hungry for literal food. We might be hungry for the social engagement of eating together. COVID has prompted hunger for many aspects of life. We hunger for communion – with people and with God. God promises a banquet. In my high school we had Junior/Senior Banquets, not proms. We could…
Feigang Fei has made a name for himself; he’s gone viral. Fei is a restaurant owner here in Montreal who has shot to fame for his honesty about the food served at his restaurant. The headline of a New York Times piece says it all: “A Rare Menu That Tells the Truth: The Pork? Greasy….
The winter of 1709 was a killer. In England it was called “The Great Frost.” In France it was called “Le Grand Hiver.” Over three weeks in early January, temperatures dropped across Europe to levels not seen in 500 years. The Mediterranean Sea froze. Trees exploded. Livestock died in the barns. In Switzerland, wolves prowled…
Young Jo, her infant brother, and ill, single mother are cast out into the elements on Christmas Eve. Though Jo plans to leave town on a bus with her family, the fierce, unruly winter wind pushes them in the direction of Franklin Murdoch’s barn and house. Jo is afraid of the man, known in the community as mean and crusty; the death of his wife and baby on a Christmas Eve long ago had apparently turned him into a nasty person.
I am giving stones for Christmas. No, not lumps of coal for the naughty, although 2020 might deserve it. I am giving geodes – plain-looking rocks on the outside, with hollow centers of beautiful crystalline structures. Geodes have been significant in my ministry. As the first pastor of Pathway Ministries in Byron Center, Michigan, I…
If we can’t get angels, there is nothing anyone on the planet wants more for Christmas this year than a vaccine for the coronavirus. We are told it’s on the way, but we must be patient. A global pandemic can’t be subdued in a day. This is our first COVID Christmas, and hopefully, by God’s…
“Let’s pack this Christmas issue, our last of the year, with uplifting content” (Angela Reitsma Bick, CC Editor, in her pre-Christmas email to columnists). I have always had an uneasy relationship with Christmas. Perhaps that stems from my childhood upbringing in a conservative Dutch Canadian Reformed family. We went out of our way to distance…
For 20 years, I hated Christmas. Or perhaps hate is too strong a word. It’s more accurate to say that Christmas was exhausting, and always I dreaded its arrival. As a pastor with four children I worked hard to have gifts bought and wrapped by the first Sunday in Advent because the month of December…
Melancholy isn’t what it used to be. During the medieval period, our physical and mental wellbeing were thought to be shaped by four fluids circulating in our bodies: blood, phlegm, white bile and black bile. In the Greek language, black bile is melaina chole – melancholy. It was thought that high levels of black bile…
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