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But it’s not enough to tweet. It’s not enough, even, to pray and hope God will take action without you. Especially not for politicians. I would say to all today’s leaders: God doesn’t call you to stand there and look pious. He calls you to do something.

When weary of waiting, remember what time it is. We live between the first and the second coming. Because of the First Coming we are citizens of the Kingdom. It is not only future. Jesus’ birth means God is with us. Jesus’ death means Satan’s clock is ticking. Jesus’ resurrection means that your death is a door, not a hole.

It is one thing to be rebuked for something you’ve done. It is quite another to be rebuked by a complete stranger.

Last month I suggested that we might give thanks to God for blessing us with the public legal community known as the state. This month I will be more specific: let us give thanks for Canada’s 150 years and pray for many more.

I wonder whether we Protestants are especially susceptible to forgetting the embodied dimension of our faith – that God is someone for whom we hunger and thirst. The Christian life ought to be a mouthwatering affair, yet we so often content ourselves with chintzy simulacra, thinking that the right idea is what matters.

On the political level, Conservatives found a way to damage the image of the Liberals; the Liberals are showing that Conservatives did the same thing, and New Democrats claim that both of the other parties are unethical. From a public perspective, the larger damage is further decline in the level of trust of all political leaders, which is already low. All political parties need to pay greater attention to that.

The Reformation reshaped our way of reading of God’s special revelation, the Bible, giving it primacy of place as a way to understand God’s relationship with us. In the intervening 500 years, science has enriched our understanding of God’s general revelation, his world. We see an amazing cosmos that stretches our imagination and demonstrates the grandeur of our Lord.

Pilgrimage is my primary life metaphor. One of my favorite texts is Psalm 48, a pilgrim song about going around Zion to be oriented in life. I recall getting students out of the classroom to walk, literally and literarily, through the Abraham story by moving around campus.

Poem and painting

In our daily lives – planned and unplanned, noisy and still, black-and-white and beautifully greyscale – we are all trying to make pieces fit together. It is good to hear stories of those who have asked questions before us, and in the answers, see how the pieces might fit together.

How do we grow gritty children, how do we turn them into people who can withstand pain and disappointment and failure? How do we develop in them character and set them up with lives of unshakable hope?

Unique quilt celebrates world’s diversity and common humanity.