More than just surviving
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More than just surviving

Does anyone recall “Build Back Better”? It became a popular rallying cry midway through covid. After the first lockdown, we saw that collective action could develop vaccines faster than ever and provide support to keep poor households afloat. Covid exposed vulnerable spots, such as old age homes, but there was also optimism that we could…

Reasons God doesn’t break our legs
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Reasons God doesn’t break our legs

When a random intruder left newlywed Jessica Ziakin-Cook with a severed femoral artery and nearly took her life, some people at church said it was a lesson to increase her dependence on God. But Jessica drew theological conclusions from a deeper well. I met Jessica Ziakin-Cook at the University of Victoria last December, and she…

Repent and struggle
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Repent and struggle

My repentance list this Lent is long, with both personal and communal confessions: damage to God’s creation; harms to others through racial discrimination; complicity in many forms of violence; failure to change conditions that leave others poor or sick; abuses within and by the church that undermine our witness for Jesus; as well as traditional…

Don’t give up!
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Don’t give up!

We are living through some challenging, “unprecedented,” and even discouraging times. I recently watched the Oscar-nominated film “Don’t Look Up”, featuring an astronomy grad student and her professor who make the shocking discovery of a planet-killing comet on a collision course with Earth. When they share the urgent news with the United States president, the…

Running to Emmaus
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Running to Emmaus

Maybe it’s stepping out of line to head for Emmaus this early in the year. Most eyes are focused on Jerusalem with Easter still ahead. This should be a well-paced time of year, as we travel together through our continuing, life-giving story. We know this pattern: the fear and the hope, that evening meal, the…

Ashes to Ashes
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Ashes to Ashes

Death is pervasive in the Christian story. Our central symbol? The cross. More than 1/3 of the Psalms? Psalms of lament. One of the central metaphors of the Christian life is dying to the old self and putting on the new self.

Light Lent
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Light Lent

Lent can be about renewing our relationship with God in Jesus Christ. The focus can be the newness we desire more than the “oldness” we have.

Strange but true
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Strange but true

Consider the strange case of the International Peace Mission Movement, an American cult founded by one Reverend Major Jealous Divine (aka “Father Divine”) in the 1930s.

Do you care about Lent? (Should you?)
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Do you care about Lent? (Should you?)

We are four weeks into the season of Lent, with Easter a few weeks away. Depending on what church you go to, that may or may not mean much to you.

Glory and giving up for Lent
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Glory and giving up for Lent

Maybe, in another season or another year, I will find a nourishing reason behind omitting the Gloria, but this year, our family will keep singing together.

Watch and pray . . . and fast

Watch and pray . . . and fast

Fasting, like Lent itself, is foreign to the Reformed tradition. Calvin eschewed fasting since it was so rooted in Roman Church practices and had become mere ritual, he said – a stumbling block to real repentance and daily obedient living. Let your whole life be a “fast,” said Calvin, a sacrifice of service and thanks to God for his great salvation. Yes, on that last part! But I’ve come to believe he shouldn’t have ditched the baby with the bathwater in relation to fasting.