At a recent outdoor church service, I asked the children if they knew any of God’s commandments. They mentioned quite a few from the Old Testament such as don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t swear, obey your parents and so on. I asked if they remembered the one about where you should go to the bathroom…
If you are ever in downtown Hamilton, Ontario, walking through the central historic business district on James Street North, you may find your eyes drawn to a shop with a stunning art piece in the place of a storefront sign. There’s a mouse with his nose in a book, a knight with a sword drawn,…
Our church is in the middle of a library renaissance. It began when my wife and I were going through its books and found that 80 percent no longer served our congregation. After much sorting and recycling, we are learning that physical books – paper and ink, words and images – still have a big…
In case you missed them, the other parts of the Stories from Grace Manor series can be found here. Jan is away. He and Trynie are staying with their daughter for a few days. Bill just told us Jan isn’t entirely convinced he lost his license. “He told me,” Bill said, “he thought he had…
I don’t know when I got the blank postcard or who gave it to me, but for years I’ve used it as a bookmark. The sculpture on the front is striking. Two figures, one seated, one standing, are joined at the feet and lean towards each other. Together, they hold an overflowing basin of water,…
A long time ago, in the time when most Anishinaabe still knew how to talk with and listen to the animals, the deer abandoned us. This was a serious decision, and not one that the deer took lightly, because it meant breaking a promise. As each new layer of creation had formed, the previous layers,…
The title of Madeleine Jubilee Saito’s book intrigued me. What, I wondered, are visual poems? And how would poetry be used to contribute to the climate discussion? As I paged through the book the first time, I could tell it wasn’t a usual book of wordy poems. In fact, there weren’t many words at all….
Our congregation’s annual picnic is now a memory. We had a wonderful day together. The weather was glorious, and nature was dressed in its finest. The water in the lake was just right – not too cold and not too warm; the beach was not yet crowded with Canadians when we arrived in large numbers….
A new word caught my attention: thrutopia. Not utopia or dystopia but thrutopia. Not false hope or looming fear but a future of travelling through. That feels like a timely word and a necessary vision these days. The word itself has been around for nearly a decade. It was first suggested by the environmental philosopher…
This Friday morning, we’re back in our corner of the dining hall at Grace Manor. We usually meet at 10 and wrap things up around noon. I arrived at 10, but there was no one in sight. I went to the kitchen to check with Mary – maybe she knew something.
It’s still dark when I wake up. A thought pierces my heart: today is the funeral. Four days ago, on February 22, 1944, an American bombardment tore the heart out of Nijmegen, our city, and shattered our family by killing my eight-year-old brother, Jos. Jos is short for Josef, meaning “God adds.” Yes, God adds,…
In the preface to Rags of Light, Brian Walsh describes his new book as an attempt to “bring [Leonard] Cohen and Scripture together within the context of our present cultural realities and spiritual struggles and see what happens.” The book takes its shape from a series of lectures Walsh gave as part of an online…
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