…In these ways and many, many more, I have felt the closeness of God’s Kingdom here. And that closeness is reorienting the direction in which we are living our lives together in our churches: reorganizing us, re-energizing us, and revitalizing us in this present time, making straight the way for God’s arrival in new and surprising ways, not only in our lives, but in the lives of the generations that follow you.

The joy of Christmas is God with us.
And of us getting to know God, at the pace of human life.
Not as an abstract concept bearing down on us
but as someone who is with us and for us.

God is not something. God is Someone.

Exile and Homecoming. Guilt and Forgiveness. Estrangement and Embrace.

The journey from any one of these to the other is described by Isaiah, the Psalmist, and John the Baptist as the arrival of God – the advent of God – into our lives.

We have a role to play in preparing the way for that to happen in whatever wilderness or desert places we may inhabit…

Canadian philosopher and communications/media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously said, "The medium is the message." I think this is related to what the apostle Paul is saying too: the Gospel of God isn't something Paul and his co-workers, Timothy and Silas, share as a message apart from themselves. They are not religious entrepreneurs selling a product called "The Gospel." In fact, their lives are the message - the good news that they are loved, forgiven, healed, and empowered by God to love, forgive, heal, and empower others with the same Spirit of God at work in them. Jesus showed them that.

Anyone of us can sift through their memory selectively to extract some sources of happiness for which we feel thankful. But when we start the task of remembering (which is necessary in order to be thankful), we will also confront the different sources of pain, frustration, and suffering that exist in our lives too – things for which we do not feel thankful at all, and justifiably so.

This raises an important question for me:

Does the act of thanksgiving ask me to forget, or suspend my acknowledgement of these difficult and painful things in my life?

This week, upon reading the story of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush, I was struck by a new thought – a different motif that I’m finding helpful to guide my prayers and actions as we prepare to return to reopened church buildings: What if these past five months have been a "burning bush"?

Today we begin the first chapter of the book of Exodus. It's the story of God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt. It's a story that starts with a seemingly powerless and inconsequential baby floating precariously between life and death against the backdrop of imperial violence and domination. But it is this lowly and insignificant child to whom the identity of God will be revealed in the wilderness of Midian, who will proclaim the truth of God and announce the message of God's deliverance to the darkness of Pharaoh's Egypt: and Pharaoh will not prevail against it.

As newly formed Area Parish in the Anglican Diocese of Ottawa, we’ve chosen to adopt Lawrence as our namesake - not only because it evokes the magnificent river we live and worship along, but because it calls to mind the faithful daring of our love for one another exemplified in Lawrence’s story.

Paul is not happy when he hears that these new teachers are promoting high-flying spiritual visions in prayer or athletic feats of asceticism in community living as a way to “maturing” or “perfecting” their faith. Paul brings them back to basics: love one another patiently in everything you are already doing – in your homes, with your neighbours, in your workplace, with your customers, and in your church.

The story of Jesus feeding thousands of people, with only five loaves of bread and two fish, might be the clearest, most comprehensive, and enduring expression of the Gospel ever told. The earliest Christians certainly thought so…

The binding of Isaac by Abraham on Mt. Moriah at the command of God is a story that leaves no one unchanged. Not you, not me, not Abraham, certainly not Isaac, and not even…God?

How can Jesus speak of a harvest when the work hasn’t even begun? How can the Lord say to Abraham and Sarah, “You will conceive a son”? Two questions. But beneath both of them is, really, one question: Is anything too hard for God?

“And now for a moment
we do our failing and our dying in your presence,
you who attend to us in loss…”

There is much sorrow, sadness, and grief on my heart as I write this reflection. It is topped off with anger, confusion, and dismay at what is happening in the world today. I sit in my daughter’s house in Easley, South Carolina wondering where to find hope in a North American world that seems to be crumbling at every turn…

Today on Pentecost, I can’t help but hear that wind as the Holy Spirit, the Breath of God, rushing in to fill the life of everyone who testifies to the Love that is stronger than Death – the Risen Christ! Like those first witnesses to the Resurrection, our spirit filled and transformed by his will be gifted the capacity to know and love the world and God knows it and loves it – to embody that mind and love of Jesus so that this world is made new again.

The last petition of Liturgy 16 asks for strength, but not just strength for anything or all things, but strength to overcome the assaults to our faith. Wisdom and truth are the gifts necessary for this power. They provide the basis of our faith as they offer knowledge and understanding of living a divine life in this chaotic culture and world in which we live.

Ezekiel stands in the middle of a valley full of bones. Dry bones. The vultures and scavengers have long since finished their grisly occupation. The pungent smell of rotting flesh, too, has passed. An occasional gust of wind blows through, its lonely whistle unanswered. This is a lifeless and lonely place. Even Death itself seems to have moved on to more promising opportunities…

In the face of systematic racism and ignorance, what can we do? What are our efforts worth when they are weighed against corporate greed and state militarism? How can our efforts for peace and wholeness ever make a difference?

When we encounter the word for spirit in the Bible, we are reading a translation of the Hebrew word "rhuah" or the Greek word "pneuma". Both words are almost onomatopoeic and could be literally translated as breath…

It is our role as Christians to always be moving towards the coming Kingdom of God and not getting caught up in preserving the kingdoms of the past…