Hands: Agnes, haven’t you gone overboard in this? Hands are hands, doing what hands are made for … cooking, eating with, sewing, knitting, troweling, planting, bathing, […]

I cried when I heard the surgeon’s report. Ten days earlier I’d had a hip replacement. My tears made me realize how anxious I was […]

In September the current Moderator of the General Assembly, Rev. Harvey Self, paid a visit to the Kenora Fellowship Centre. I met him there and […]

“Well, here we are.” My friend parked the car and I looked nostalgically at the home I grew up in. It was not quite what […]

Mary Fontaine founded Hummingbird Ministries in 2004 as a Presbyterian ministry of healing for the Aboriginal people of British Columbia's West Coast. And she was ordained this past spring – see the July/August Record – in Mistawasis, Sask., where she is from. Her ordination gives her new opportunities in her ministry. Many have asked her to baptize them, their children or their grandchildren. Now she can – the first person she baptised was her own grandson. For those already baptized as children, Fontaine will plan rededication services. (The Presbyterian Church in Canada doesn't advocate re-baptism.) Fontaine is excited about introducing the sacrament of communion to her Aboriginal circles. Feasting is an important part of First Nations communities, so communion is likely to become an important part of worship.

It was a small room, barely holding the single bed occupying it. The tiny casement window was a half-inch deep in frost and the room was bitterly cold.

St. Paul said he saw in a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12), which we take to mean that the looking glasses of his time weren't up to much. Not so now.

People are more than a little surprised to find out that I have attended church regularly my whole life, and presently sit on the board […]

Little things confound the wise and contain God's greatest gifts. Signs of God's love surround us, yet often go unnoticed. The gift of a starry night, the smile of a stranger or the fragrance of a flower could touch your soul at just the right moment. Life is a difficult journey but people make it harder when they close their eyes to the messages God sends every day. Yet every year in Bruce Mines, a small northern Ontario village, people trudge through the snow to experience the Christmas story. People come by busloads. When I first heard about this Holy Walk, my imagination ran with it.

St. Columba-By-The-Lake, Montreal, has meant a lot to me. It was the community into which my first-born daughter came to life, and where she was given the new life of baptism. I suppose it was also our “house of prayer,” although Presbyterian churches are rarely distinguished as prayer centres. Of course St. Columbans do pray and, like Leap year, prayer occasionally is a topic.