Wandering No More
This is the last chapter. I can’t promise a happy Hollywood ending but maybe there’s something better.
Wondering Wanderer
Life After Death 2.0
Most readers will have guessed from my wanderings that I’m on the back nine of life. As I made the turn, I hoped to make more birdies on the way home than I did on the outward nine. It depends, of course, on who’s keeping score but on m my card.
Unto You a Child is Born
By the time you read this we’ll have become grandparents for the fourth time.
Laughter
I composed this in my mind one morning while the dentist had her way with my teeth.
Life After Death
In a coincidence that I think was unconnected with the loss of a beloved sister-in-law during the last Christmas season, I have read two books about death and resurrection in recent weeks.
Silence
We are a religion of the word and, boy, do we hear a lot of words.
Those People We Don’t Like
It certainly doesn’t vibrate with Christian compassion but, let’s face it, there are some people we just don’t like.
Following Different Paths to God
I’ve often wondered whether we all must diligently travel along the same path, desperately seeking God. Is the only truth our truth, the legacy that was recorded in the Old and New Testaments?
Serving God
One of the things about joining a church, it soon became clear, is that you’re expected to serve God. Apparently that meant more than just showing up on Sundays, ruminating about the message, and dropping a few dollars in the plate. You actually gotta do something.
What Would Marshall McLuhan Say?
In my youth I became a fan of Marshall McLuhan, cryptic sage of “the medium is the message.” His thesis, as I understood it, is a useful prism through which to deconstruct the present-day plight of the churches our age calls mainstream. You know, the ones with all the puzzled faces in the few pews the are occupied. Even Presbyterian ministers are writing revolutionary essays and letters in the pages of the Record.
Wondering Still
This marks my tenth little step along this wandering, wondering path and, though the theologians have winced and the traditionalists have shuddered, they haven’t thrown me out of the Presbyterian Church yet.
Miracles Done While We Sleep
Maybe demographics explain why many of us drift into gardening as the years pass. One of my mother’s favourite stories was about the day, as a tiny diapered tot, I backed into a rose bush—so perhaps destiny is at work.
Hear the Word of God
The challenge, the delight, of “doing radio” alone in a darkened studio is to make listeners of those who only hear. Dictionaries are a little ambiguous about my hair splitting, but when the reader proclaims: “Hear the word of God,” I think “listen to God’s word” might be more fruitful instruction.
How Do You Pray?
The dawning new year seems a moment that needs prayer as we face the unkown ahead. I suppose there is a course about prayer I could sign up for somewhere and maybe it would be helpful, like consulting a golf pro about my backswing.
A Gift for Gretje
The wind, howling from the heights of the Rockies, lashed tiny snow tornados across the moon-silvered Depression-era prairie. Half a lifetime later, the young man staring into the night would be short and plump, with a fringe of snow-white hair crowning twinkling eyes and a merry smile seeking the next excuse to laugh; but in that frozen hell, laughter seemed ashes of some spiteful dream.
Reading the Bible
With a stack of Kung, Armstrong, Frye and others by my side, I embark on a voyage of biblical exploration. I imagine hearing pitiful screams of tiny angels losing their grip on the crowded heads of pins. Often a phrase will cause me to lift my eyes and gaze out the window. Why didn’t Jesus tell his disciples about the universe his Father created?
Reason Versus Religion
To the God-inspired men who wrote the Bible, Earth was the centre of the universe God created for us. Prophets and kings would have found it easy to imagine a sovereign atop the clouds ruling his dominions, sending emissary angels to encourage or rebuke wandering desert nomads. How dramatically this clashes with our “modern” perspective in which our dear green and blue planet is so infinitely tiny as to almost surpass imagination. And there, perhaps, is the key.
We Don’t See Miracles Anymore
The Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, Montreal, proposed a daring theme for Lenten chapel services: questions often asked but seldom answered in church. One rearranged this wanderer’s worldview, like a kaleidoscope’s shifting pattern. “Why don’t miracles happen anymore?”
Lunch with Friends
At lunch with lifelong friends, talk turned to the church which accepted my hesitant application for membership 10 years ago. They’re mildly puzzled. What about all the terrible things that God allows to happen? Look at all that has been done or not done by those who claim to follow Jesus Christ.
The Wondering Wanderer
I approach church hungry for nourishment of the spirit, more filled with disturbing questions than easy answers.