Category: Musings
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Donald Trump’s 3 Favourite Bible verses
As you can probably see just in the title of this post, and my spelling of the word ‘favourite’, I am Canadian, and so when I comment on American politics, I do so as an outsider, and that’s fine with me. Also, I feel that as a Christian, my primary allegiance is not to my…
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Soccer, an exercise in empathy
As a family grows and ages, there are certain things that are perhaps inevitable that would have seemed strange before, like buying a minivan, shopping at Costco for practical reasons, and sitting in a lawn chair at the park three times a week watching kids play soccer. This is our first year registering our kids…
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Gardening as an exercise in empathy
Unlike the last few years, this spring I planted some seeds. I thought it would help me connect with the land, and maybe it has and will continue to do, but I’ve already been surprised by how well it has connected me with other people and their stories. I planted my seeds in what not…
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The Political Matters (or does it?)
One of the ways that I annoy my wife, is that when people call the house to ask if I want to take part in a survey, I almost always say yes. I agree, not because I’m a pushover (that’s debatable) or because it allows me to shirk other responsibilities at home, but because I…
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UP in spiritual terms
Have you heard the conspiracy theory about Disney’s UP? If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s a beautiful story of an old man who, as a child, dreamt of being an explorer like his hero Charles Muntz and is now living that out by floating his home down to South America with the help…
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‘Cause they’re not hip with it
From time to time I’m in a position where I’m asked to defend the church. Sometimes that means that I have to try to give an intellectual defence for the content of the Bible or my interpretation of the content. Depending on who is asking the question, it’s not always easy, but those kinds of…
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My yesterday
Like many Canadians, I spent much of yesterday morning reading updates and following developments from our nation’s capital. The photos brought me back to the four months I spent living in the city doing a co-op job with Revenue Canada. Ottawa, despite sitting on political, cultural and linguistic fault lines, is a beautiful city, filled…
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Idly by
Maybe you’ve heard the news, our government refuses to stand idly by. Our Prime Minister has said it, other ministers have said it, and so, we will join another military exercise, because our government refuses to stand idly by. But even though it might not often look like it, and they usually don’t want it…
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I refuse to complain about the weather
As I write this, the forecast low for tonight is -8C. So much snow has fallen here over the past few days that tree branches aren’t able to bear the load of the uncharacteristcally sticky white stuff, and so they are falling. Branches are falling onto sidewalks, onto power lines and onto cars. City crews…
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Canadian Camping
One of the family traditions that we are trying to start is regular camping trips to familiar campsites. This year we visited three different campgrounds; two of them were national parks and one was more locally administered. We hiked, we ate smores, we splashed in the water and we took pictures. Except for when we…