It’s no secret: I’ve struggled this year, and in recent months the battle has almost overwhelmed. I wrote on my blog yesterday how I felt like I have failed Advent and someone who played a pivotal role in my messed up life decades ago, and who remains a dear friend of my heart, sent me
Tag: faith
Unchanging
Today is Tuesday, December 22. We are days away from Christmas and a piece of me feels like I failed Advent. Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. Can I honestly say I’ve leaned in to these things as I intended? Have I lingered in the longing? Or has it been more of a stumbling tumbling season of grasping
And Now it is December
Now it is December. I think I should write something encouraging in these darkening days, but come up empty. I don’t want to wear a mask here, so I speak of the barrenness and trust I’m not alone in the wilderness. I don’t have three steps to find happiness, five ideas to streamline this season, seven
An Advent Prayer for Hope
Hope. It’s been a year of hope deferred. If I’m honest, it’s been longer, but this year has been something else. The world, caught up in uncertainty and a host of other things there’s no need to name, is weary. We all feel it to some degree and it’s getting heavy. Really heavy. You tell
This is the way of the kingdom . . .
I hear a whisper in a variety of voices over the course of many days—all with a similar message. And while there is a season for “big picture” thinking, so too is there a time to dial it in and focus on what’s right there in front of me. I think of times when I’ve
Longing for the Season of Longing
I sit down to free write one afternoon. I am tired of thinking about the pandemic. I’m tired of writing about it. I’m weary of its curled tentacles reaching into every aspect of life and leaving a sticky residue. I’ve had enough of the polarization—over the pandemic, but also politics and the best breakfast cereal
Day Begins. Have Mercy
I wake to snow. It’s not unexpected, but as I stand at the window in the wee hours and look out over it I am struck by the magic. And reminded of an excerpt from The Presence of Absence that rungs as true today as when I wrote it. # # # It’s not yet
Music Hath Charms . . .
I grew up in a little house my dad built that was next door to a church. It wasn’t our church—we went to the larger United Church across the street. I crossed the street every Thursday evening for choir practice and gathered with other members of the children’s and adult choir in the basement on
In This Corner
It feels a little like I stumbled. I’m in the midst of one of those slow motion things where almost comical gyrations have taken over my body as I struggle to regain my balance. Only it’s not so comical. Know what I mean? In the morning I return to the peace of familiar words and
A Holy Encounter
I’m meeting someone and arrive early in a part of the city that’s familiar in the general sense but less so close up. I park and watch pedestrians, wondering about their stories, until it’s precisely ten minutes before our appointed meeting. A short five minute walk, and I’m there. I wait. And wait. And a
Day Begins
It’s dark when I rise these days. Still night, really. Certainly too dark to step out on the deck and greet the morning (I stopped doing that a few weeks ago when I encountered a black, hard-shelled creature the size of a Volkswagen). I sit in a wing chair near the window where, eventually, I’ll