Category Archives: story

Underwater Jesus

Posted on November 27, 2019 by

Today is a heavy travel day here in the US. For many, a trip home brings feelings of relief and deep joy. For others, the air is electric with anxiety and dangers. For some, there is no going home, only the wilderness wandering within sight but not touch of the Promised Land. For not a few, the opening of the holiday season begins a pilgrimage to the abyss of grief. Continue reading →

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Race and guns: a call to the occasion “For Such a Time As This” with the Rev. Sharon Risher

Posted on November 16, 2019 by

I was honoured to offer this opening prayer and call at lunch with God Before Guns and the Rev. Sharon Risher at Forest Hill Presbyterian Church, Cleveland Heights, today. What do guns have to do with any of this? That … Continue reading →

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I should get out more

Posted on October 11, 2019 by

In my collar, I notice people respond to me passing them by, for better or for worse. I smile, pass the time of day. Then someone stopped me short:
”Don’t you remember me?” Continue reading →

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To move mountains

Posted on October 3, 2019 by

When she was old and fading –
her gray hair paling,
her skin thinning and softening –
my grandmother painted watercolours. Continue reading →

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100 orange stoles

Posted on September 27, 2019 by

In 2016, in the run-up to the second annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day, I began making orange stoles to bring the #WearOrange movement, with its focus on life and hope, back to church. It wasn’t exactly nor entirely my … Continue reading →

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A prayer for the absence of miracles

Posted on August 23, 2019 by

Swimming as an act of faith: Faith in the friendliness of the great lake, doorway to the deep- seated sediment of creation; Faith in the body to carry its cargo through the waves, inspired by the brooding, hovering breath of … Continue reading →

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Everything comes with a side of guns

Posted on August 21, 2019 by

I did not have the time to wonder deeply why a construction company, expert in damp recovery and replastering, thought that an active shooter drill would be right up their alley (nor why we would call them first in the unfortunate event). I did not have the wherewithal in that Thursday moment to explain my theological aversion to drilling fear into our worship, or the stubborn resistance to the inevitably of guns everywhere that stems from the sanctuary of my foolish faith. Continue reading →

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