As research for my current project, a book on the spirituality of sleep, I arranged a visit to the Sleep Clinic in Parry Sound, an hour’s drive north of where I live.
The Real Santa Claus: A Christmas Parable
This one’s not in my book Twenty-One Candles: Stories for Christmas because it was written later. Merry Christmas, everybody!
Christmas in El Salvador, 1981
An American priest visited a displaced persons’ refuge in El Salvador in 1981 and wrote the following reflection. It could just as easily apply today to a migrant camp in Lebanon or a bomb shelter in Ukraine.
25 Poems for Christmas
This is so good I just have to share it. Thanks for this post to Victoria Emily Jones of the “Art & Theology” blog, who has a daily Advent series you can sign up for here.
A Christmas Shelfie
Colored lights appear, secret packages arrive, and the sound of distant (very distant) sleigh bells can be heard drifting down from the north.
Knowing God: Savoir and Connaître
I’m sitting at my window, looking out at the sky, the trees, the flowers, the river, the waterfall.
Sometimes I think, “If God had made nothing else but this tree, its myriad leaves ballet-dancing in the breeze, He would still be worth praising forever and ever.”
Is Putin Going to Hell?
As the war in Ukraine grinds on from one horror to another, I think we must seriously question whether someone like Vladimir Putin is a human being, or whether he has abrogated his humanity. Colloquially we may call such people ‘monsters,’ but might not this assessment in fact be the truth?
Choosing Judas: Jesus’ First Gethsemane
We’re familiar with the story of Jesus’ agonized prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before He died. But there was another, earlier night of agonized prayer in our Lord’s life, described in Luke 6:12-19.
What the Thunder Said: The Good News of Climate Change
Today I had a very noisy quiet time. ‘Quiet time’ is what I call my morning prayer session, and I like it to be quiet. But today it wasn’t quiet, it was cacaphonous.
Rest in Peace, Elizabeth Windsor
My wife’s mother, a fine Christian woman, loved Queen Elizabeth II. When my wife learned of the Queen’s death, she imagined her arriving in heaven and said, “My mom will be first in line to greet her.”