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Once a day dawned dark, the clouds hanging limp like wisps of smoke that clog the lungs after a fire has burned beyond its life. Tear-stained faces watched a man displayed, his torn body nailed to a tree torn from the ground and weeping over its foul fate. His face contorted with pain as his… Continue reading Last Words
How do we make people more generous with their time and their money? It is a question many Pastors grapple with. Volunteering in churches has been declining for decades as culture has shifted and life has become both individualised and frenetically busy. Financial giving hasn’t had the same drop off as best I can tell—though… Continue reading Teaching Generosity
It’s a dreary winter Saturday. Frost has limned the limbs of trees with a stark outline against the grey sky. The house is slow and lazy as we sleep and read and emerge into the world. A small bowl of hastily made dough has been waiting overnight, doubling in size as it prepares itself for… Continue reading The Story of Bread
Dust hung in the air. My skin was rough from living in this house for so long. The taste thick at the back of my mouth, though I was getting used to it. Somehow that was the scary bit. It was brick dust, the one with the thicker, grittier texture and almost biscuity taste: dry… Continue reading The Mess of Making
Why our faith is shallow IV If people agree with my concerns about what I’m calling the discipleship crisis, it’s fairly common that they finger our preaching as the culprit. I think there’s something to this, which is what this post is about, but I also think it’s an easy mark. Not only is there… Continue reading The application cart
I’m colourblind, and profoundly so. This admission in front of people usually results in a long litany of being asked what colours certain items in the room are and which colours I can’t see. I do pretty well at the test, you learn to cope and have some sense of what something might be. The… Continue reading Seeing in Colour
Autumn’s final blast of anger against Winter’s unthinking hate is over, every leaf that cannot cling to life has lit the match to self-immolate in protest. We have enjoyed the beauty of that unconstrained rage. This is the story the seasons tell—or one of them at any rate. Snow lay on the ground earlier this… Continue reading All Creation Waits
There’s a trope where we see pictures from a concert or a festival or some other notable event and no one in the crowd is watching. Instead, they’re looking at their phones. Of course, they’re taking pictures or videoing the event for posterity or to share with their friends later. It’s not that they’re not… Continue reading Uncapturable
We think of time in a very distinctive way, which many of our forebears did not. We think it’s linear, we think it’s homogenous—progressing in ordered sections we call days or years or hours—and we think it’s largely ‘empty,’ a container that is indifferent to what we fill it with. I’ve been reading Charles Taylor’s… Continue reading Time and the Table
Once a day dawned dark, the clouds hanging limp like wisps of smoke that clog the lungs after a fire has burned beyond its life. Tear-stained faces watched a man displayed, his torn body nailed to a tree torn from the ground and weeping over its foul fate. His face contorted with pain as his… Continue reading It is Finished
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