I saw the movie About Schmidt in 2002. Jack Nicolson was outstanding, portraying a man who retires at the same time his wife dies and his relationship with his only child is highly problematic. Like a lot of men his age Schmidt has fostered few relationships, relying on work to fill his sense of meaning and purpose. He was very close to his wife but now she is gone. As his career comes to an end...

Good Friday is coming soon. Whenever I think of the Cross I think of Clarence Jordan. Jordan was a son of the south, a man who earned both a doctorate in Agriculture and Greek. Jordan felt called to help change his native south by introducing Gospel values to a land torn apart by racial strife. The farm was called Koinonia, which translates a fellowship or community... 

Nostalgia. I don’t like it. But I hear it all the time. Even in my First Aid instruction last week the instructor made reference to how we should intervene in cases of emergency and offer to help. He then said, “Even in these times there are people who want to help”, inferring that “in these times” people would be reluctant to help. He was also inferring that in the past people would have been more willing to help. That may be true, I happen to agree that our social connections with each other are frayed, that we now silo ourselves into others who agree with us...

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. – James 1:19

I’ve been doing a lot of listening on the bus. If you are truly open to these kind of conversations you never know what you can learn. May all of us learn from each other, and thus learn from our God who calls us to relationship...

Our text is about a parade. Have you attended a parade? Have you marched in a parade? For me the answers are yes and yes. But all of these parade experiences come from my childhood. You see my mother once presided over all of the majorette groups in Halifax. Some of you likely have never heard of majorettes but at one time almost ever girl and young woman would have participated in the majorette experience. My mother had been a highly skilled majorette... 

Tomorrow I preside and preach at a funeral for a man who died suddenly while working out. It is a reminder that no matter how fit and positive your life our bodies are fragile and unpredictable. I am not someone who subscribes to the view “when it’s your time” you die. I will never attempt to dissuade people who hold to this theology, it just doesn’t work for me. For while I believe in Jesus, the dynamic quality of an active Holy Spirit and the love of a Creator who made all things I can’t square the idea of a God who arbitrarily chooses some to live and some to die on some kind of divine whim...

One major difference between the Christian denominations is the way they portray God. In most Protestant mainline churches God is less personal, and more virtue. In a philosophy class I took at Dalhousie university professor George Grant, a Christian, often spoke of God as Truth, Justice, and Love. God was experienced in the moments when our lives became instruments of Truth, Justice and Love...

Joe Jackson sings a song I just love, “You Can’t Get What You Want Till You Know What You Want.” The intent of the song is simple, if you want something to happen in your life the chances that that event or experience will occur rise dramatically IF you identify to yourself and others what that is...

Today I spoke to three people affected by cancer. One was a senior man who has just completed his treatments. Another was a widow whose husband died recently. And another was a parent whose adult child is living with cancer. In all three cases the conversation, driven by them, was about attitude. There is an emerging consensus that a positive attitude...

Big things and little things. I have a theory about those of us who want to make the world a better place. In our hearts we know the ambulance theory; when people are being pushed off the cliff and falling to the ground many of us feel called to be at the bottom, assisting the victims with their injuries. But how many will try to get to the source of the problem,..

Seventeenth Century Nun's Prayer

Lord, thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older and will some day be old. Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on every subject and on every occasion. Release me from craving to...

Writer Sarah Dylan Breuer believes the core of our lectionary text this morning can be found in John 11:44 “Unbind him, and let him go.” Or in her words, “Open every dark place to light and air; this is the time to uncover and unbind!” Breuer’s analysis of this text is this, Jesus has come to heal and mend that which is broken. And Jesus heals these wounds, our wounds, and the world’s wounds, by unbinding those in pain and letting them go...

People say they don’t like labels. But then in the next breath they will make a comment about a group they find hard to understand. My more progressive friends will talk about “labels are only for cans” all the time and then launch into a critique of the right or conservatives. It shows a lack of self-awareness but I also shows that people underestimate the necessity of labels as tools of understanding...

Yesterday I sat with a man who has had more than his share of worries. He is estranged from his partner and children, he is out of work, he has no money, the EI he receives all goes to child support (which he is supportive of), was recently in hospital with a bad back and he lives with chronic mental illness. There are many ways one can respond to such information. Some would sit in judgement and question some of the recent life decisions this man has made. That kind of approach is designed to make us feel better, not him...

I know many, many perfectionists, persons who live for excellence in all things. Thank God for them and people like them. Without them there would be no beautiful buildings, no remarkable paintings, no orchestras or Opera singers or technology that allows us to move beyond hard labour to a more gentle life. Without these perfectionists, without a spirit of excellence our culture would not be what it is, without them there would be no pieces of art or works of literature that would stand the test of time, work that would move people for generations to come. I love these people...

I am an odd man. Whenever I hear of a terrible accident or of someone who had an unfortunate experience here or there I want to know precisely when and where it happened. Why? I want to know about these things because in my heart of hearts I think if I just had been there I could have prevented the accident or the unfortunate experience. It is irrational and silly to think this way, I know that. But nonetheless it is my reaction to each and every story of bad news. “I could have done something to prevent that”, I tell myself...

26 years ago I knew, as do most people, that people have a way of seeing the world only through their own eyes. I have been, and continue to be, guilty of this sin. I would like to think that spending as much time as I do with the variety of people I meet each day; the homeless, the working class, the middle class, the upper middle class, seniors, parents, people in the city, people in the suburbs, women and men, gay and straight, liberals and conservatives and socialists, environmentalists and people who think climate change is a hoax, evangelicals and atheists, people living with mental illness...

“Love your neighbour as yourself” cannot mean love your neighbour as if your neighbour were you. Only”

― William H. Willimon, Fear of the Other: No Fear in Love

I’ve been reflecting on why I am so eager to share the variety of ways Christians have understood the Bible, discipleship, healing, church and theology...

Last Sunday in an excellent sermon by retired Minister Brian Brown we heard again the surprising ending to the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan. But before that ending there was a question from a lawyer. “What must we do to inherit eternal life?” Then came the story. And remember that the crucial part of the story was the surprise ending. It was not the lawyer or the Minister who stopped to help the Jewish man in the ditch. It was the hated Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans loathed each other...

Saj House is an amazing Lebanese restaurant located at 19 Alma Crescent, off Dutch Village Rd in Fairview, Halifax. I would recommend it to anyone. I found it by chance, a friend took me there for lunch. He wanted me to try something different than my usual choices and he knew it was close to the church. As we arrived I met the owner, a very outgoing young woman. She told me that her restaurant used to go by a different name, owned and operated then by her late father. She told me that after her father died...