When a Canadian soldier dies in Afghanistan, or any where else they are serving in the world, the Legion branch I belong to lowers their flag to half staff. The usual protocol for a period of mourning is 10 days or the day of the funeral, which ever comes first. On this blog and one fo my other blogs, Out of the Shadows, I post a memorial entry which stays at the top of the blog for the same period.

The month of May has been a bit difficult to get that flag back to the top of the pole. In fact, we haven’t succeeded yet. We’ve had four Canadians killed in Afghanistan, which for my American readers is a very small number, spaced out so that 10 days has not passed without a death.

As some American friends have noted, if the Americans lowered their flags like we do, they would never fly at full staff. As much as I wait and pray for the day when the flag can be returned to the top of the pole, it flying at half staff reminds me that Canadians are putting their life on the line for me every single day. Read the rest of this entry

As I sat in church this past Easter Sunday my eyes roamed across the stain-glass windows beginning with the one in the sanctuary which the bright morning sun was setting aglow as it streamed through it.

As I moved from window to window I was struck how they depicted the community around Christ as being up close and personal. In all of Christ’s ministry he moved amongst the people. He didn’t set himself apart. He was a part of the community which formed around him.

That’s one of the aspects of this church community I’ve always enjoyed. When I joined it some fifteen years ago there were about fifty people attending regularly. It wasn’t a close community of people who came together each week but it was a warm group.

Members of the congregation read the readings, the lay reader read the gospel. The congregation was either too small for a deacon or no priest felt the need to put one in place. Over the years the congregation has dwindled, through death, clashes with clergy or people just wandering away from church life. Read the rest of this entry

Through a friend on Twitter, @gailhyatt I’ve been exposed to some Orthodox Christian podcasts. They are interesting to listen to, they provide perspectives I wouldn’t always encounter from an Anglican viewpoint. Everyone needs perspective.

One of the podcasts I listen to is by a Father Thomas Hopko, it is called “Speaking the Truth in Love”. A week or so ago Fr. Tom read an email he had received from a listener which caught my attention. She wanted to know why God played favourites.

The lady indicated in her email she had grown up in an alcoholic home, which at minimum meant she had experienced emotional abuse. I didn’t grow up in an alcoholic home but I experienced abuse.

The lady wrote that she believed some children are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, they are holy from birth and have all of the advantages. Others never get the chance to become saints because they are used and abused and never have a choice. She asks why some go sailing up the mountain to be saints while others stumble around at the foot of the mountain, never able to trust God enough to make it up the mountain.
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I remember one of those rare times my dad told me a story about his wartime experiences, about his unit’s Chaplain and his unshakable faith. After a long day out on patrol near enemy lines in Italy his unit had found a deserted home to spend the night in. After they ate dad noticed the Chaplain seated by the window catching the last of the daylight, reading. Dad approached him and asked him “Padre, don’t you think you are taking an awful risk sitting there by the window?”. The answer he got was a calm, “son, if the good Lord is ready for me today, it wont matter where I’m sitting” and he returned to his book.

My mind went back to that story many times as I read Walsh’s book. He, who possessed that unquestioned trust in the one to whose hands he had entrusted his life. Walsh recounts her struggles to learn to take the leap of faith that let her trust as he had. She didn’t emerge from the battlefields of war ravaged Italy, she emerged instead from the war within that clinical depression engages us in.

That trust and the peace that comes with it didn’t come to her in a flash of almighty insight. It came to her one small piece and step at a time as she learned Christ doesn’t take us out of the pain that life brings us, he comes to hold us as we go through it together. She takes the reader through her own journey, not back to where she was before depression crumpled her but forward to where her growing trust in the Father was leading her, a step at a time. Read the rest of this entry

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the holy season of Lent. Lent is the fourty days leading up to Holy Week, a period of thought and reflection before we celebrate the risen Lord on Easter Sunday.

I’m providing you today with a link to a set of Stations of the Cross which I wrote a few years ago.

Central to our belief is that Christ walked amongst us, tried to reach out to us as one of us and became the sacrificial lamb for all of our sins through the crucifixion and resurrection.

The stations are used as focal points for prayer, mediation and reflection on the journey Christ took in the hours leading up to and during his crucifixion. I’ve put them online for those who wish to explore.

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year, it was also the first official day of winter. We’ve been pretty fortunate so far, we’ve had very little snow so far this season. For the first time in 160 years there was zero snow in November.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really dislike winter. I do love the beauty of a winter snowfall, even the beauty of ice clinging to trees after freezing rain. I don’t enjoy the treacherous roads the weather brings. I deal with them by refusing to budge from the house when a storm is underway or imminent.

The start of winter also brings us very close to Christmas Day, just three days away as I write this entry. I’m going to be spending a quiet day at home on Christmas Day. Depending on the weather on Christmas Eve, I will be going to church and then will settle in for a couple of days of quiet time. I’m looking forward to that time. I have some reading I want to do and some writing. Read the rest of this entry

“Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink”.  As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” — Jn 7:37-38

Water is what sustains us in life. In these days of global warming one of the great fears is that water, particularly clean water, will become a scarce resource. Predictions have been made that some where in the future wars will be fought over access to water.

There are different kinds of thirst. There is the thirst that we slack with water or some other beverage. Some days it takes more beverage than others to quench that thirst. It is thirst from within that can drive us on quests of a lifetime. The thirst to know and understand is the thirst that drives us through our lives.

My inner thirst at times seems to come and go but it never really ends. There is much I want to know and to understand but nothing so great as looking ever deeper into this faith which I have chosen to embrace. Read the rest of this entry