Seeking Freedom, Building Home

More than 30 years ago, the Rev. Eleanor Scarlett arrived at Cole Harbour United Church as an intern. I was on her Lay Supervision Team, the group set up to support and evaluate her over the 8 months with us. She came to us from Toronto, after emigrating from Jamaica, she was had been a…

Everybody Knows… and Still We Sing Hallelujah

A five-year-old boy and his father detained in Minneapolis and sent to a Texas ICE facility… An observer shot dead yesterday when he was already subdued by multiple ICE agents… 100 clergy of all faiths arrested for blocking a road while protesting the airlines that were flying people to ICE facilities…. It’s enough to make…

Rags of Light

Think globally, act locally. That’s a phrase that has been used in a variety of settings and organizations since the late 60s. There is no consensus on just who coined it and where it started, but the general premise is the same. “Think globally, act locally” urges people to consider the well being of the…

The Courage to Stay in the Dance of Love

This little plaque was given to me at my 8th birthday party, and it’s one of the few things I took with me when I left home as a young teenager. Now, I don’t think anyone, even the most religious amongst us would consider giving something like this to a child now. And in retrospect,…

A Reflection for the Longest Night

And so we gather in the dark — not to escape it, but to honour it.
Because darkness is honest. It does not pretend.
Because darkness is where seeds grow.
And because, as the gospel writer tells us, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

Deep Spirituality, Bold Discipleship, Daring Justice

Welcome back to Theological Banquet! We’re in a five-part series inspired by Undivided Love and Rev. Janet Gear’s research, using a banquet metaphor for different faith expressions. Understanding these categories helps us see how people are motivated by faith and even when they disagree with us—all paths are valid. Last week, we focused on those…

Unlearn and Learn

I thought I knew a fair bit about Indigenous Peoples in Canada. I lived in Labrador for three years and went to school with Indigenous students, although it was as a teenager. I was married to an Inuit man. I did my grad project at AST on Residential Schools. NOTHING however, prepared me for a…

Presence

Surely, the presence of the Lord is in this place. As I pondered the very long reading this week, that line from the hymn we sang a few minutes ago, kept ringing through my head. Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place. I could remember singing it… I went searching in the…