Don’t Throw Hope Off the Cliff

Hope is not blind optimism. It is not ignoring the realities of injustice, suffering, or rejection. Hope is the conviction that even in the face of resistance, even when we are pushed to the edges, God is still at work. Hope is the courage to proclaim a love that is wider than expected, to insist on justice that includes those who have been cast aside, and to trust in the abundance of God’s grace when the world tells us to hoard what we have.

The Beauty in Persistence

Folk artist Maud Lewis likely never imagined from her tiny house in Marshalltown, NS, that her life would be depicted in a film. Maud Lewis was born in 1903 in South Ohio, NS, not far from Yarmouth. She married her husband, Everett, in 1938 and the two lived without electricity or running water in a…

A Heart for Persistence

You can listen to the audio version here. Last week, at the Covenanting Service, I gave each of the Transition Team members a small pottery heart with the words, ‘Take Heart’ on them. That phrase comes from one of my favourite passages of scripture, from Matthew 14: It’s when Jesus comes walking on the water, and…

That’s Not in My Job Description!

In order to make sense of the story I just read, you need to have a bit of background. Jesus is taking some time away; he is tired from the demands being made upon him. He was in Tyre, which was an ancient seaport of Phoenicia: one of the great cities of antiquity, famous of its…