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There are moments when words feel almost intrusive ... when speaking at all, risks diminishing what has been lost. The killing of ten people at a school in the small community of Tumbler Ridge is one of those moments. In a place where lives are closely woven, the grief is not abstract; it moves through families, classrooms, and daily routines that will never quite return to what they were. I have no answers to offer. I do not believe this kind of loss yields to explanation, a

Every once in a while doubt arises, usually with a raised eyebrow and a tired sigh: What if we made it all up? What if Jesus is a beautifully crafted myth ... an ancient con job, polished by centuries of repetition? It’s a fair question. Healthy even. Faith that can’t survive honest daylight isn’t faith; it’s superstition with better manners. But here’s the thing. When you actually look at the story we’re supposedly accusing of being fabricated, it behaves very badly for a li

THE SLOW TURNING HOME There comes a time when your heart grows still enough to hear its own footsteps. A time when the long shadows of struggle and sorrow stretch across your path, and you finally see how far you’ve wandered from the place you meant to be. Not all at once ... never all at once ... but slowly, through bruised hopes, through quiet disappointments, through the small calamities that shake loose the truth. And there, in the middle of your life, you pause. You feel

Have you ever wondered what God really wants from you? Well, every now and then the Scriptures feel as if they pause, draw us close, and say: Listen carefully.  It's in the book of Jeremiah 9:23–24, where we hear one of those rare moments when God explains ... simply and directly ... what truly matters. “ Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts ... boast about this: that they u

Where does my faith come from? It is not something I constructed later in life, brick by careful brick. No, instead it is an early root system ... deep, hidden, drinking from a soil I did not prepare. When I look closely, I see that the soil was gentleness. My faith sinks down into the yard of my grandfather’s house, under the shadow of a humongous willow tree whose branches brushed the grass like long, green prayers. That tree felt ancient to me as a child, though perhaps it

Growing old isn’t for sissies. Anyone who says otherwise is either very young, seriously blind, or in deep denial. I watched my dad age in much the same way the tide goes out ... slowly, almost politely. First he lost his brother, then his sister, and finally, my mom. One by one, the people who had spoken his childhood language disappeared - all his compatriots who had shared his world of wartime and depression ... gone. Eventually, he chose to relinquish even his car keys ..

We very much want to believe we are good. Not flawless, perhaps ... but decent. Well-intentioned. Caring enough. People with worthy hearts who mostly mean well, who try to contribute, who would never intentionally  do harm. This belief is comforting. It props us up. It allows us to move through the world with a quiet internal nod: I’m not the problem. And yet ... this may be the great stumbling block. Because the repentance the Bible talks about does not begin with obvious vi

There is a line Wendell Berry gives us when the world feels unbearable ... an invitation to turn toward the peace of wild things. It is not escapism. It is remembrance. A quiet return to those things that have always known how to live without panic, how to be rooted without despair. Long before Berry’s words, Jesus Christ spoke the same wisdom with astonishing gentleness: consider the lilies of the field. He was not romanticizing nature. He was re-centering the human soul. He

I did not know that bodies could grow old while the soul stayed young ... still barefoot on summer grass, still running toward the sound of someone calling my name. No one told me the mirror would change but the watcher behind my eyes would not. That this lined, wrinkled face would belong to someone who still feels seven inside. How strange, to walk with stumbling gait, to harbour aches and pains to grumble as eyes dim, while my spirit hums like a child skipp

Ah yes ... virtue signaling, that modern miracle where righteousness requires no lifting, no inconvenience, and certainly no actual people. Just a well-timed post, an oft-repeated statement, a carefully curated opinion, and voilà: moral glow achieved. I’ve been thinking about the difference between true, honest caring and this newer species of public virtue. The kind that is loud but light, polished but weightless. It looks impressive from a distance. Up close, it rarely leav

When I was seven, I knew Jesus without effort. Not with beliefs I could defend, not with words I had learned ... but with the simple knowing that He was kind, and that kindness felt like home. It was easy then. Uncomplicated. Like  reaching for a hand and finding it ... warm, steady. But life grew heavier. Noise crowded in. Disappointments reshaped my world, and certainty thinned like mist in the sun. Somewhere along the way, I fell back; turned less to my faith in His kindne

There is something quietly radical about the 23rd Psalm. David doesn’t begin with a declaration of strength, competence, or spiritual achievement. He begins with a confession of dependence. “The Lord is my shepherd.”  Which is another way of saying, I am not in charge. I am not self-sustaining. I am, by nature, someone who needs guidance. That alone is oddly comforting. Because pretending we don’t need help is exhausting. It requires constant performance: curated competence,

I’d make Him irrelevant . I wouldn’t burn churches. That only hardens belief. I wouldn’t outlaw prayer. That gives faith a backbone. No - those are crude tools. I’d do something far more effective: I’d let people keep the language  of faith while quietly hollowing out its weight . Like a beautifully bound book whose pages are blank. 1. I’d Replace Faith with Noise I’d drown silence. I’d make sure no one ever sat long enough to hear their own soul clear its throat. Phones buzz

Are you familiar with Paul Kingsnorth? He’s a British writer and thinker known for his environmental writing, his role in founding the Dark Mountain Project, and his later, much-discussed journey into Christian faith. Paul Kingsnorth’s journey matters for someone trying to understand faith because it shows that belief doesn’t begin with certainty - it begins with honesty. He didn’t arrive at faith by seeking comfort, community, or answers that made life easier. He arrived the

Shame has a particular weight. It doesn’t arrive loudly; it seeps in. It settles into the body and the breath and begins its quiet accounting. You knew better. You promised yourself. You were going to be different this time. It gathers evidence from missed obligations, from words said too sharply or not said at all, from the moment we recognize we have not lived up to the version of ourselves we had hoped to inhabit. Often, the shame is not about a single failure but about th

It’s a curious thing about human nature: we love stories of triumph, perseverance, and overcoming impossible odds. We cheer for the athlete who comes back from injury, the entrepreneur who rises from bankruptcy, the artist who finally achieves recognition. And yet, when someone attributes their success to God or to a higher power, many of us recoil, or dismiss it. Anthony Hopkins, for example, has spoken openly about his sobriety and how he couldn’t have achieved it without G

The word judgment  carries a chill. It sparks old images - courtrooms, verdicts, a final reckoning that feels abrupt and severe. Many of us were taught to imagine judgment as something waiting for us after  death, unknown and terrifying, as though God were withholding the results until the very end. But Scripture tells a quieter, more startling truth. Judgment is not only future. It is already at work ... woven into the way life unfolds. Again and again, Scripture returns t

Christmas isn’t always the glittery version we are promised. Sometimes it arrives carrying a quiet ache instead of bells. Sometimes it presses on the old bruises ... tricky family dynamics that didn’t alter with time, chairs that are empty now, conversations that never quite became what we hoped they would. There’s a particular kind of sadness that shows up at Christmas, isn’t there? Not loud grief, just a low hum of loss, confusion, disappointment. The sense that something s

This season has snuck in again ... lights blinking a little nervously, memories crowding the room, joy and grief sharing the couch like old acquaintances who’ve learned not to fight in public. There they sit, eyeing each other, checking the weight of what they carry, grief looking squarely at what's missing. Then joy gently whispers this invitation: to bask in blessings. Not the loud ones, joy says. Not brag-worthy miracles. Just the quiet abundance that we often rush past- h

Christ once said, Take heart. I have overcome the world. Which is a bold thing to say considering the world, and all its sharp edges. Because the world will take things from you. People, mostly. Dreams too ... quietly, when you aren’t looking. It will misplace your confidence, misfile your prayers, and occasionally overdraft your bank account, just to keep you humble. You will lose what you thought was solid. You will trust someone who turns out to be loyal only to themselv