Of all the 10 Commandments, the one about Honoring your mother is the first that carries a promise – that you’ll enjoy long life on the earth if you pay attention. Listen to your mother; she paid a price to bring you into the world and she knows a thing or two, so at least show some respect. My new collection of H2OPE stories honors ten women, some of them mothers. One of them was a 21st century mother and…
Happy Ascension Day 2018. Forty days after the resurrection and ten days until Pentecost, the church celebrates the ascension of Jesus. It is the culmination of his Advent, when the Word became flesh to dwell among us, to share human life and suffer human injustice and shame – to free us from sin and to transform us to be like him. What he began, he brought to completion and returned in triumph to heaven. The ancient prophecy said “he took captivity…
Five years ago, my wife and I joined our neighbors for an Earth Day Neighborhood Clean-Up. This year, snow was still covering parts of the woods and parkland around our house, so we’ve postponed for a week. Rain or shine, we’re gonna work together to clean things up. Instead, we went for a long walk along the river with some friends, which reinforced the relevance of the blog-post I put out in 2013, called Four Words for Earth Day’. I…
Here is a fitting word from Isaiah for Earth Day 2018; You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of thistles, cypress trees will flourish; stately pines will replace the thornbushes. This renewal of creation will bring great honor to the Lord’s name, and will be an everlasting sign of his power and love. (Isaiah…
On this 110th day of January, April 20, more than 4 weeks into spring, with my front-yard still snow-bound, I echo the words of Shakespeare’s Richard III about ‘the winter of our discontent’. When is this relentless winter gonna call it quits? Like Narnia before Aslan — ‘always winter but never Christmas!’ Happily there is a law of predictability woven into the fabric of creation that reassures me. This law is poetically expressed in Genesis as the story of Noah’s…
This week I’m highlighting Earth Day, which happens this Sunday, April 22. Since we share this planet with a few billion human neighbors and almost 9 million other species, large and small, it makes sense that we should clean up our room now and then. For sure, we’ll enjoy the view a lot more — and the fellow creatures with whom we share the garden will thank us, each in their own way. Frankly, I think it’s the least we…
This week I’ve been honking about Earth Day this coming Sunday. Despite the unseasonal sleet and freezing rain in my part of Southern Ontario this mid-April, the geese and ducks in our neighborhood seem to have felt quite at home. Yesterday I referred to a great video, Our Father’s World, on the importance of creation stewardship in the Christian life. In that video, sociologist Tony Campolo comments that “God created the universe to glorify himself – and when we destroy…
Yesterday I noted that next Sunday is Earth Day 2018 — and I gave some reasons why followers of Jesus might want to mirror the care that Jesus showed to the created world. Observing Earth Day is an opportunity to stand with the Creator and affirm that God’s creation is a stunningly magnificent thing. It is a chance to stand with the creation that groans under the weight of human recklessness, to share its sorrow and to pledge ourselves anew…
Next Sunday, April 22, is Earth Day 2018. Why should a follower of Jesus care about Earth Day? Maybe there’s a hint of an answer to the fact that Jesus joined us here in earthly life, worked with lumber, and with fishermen. He noticed weather patterns, felt hunger, drank wine, prayed in the hills and olive groves and served meals on the beach. Just maybe, as Creator, Jesus still thought the creation something precious as the Genesis story proclaims. That’s part of…
Village Well . . . Jesus was thirsty and fatigued by a 6-hour walk that had begun at sunrise. He had insisted on walking through Samaritan country with his disciples. The roads were fine, but the people there didn’t take kindly to Jews like Jesus and his disciples. Most Jews scorned Samaritans like high-caste Hindus despise untouchables. But Jesus was about to defy that practice. Hungry as well as thirsty and tired, he sat on the edge of the village…