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16
Apr
2021
Thurs. Spr. 15, 2021
In January 1993, Joan and I took our winter holiday in Montserrat, one of the less-visited islands of the Caribbean. It was so less-visited, it only had three hotels.
Four years later, the island’s volcano blew up. It buried the capital city in ash. To the rooftops.
Then in January 2008, we went to St. Vincent, at the other end of the Caribbean chain of islands. Five of us hiked up to the rim of St. Vincent’s volcano, past ferns growing 30-feet tall.
We peered down into swirling mists in the crater. I’d love to have gone down, but the rock walls were too sheer for anything but trained climbers with ropes and pitons.
Last week, the volcano on St. Vincent blew up.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: volcano, coincidence, St.Vincent, Caribbean
8
Thursday April 8, 2021
The church congregation I belong to has held an Easter Sunrise service for at least 40 years. The last two years, however, Covid-19 has thrown a virus into the works. Health restrictions prohibit any gathering of people. And any singing.
This year, for some reason that I cannot fully define, I felt that I needed a sunrise service.
If we couldn’t have one collectively, I decided, I would have one individually.
Which is why I found myself, half an hour before dawn on Easter Sunday, climbing a steep trail up Spion Kop, a local peak.
Tags: Easter, sunrise
I got my Covid-19 vaccination a couple of weeks ago. I’m glad that my age puts me near the head of the line.
But then Jack Knox, a Victoria columnist, asked who should be at the end of the line?
Because somebody has to be last. Don’t they?
Most of us would agree about those who should get preference.
But who’s not on the list?
The question implies a deserving factor. Which is rooted, I would argue, in a belief that the universe is supposed to be fair. Those who are good get rewarded; those who aren’t, get punished.
Tags: COVID-19, vaccination, fairness
27
Mar
Thursday March 25, 2021
In our Sunday morning services over Zoom, our minister includes about 30 seconds of silence, in which people can say the words of any prayer that’s most meaningful to them.
Many, I’m sure, repeat the traditional Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, Which Art in Heaven…”
Some might remember the Latin words: “Pater noster, qui es in caelis…”
I suspect many just fall silent, because they don’t know what to say, or to whom.
Why don’t we all just say the traditional Lord’s Prayer? Because a few people – I’m one of them -- have genuine difficulties with the all-knowing all-seeing old-man-in-the-sky image I used to accept unthinkingly.
Rather, over the years, I’ve become convinced, beyond any doubt, that God is not out there, somewhere, but right here. Right now.
So for that 30 seconds, I turn to some of my favourite prayers, which are about the right length to fit the silence.
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Tags: Prayers
Thursday March 18, 2021
I remember one of life’s sensory pleasures, walking barefoot on the mudflats at Hopewell Rocks Park at the top of the Bay of Fundy, feeling the sun-warmed red mud squishing up between my toes.
It was almost sacramental -- like having my feet gently massaged by Jesus’ hands in the Upper Room.
It’s much less pleasant when the stuff squishing between one’s toes is goose poop.
Unfortunately, poop is what Canada Geese are best known for.
As a result, Canada Geese have become undesirable.
And yet Canada Geese have a number of admirable characteristics that we humans might emulate.
Tags: Canada, Geese, migration, poop