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Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'
To make Comments write directly to Jim at
jimt@quixotic.ca
24
Mar
2023
Who benefits from hospital visits?
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday February 9, 2023
Some people do hospital visiting as easily as eggs roll off counters. I don’t -- the same way I don’t do windows. Or go door-knocking in political campaigns. I can, but I avoid it.
My dislike of hospital visiting might derive from having made most of my hospital visits to dying people -- my mother, my father, my son, my wife…
During the year I served a Toronto congregation as a “pastoral associate” – a fancy description for a lay person filling a clergy role – one of my duties was hospital visiting. I had to force myself to do it.
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24
Mar
2023
Discovering ourselves in our God-moments
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday February 9, 2023
My congregation starts Sunday morning worship services with something we call “God-moments.”
A former minister, Jim Hannah, started God-moments. Although he has gone, the concept has carried on.
Our current minister introduces God-moments as “moments when you have felt the presence of God especially close to you. It might have been this week, or perhaps some rime earlier in your life…”
They are, for me, the most worshipful times of the whole service.
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24
Mar
2023
Why groundhogs might feel grumpy
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday February 2, 2023
Once or twice a week, a phone call wakes me at 5:30 a.m. I struggle out of deep slumber, and hear a recorded greeting: “Hi, this is Daniel from Amazon Prime. We have detected some suspicious activity on your Amazon Prime account…”
I don’t have an Amazon Prime account. I have never had an Amazon Prime account. And thanks to Daniel, I have resolved never to have one.
I expect that groundhogs all over North America have similar feelings every Thursday, February 2, Groundhog Day.
If I were a groundhog, I would be hibernating peacefully in my underground, earth-insulated den, when an arm reaches in, grabs me by the scruff of my neck, and hauls me out into the freezing cold of a winter’s day.
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24
Mar
2023
Christian unity calls for more than words
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday January 26, 2023
The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity started Wednesday January 25. I’m not sold on it. But I’m not sure I should say so. I mean, Christian unity is a good thing, isn’t it?
I have very little in common with the gun-totin' far-right evangelical fringe in the U.S. that’s now being called “Christian nationalism.” Just as they have little in common with the Christian minority in India being squeezed out by the strongly pro-Hindu policies of Narendra Modi. And as they in turn have little in common with the robed guardians of priceless art treasures in the Vatican.
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24
Mar
2023
When Prince Harry chooses a surname
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday January 19, 2023
No, I haven't read Prince Harry’s autobiography, Spare, yet. But I see that the book’s cover doesn't give the author a last name.
He is just “Prince Harry.”
It turns out, Harry doesn't have a last name. His birth certificate names him Henry Charles Allen David. No surname.
I haven’t been able to find out how U.S. Immigration processed an entry application from a man who left “Surname” blank. Although I imagine that Bob Newhart could create a hilarious monologue about it.
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