hallelujah

A video from the small Yupiq Eskimo Village of Quinhagak, Alaska that was a school computer project intended for the other Yupiq villages in the area has, to the surprise of the villagers, been viewed by over one million people. To see why view it here: Hallelujah Chorus

the dove

     I saw the dove come down, the dove with the green twig, the childish dove out of the storm and the flood. It came toward me in the style of the Holy Spirit descending. I had been sitting in a cafe for twenty-five years waiting for this vision. It hovered over the great quarrel. I surrendered to the iron laws of the moral universe which make a boredom out of everything desired. Do not surrender, said the dove. I have come to make a nest in your shoe. I want your step to be light. 

- Leonard Cohen (Death of a Lady's Man, 1978)

transplant plus seventy

Today marks seventy days since I received my stem cells and began the day by day recovery to normalcy. Given that the doctors predict a return to work after ninety days this leaves just three weeks until I can likely get back to ministry with University Hill Congregation. I am fortunate that there have been no set backs along the way so far. I am feeling eager to return but know that slow and steady is the necessary course to take.

advent begins with trouble

Advent begins with trouble. This is the odd counter-cultural movement of the Christian Year. Just when the stores are in full swing, with jingling bells providing encouragement to Christmas shoppers along comes the season of Advent. Advent is the first season of the year. Its liturgical colour is blue. Advent is the season that tells the truth about the blues. It is the season that refuses to ignore the troubles that plague the world, the nations, the church, the family, the soul. Advent is the deep blue of the morning, just at dawn as the dark night is coming to an end.

kingdom come

The Christian Year is a living tradition. Changes to the calendar occur as the church discovers new ways to express the gospel through the narrative told in annual festivals and seasons. Some innovations become widespread and long-lasting. Others flower for a brief period and then fade. The current experiment with a Season of Creation is a case in point. On first glance this seems a worthy effort reflecting the church’s concern to proclaim the gospel in the face of global warming and the widespread extinction of species. Yet there are problems when the church begins to shape the year in response to particular crises, no matter how urgent. Soon special Sundays and months named for - and devoted to - particular injustices and issues threaten to take over the calendar. Preachers feel compelled to speak the Word in response to an issue rather than to host the Word and then to testify freely to its news, unconfined by a pre-determined agenda. The Word, which is not so much an answer to our pre-determined questions as it is a new set of questions that confront our common sense assumptions, can be inadvertently silenced as a result.

transplant plus two months

At first I measured the time post transplant in days, then weeks. Now I am measuring the time in months. Two months ago today. Another month to go until I expect to be cleared to return to work part-time. I expect that at some point soon there won't be anything to report in a weekly update. It will mean life is back to normal. That's the interesting thing. Life already feels pretty normal again. The shock of being diagnosed with an incurable cancer seems to have worn off.

the church's talent

Looking ahead to Sunday I see that the gospel lesson in the ecumenical lectionary is the parable of the talents. I remembered the struggle to wrestle a blessing from this text a few years back. It was one of those weeks when preparing the sermon was a conversion experience for the preacher. I came to see this familiar parable in a whole new light. It was as if the text broke open to reveal a hidden treasure. As Clarence Jordan was fond of saying: a parable from Jesus is like a Trojan horse - you let it in, and bam! - it’s got you. All going well, and the doctors being in agreement, I am hoping to be back preaching on the third Sunday of Advent (December 11). In the meantime, here is the parable as told by Matthew followed by that sermon from November 2002.