Today we took a tour of Hebron and Bethlehem. There is quite a bit of history of these two places and they each have their own specific history with Israel. We set out to meet different folks that could share their stories with us. The first thing we saw was the Cave of the Patriarchs. […]
I finished Yves Engler’s book on Israel and Canada while I’m here, along with Chomsky and Ilan Pappé’s book: Gaza in Crisis. What a history we (Canada) have with modern Israel, the settlements, Zionism, weapon trade, military training, economic support, maintaining the apartheid policies and oppressing/murdering the Palestinian people. It’s sickening and further disenfranchises me
There is an ease as I stroll Through settlements I visit It feels like home My curiosity is in what I consume The way it tastes when it goes into my body The satisfaction, the creativity, the art My interest is in what it looks like The shape the letters take The colours, the flow,
Identity and meaning are two different concepts that I have been thinking about lately, especially in how they connect. I have some friends who were raised as Christians. Overtime, as they read and grew they began to disassociate themselves from any meaning from the idea of Christianity. The identity was no longer meaningful for them. I
In our first day in Bethlehem, Palestinian territory, we met a Palestinian Christian gay man who gave Josh a haircut and introduced us to his mother who only could remember French. He gave us a tour of the house that his father built ninety years ago and let us try some chocolate cake that he
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. I never understood this quote when I first heard it. I got the kind part, but not the battle part. I think most of us go through life experiencing other people as the sum of our interactions with that person. So unless you know
Almost every day I write little notes to myself and tuck them away. They are usually a quick thought running through my head, anecdotes for the solving of all of the world’s problems or things that I’d like to think further on. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and write something down
It’s weird to do a sermon on a tradition. When we speak about tradition it’s normally about the sacred cows that we can’t touch or about the things that we have gotten over and no longer care about. Rarely do we touch upon traditions from a balanced perspective, refuse to throw out babies with bathwater
Understanding evangelion (Greek word for good news) is critical for understanding Christ and the Kingdom of God. I think it’s time that we admit and separate the idea of gospel/good news from our beliefs of judgment and hell. The good news is many things. Jesus talks about the good news a bit in Luke 4. The Spirit
I wrote this as an attempt to flesh out some of my experience to the drama that unfolded with my most recent series of posts. I’m fascinated at how important we’ve made “beliefs” in our lives. It’s as if we think our salvation lies in what we think in our heads or the words that
Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From
I’m wrestling with the idea of the ramifications of my recent post. I admit that I am a blatant and careless at times and get quite a bit of pleasure at watching the ruptures of empty ideology, but the last thing I actually want to do is cause hurt or more pain in the world.
My post There Are More Ways To God Than Jesus has gained some attention. As usual, these are contentious issues that bring up a lot of the things that we hold onto and calls them into question. One of the things that has come up a lot is this accusation that I do not believe
One of the signs of a dying belief system is the self-affirming rigidity and exclusion that it promotes. A deeply held belief in evangelical Christianity is that “Jesus is the only way to God and heaven.” A statement like this is attempting to deny all other attempts and paths to God. Classic arguments for this way
I have realized that I have gone through much of my life not being a safe person for many people. I remember the first time I realized this about myself. I had family visiting from out of town. It was my first year of university. I would only see this family every few years. I
[Picture is one I took in Iceland, it was an unforgettable moment of gratitude and awe that has never left.] Each morning the sun rises We are overwhelmed with what lies ahead We are anxious about what’s left to be done We are feeling inadequate to all of what life brings The hours bleed into
Just before Christmas, a few women took it upon themselves to shut down Line 9 as an act of resistance against the corporations persistence to overlook their responsibilities towards the land and people they have agreements with. The three women shut down the pipeline’s manual hand wheel and bike locked their necks to the valve.
Upon visiting some friends in Guatemala City at a B&B they are running, this question rang relevant again. Sitting on the rooftop of a city with some of the highest murder rates in the world per capita, and hearing stories of all the horrible things that have happened within eyesight of that rooftop, really puts
Last night I found myself in a fascinating conversation with friends about the differences between us. It started when they were explaining the romantic notion of a book/story like Into the Wild, or Johnny Cash. Two of them were trying to explain to me the attraction to such a story. That there was some sort
The last year has been an exploration of vulnerability for me that has competely altered the way I have understood myself and my relationship to others. From our Men’s Vulnerability Group, understanding myself and what vulnerability means for me and the balancing act of how this works practically all of these things have established a new foundation