The Spectrum of Meaning
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….
Guise Podcast: exploring male intimate relationships
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…
On Sharing Convictions
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the idea of why we share convictions. With my evangelical background, it is very natural for me to want to tell everyone the things that I am convicted about. I’ve…
Learning To Talk About Things You Don’t Believe
My language has evolved significantly. I find myself being unwilling to use words that were common to me because of the connotations that I have become aware of. So much of life is language and…
The Proper Response To Ignorance Is Compassion
I like to debate. The practice of rhetoric and logic is something that I value highly and it’s something I want to continue to grow my skills in. Naturally, especially these days, the spectrum of…
Life’s Too Short To Pretend You’re Not Religious
My life is like a scavenger hunt. I’m constantly searching and trying to understand the world and my place in it. I’m pulled into mystery and beauty as I work my way through different realizations…
Why I Still Call Myself A Christian
This is a topic that has been bubbling back up among some of my friends lately. As I mentioned a few days ago, there is an abandoning of the common practices and beliefs of some…
Mike Bradley Is Digging A Hole
There was complaints about Mike Bradley (Sarnia’s mayor) conduct from the staff he works with. An integrity commissioner was hired for approx $60,000. The report was not very becoming of the mayor and it recommended…
Religion Is A Step In Consciousness And Needs To Submit To Greater Things
Photo Credit: Ziggy Marley Album Cover When you look at western society (especially white, middle class society), what are the things that people have ‘given themselves to’ that as a result infuses their life with meaning?…
Remembering Where You Came From
The more you think about it, black and white dichotomies of who we believe ourselves to be, or who we believe others to be, make no sense. We are all familiar with the ‘why’ exercise;…
A Prayer For Orlando And LGBTQ People Everywhere
Tonight we are here and we are uneasy. We are sad. We mourn the condition of the world. I wrote this prayer with a heavy heart and longing to comfort and show compassion to those with…
A Commentary On Being Type Eight
The Enneagram test is a personality test of sorts that is much more exhaustive I have found than the Myers Briggs. The descriptions are based on spectrum that also help understand health and unhealthy rhythms that folks…
On Despair and Depression Being A Disease Of Certainty
I’ve been toying with nihilism quite a bit as of late. Ecclesiastes’ author has become my friend. I start with everything is meaningless and then build from there my own sets of meaning that I…
How A Thinker Vents
Yesterday I explored this idea that a feeler that vents (in the thinker/feeler spectrum) is attempting to cope using thinking language. Though, I’m pretty far on the thinker side of this spectrum so I was…
Venting Is Emotional Release That Needs A Disclaimer
Thinking and Emotions are two different languages that humans speak. We all speak both, but some of us are much more fluent in one over the other. I am quite fluent in thinking, but…
#SaveSCITS Is More Than A Financial Decision
An unfortunate part of our society is that those focused on balancing budgets end up deflating imagination, robbing us of community and narrowing our values to being primarily economic in nature. We are seeing the…
Empathy: A Vehicle For Two
Empathy is a way of seeing the world and the people in it. Empathy I think is a way that our hearts are bent in order to better be people of love. It’s a way…
Vulnerability: A Parable on Giving and Receiving
Darryl Silvestri wrote this to me a few months ago in an attempt to explain vulnerability in a relationship. I want you to imagine you are playing the egg toss game. This is love. You…
Building Vs Growing A Church
Why do pastors so often treat congregations with the impatience and violence of developers building a shopping mall instead of the patient devotion of a farmer cultivating a field? The shopping mall will be abandoned in…
My Faith As My Art
I am not much of an artist in the traditional sense. I can’t draw, paint, sing, play or perform. I lean to the analytical side of the spectrum and spend a good amount of time…