McDougall United Church (not the houses of parliament!) – with marc james and the republic
This is a pretty special room. I have great memories of playing here with Matty Maher and Audrey Assad back in the day.

PS: Photos courtesy of winston woo. thanks winston.

So i wasn’t lying! Here’s some incontrovertible proof of the country indoctrination taking place from an early age. It’s hard to watch/listen….

The following two passages by Billy Graham and Eugene Peterson have been resonating through the silence – and sometimes chaos – of my soul over the last few months. I have been meditating on not just the words, but also the shape of Jesus’ ministry while He was on earth. What theologians refer to as the ‘silent years’ seem to me to be almost as important a message to his servants as his words and works are. If the urgency with which so many of Christ’s servants approach their tasks in these days was a value of Christ’s, why did he wait so long to step into public ministry? Why was he not preaching and performing miracles from the moment he was able to speak? Why did He consistently withdraw from public ministry – even when it seemed that his message was beginning to gain momentum? Surely the way in which Jesus performed his earthly service should have some bearing on the way in which we perform ours. If He was willing to wait and withdraw perhaps we should consider doing the same? Listen to Billy Graham reflect on his life below…

“Although I have much to be grateful for as I look back over my life, I also have many regrets. I have failed many times, and I would do many things differently.
For one thing, I would speak less and study more, and I would spend more time with my family. When I look back over the schedule I kept thirty or forty years ago, I am staggered by all the things we did and the engagements we kept. Sometimes we flitted from one part of the country to another, even from one continent to another, in the course of only a few days. Were all those engagements necessary? Was I as discerning as I might have been about which ones to take and which to turn down? I doubt it. Every day I was absent from my family is gone forever. Although much of that travel was necessary, some of it was not.
I would also spend more time in spiritual nurture, seeking to grow closer to God so I could become more like Christ. I would spend more time in prayer, not just for myself but for others. I would spend more time studying the Bible and meditating on is truth, not only for sermon preparation but to apply its message to my life. It is far too easy for someone in my position to read the Bible only with an eye on a future sermon, overlooking the message God has for me through its pages. And I would give more attention to fellowship with other Christians, who could teach me and encourage me (and even rebuke me when necessary).”

- Billy Graham, page 744, Just as I am (the autobiography of Billy Graham).

Coming at it from a different angle, Eugene Peterson draws the metaphor from the literary classic Moby Dick.

‘The poised Harpooner’

In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, there is a turbulent scene in which a whaleboat scuds across a frothing ocean in pursuit of the great, white whale, Moby Dick. The sailors are laboring fiercely, every muscle taut, all attention and energy concentrated on the task. The cosmic conflict between good and evil is joined; chaotic sea and demonic sea monster versus the morally outraged man, Captain Ahab. In this boat, however, there is one man who does nothing. He doesn’t hold an oar; he doesn’t perspire; he doesn’t shout. He is languid in the crash and the cursing. This man is the harpooner, quiet and poised, waiting. And then this sentence: “To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooners of this world must start to their feet out of idleness, and not out of toil.”

Melville’s sentence is a text to set alongside the psalmist’s “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10), and alongside Isaiah’s “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isa. 30:15).

- Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, page 24.

It goes against everything that our cultural desire for success demands, but a life grounded and settled in meditation, community and Christ seems to be the one that not only pleases our Master, but also leads to effective ministry. Our first view of God in the scriptures is a God creating and then resting. Somehow as ministers of our Lords gospel we need to follow our Master and swim against the the cultural current that demands nonstop ministry and public service. Three years was the span of Jesus’ public ministry. I have been serving many times longer than that, but it hardly seems worth pointing out who’s ministry was more effective . Help me Lord to nurture my relationship with You, with my family and with the lives of those in my community. Amen.

Don’t watch THIS if you hate cruelty to animals.
I can’t look away. Thanks Scotty.
PS: No animals were harmed during the making of this film.

A Prayer of St. Teresa of Avila

Lord,
Thou knowest better than I myself
that I am growing older and will someday be old.
Keep me from the fatal habit of thinking
I must say something on every subject and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to
straighten out everybody’s affairs.

Make me thoughtful but not moody;
helpful but not bossy.

With my vast store of wisdom,
it seems a pity not to use it all;
but Thou knowest, Lord,
that I want a few friends at the end.
Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details;
give me wings to get to the point.

Seal my lips on my aches and pains;
they are increasing, and love of rehearsing them
is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

I dare not ask for improved memory,
but for a growing humility and a lessening cock-sureness
when my memory seems to clash with the memories of others.
Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet, for a sour old person
is one of the crowning works of the devil.
Give me the ability to see good things in unexpected places
and talents in unexpected people;
and give, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.
Amen.

St. Teresa of Avila

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

“Citizenship in a Republic,”
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

Theodore Roosevelt.

We are so used to the entropy of the universe that we hardly think twice about it. To be honest it would be exhausting if we had to acknowledge it wherever we saw it. We take it as given that new things become old, that young faces become lined, that people become sick, that our sun is fading, that eventually we all die. This is life as we’ve found it. As we face it each day.

But, when the kingdom of God comes this entropy gets reversed. This inexorable collapse we are so familiar with is shaken. God’s Kingdom is not fully here yet, but occasionally we see it breaking through into our lives and it is fantastic!! His Kingdom comes like a river, pouring into the lowest places, filling up the empty places, often flowing from the gathering of God’s people. This passage from Ezekiel hints at what that looks like, and what life is like when God’s kingdom is near…

Then he led me back to the bank of the river. 7 When I arrived there, I saw a great number of trees on each side of the river. 8 He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah,[b] where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. 9 Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live. 10 Fishermen will stand along the shore; from En Gedi to En Eglaim there will be places for spreading nets. The fish will be of many kinds—like the fish of the Mediterranean Sea. 11But the swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they will be left for salt. 12 Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing.”

Ezekiel 47.