encrusted words

Tag: faith

  • are you bored yet?

    are you bored yet?

    This piece was recently on exhibit at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, as part of the exhibit “From Van Gogh to Kandinsky.” I was struck by how thoroughly modern and contemporary this image feels – it could have been painted yesterday, but was in fact created in 1910 by Ernest Ludwig Kirchner. The curator…

  • Christ the King – Politics and Palliative Care

    Christ the King – Politics and Palliative Care

    This morning we come to the end of the church year. Over the past twelve months we have celebrated God’s self-revelation in Advent and Christmas and Epiphany. We have recalled the suffering patience of Jesus in the season of Lent. We have walked through the darkness of Good Friday into the glory of Easter morning.…

  • this table – the shape of community

    this table – the shape of community

    We cannot sit at this table and at the same time live in ways that represent a refusal or betrayal of this table.

  • travelling together – creativity through difficult days

    Several weeks before she passed away this summer, Shuling Chen gave her friends an opportunity to travel with her on the path of suffering and dying and living and loving. She did so by hosting a time of worship and reflection with us at the Jewish General Hospital where she was receiving palliative care. It was a deeply meaningful…

  • faith: what’s evidence got to do with it?

    A sermon, whose basic themes are informed by a short essay by the philosopher/theologian Jean-Luc Marion on the question of faith and evidence. ____________________ What is faith? What does it mean to have faith? How would we describe the experience of faith? In our culture a very common way of thinking about religious faith is…

  • Wrestling with Jesus – on Palm Sunday

    This morning we are looking at a passage from the New Testament – from the twenty-first chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Of course it’s the familiar story of the triumphal entry – it’s the story of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, on the way to his death. But before we look at this text, I’d like to…

  • Congregational Aesthetics – beyONd our walls (3/3)

    In this short blog series I’ve been exploring this question: What is the aesthetic profile of your congregation. Otherwise put: What do the artwork and architecture and liturgical accoutrements of your congregation reveal about its faith and identity? And how do they shape your faith and discipleship? In my first post I explored how we might respond to…

  • Losing Self? — Faith, Memory, Identity

    We’ve all had that feeling of disorientation at some point. Perhaps you are staying in a hotel somewhere, or visiting family for a few days. You wake up in the middle of the night and don’t know where you are. The room is unfamiliar. You feel lost. You look for points of familiarity to locate…

  • congregational aesthetics: a LIVING faith (2/3)

    In this short blog series I’m exploring this question: What is the aesthetic profile of your congregation? Every congregation has an aesthetic profile, a profile that emerges out of the architecture, memorials, artwork, and liturgical accoutrements that make up the worship space or community space of a particular church. This aesthetic profile says something about…

  • congregational aesthetics: the weight of history (1/3)

    What is the aesthetic profile of your congregation? When you think about the artwork or memorials or liturgical accoutrements of your congregation, what kind of profile emerges? More importantly, perhaps, what does this aesthetic profile say about the identity of your congregation. It’s an interesting and compelling question (and a multi-faceted one) when we stop to ask…