Spirituality

I'm about to get up and move through my day. What choice do any of us have? I guess that’s what bothers me more than anything. I too may be dead before nightfall.

(Christian Week - December 10, 2010) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Two friends. One's confessing a secret. He's crying. Blubbering. Hyperventilating. "You'll be surprised," he says. "Don't worry," says his friend. "I know about things. Whatever you've done, you can tell me." "You'll be surprised," says the first. "No, I won't. Don't worry. Who is she? What's happened?" "You're making assumptions." "It's okay. Whatever you've done to her. Come on. Just tell me." "I'm gay." Silence. Disbelief. Embarrassment.

Your mother is dead. Divorce knocks. Your son is lost. It’s cancer. You’re laid off. You’ve broken up. The car crash. You can’t stomach it all. Trust?

So it's that time of year when all of our New Year resolutions aren't yet broken. Among mine is to get into jail more often.

The spirit of the age is ambivalence, not skepticism, and into this comes a special time to worship.

The feet of ‘ragged men’, Vincent Van Gogh and the story of the prodigal son all come to mind as Easter dawns in Yemen.

If you can read this, congratulations -- you're better educated than two billion people.

"Jesus Christ. Superstar. Do you believe what they say you are?" The jingle from the popular rock opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, catchy as it is, is an incredibly sad reminder that there are people who don't have an inkling of this season's joy.

(LONDON FREE PRESS, June 2, 1998) ST. THOMAS, CANADA – Regarding, Male spirituality about partnerships (May 17), Free Press assistant city editor Larry Cornies shows it's easier to criticize the evangelical Christian men's movement Promise Keepers than it is to understand it.

Dear Editor: I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth. Is there a Santa Claus?

When experiencing the Promise Keepers sacred assembly with 100 local men and hundreds of thousands of others here earlier this month, I couldn't help but think of growing up.

I have had an opportunity to see the recent move of 33 rooming-house residents from Toronto to Aylmer, a transfer equated by some as Toronto "dumping its trash" into rural Ontario, through the eyes of personal experience. My family owned and operated a private rest home for the better part of 20 years, with tenants, patients as we called them, very similar to those at the Aylmer home run by Anne Borden Maxwell.

(The London Free Press – Saturday, May 10, 1997) "We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer. Together we exist. And forever will re-create each other." — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 20th century French philosopher ST. THOMAS, CANADA – Tomorrow is Mother's Day, the one day of the year I'm vividly reminded I have never held my mother, looked into her eyes and told her I love her. I have never offered a soft kiss on her cheek. I have never even given her flowers.