spirituality

Light and shadows in a Good Friday world

2 Comments / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , , , , , , / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Week – April 2013)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Jesus wept. Not long before he set his face like flint toward Jerusalem and the cross, he wept. Why?

Surely he knew how it would all end, how he’d resurrect Lazarus, who lay nearby so cold and dead; how this miracle would foreshadow his own final triumph over the grave. Was he playing his audience? It’s a scene with at least some strangeness. Here’s another.

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The Light of the World in the darkness of hell

1 Comment / Newspaper columns, The Standard / / , , , , , , , , , / 3 minutes of reading

(The UCU Standard – Friday, November 1, 2013)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ Suicide is a shabby and shameful business, something that nice people don’t get mixed up in, yet here they are, two suicides in our university family, two young people who in separate incidents have left us with nothing but a disturbing ‘good-bye.’

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Once, there was a poor, young girl …

2 Comments / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns, Popular / / , , , , , , , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Once there was a little Ugandan girl who loved school.

The girl, who had been an orphan when she was younger, loved learning new things and making new friends and pretty well everything about it, especially the stories.

Maybe she loved school all the more because of her years as an orphan, which started in a hospital in Mbarara, in western Uganda, where she was left abandoned when she was barely larger than a cat.

There she was given all she ever owned, her name, Hannah.

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The Death of Kony 2012

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / / , , , , / 3 minutes of reading

So, in the beginning was the microchip. No, it was the iPad. No, no, it was Facebook. Really, this is what it was. For sure.

Yes, in the beginning was Facebook. And Facebook was with God, and Facebook was God. And Facebook created the heavens and the earth. The earth was empty and formless and dark, and the spirit of Facebook hovered over its waters.

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What it’s all about in 10 words or less

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / / , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

So what would Jesus say?

I mean about this debate on T-shirts that bear his name, and freedom of expression and religious tolerance and these sort of very Canadian things.

The opinions have arrived in a crazy roll, thanks to the Grade 12 Nova Scotian suspended, then returned, then pulled from his school by his father, all because of his bold T-shirt that says “Life is wasted without Jesus.”

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There is no us versus them

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / / , , , , , , / 4 minutes of reading

(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.

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