admin – Page 6 – James Robert Kitson

White Christmas

It looks like it’s going to be a foggy, soggy Christmas here in southern Ontario–certainly disappointing for those hoping for a White Christmas, with softly falling sinow flakes having just the right consistency for snow persons.

A White Christmas is one of the ways we want everything to be ‘just right’ at Christmas time, even while we know it is a time that accentuates everything, good or bad. It makes me wonder if it is the mere turning of the year that follows that leads us to make new year resolutions. Maybe this urge comes also out of a time of wanting everything to be ‘just right’–or as close to it as possible. So we resolve to make life better in some way.

That’s a good thing. Let’s go for it. Ultimately, though, we will want to remember that our true peace does not depend on circumstances, saying, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Philippians 4:11).

Taste of the Danforth 2014

It’s late Sunday afternoon and I’m taking in the tail end of the Taste of the Danforth, an annual weekend street festival in Toronto, with an emphasis on Greek food. There’s other stuff too, exhibits from Toronto pro sports teams, feats to try, even rock climbing in the middle of the street (centre of above photo). I just take it in. We do this enough now it doesn’t seem particularly novel to be wandering down an otherwise busy main city artery. But it does occur to me that there are many streets closed down for much less happy reasons–in Aleppo, in Gaza, or Baghdad. So I don’t really have to do anything. It’s just nice to be able to do it.

Civic Holiday

This first Monday in August is a holiday across Canada. It has different names in different provinces and territories, reflecting something of that region’s history and character, but it tends to be known, generically, as Civic Holiday, at least here in Ontario.
This time also marks the 100th anniversary of the First World War. Before there was another world war it was known simply as The Great War, and also “the war to end all wars.”

It didn’t end all wars, but instead of “great” or “world” war (although any war is “great” in its magnitude for those affected) there seem to be multiple conflicts that are sectarian in nature. Meanwhile, here in my area, there are multiple cultures representing those regions of the world where such strife and its accompanying devastation is going on, and on, and on.

A regional holiday, therefore, takes on international significance, coming as it does marking the start of “The Great War,” and drawing together people of different backgrounds for concerts and street festivals. May we show the way to something better.

Forced Pause

In music a pause is not just a break, but a significant part of the whole, helping to highlight and give significance to what is around it. Recovering from heart attack earlier this month, reflecting on illness and injury in this way – not something we would choose, but …

Who’s Calling the Shots?

There is a common and disturbing dynamic that permeates various areas and levels of our organizational life. Even in the church. Let’s face it. It happens–not in all settings but it certainly happens–that the life of a faith community can be guided more by political “reality” than the way we outwardly agree it should be run, usually with an agreed upon system of governance, based on Biblical principles and authority. Too often it boils down to things being done according to the predilictions of some power broker or brokers, and people fall into line, often unconsciously. The principled leader ends up frustrated, and often demonized as defensive, unresponsive, and/or simply incompetent.

The point here is that so pervasive in society is the power talks and might is right mindset that not even the church is immune from being run this way. And it’s too easy, and inexcusable, to just throw up our hands and say, well that’s just the reality. That’s the problem (see above re the church). Part of this mindset by those who most practise it is an end-justifies-the-means mentality. If you are convinced you know what’s best for everyone, any means is justified, even deemed right.

My current reflection on this is prompted by the news that Canadian government agencies have been requesting, successfully, roughtly a thousand requests per day from telecoms for information on Canadians. This is justified under the umbrella of “national security.” Really? For that many requests? And is really just the government itself behind this. Or are there powerful forces in our world that see themselves as the rightful rulers (just like the power person in the church), and therefore see any action or tactic as justified.

Is government just a willing player in this dynamic?

Who is really calling the shots?

It’s Not About Us

Praise God that we are offered rescue from sin and death through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Many Easter messages will miss just how big this news is. They will miss that our personal salvation is part of an even larger picture. God is bringing about a whole new creation, His new creation, populated with His new creatures. The resurrected Christ is the first born of this new creation, and in him we are part of it, even now (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our present world is not merely a waiting room; we are to live it now.

Limitless Life

I admire people who push boundaries, mostly. Athletes, artists, entrepreneurs–they all thrive on pushing the limits of what they can accomplish. And we all benefit somehow.

But there is a mindset that all there is to life is what we can accomplish in the here and now. The Easter miracle is seen as nothing more than a metaphor for going beyond ourselves, or something like that. What is missed is that at the end of what we can now see and hear and experience, there is a limit.

The Resurrection of Christ brings a new reality to this realm, breaking in from beyond and making a path toward it. In this we find life that is limitless, expressed in the here and now with limitless compassion,, limitless forgiveness, limitless love.

It is pride, the unhealthy kind, that says I will push the boundaries only of what I can do of my own strength and will, even if opening ourselves to something, someone, beyond ourselves means we experience what truly is limitless. But that would means accepting that pushing beyond boundaries as a gift. And some of us would rather stick to what we can do ourselves, thank you, even if it means we are ultimately limiting ourselves. Something to ponder seriously as we anticipate celebrating the defeat of what ultimately limits earthbound life.

Happy

You can hardly go anywhere these days without hearing the Pharrell Williams song, “Happy.” A report by Carol Graham of the Brookings Institute may indicate that it will not resonate with people uniformly through the life cycle, at least as Brookings Institute report might indicate.

Apparently there is a worldwide trend for people to have a U-shaped pattern to their life-long degree of happiness. Middle age is tough, it seems. Well, middle age can be especially tough. I would not want to minimize, having had my own very low times, how difficult certain seasons and circumstances of life can be. But there is hope to sustain us through those times.

In Romans 15:13 Paul indicates that there is a happiness that does not depend on circumstances. There is joy, which is not to be taken necessarily as a jump-up-and-down kind of thing (though it certainly can be), but is based on the certain knowledge that there is the Lord who loves and values us, and has a purpose for us. We know of this, and put it into practice in various ways, through the welcoming of the Holy Spirit.

And, as the context Romans 15:13 makes clear, mutuality of acceptance and service is key to experiencing such enduring inner peace.

Bread with a Purpose

The United Nations has just released the second part of a study on the effects of climate change. It seems, no surprise, it will mean our over-consuming lifestyle is ever more certain to contribute to displacement, hardship and hunger, especially for those least able to deal with such developments. Meanwhile, there has also just been a warning that for some of us our breakfast is going to get more expensive–something a lot of us, if we’re honest–will be more directly concerned about.

This may be impetus for some of us to pray more frequently and fervently for the Lord to give us “our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). But there is a more complete way to draw on this part of the model prayer Jesus gave, in connection with what comes before that particular part. Before the petition about what we need for each day, there is the invitation to hallow the Lord’s name, welcome the realization of his kingdom, and to look for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Perhaps then, the “daily bread” part that then follows has to do with being nourished and strengthened to have our part in the fulfilling of the previous good things. In so doing, perhaps we will conduct our lives in a more responsible way, one that will help to alleviate, maybe even start to correct, some of the problems of supply in our earthly life that might have led us (back) to prayer in the first place.

Creating Summer, Sort Of

“It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth; you made both summer and winter” (Psalm 74:17 NIV).

It is almost “officially” spring. Today (above photo just taken) there is a mix of freezing rain, snow, and ice pellets. Personally, I find very appealing the proposal, reported today in a Canadian Press article, for a 365 day a year, retractable roof summer theme park for Toronto. If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, or sincere praise, maybe the Lord wouldn’t mind if we imitate his work just a bit -:)