NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

I was shopping in a well-known chain that deals in groceries and housewares just before our Canadian Thanksgiving. Upon checking out, I was offered a free ham because I had spent over a certain amount. Taken aback, I said. “Sure”, [after all who would turn down a free ham??] but as I drove home I started to wonder what I would do with it. We no longer ate ham because of the salt content in it - and anyway it was far too big for only 2 people even if we did! And in any case, why did they offer me the ham? With what I spent, if I had wanted a ham for the holiday meal coming up, I would have bought one. While I eventually found a home for the ham where it was appreciated, I had plenty of time to think about this scenario. I am sure that there were plenty of people shopping in that store, plenty of people in the community, a number of organizations, who would have been very thankful for a free ham. So why was it offered to someone who obviously didn’t need it? I enjoy playing mainly s...

‘You can only go outwards as far as you have already gone inwards.’ When I heard this quoted in a sermon the other week, it struck a chord with me as being the opposite of what our expectation is. And as I continued to mull it around, I could this insight as being very important to the stewardship within the church, indeed to the well-being of the whole church. A church that has been a vibrant part of this community for just short of 200 years got some bad news at their last vestry meeting. This aging congregation, who are not able to meet their current operating costs found out that the building is in need of repairs costing in excess of 1 million dollars. When someone was asked what they were going to do, the answer was “Worry!”and that I suspect is not far off what they have been doing these last few years. Worry does not lead anyone further forward. What does is theological education, being engaged in meaningful ministry, living out the gospel precepts, among o...

‘Picture the nesting dolls that keep including smaller dolls inside of ever larger ones.’  When I read this sentence in a daily meditation by Richard Rohr, it was as if a lightbulb went on on my head. I was used to thinking of spiritual maturity as an onion, where every time an old layer was removed, there was another to be found beneath it.  But here was brand-new example, one that  instead of making the new smaller, actually envisioned that which is new as larger I found myself saying a fervent ‘YES’ as I read and reread this small part of Rohr’s posting. [As an aside it is funny how so often these ‘throw-away’ lines are what catches my attention and stay with me] It brought to mind in 'The Road Less Travelled' by M. Scott Peck where he said that the only way around something was through it. And so the way to greater spiritual maturity can only be by first going through each of the preceding stages. Rather than shucking off the old, in favour of a new idea, the ne...

'You should be a priest'  This was first said to me nearly 40 years ago, and the last time just lately. Every time it fell on infertile ground, but for very different reasons. Yet each time has remained in my memory. And I have to wonder why that is. The first twice happened close together: once by a fellow-parishioner after I had given a talk on my involvement with our refugee family, and the second by a woman priest, who followed it with the question: ‘Don’t you get excited at the thought of baptizing someone?’, which I answered with a emphatic NO! I questioned in both these cases [albeit quietly to myself] why getting ordained was peoples’ first response to someone who was expressing their faith. Surely, there must be lay people who were as committed to their faith as clergy.  Fast forward 30 years, and once again I found a fellow-parishioner telling me the same thing, By this time however I had become articulate enough in my faith to be able to expres...