Spiritually Speaking

I have been deeply moved by the outpouring of public sympathy and support in the wake of the tragic death of Westshore RCMP Const. Sarah Beckett.

I’m always grateful when Easter comes, and not just because it marks the end of Lent and the beginning of the most important season of the Christian tradition. For me, Easter brings with it a much-needed call to rise and begin again.

(Adrienne Carter with colleagues at the Centre for Victims of Torture, In Jordan. The headquarters for CVT is in Minneapolis, but has branches in many different parts of the world, including Jordan.

Can we guarantee that we will live a happy, healthy, and safe life? Most people strive for this, but no one has found a universal recipe for creating it.

A good friend of mine had just started as minister in a congregation. The widow of the previous minister, who had been at that church for 30 years, was still attending the congregation.

How do we explain new life? We use bunnies, eggs and chicks, butterflies and other images. I like all of these. They reflect our need for images to describe things when words fail.

It makes no rational sense. It defies all that modern science knows about life and death. It seems like a fanciful myth concocted by a bunch of losers to justify the three years of their lives that they had just spent following a failed prophet.

The high staccato trill of an eagle brought in the dawn this morning, when the sky was still a soft grey blanket. He repeated his verse several times, a cappella, without the noise of traffic below or the accompaniment of seagulls.

We know about human selfishness and greed, but also constantly witness compassion and generosity.

We are about seventy-five percent of the way through Lent. This is important to me because I have committed to writing a thought every day to post on our Church website www.stjohnthedivine.bc.