Catch Me If You Can

MY INNER CHILD has the pernicious habit of throwing himself down the stairs. This behaviour began one evening during the winter of '56 when I climbed the stairs up to the second story washroom in our Berry Street . Being only four years old, I was not steady on my feet. The excitement of going to the Ice Capades coupled with the urgency of nature's call and the staccato voice of Danny Gallivan calling the hockey game between the Leafs and the Habs, contributed to my imbalance. The cotton socks that adorned my pudgy, short feet often snagged on the

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Fear of the Lord

IF PERFECT LOVE casts out all fear, how can fear of the Lord be the beginning of knowledge, understanding and wisdom? My experience confirms the returns of love but adamantly denies fear's benefit.

While trapped in circumstances self-constructed or brought on by misfortune, the assurance of being loved has calmed and focused my guilty, anxious mind. Love experienced as an unexpected gift has turned meaningless tragedies into moments of contemplation, gratitude and even 

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Who Do You Say I Am

"WHAT ARE THEY saying about me? What do you think about me?" Everybody has asked these questions but when Jesus of Nazareth posed them to his friends at Caesarea-Philippi, an ancient Roman cosmopolitan city on the edge of the Sea of Galilee, he started a discussion that continues to baffle, enrage and inspire people two millennia later. I have always wondered if these were real or trick questions. Was Jesus cornering Peter into giving the right dogmatic answer, later to be included in sacred writings, or was this an open question addressed to all people? I don't want

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The Stranger's Gospel: The Modern Magi

Quadra is the kind of place where you hear the oysters pop as you stroll down the beach, breathing in the fresh sea air. Vestiges of turbulent times are found in the cafeteria on the ferry from Campbell River. Under the ly lacquered trim, scrawled like a fossil, is an ancient peace symbol, or an upside down chicken track as the early locals saw it. From a table filled with laughter comes an anachronism of an early time, "That's really right on!" The slip doesn't go unnoticed, everyone groans. The men's hair is still long but groomed

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The Passionate Life

Like me with my young son, we are inclined to put our passions into seeing where we stand in relationship with one another. It's about comparison. We look at each other, not so much to honestly evaluate one another but to discern what degree of giftedness our brother or sister has in relation to ourselves. We look over our shoulders to see how someone else does. When we live comparatively like that, the sole purpose of life is to gauge our significance. We all have doubts about ourselves and our worth. It's natural. But the more doubt we

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Spiritual Vocation: A Thessalonian Perspective

During a recent Watershed Worship and Discernment service, I confessed my Golden Calf: my creative use of language, my gift of teaching and speaking. The occasion for this confession was Tyler's comment that sometimes what we are overwhelmed by, even obsessed by creatively, can be a gift from God - an expression of our true vocation. To surrender oneself to that creativity seems not the creation of a Golden Calf but rather an enthusiastic response to the divine call. There is an important truth in Tyler's comment that our gifts are from God and that we ought to give ourselves to our vocations as an act of worship.

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Shedding the Husks of Dogma: A Comparison of Transcendentalism with Watershed Spirituality

Our study of Emerson's transcendentalism has led me to wonder about how the son of a theologically liberal but socially conservative Unitarian minister, and nephew of a fanatic Calvinist (Aunt Mary Moody Emerson), could have developed a spirituality that foreshadows most of what I have read in Carl Jung and many sophisticated religious writings of today. While sauntering through the library, I discovered an article which helped to answer my questions. (Perry Miller's "From Edwards to Emerson", p.63-81, found in Barbour, Brian M. American Transcendentalism: An Anthology of Criticism. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame

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Ralph Waldo Emerson's Harvard Divinity Address

The average temperature in Boston during the summer of 1838 was a stifling 90 degrees Fahrenheit - hot enough to cause the six graduates and a select group of esteemed guests to loosen their starched collars as they crowded into the tiny side chapel at Harvard Divinity School for the graduation address. Neither diminutive numbers nor heat would dampen the refreshing gust of thought and inspiration that Ralph Waldo Emerson brought that day. No matter how claustrophobic the physical space or the minds of his listeners, Emerson's reflections opened onto vistas of spirit that

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The Light Side of Darkness

Many people label Edgar Allan Poe a horror writer, plain and simple. For them, "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a tale about a victim of the Spanish Inquisition, its terror and atrocities. The readers of the 1843 edition of The Gift periodical, published in Philadelphia, were intrigued by the frightening drama and tension found in the literal telling of this tale. A more rewarding approach, one that is truer to its author's intention, is to perceive The Pit as a poem of consciousness. After pondering The Pit's meaning, I believe that the story's strength and uniqueness lies in the

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Watershed Spirituality

We can't help being thirsty, moving toward the voice of water. Milk drinkers draw close to the mother. Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, shamans, everyone hears the intelligent sound and moves with thirst to meet it. - Jeladuddin Rumi (1207-1273) The Image Unveiled James Hillman, the founder of Archetypal Psychology, has become convinced that individual and corporate spiritual growth is made through the meditation on images. The image of what I refer to as Watershed Spirituality comes from the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel. It has to do with rejuvenating waters which make stagnant things fresh, have healing properties, and perpetuate life

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