What we need is here: Peace as Homemaking (2024 C. Henry Smith Oratory Contest Entry)

Readers might remember my earlier post from March 13, 2024, also entitled What we need is here. That post was an earlier draft of my entry into the Henry C. Smith Oratory Contest. The piece below is the version I actually delivered. I've also included a video my performance of the speech for those interested. … Continue reading What we need is here: Peace as Homemaking (2024 C. Henry Smith Oratory Contest Entry) →

Your debt has been paid: A Sermon

I recently delivered this short reflection for a chapel service centred around the poetry of 17th century Anglican poet George Herbert. My reflection was on Herbert’s poem “Redemption” and is only tenuously connected to the poem. Herbert’s poem “Redemption” puts us in the place of a person saddled with an unpayable debt to a rich Lord. This, … Continue reading Your debt has been paid: A Sermon →

What we need is here

This piece is a version of a speech I am entering for this year's Henry C. Smith Peace Oratorical Contest. I will have to make some changes to this speech to make it fit into the parameters of the contest, and I thought this version was good enough to share with my readers as is. … Continue reading What we need is here →

Advent: Waiting for God

Scripture points us to another tension that we must live within. On the one hand, we long for the coming day of peace. On the other hand, we are called not to worry, not to be anxious, and not to live in the future. What does it mean to live without worrying when our hopes for the future are crushed? When it does not seem like these messianic promises have any hope of being fulfilled? When our hunger and thirst is left without satisfaction?

God or Mammon? Hutterites and Creation Ethics

Creation’s praise and humanity’s praise are inextricably interwoven: the central argument of this essay is that it is the human refusal to praise that ruptures creation's praise and is then deaf to its cries for mercy. On the other hand, right human praise can hear, attend to, and join with the praise of creation.