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)
Category: Wendell Berry
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
Living in God’s Time in a Technological Age
In his 2004 JJ Thiessen Lectures, John Swinton addresses the theme of disability and time. Dr. Swinton’s central thesis is that disability is all about time.[1] Essentially, Dr. Swinton uses the experience of ‘disability’ as an apophatic tool to expose the rebellious modern conception of time and it's connected anthropology. Swinton makes a similar move … Continue reading Living in God’s Time in a Technological Age
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?
The State of Exception and The Apocalypticism of the Kingdom of God
And we pray, not / for new earth or heaven, but to be / quiet in heart, and in eye, / clear. What we need is here.
-Wendell Berry