Hopewit

  “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (I Corinthians 13:11, KJV) Chapter 13 of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church has two themes: the nature of true charity (love) and the limits of knowledge. The first theme sets an unbelievably high bar for the exercise of self-denying love, as in “And though I bestow all my goods to feed  the poor , and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.” The later theme is typified in “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”                It’s in this latter section of the chapter that verse 13 appears, almost an aside and only tangentially supportive of what comes before and after.        ...

  Tradition vs. Change is thematically central to the Downton Abbey series we’re watching for the second time in our house. The superb acting of Maggie Smith carries the load for arguing the absolute importance of tradition and the stability it provides while her granddaughter, Sybil Crawley, speaks and acts for the embracing of the inevitable change by becoming a nurse to wounded WWI soldiers, and then marrying the chauffeur, no less.                This isn’t a review of Downton Abbey . Rather, I’m thinking here about the times in history when sea changes were forced upon peoples that had developed stable views, hierarchies, and protocols over time, and were thereby required to live in a newness they hadn’t asked for and didn’t desire. Mennonites, Gypsies, Jews, Kurds and other minorities that were a threat to traditions of the majority wherever they settled, have historically been oppressed and/or driven ou...

  I'm sitting in my recliner here on January 1, 2022 and wondering if there are synonyms for happy that I could use to express that wish in a more appropriate way. Word suggests glad, fortunate, lucky, delightful, content and so from that list I pick and say, Fortunate, lucky, delightful and content New Year to you all . You and we deserve at least a taste of it after 2021, don't we? And are the admonitions of the sages enough to keep our keels even should 2022 be a carbon copy? Keep your chin up? Look on the bright side? In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight? Take heart by remembering that many are experiencing the same afflictions you are … minus food and shelter from the cold? Agnes and I could complain without ceasing. For me, it's been a year and two months now since a complicated pneumonia put me in hospital, and the aftermath for my breathing is worrisome, plus a stupid act on my part did my back a nasty number and turned my p...

A man of near-frenzied action . . . and snatches of contemplation. Are you a contemplative? Am I?        To contemplate is to "think profoundly and at length; [to] meditate." To be a contemplative is to be "a person whose life is devoted primarily to prayer, especially in a monastery or convent." If that latter definition is too specific for you, it can be made more general, as in, "someone who's given to contemplation." Common synonyms for contemplation include meditation, reflection, deliberation, observation, consideration.         "Contemplative living is living in true relationship with oneself, God, others and nature, free of the illusions of separateness," wrote Thomas Merton, an American Trappist Monk widely known as a Christian contemplative. Followers of the daily meditations of Fr. Richard Rohr may have, like me, been puzzled by the language of contemplatives; theirs is a jargon that obviously has to be learned before it's com...

You say ...   Nadine Ens I was contemplating  success  the other day, specifically whether or not my father and mother had lived successful lives. I gave that up pretty quickly; there just aren't any solid criteria for measuring  success , although there are any number of debatable ones, like wealth, health, achievement, happiness, fame, etc.               Perhaps I was thinking about my parents because I wasn't prepared to think these thoughts about myself, an 80-year-old who sleeps in a recliner because of a worn-out spine and who breathes like one who has inhaled far too much smoke, pollen and chemical fumes over four-score years.               Standard advice is that we do ourselves a disservice when we waste our time on regrets. But I slip into regret territory from time to time. My regrets seem to centre around all those questi...

  Wild Rose: Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the [prairie] air. -Thomas Grey A few years ago, my son-in-law tried valiantly to explain Bitcoin to me. My failure to grasp the basic principles—I realized later—wasn’t because I am a poor learner or he a poor teacher. I’ve since read a great deal about Cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and, most recently, NFTs (Non-fungible-tokens) and I think that the pathways in my brain that might allow me to grasp Bitcoin are beginning to form.                 And that’s really what it’s about, isn’t it? “New wine in old wineskins.” Perhaps that’s why we detest the music of the day; my favourite Playlist on Spotify is titled 70s Ballads. The popular music pathways in my brain were established back then; Avril Lavigne’s I Want to be your Girlfriend , ought to stay off my musical pathways! It grates like a mini-skirt in the church choir. ...

  Our scriptures don’t give us a lot of helpful guidance on the use of money.                      We’re all over the place on the subjects of having/not having, of buying/selling, of hoarding/giving and that may be part of the reason for our desire to keep our personal finances a secret, even from brothers and sisters in the family, let alone our church community. We have the “love of money is the root of evil,” and “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” plus admonitions to tithe and the sharing of means in at least one early Christian church, but in general we love the security of a portfolio, avoid tax-paying in any way that will remain hidden and (I’m guessing here) the majority of Christians in North America consider economic sharing as diabolical, creeping socialism.                 At the same time, we’re super aware that the...