The Progressive Reverend

I took this photo in a lobby, one of those aesthetically pleasing places that makes you feel grounded. The words caught me off guard. Without community there would be suffering. Not less joy. Not more loneliness. But suffering. It stopped me because it names something we often try to explain away. We like to imagine ourselves as strong, self-sufficient, resilient. We tell ourselves we should be able to manage on our own. But the truth is more tender than that. Humans were never designed to carry life alone. Isolation does not just make life harder. It hurts us. Community is the web that holds us when our own strength gives out. It is the people who notice when we go quiet. The ones who bring soup or send a text at exactly the wrong-right moment. It is the friend who sits with us in grief without trying to fix it. The neighbour who shovels the walk. The therapist who offers language when our own has disappeared. And then there is church, when it is at its best. Church community ...

  I have been thinking about loneliness lately. Not in a dramatic way. More like the quiet kind that sneaks in between appointments. The kind that shows up even when your calendar is full. I wonder if you have noticed it too. We live in a strange moment in history. So many of us work from home now. We order groceries without speaking to a human. We text instead of knocking. We scroll instead of lingering. Our lives are efficient. But not always connected. We tell ourselves we are in touch because we see each other’s lives online. We know who got engaged. Who had a baby? Who went on vacation? We double-tap and leave heart emojis and call it checking in. But knowing about someone is not the same as being with someone. Community used to be something you stumbled into. Now it is something you schedule. And loneliness has a way of slipping through the cracks. I think about the single thirty-something who goes to weddings more than dinner parties. The teenager who feels invisible in...

  Neil gave me a book for Christmas called Morning Meditations. It’s arranged by seasons, which already feels right somehow, and it’s full of small, spacious wisdom. The kind you don’t rush past. The kind that lingers. One quote has stayed with me this week: As winter approaches, notice what didn't grow this year alongside what blossomed and flourished. Focus on the things that thrived and not what wilted. Release what didn't thrive and celebrate what transpired. This is a season to reflect, release, and make room for what is meant to grow in the spring. Celebrate what grew as well as what failed. What a gentle invitation for the New Year. I’ve found myself thinking about friendships lately. The ones that shaped me. The ones that faded. The ones that ended without a proper goodbye. I’ve had many friends come and go in my life, some of them people I once could not imagine living without. My best friend growing up went to my church. Our moms were close, and our lives were deeply ...

Maybe it’s the quiet after the Christmas whirl, or the way January light slants across snow and makes everything look a little wide-open. Still, I’ve been thinking a lot about New Year’s resolutions and goals, not just for myself, but for us as a community at Parkdale United Church. Over the past year, so much has taken root here. We launched Wednesday Night Jazz and watched strangers and church folks alike tap their toes and breathe a little easier. We opened our doors to the Calgary Toy Library. We welcomed new recovery groups and Girl Guides. Our Fit and Friendship group grew from five to almost twenty. The building hums these days. Hallways echo with laughter, music, coffee cups, and the soft murmur of people finding their way back to one another. One of our goals was to ensure our space was fully utilized, and we did. Truly. The place is bustling, and it is beautiful. But then the next question arrives, tugging at my sleeve like a curious child. Is this the church's goal? Some...

 Christmas carries a particular kind of anxiety for many of us. Not the dramatic, unravelling kind, but the quieter, more human kind. The wondering kind. Will this be enough? Will it be received the way we hope? Will the care behind it be felt? There’s also the list. The list that seems to follow people from room to room as December unfolds. Groceries to buy, homes to tidy, gifts to wrap, baking to finish. Small details pile up, each one whispering that something might fall apart if it’s forgotten or not done quite right. And yet, for many, the deeper anxiety isn’t found in the errands or preparations. It lives in the moments that carry the most meaning. If I’m honest, for me that moment is Christmas Eve. I put so much pressure on myself to get it right. I want the services to be full of wonder and delight. I want people to feel the weight and warmth of tradition. I want it to be beautiful, meaningful, a little magical. I want people to leave feeling like the church has helped...

Some weeks, just getting to church feels like its own minor miracle. I’ve been thinking about that a lot as our Christmas pageant draws near, the sheer effort it takes for families or really anyone to walk through our doors on a Sunday morning. Two working parents, kids in cleats or skates or dance shoes, lunches to pack, sleep to catch up on, a mountain of December to-do lists, and yet somehow people still come. Once, a neighbour with three small children said to me, “Church is a commitment you have to make a priority each and every week, otherwise it just won’t happen.” She was right. But her words aren’t just for families, they’re for anyone who chooses to carve out this sacred hour. Anyone who whispers,  I need this,  even when life pulls hard in every direction. And honestly, that commitment fills me with gratitude. Because this Sunday is one of my favourites of the entire year: Joy Sunday, crowned with the glorious, holy chaos of our children’s Christmas pageant. We have...