During All Souls/All Saints Days this year, I was lucky enough to travel to Kentucky for the annual Society of American Foresters conference. I was attending in order to deliver a short talk on the short history of monastic forestry, a topic that was included in parts of my dissertation. On the first day, I attended a field trip with the History and Philosophy Working Group. We visited Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace, and then went to Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey,... Read more
The other day I went for a walk along a high bluff overlooking the Fraser River. I stumbled upon a pioneer cemetery that included several graves of indigenous people and priests from the missionary order of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The Order had also established a small shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes, and hundreds of Catholics were celebrating Mass on her feast day. I found this statue and was immediately moved. It was unclear if it had been... Read more
“Why is everything in the woods with you people?” –Cruella Deville, Once Upon a Time, Season 5, Episode 19 For all the photographs I take and writing I do about trees, forests, theology and walking, I must admit that I also love watching movies. Netflix has been a regular guilty pleasure for me, one I eschew during Lent (a great sacrifice!). I have watched a lot of shows, and I find Netflix’s original series to be mostly very well done,... Read more
[In June, I started working part time at a Funeral Home. One of my tasks was to arrange all the cremated remains that have been left behind over time. It was baffling. Over 500 since the 1950s. I wrote this poem shortly after a long shift working in the Home.] I’m standing in a mass grave. Not one dug in the dubious cloak of night by the shovel of a tyrant. A grave that is tucked away in the... Read more
[Homily delivered on June 30, 2019] Readings: 1 Kgs 19:15–16, 19–21 Psalms 16 Gal 5:1, 13–25 Lk 9:51–62 One of my favorite things to witness is a seed sprouting. As a sometimes hobby, I have sprouted many seeds and acorns over the years, oaks and maples and even oranges. Sometimes I will save my apple and avocado seeds from the grocery store and sprout them in the window just to watch the miracle of life unfold. It is truly a... Read more
In the Corpus Christi we are celebrating the real presence of the sun in wheat; and in turn the real presence of the Son in bread. Read more
Sunday, my friend and I hiked to the top of Grouse Mountain. It is a steep 3 KM hike with an 853 meter elevation gain. At the top is a small village of shops and ski lifts and rope courses (and two grizzly bears in behind a wire fence!). It was Father’s Day and also Trinity Sunday in our liturgical calendar. During our frequent rest stops we talked about the meaning of the Trinity. It is a notoriously tricky sermon... Read more
Today my office is a rocky beach just below UBC. Today my desk chair is a water worn log. My walls are the eroding cliffs and the distant mountains. My floor is made up of a thousand cobbles that squabble with the rising tide. My workmates are a pair of harbour seals trawling the shoreline; smelt fishermen scattering their nets in the distance; an ancient arthropod flicking its antennae at me; a lone cormorant b-lining west just above the surface of the water; an... Read more
The weather was perfect. I took a gravel trail of the main rode. I found myself in a small cluster of Aspen trees, which always remind me of the mountains of Utah. The sound their leaves make in the wind is unmistakable, like a hurried digital hushing that waxes and wanes with the breeze. There were goslings, and ducklings mentored by doting parents. The swallows darted and swayed at the surface of the lake. There were bald eagles circling in... Read more
I am very grateful for the great flux between light and darkness here in Vancouver; between day and night, between winter and summer, between Good Friday and Easter. Read more
Holyscapes
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