It was a tragedy. A young man lost his life and another man had his life changed forever. Like many people, I watched the video of Sammy Yatim being shot in Toronto last week and, like many people, I felt a sense of rage. Really, nine shots? And then they tased him. Seems a little…
Blast from the Past
In the Spring of 1997 I had managed to grow our baby church from 82 to 43. This was the Penn that I wrote to the survivors of the "Spring of Tuesdays" on May 11, 1997It’s the dawning of a new day, a new chapter in the book, the beginning of a new era! My…
Critics are like. . .
Angela and I saw a great movie last week. I know this isn’t the place for movie reviews but it was funny and exciting and we really enjoyed it. Unfortunately that wasn’t the view of most of the critics. It was panned and ridiculed in the media and as a result lost a boatload of…
Here today. . .
He was a million times richer than Bill Gates. . . for a day. Think of the possibilities. Last week Chris Reynolds became the world’s richest man . . . for a while. Imagine the Pennsylvania account executive’s surprise when his monthly statement from Pay Pal showed a balance of $92,233,720,368,547,800, that’s 92 quadrillion dollars. …
No Ransom
In November of this year I will be travelling to Peru with an international relief agency on what is referred to as an “Exposure Trip”. So this week I filled out the eight page “Travel Release” form that is required before I travel. I have done this different times for different agencies, but this time,…
It’s not Black and White
Angela and I were talking the other day and I commented on a friend we had in Australia. According to his older sister, when Adam was a child, he thought that colour was a recent innovation. He had assumed that in the old days, everything was black and white! That may seem silly to us…
No Excuse.
I received a certificate in the mail the other day from Canada Blood Services recognizing the fact that I have made fifty donations. And it made me feel a little bad. I’ve been donating blood since high school but I’ve only made fifty donations? It probably should be a hundred and fifty donations. I don’t…
A New Old Commitment
The law of unintended consequences. At times it’s one of my favourite laws and at other times one of my least favourite. This past week it fell into the former category. The plan was to attend Agustinus and Erlina Nagata’s Canadian Citizenship Ceremony. What a privilege to be able to be there to celebrate the…
A Higher Standard.
Well, it’s certainly been an embarrassing few weeks for Canadian politicians. Federal, provincial and municipal, the commons and the senate and all three of the major political parties have taken it on the chin…. and so they should. Not only do I believe that politicians should have to follow the same rules as the rest…
Death be Not Proud
It’s been one of those weeks. Half of our staff were attending funerals, one of our church families experienced a close family death and my father’s twin brother passed away. Someone once said “Death, it’s all a part of living.” And the reality is, we have all been born to die. When I was in…