Best friends It’s that time of year again, when here in the western regions of North America the air turns colder while the sun stays warm. The intense heat--and this year, what heat!--is over and for us in British Columbia the fires while not extinguished everywhere are smaller and less threatening than two weeks ago.... Continue Reading →
It’s a ritual common for many of us, the Fortune Cookie after Chinese dinner out. I do wonder hwoever, where is the fortune, and what is the cookie anyway. It doesn’t look like any cookie I might make or eat. Highly stylized, with a hard crackable exterior, it looks more like a shell on the... Continue Reading →
It will be necessary to celebrate the Season of Creation this year through the lens of catastrophe. Of course many in poorer areas of the world have done this for decades. Some of us permitted the privilege of travel have observed what is really happening globally. We have heard the pleas and frustrations of our... Continue Reading →
Yogas Design, Unsplash Certain English words elicit strong emotions for me. Words such as “charge” which could refer to a light brigade or the expenditure of a significant amount of money. Likewise “reboot” could refer to a mangled computer hard drive with the obligatory hour or more of AI technological struggle (yes, I am a... Continue Reading →
Tuesday July 20, 2021 In today’s Morning Prayer with the garden congregation from Canterbury Cathedral Dean Robert began with a rather long list of pressing global concerns: The fatal deluge of flooding in Western Europe; the human rights abuses presently enacted on minority populations and young male adults in Burma/Myanmar; firestorms in the United States;... Continue Reading →
BC Wildfire Service wildfire dashboard as of Sunday, July 11, 2021 “Nobody knows this land like those who have lived here for generations.“ Or if you want a song "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen." Standing on a ranch access road watching an out-of-control fire in the Tunkwa Creek Valley near Ashcroft BC, rancher Mike... Continue Reading →
I am not convinced that the details about climate change actually change people’s hearts, minds or practices. Many well-intentioned folks claim that the more we know about atmospheric chemistry, solar radiation, the effect of greenhouse gasses on rising average global temperature, the influence of CO2 on ocean geochemistry, the motivations and desperate need of vulnerable... Continue Reading →
What a difference five years makes. In May of 2016 I was installed as Dean and Rector of St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Kamloops BC, a city now recognized all over the world as the place where 215 unmarked graves were recently identified, the final resting places of children who never returned home from the... Continue Reading →
A friend recently asked me how Canadian Anglicans have responded to the challenges of reconciliation and find hope for healing, especially following the discovery of unmarked graves at the Kamloops Roman Catholic Residential School. Our own Anglican school, located a few hours drive from Kamloops in Lytton BC has its own shameful record of "missing... Continue Reading →
I am trying to figure something out, and possibly you can help me. The question for me is “what does transition look like in retirement.” I am no expert on either, but I did retire on the first day of May this year, so I am only beginning to experience and assess the value of... Continue Reading →
Take Note - Reflections on life, music, politics, retirement and more by Ken Gray 