The Road to Santa Marta, by Emile Theresa Smith - Mad Love for the World Daniel Maestre invites me to sit across from him beneath a giant mango tree. The wide branches above shade the whole area beside the kankurua, the sacred house. Three months ago, arsonists destroyed the original kankurua. The new house is... Continue Reading →
[Ken Gray] This past week has been a horror show of personal technological challenges. I am normally pretty good at solving glitches, at creating digital workarounds, at reaching out to support systems when necessary. This past week, however, was different. In preparing for a funeral I needed to edit a Youtube video. Easy-peasy I thought.... Continue Reading →
I am away from church today, a rare space of rest from preaching and presiding. On such days I have more time to read and write. I am currently reading "East West Street: On the Origins of "Genocide" and "Crimes Against Humanity"" by Philippe Sands. It is a memoir and history of the origins of... Continue Reading →
[Ken Gray] For the record, I do not support human travel to the moon. I think it’s a waste of time and money. Sure, people enjoy what my generation witnessed in 1968-9 as the Apollo Program proved we had the technology and the expertise to land on the moon — and we did it —... Continue Reading →
Organist Mark McDonald stands below Christ Church Cathedral’s organ, Canada’s largest pipe organ west of the Rockies. (Olivier Laurin/Victoria News) Published 9:00 am Wednesday, May 27, 2026 by Olivier Laurin Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart once called the pipe organ “the king of instruments.” Considered by many to be a marvel of music and engineering, the pipe... Continue Reading →
[Ken Gray] As son, Cameron and I have tickets for a Jays game in Toronto in late July, I have all sorts of fears. For one thing, they are playing the Tampa Bay Rays with whom they are frequently on the losing end. The experience of a win in the Rogers Centre is a huge... Continue Reading →
Reposted from Castanet Snowpack levels in the Okanagan and surrounding regions are catastrophically low this year, which has led to wide-ranging concerns over drought and the health of local watersheds. On Wednesday, the Syilx Okanagan Nation formally declared a watershed emergency across the Okanagan, Nicola, Similkameen, Kettle, Salmon and Bessette watersheds. The Nation says it’s... Continue Reading →
Christopher Lamb on CNN Pope Leo XIV says control of artificial intelligence must not remain in the hands “of a few” while warning that technology is fueling world conflicts, setting out his proposals in the first major theological document of his pontificate. These include protecting the distinctive “grandeur of humanity” amid rapidly changing technology and... Continue Reading →
Reposted from Letters from an American, by Heather Cox Richardson on Substack. An audio version can be accessed here. [Heather Cox Richardson] On May 22, 1964, in a graduation speech at the University of Michigan, President Lyndon Johnson put a name to a new vision for the United States. He called it “the Great Society”... Continue Reading →
Notes by Ken Gray: I am Looking forward to Sunday’s Pentecost service shared between St. Stephen’s Anglican Church and Summerland United Church. We share costs and facilities between us at our historic 1910 location in downtown Summerland. Now a few years into a very special relationship between our congregations, we occasionally gather together for shared... Continue Reading →
Take Note - Reflections on life, music, politics, retirement and more by Ken Gray 