Easter joy is soul joy.  It cares nothing for how much we have, what we own, how busy we are, or however we understand success.  Most of us know that none of those things foster soul joy.  Easter’s transforming joy is deep.  It comes along side our soul and when joy and soul connect, we know we are OK no matter what.  We can rest in the midst of all the demands we face or the hard labour that we endure.   So you might wonder how do we place soul joy alongside the gospel’s account of the resurrection which ends...

Almost a year ago the HRUC Council and a small visioning team began the work of discerning our congregation's mission goals for the next few years.  At that time, we invited the congregation to imagine what it would be like if we were Noah and his family standing on the threshold of the Ark’s big doors peering out and across the landscape of their new normal.    The story of Noah is a powerful narrative for us.  We know the territory of the flood very well.  And we know what it’s like to live into a new normal post disaster.  I imagine that...

Earlier this month we sent the following text to our sisters and brothers at the High  River Islamic Centre:   Greetings and peace to our brothers and sisters of the High River Islamic Center.  We are writing on behalf of our faith community to express our compassion and concern following the recent violence committed in Quebec City against the Muslim community.  We are all deeply saddened by this atrocity.  We are without adequate words.     Your faith community remains to be a treasure in our hearts and it hurts us deeply as we try to imagine how this shooting impacts each of...

I woke up at 4:45 this morning.  I was gripped by some form of deep-seated fear—the kind of feeling that seems all pervasive, lacks logic and often occupies that precious place between sleep and awake.  For some reason, I started praying to the 5th century Irish Saint Brigid who is known for her gifts of protection and healing.  It was enough to get me through to 6:45 when the clock radio goes off.   Why the fear, I wondered?  I mentioned my pre-dawn fear to my partner Susan during breakfast.  Turns out, she was awake about the same time with the...

People are choosing their own reality, says Matt Taibbi contributor for The Rolling Stone magazine.  In conversation with Trevor Noah on the Daily Show, Taibbi was referring to Kellyanne Conway’s comment on Trump’s version of the inauguration attendance numbers as alternative facts (contrary to what the press and real-time photos actually report).  Excuse me for a moment while I put my seat belt on so I don’t fly out of my chair.  As Barak Obama would say, “C’mon people.”   Interestingly, this whole transaction evokes a much older one.  During his interrogation of Jesus, Pilate is on record as asking, “What...

My grandfather and his brother, my great uncle, were born in the late 1800’s.  Both were farmers in Southern Ontario.  My grandfather voted Liberal. My great uncle voted Conservative.  As I paid attention to my extended family, I noticed that one’s identity was tied to a particular party and that’s how one voted—pretty much always for “the party”.  For my grandfather’s generation and their children, who we affectionately call the baby boomers, partisan politics is for the most part, a way of life.  For those who are Boomers and older, politics is often a “dyed-in-the-wool” expression of either/or—one political party or...

Welcome to the Minister’s Reflections—a place for noticing, for seeing, for gathering thoughts.  Here is the place for theology, for exploration and discovery, for wonder and rest.    If you are reading this, awesome!  Know that I was already thinking about you before you got here and, that I count you among those who form the wider and yes, even global community, that gives shape and identity to High River United Church.    Most of the time it will be me (David) writing here.  My partner and colleague Susan, writes Adventures in Faith and Family which also appears as a link...

On behalf of our family, we wish to pass our Christmas blessing to each and everyone of you.  Christmas arrives each year whether we are ready or not and regardless of our state of affairs.  That probably is the way God intended it.  The birth of Emmanuel—God with us—comes whether we’re ready or not and is born into whatever our life is in the moment.  It is a profoundly incarnate celebration that captures the very depth, meaning and purpose of being human.  We are all living through a unique time of recovery as our community continues to rebuild.  Christmas helps us...

©David Robertson 2014     Recent conversations have been about how hard it is to believe that one year has passed since the waters swept through High River and the wider South Western Alberta region.  For most people it doesn’t feel like a year.  It feels much shorter than that. For others the time has dragged on and on for what feels like an eternity. And yet, it’s all the same time.  The earth has completed one orbit around the sun and here we are.  It’s the same season, but it’s not the same life we live.  It’s the same time of...