James Dekker

Thanks, Friends. I MUST start reading more than Kate Bowler's blogs. We just gave a daughter Sarah Bessey's latest, but I should have read it before giving it to her. Anyway, here are my fave books I've read in 2021, though I have read a few stinkers too.

The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton (eyewitness account of a stormy time in the stormy life of a one-time Trump supporter who saw the dangerous caprices of his boss, finally resigning)

Hell and Other Destinations, Madeleine Albright (incredibly witty, often erudite memoir of this former US public servant

A Burning in My Bones, Winn Collier (biography of Eugene Peterson)

A Promised Land, Barack Obama

Requiem, Frances Itani (stirring novel about Japanese internment in Canada during WW2)

The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben

Diary of a Pastor's Soul, Craig Barnes

A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny (an older Inspector Gamache product, but the one that in my opinion explores the remarkable capacity of ordinary people besides the murderer to do astonishingly wretched and cruel things and astonishinly wonderful and kind things as well)

Thanks much, Dave. I've appreciated the several books by Barnes that I've read since I first heard him at Calvin Worship Symposium about 12 or more years ago. Since I do have resources, I'm going to check w/ my "charges" to see if they'd like a copy. Good work. Blessings, jcd

Thank you, Jack, for this honest memoriam. I never knew Ken well, but appreciated his pastoring at Calvin where we came to know him a bit when we visited our daughter and son-in-law and family there. His death comes, of course, as a blow to his parents, who have now suffered the deaths of three of their children. May God have mercy and provide comfort for all. 

Thank you, Mark, and earlier Kate Kooyman, for your contributions. For some time I've felt paralyzed into inaction, even though for a very long time (dating back to the late 70s when I really began to understand my white privilege as a "trusted traveller" all over Latin America, especially when I wore a suit) I'd waltzed through life heedlessly. Recent--and I pray--continuing conversations w/ other CRCNA staff following our discussions about White Fragility opened my mind and heart more deeply and widely than ever about my own ignorance and complicity. Then yday a friend challenged us/me to open our purses also, a needed step to still more, whatever that is. I hate hurting, but it's maybe about time. Blessings and courage to all and prayers for those of us who don't get it and in fact justify.

Thank you, Larry. That's about all I can think of now in my near paralysis and sorrow and frustration at the many "Yeah, buts" I've read in response to prayers, letters and statements with compassion and humility such as you express. Blessings. 

I've been wondering for some days now what the push is for churches to "reopen." The doors may be shut and offices functioning with only office staff, but the churches are not closed. As you say, Anthony, the disciples had to connect with their ascended Lord in the original online communication--invisible, nAo glitches, always plenty of bandwidth and free as Grace. As a colleague said on another platform, perhaps the churches (congregations, leaders, pastors) longing to reopen don't have a deep enough ecclesiology, limiting the Church to physical gathering, whether that be for worship, fellowship, study, or social engagement and service. Some have even made the exaggerated allegation that keeping churches physically closed is a kind of persecution or minimally repression. 

If we consider any number of instances of limited or even prohibited gatherings of Christians in recent and distant church history, it's pretty clear that God's people figured out ways to keep the church breathing, while apparently in a coma and on life support (well, ALWAYS on Bread and Water of Life Support, come to think of it). Nor even 50 years ago after President Nixon, of otherwise dubious repute and behaviour, visited China, which began to open up ever so slowly that secret and closed society. It didn't take long to discover that the church had not died since missionaries were expelled, but that Christians had grown under persecution. From the mid-60s to the mid-70, churches in Cuba were similarly, if not as cruelly and completely oppressed in Cuba. Some churches recognized before the Cuban Revolution were permitted to worship in their buildings only, with prohibitions of inviting friends or neighbours. In one village case two women and their four children of the Christian Reformed Church in Cuba kept the church going in the building for over 15 years with worship every Sunday and prayer meetings every Wednesday evening, registering every meeting with the local authorities for permission. Many others met in their homes--but with no singing, because that was prohibited. All that before virtual online, communal worship.

So, another of my surmisings: I wonder if God isn't giving us an opportunity to practice anew the almost lost Christian spiritual discpline of solitude. I'd love to return to open communal worship, but this new worship is not bad and I believe God is turning this time to our profit, as the H.Cat teaches us.

Thank you, Phil. I've done that several years running with alcohol. I was frankly surprised how easy it was when there was simply no alcohol in the house. Even while travelling and eating in restaurants I had no problem not ordering wine or beer w/ dinner. What did I learn from it? Still not sure. Maybe that God gave me the gift not to miss and yearn for alcohol. But then there's the further question, "Why do I drink any alcohol at all after Lent? I have no good reason, unless liking the taste of many beers and wines is good enough  Maybe enjoying good beer and wine outside of Lent is also a gift from God? But I can't say that I noticed any perceptible greater nearness to and dependence on God. Gotta think about that. 

Now to continue in another vein, my wife gave up worrying at least two seasons in a row because she intentionally hoped to "cast all her cares on the Lord." That actually became a habit/discipline, though she still says it's very hard, b/c we want so much to be in control and change things we can't or (worse) don't have any business trying to change.

Thanks again.  Blessings, jcd

Goodness, what an astonishing confession with the remarkable double focus--confession and resolution to active reconciliation. Thank you so much, Syd and noble daughter, for finding and posting this piece. I am reminded--and I often need that reminder--that there are fine people and conscious, self-aware children of God who make a living in professional sports. Might this be reprinted in The Banner? That would give it a bit more play to a readership rarely witnesses to this kind of testimony to justice and ethics. 

Thank you, John Tamming, for this provocative commentary. First of all, I'm not sure if the generalization can be demonstrated that pastors are reluctant to visit parishioners, though I DO know of some pastors who show such reluctance. In such cases, I share your perplexity. In my 27 years as sole parish pastor and preacher for churches ranging from 200 to 425 or so active members, with evening services for all those years, I would make about 8 to 10 pastoral visits a week in homes, work places, Tim Hortons or schools during noon breaks. (Btw, these do not include hospital visits). Most of the time it was a very good thing to leave the church building and study and engage with members (active or not). As you note, much sermon fodder (to be handled VERY carefully, of course) that grows in these visits. And, as you also comment, lots of political good will built up in those visits, even if that's hardly an exclusive reason to go visiting, 

But let's say your generalization is accurate. I won't make excuses for pastors and your point is well-taken that without an evening service, there is more time available. But this I do know: many pastors are basically shy people who have learned to be  as a good friend calls himself, "a professional extrovert." Still doing and being that is tiring for many of my colleagues and many of them find visiting hard; I never did. As well, as my years as a pastor increased, I found it harder and harder to do all I wanted and needed to do pastorally because meetings seemed to demand more time and preparation as years passed. There was much time dedicated to planning and strategizing, work that didn't come naturally for me, though I could and did do it as required.

Still, since I'm speaking only from my limited personal experience, I'd be interested if colleagues would comment on John Tamming's brief, edgy blog. Blessings and thanks again, John, for your contribution. 

Thanks much for this, Friends. Now that I'm semi-retired from full-time pastoring, the pressures have decreased hugely. Still the stories you tell and the advice you offer are fitting and welcome. I know younger colleagues who I hope take this to heart and make that one call often. Blessings on your work. jcd

Thanks to Jim for the CPE course I took at Pine Rest from September through December 1977. I was fresh out of seminary, just employed by then-CR World Missions, waiting for visas for Brazil (which never came). CPE was the first (not last) time that compassionate, passionate colleagues and mentors (Jim, Duane Visser) tore me and each other apart and put each other back together again. At first I dreaded the CPE discussions of our clinical work, pastoral and vocational implications. I'm quite sure that without that I wouldn't have stayed in ministry very long after returning from Latin America. CPE w/ Jim helped recognize significant gaps in self-awareness, how to find ways to fill those gaps and to recognize little hints of God's image/presence even in the most seriously ill of patients. That last beginning of life-long learning was certainly needed in pastoral ministry when parishioners' quirks and neuroses could flare into danger and trouble. In short in CPE I began to learn more deeply how to love both lovable and unlovable children of God--including myself in both categories. Thanks Jim Kok.