When I would go back to Vancouver Island to visit my mother, one of our favorite things to do was to go for walks through the island’s beautiful coastal mist forests. On these walks we would often find ourselves stopped in our tracks at the sight of a new sapling emerging out of an old … Continue reading Life from Death: An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 11.1-10
Sunday’s post, the first in this series looking at the themes of Advent through the lens of the Book of Isaiah, saw how, after Isaiah opens with an oracle of incredible destruction for Judah, this is followed at the start of chapter 2 with a beautiful image of a time when not only would the … Continue reading All Is Not Lost: An Advent Reflection on the Remnant in Isaiah 1-12
The other week, I reflected on the Gospel reading in which Jesus expounds on what seems like a foretelling of a frightening future, but is really more a description of the human condition: Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and … Continue reading Hope of the Nations: An Advent Reflection on Isaiah 2.1-5
When tasked with explaining how the Church year functions, I often use the metaphor of light. At Christmas, light comes into the world, light which shines brightly outward through the season of Epiphany, before we turn it inwards in Lent, after which point we are empowered to be our own lights throughout Pentecost. In this … Continue reading Waiting for God
I've been doing some preliminary work the past few days on my year-end practices, specifically looking at what I've written here on the blog in 2021. I was surprised by how often the theme of listening has come up here. It's come up in posts on Black Theology and repentance, and in the series on … Continue reading Signs of the Times: Listen.
Matthew Root 