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Frustration makes me do stupid things, pressure people, push too hard. For those good friends I’ve hurt, I’m sorry. You’re not my enemies. At times, like a yo-yo, I turtle and fight, fall and climb to fall again, on the same string.

350K. That’s the amount of salary I’ve been without since Woodthorpe Petroleum Ltd. ran into concerns only courts can settle, as we’ve sat before the masters and judges who have perpetually agreed with us. But, over the last 3.5 years our reputations and bottom line have taken major hits, which is a long time on lock down for leaders, families, companies, and a global vision. It’s pushed the angry-o-meter off the charts a few times.

Humility, humus, earth, on the ground… To the serpent this was judgment, to the Son it was the Way. From the garden to the crucifixion, this was and is the first line of battle.

Remember that Jesus spent only a few hours raised up there, jammed into the gateway of eternity, where they bled, suffocated, and killed him; God murdered on a tree, nailed into place. It wasn’t suicide, wasn’t about an absentee Father, or cowardly disciples, or even demonically empowered bloodlust. In obedience, He willingly passed through them all in silence and weakness, actually doing something about everything, the Godhead on assignment! He had nothing more to say. What was done would prove, yet again, that which was from the beginning.

One of the pillars of the Protestant Reformation was the Latin phrase sola fide, faith alone. To confide, literally means to commingle faith with another, which leads to a posture and praxis of personal confidence, and together with others the keeping of such confidences leads to faithfulness.

How does one become confident? Where does faith even start? Many over-qualify “hearing” the ῥῆμα found in Romans 10:17, at the expense of all the other Old Testament references in the rest of the chapter. Faith gets leveraged all over the map, becomes secretive, code-based, exclusive, branded, and insider– which is the antithesis of a shining beacon of light on a hill. Who bottles and sells sunlight? You might tinker with a small solar grid, but won’t harness a cosmic storm.

When I first sit down by the fireplace, all the shopping carts of my mind crash about every which way. Eventually, one by one, they find their place, quiet down. As the busy stuff dissipates, the memories come. A lot of our family time is spent right here in this space, playing games, reading books, shooting nerf guns, lots of laughs, wrestling, tickling, occasional disputes, kids snacking after dinner, then snacking again before bed. Then one last chat on pillows, prayers from mom and dad, and the drifting away into dreams worth sharing over breakfast.

This may come across like community 101, but as I ponder various charters and creeds, challenges to character and conduct must have a context among the people; then accountability rightfully leads to responsibility, which hopefully results in right action, where proofs of righteousness are witnessed in the words and actions of all parties involved — justice being first and foremost restorative and reconciling — leading to clear, direct and simple declarations about God, people, and redemption.

My mother recently sent me this picture of her father’s parents, Annie and Arthur Giles. Up until three weeks ago, I’d never seen Arthur ~ I look a lot like my great-grandfather.

Then there’s Annie looking off camera, focused, determined as the Scottish Enlightenment. Curiously enough she’s wearing a Star of David on her blouse; no idea what that means, it’s just there with her, spiritual cartography.

My dad has been researching as well, just yesterday discovering for the first time (from a ship manifest) that his dad first came over from Hungary when he was an infant. My dad always assumed his father first came over in 1925, as a young man.

“If something ends up declared as the Word of God, it must already be written. It is already written. We must not go beyond what is already written. We must not be sidetracked by one word of one prophet at the expense of all the other words of all the other prophets.

Morning in the atrium of Regent College, Vancouver, reflecting… pondering, often gazing up at the Celtic cross, vaulting windows, framing steel grey skies, molten silver shores in the East.

Yesterday, had a few minutes with James Houston, such a refreshing smile… Then, over the course of the afternoon, alongside my friends David and Julia Jones, sat with Mark Mayhew, Paul Stevens, and Paul Williams… discussing among many things, the Marketplace Institute.

The night before, it was David, Julia, Craig Harris, and Bentley Grigg at Sandbar restaurant on Granville Island, federal territory, a bit of Canada, in the heart of Vancouver.

There’s tourists who drive through this valley and climbers who live here; each view the valley differently. Tourists see whole mountain ranges, gawk at various peaks, gasp at a mythical wonderland as they zip on by at 110 km/h.  Then there’s climbers who know every nook and cranny of every slab of rock, because they’ve clawed up and down these crags for decades.

There are more than 1600 bolted sport climbing routes here, each one named (let alone the hundreds of other routes crafted by various freelancers).

A few days before Pentecost Sunday (while touring Luke around Ontario for his 11th birthday), my mom handed me a book wrapped in layers of tissue paper. Her body language told me the book was delicate, even precious. As we stood there together in silence, I carefully uncovered a 1681 copy of Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on Psalm 90 (XC).

As I sit here translating the first sermon, I realize a deeper secret… In French, the first line of Bernard’s first sermon reads, “Celui qui s’appuie sur le secours du Tres-haut, demeurera dans la protection du Dieu du Ciel.” The English translation, “Whoever relies on the help of the Most High, will remain in the protection of the God of Heaven.”