11 Come, children, and listen to me; * I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

12 Who among you loves life * and desires long life to enjoy prosperity?

13 Keep your tongue from evil-speaking * and your lips from lying words.

14 Turn from evil and do good*

As Wycliffe College Chaplain, I spend a lot of time creating lists. I consider doing so a critical part of any pastoral practice.

A month ago Frederick Buechner died at age ninety-six. During that windfall of years, in which he served as a high-school chaplain, was ordained a Presbyterian minister, raised a family, and worked his unusually enchanted way with words, Buechner wrote a book that I read again each year.

Wycliffe PhD candidate Jeremy McClung’s presentation “Ridding the World of Angelas" was recently declared the winner of the Toronto School of Theology’s inaugural Three Minute Thesis competition. 3MT® is an internationally recognized research communication competition that started in 2008 a

The atmospheric river that came was truly an inundation. Torrential rain for days caused mudslides, rivers to swell and burst their banks, roads and bridges to dissolve into nothing, and waters suddenly rising to dangerous levels and consuming homes, farms, and land.

On this day the Lord has acted. We will rejoice and be glad in it (Psalm 118:24)

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

I am in the middle of reading St. Benedict’s Rule with my 30 students in the first year MDiv course at Wycliffe called, “Life Together: Living the Christian Faith in Community.” We have come to the fun part of this portion of the class.

On Friday, March 13, 2020—just before the University sent out its directive moving all classes online—several students said to me over the course of the day, “I’ve never been through something like this.” The current global pandemic is unprecedented in the experience of almost everyone living.