Events

On August 27th, I made the journey into Toronto to Harcourts — makers of robes and gowns since 1842 — to be measured for my own clergy cassock. For twelve years I have served in ministry clothed in a hand-me-down academic robe, a garment borrowed from another vocation and made to suffice. Today, at last, I was measured for a cassock that is properly and entirely my own.

There is a quiet dignity in being fitted for a garment meant to carry the weight of sacred work. Standing in the workshop, surrounded by rows of academic, judicial, and clerical robes — black and scarlet and midnight blue — I was measured and marked with care, the cloth chosen and the cut decided in conversation. The cassock will be ready in five weeks, when I will return for a final fitting and the last adjustments.

Harcourts has clothed the legal, academic, and clerical communities for over 180 years. To be measured in the same rooms where judges' robes and doctoral gowns are still made by hand felt, in some small way, like a rite of passage. A borrowed robe served me faithfully through a decade of ministry. Now, in this season of sabbatical rest, I am preparing to step into a garment of my own — a small but meaningful threshold, and a reminder that even the outward things we wear can carry inward meaning.

On July 30th, still carrying the inspiration of the previous day's gallery tour, I set up a folding table on the patio and gave myself over to the quiet adventure of making something — not to produce a masterpiece, but simply to answer the impulse that beauty awakens in us: the desire to create.

What unfolded was a slow, unhurried afternoon of colour and play — blue washes laid down with a spray can, impasto daubs of red and orange worked in with a brush, grids and streaks of lime and purple and cyan finding their place across the canvas. There is a particular kind of peace that arrives when the hands are busy and the mind is free, when the only demand is the next brushstroke and the only judge is the work itself.

This abstract creation is no masterpiece. But it is mine — a small record of an afternoon spent in the company of my own imagination, in the quiet of my own backyard, learning again that the joy of art lies not in the finish, but in the journey of creation.

On Canada Day, we set out to explore one of Ontario's most extraordinary and unexpected landscapes — the Cheltenham Badlands. Tucked into the rolling countryside of Caledon, these striking red-earth formations seem almost to belong to another world entirely, their undulating ridges and gullies carved by millennia of water and wind into a terrain that feels ancient, otherworldly, and humbling.

We walked the boardwalk trail that threads through the surrounding meadow, lush and green and alive with summer, the path narrowing as it carried us toward the badlands themselves. There is something deeply moving about standing before land that tells the story of deep time — layers of Queenston Shale, iron-rich and rust-red, exposed by erosion that began long before any of us walked here. The contrast is arresting: the soft, warm hues of the exposed earth set against the vivid green of the forest that now embraces it.

It was a beautiful way to spend the day — a quiet act of exploration, a reminder that wonder is never far from home, and a fitting tribute to this land on the day we celebrate it.

Our Canada Day pilgrimage concluded just down the road at the Badlands Brewing Company — a rustic, open-air brewery where craft beer is poured under weathered beams and a corrugated roof, the owl logo watching over picnic tables scattered across the grass. There is a particular delight in being local tourists — in discovering, a short drive from home, the kind of place travellers cross counties to find. We studied the beers on tap, ordered at the counter, and let the afternoon slow right down, tasting our own region as visitors and locals at once. Perhaps that is the truest gift of this sabbatical: learning to see home with the eyes of a guest, and to love it all the more.

On a golden June morning, I lifted Isaac into his basket, settled him in, and set off down the Caledon Trail right from our home. There is a particular joy in beginning a journey from your own doorstep — no drive, no loading, just the quiet click of the pedals and the path unfurling ahead.

Isaac rides like a seasoned traveller. Perched in his basket, ears catching the breeze, he watches the woods glide past with a calm and steady curiosity, as though he has done this a thousand times and would gladly do it a thousand more. The trail was lush and green, dappled with light filtering through the canopy, the air cool and fragrant with summer.

We rode until the trail delivered us to Coywolf Coffee — a little haven of warmth and craft nestled in the countryside. The deck was bright with orange chairs and the easy pleasure of slow mornings. A cappuccino with a paw print in the foam felt like it was made just for us, a small grace note in an already grace-filled day.

Isaac had a rest, I had a coffee, and then we turned for home — the trail just as beautiful in reverse, the late morning sun warmer now, and the quiet contentment of a morning well spent settling over us both.

Elmvale is home to some of the purest water on earth — naturally artesian, drawn from deep glacial aquifers that have been filtering through the earth for generations. There is something quietly remarkable about standing beneath a simple wooden shelter in the open countryside, watching crystal-clear water pour from the pipes, knowing that this is among the cleanest water the world has to offer.

Bryce and I used to make this journey together nearly every month, filling our bottles and jugs and carrying a little of that purity home with us. Then life grew busy — as life so often does — and somehow three or more years slipped past without a single visit. Returning now, in this season of sabbatical rest, felt like a homecoming of sorts: a gentle reclamation of a small ritual that had quietly slipped away.

There is grace in revisiting the practices we have let lapse. The water tastes the same — clear, cold, and impossibly clean — and the land around it is as green and unhurried as memory left it. We may make the journey once more before the sabbatical draws to its close, and for that possibility I am grateful.

A day of quiet wonder at one of the world's great art museums — the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. From the soaring Chihuly glass sculpture in the main atrium to the intimate galleries housing Degas, Renaissance devotional objects, and contemporary works, every room held something that stopped me in my tracks.

What moved me most deeply was encountering so many representations of Christ woven throughout centuries of human artistic expression — a marble bust of Jesus gazing serenely outward, a radiant porcelain Madonna holding aloft a golden cross. Art has always been one of the ways humanity reaches toward God, and today that truth was palpable.

Standing before Degas' Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer — all four perspectives of her — I was reminded of the beauty and vulnerability of human becoming. The contemporary reinterpretation placed beside her was thought-provoking and quietly powerful.

A Special Reflection · The Japanese Garden

The day ended with a moment of unexpected stillness. I wandered into a darkened space where a projected film played on loop — the Tenshin-en, the "Garden of the Spirit of Heaven." This karesansui garden, tucked at the northwest corner of the museum, was designed for contemplation and to support one's spiritual quest. Raked gravel evoking sea and islands. Boulders representing mountain peaks. A dry waterfall symbolizing Mount Sumeru — the cosmic mountain at the centre of all things. I felt reflected in it. The Japanese garden became for me a mirror of this whole sabbatical season: intentional, unhurried, and quietly oriented toward the sacred.

On the afternoon of May 17th, I had the unexpected pleasure of stepping into a world that moves to an entirely different rhythm — the quiet, unhurried world of the apple farm. What began as a spontaneous detour became a genuinely illuminating experience.

Walking the rows of carefully tended trees, each variety marked with its own handcrafted sign, I was struck by the extraordinary patience the apple business demands. There is a profound discipline in cultivating something that requires years of care before it yields its fruit — a truth that felt very much at home in this season of sabbatical.

I came away with a deepened respect for those who steward the land, and a heart quietly reminded that the most worthwhile things in life are rarely rushed.

On April 25th, I took a leisurely stroll through Upper Canada Mall — a simple pleasure I had not afforded myself in quite some time. I wandered into the bookstore and, almost by instinct, reached for a book and opened it at random. The very first page that greeted me spoke directly to my heart.

This sabbatical time is sacred to me. I am learning, slowly and intentionally, to strengthen the quiet muscle of discernment — the practice of saying no to that which does not align with my deepest goals and values in this season of life.