It has been quite a while since I provided a family update, and this seemed like just the time. I guess the leading news here is that Lord willing, I will soon be a grandfather! More on that in a moment.

We have just enjoyed a nice family vacation together. It was a sweet and relaxing time. In some ways, it felt like an especially well-earned vacation since the kids have just finished up school (some forever and some for the year) and Aileen and I have been working hard at home and away. The Lord is kind to give us times of rest.

As soon as the vacation drew to a close, I headed to Albania to speak at a conference here. Beginning today and continuing through the weekend, Alistair Begg and I will be speaking together about the centrality of the local church and the kingdom of God. This is my first time in Albania and I am enjoying getting to know the believers here. This brings my spring conference season to an end, but along the way, I spoke at events in New Jersey, Alberta, British Columbia, and Texas, plus a few locations closer to home. I have a couple of other brief trips coming up to record material with Paul Tripp and GriefShare. More on that in a future update.

Aileen continues to work part-time for our neighbor who is in real estate. Her boss gives her lots of flexibility which allows her to join me on some of my speaking trips—something we both enjoy. In a few days, she will head down to Louisville to help Abby and Nate pack up their little apartment.

Speaking of which, Abby and Nate both graduated from Boyce College (in Louisville) in early May, Abby with a degree in Biblical Counseling and Nate with a degree in Business. With their education complete, they are moving to Canada (which for Abby is moving home and for Nate is immigrating). They have secured an apartment near us and Nate has secured a job. Most exciting of all, they are expecting a baby in November! This is very happy news and Aileen and I are thrilled to begin the grandparenting stage. Abby has just gotten through her first trimester so it’s still early days. But so far, apart from the inevitable morning sickness, she is doing well.

Michaela began college at what was essentially a year ahead of schedule but thrived there relationally, spiritually, and educationally. She just completed her freshman year at Boyce College as she also works toward a degree in Biblical Counseling. She is home for the summer and is splitting her time between two administrative jobs. She recently turned 18 which means that all of our children are now adults. That seems significant!

Ryn (Nick’s fiancée) continues to be part of our family and we were glad that she could vacation with us. She still lives in Louisville and has begun work at a mental health and addiction facility—a new job and one she is enjoying.

As for me, I continue to press on with various writing projects. Last year Tim Keesee and I traveled far and wide for our Worship Round the World project and this year we are writing the book and putting together the documentary. That will all be complete by the end of the year and set for release in September 2025. I also have a book called Pilgrim Prayers releasing later this year and Eric’s Greatest Race, a graphic novel on the life of Eric Liddell, releasing next spring. So there is always lots in the works!

In the meantime, I need to turn my attention to this conference and the people here who are eager to hear the Word. Thanks for reading!

I am so glad that the holiday season is finally upon us. And as much as I enjoy all the feasts and festivities, what I’m most looking forward to is days of rest and times with family. We anticipate that the next couple of weeks will be fairly low-key, and that’s okay by us.

2023 has been a unique year for me as I completed the great majority of the travel for Worship Round the World. I visited 25 countries, worshipped with a local church in 13 of them, spent time with Christians in a further 7, and recorded hundreds of hours of video. My travel app tells me I flew about 160,000 miles and spent just over 14 days in the air. My body tells me I may have overdone it a little. But I can’t even begin to describe what a blessing it was to meet so many wonderful people and worship with so many beautiful churches. The book and documentary are now both well underway and I look forward to sharing it all with you in due time.

Next year should be significantly quieter, though I do intend to do a little more speaking at conferences. I’ll be at events in Calgary, Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Dallas, among others. I’ll also be speaking briefly in Brazil and Albania, and making a two-week trip through Italy, Austria, and Romania. Okay, so maybe next year won’t be that much quieter. Either way, I’d love to meet you at one of those events!

But for most of 2024, I’ll be focusing on the blog—on writing articles just as I’ve done for the past 20+ years. Blogging is still what I love the best.

As for the family:

Michaela is home for the holidays and it is a delight to have her around again. While Aileen and I enjoyed our first stretch of empty-nesting, there’s something to be said for having a little more life and activity in the home! Michaela is taking one course remotely during the break while also working whatever hours she can get from a nearby grocery store.

Nathan and Abby will be making their way up in early January to spend some time here. And, as importantly, they will be doing Nathan’s immigration paperwork (i.e. getting landed). They should both be graduating from Boyce College in May and plan to move this way shortly thereafter. Their first challenge will be to find a place to live in the crazy Toronto-area rental market. We are praying they find just the right work and living situations.

Ryn is living and working in Louisville. We don’t anticipate seeing her over the holidays, but will get some time with her when we visit Louisville in the spring and when we enjoy a family vacation together in the summer.

Aileen continues to work part-time as an administrative assistant for a neighbor who is in real estate. She also gives a lot of her time to overseeing the Early Years Ministry at our church, which includes the bustling nursery and preschool programs.

As we head into the holidays, I plan to maintain a slightly lighter-than-usual blogging schedule, but will still have something for you every day. In the meantime, may God bless and keep you and those who are dear to you through this season of celebration.

Today marks the third anniversary of the day Nick left us—the third anniversary of the day he arrived in heaven. It has been some time since I’ve paused with fingers on keyboard to collect my thoughts and deliberately think about him, about me, about my family, and about our grief. But the Lord, through the strange providence of having Aileen and me get stranded in a small fishing town in Alaska has given me time to pause, to think, and to write. (The photo above is one I snapped here.)

Time passes at a constant rate, of course, never any faster and never any slower. Yet sometimes it seems to have been so short a time since he died and sometimes it seems to have been so long. Sometimes he feels almost as present in my life as the day I last saw him and sometimes he feels so distant. Sometimes my memories of him are sharp and clear and sometimes they are dim and hazy. Increasingly they are like dreams I’m desperately trying to remember or reminiscences I’m desperately grappling to hold on to. The sound of his voice, the cackle of his laugh, the feel of his hugs—these are all fading into a past that seems ever more distant. I don’t like it that way, but it seems to be how human memory works—that without constant reinforcement, the old gives way to the new and the past to the present. It makes me wonder what I’ll remember of him years from now, or decades.

Today, though, I sure do miss him. I miss having someone who loved me in that unique way a son loves his father, and I miss having someone to love in that unique way a father loves a son. There are many kinds of love, of course, but that father-son bond is sweet, strong, and true. It’s no better than a father-daughter bond. But it’s different. Irreplaceable.

I miss having someone who shared so many of my interests and who was similar to me in so many ways. In varied ways, and mostly good ways, he was a kind of reflection of myself, though one who had the good sense to assume my virtues and eschew my faults.

I miss having someone who was deliberately following in my footsteps—who wanted to be like me enough that he observed and imitated. I miss the challenge of continuing to be worthy of being followed by someone so dear to me as a son.

I miss having someone who was growing beyond me, whose increasing experience and education had begun to reverse the roles so that I was beginning to turn to him for advice and guidance. We were becoming peers, he and I.

I miss the future we had mapped out in our conversations, a future in which he would get married, complete his degree, return to Canada, and take up a position at our church or at one nearby. We had planned to live close together, a family reunited after that time of preparation and education.

We will be reunited, of course, though at a much different time and in much different circumstances. We will be reunited in that place where our faith will become sight, that place where our pain will be erased and our tears wiped away, in that place where this will finally all make sense. He is already there. I will eventually catch up.

In the meantime, God continues to grant us the grace to trust him. None of us have wavered in our confidence that God is good and that in some way even an experience as painful as this is an expression of that goodness. None of us have allowed this to knock us out of the race or to give us an excuse to become less useful to the Lord’s purposes. None of us have allowed this to rob us of our joy or to keep us locked endlessly in sorrow or lament. All of us have committed to staying true to the Lord, to living our lives well, and to looking forward to that day when we will be together again.

Together again with our Savior. Our family whole, our hearts whole, our souls whole. All made whole through the goodness and grace of our God. Until that day I miss my sweet boy. I miss him, I love him, and I can’t wait to see him again.

It was twenty years ago this week that I made the decision to try to post something to my blog every day for a year. At that time the site was suffering from a lack of attention. I would write occasional articles and often get positive feedback on them, but I lacked any real commitment and dedication. The time between posting articles had stretched from days to weeks, so I decided I’d give it one more shot by making the commitment to post something new every day for a year. If I failed, I’d just give up and find a new hobby.

But it worked. From November 1, 2003 to October 31, 2004 I posted something every day. At the end of the year I decided I enjoyed holding myself to that kind of discipline so renewed the commitment. And somewhere along the way, it became a habit that stuck—and a habit that has remained two decades later. Tomorrow I’ll round out twenty years of daily blogging.

That’s not to say that I have always posted something of the highest quality—though I do try to ensure it is always worth reading and that it will benefit people in some way. And that’s certainly not to say I write every day or am even involved in posting it every day—there are people and automation tools that can do that for me when I am on vacation or taking a weekly day of rest. But it is to say that I’ve maintained the habit and enjoyed doing so.

So as I hit that 20-year mark, I want to express my gratitude to you, the readers. None of this would be possible if you didn’t commit to reading it. The fact that you continue to read this site is a blessing and encouragement to me. I’d say “Here’s to another 20 years” but I kind of doubt I’ll maintain the habit that long.

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And now, turning to a completely different subject, I thought I’d share a few thoughts and articles that may be of interest to you. While I link to several good pieces of writing each day in my A La Carte column, I focus almost exclusively on Christian material. Sometimes, though, I read other material and feel like commenting on it. That’s some of what you will find below—interesting articles from mainstream sources that are accompanied by some brief commentary.

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Happy birthday to Abby who turns 21 today!

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The Verge has an article that makes me chuckle: Apple’s new video reactions are making therapy incredibly awkward. If you have upgraded to the most recent versions of Apple’s operating systems, you may have noticed that they now include “video reactions.” When using FaceTime or another video app, you can use gestures to trigger certain reactions in your conversations. Some of these gestures are relatively common like a thumbs up or a thumbs down, but they can trigger uncommon on-screen reactions like a heart emoji or a fireworks display.

With that in mind, “SimplePractice, a company that offers a telehealth platform, is warning patients about Apple’s new video reactions feature that might let people unintentionally add heart emoji or virtual fireworks during a telehealth video call. Awkward.” Awkward indeed! The warning extends to other uses of video such as business meetings or litigation—times when an unexpected heart emoji or laser show may slightly disrupt what was otherwise a very serious conversation. Thankfully, it is possible to disable the feature—something you may wish to consider. And thankfully this feature came along well after that strange stretch of time during the pandemic when we seemed to be on video calls all day and every day.

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I was recently pondering the parable of the Good Samaritan and wondering this: if Jesus were to speak the parable today, who would play the role of the Samaritan in our modern Western context? If Jesus was attempting to challenge the kind of pious religious folk who are convinced of their own spiritual superiority, who would be the person who so revolts them that they would be infuriated to learn he was actually the one who had behaved righteously—the one who represented the sharpest cultural division of that day?

I was thinking the other day of the Modern Parable films that were released about 12 years ago. They provided a modern adaptation of the parable and, as I recall, the Samaritan was played by a devout Muslim. But that was not too long after 9/11 and what might have resonated in that day probably wouldn’t today. I know there is a lot of historical context that divided first-century Jews from Samaritans, but I’d be interested in knowing your thoughts on the closest comparison in our day.  Who is our modern Samaritan? (Facebook is probably the best place to leave a comment since I removed the commenting function on my blog a very long time ago.)

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“Something feels a bit off with Airbnb these days.” The Atlantic recently wrote about Airbnb and the way it has changed over the years. I remember the early years when every home or cottage we rented made us feel like we had been invited in as the guest of the homeowner. They would often be there to greet us and would leave a little welcome gift behind. There was something charming about it. But that was then and this is now. Today’s Airbnbs are often owned or at least managed by professional companies who want the experience to be very professional, bland, and sterile.

The author says, “You risk ending up, like I did in Vermont, in one of multiple cookie-cutter units listed by the same host, units that lean less ‘cozy ski lodge’ and more ‘IKEA display room that has never known human touch.’” And that’s exactly it. We recently rented one that had four chairs around the table and in the cupboards were four plain white IKEA mugs, four plain white IKEA plates, and four plain white IKEA bowls. Nearby were exactly 4 IKEA knives, forks, and spoons. The walls were stark and bare and there was no more furniture than absolutely necessary. It was a home devoid of warmth, character, or anything beyond the absolute necessities. I guess that’s fine as far as it goes, but I still find myself looking for listings that have a bit more of the older feel.

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Fast Company wrote about the note-taking app Obsidian. Whether it’s Obsidian, Roam Research (which I prefer), or one of several imitators, this new generation of note-taking apps offers features and power that previous generations did not. Their purpose is not just to help you write notes, but to help you figure out how to create ideas and bring meaning from those notes. So if Evernote or even your computer’s built-in notes app is meant to simply record information, these apps are meant to record information and then help you do something with it. I have found them invaluable and would say that if your work is in the realm of ideas, you may find they really benefit you as well. I continue to use Roam (as I’ve outlined here), though if I was starting over I’d definitely consider Obsidian as well.

Aileen and I have just wrapped up a lovely little vacation on New Zealand’s South Island. Having just reached our twenty-fifth anniversary and with both our girls now in college, we took the opportunity to let Air Canada travel miles take us as far as they could. We enjoyed ourselves a lot and at the end of it all offer these brief reflections on New Zealand.

Friendly people. There are lots of friendly cultures out there, but I have never experienced people as consistently friendly as New Zealanders (and this was true of my last visit as much as this one). From strangers in the towns to employees in the stores to Christians who were eager to offer hospitality, we didn’t encounter a single person who wasn’t eager to meet us or serve us.

One lane bridges. Somewhere way back in New Zealand history someone must have decided that the country could save a lot of money by making bridges only one lane wide rather than two. And so driving involves routinely slamming on the brakes to wait for oncoming cars to make their way down that single lane. Quirky! And probably a bit annoying during peak tourist season.

Tourists. Speaking of which, we chose to visit at the exact opposite of peak season. We would rather see a place when it may not be quite as beautiful but when it also won’t be quite so crowded. That worked well. It was wintery for our visit, but that suited us fine. The driving was always simple enough and never dangerous (though we did just avoid a couple of road closures by no more than a day or two). And even at non-peak some of the touristy sites were quite busy, making us wonder what it’s like in summer. And especially so in a place like Milford Sound.

Beauty. There are many nations that boast an incredible amount of natural beauty. While I have not visited them all, I have been blessed to visit many. New Zealand is without a doubt right up there. I still think Norway is probably the most incredible place I have been, and both Switzerland and Scotland rank highly as well, but New Zealand now takes its place among them. Everywhere you go there is something wonderful to see, some of it mountainous and harsh, some of it pastoral and green, some of it roiling and oceanic.

Uninhabited. We were surprised at how much of New Zealand is uninhabited. Much of the land is committed to conservation and so is largely untouched for that reason. But then much else is simply the way it must have been many hundreds or thousands of years ago. We drove 2,500 kilometers so truly saw the country, and we often encountered stretches of 100 kilometers or more with no homes, no towns, no people. And, very often, no cell phone reception. It was glorious. But we did quickly realize we needed to make sure we kept our gas tank relatively full.

Doubtful Sound. I have been to many beautiful spots in the world, but Doubtful Sound may top them all. If not, it’s well within the top-five. Milford Sound was incredible as well and had by far the better drive, but we visited Doubtful Sound on a day that was dark and brooding and it was truly a sight to behold. I took many photos but none of them really seem to adequately capture its haunting beauty. I can’t recommend making that day trip too highly. The Lord very nearly outdid himself when he created that area. It is utterly magnificent. (And, despite the name, is a fiord rather than a sound.)

Speed limit. The otherwise-unmarked speed limit in New Zealand is 100 km/h (62 mph) versus 80 km/h in Canada and something roughly similar in the US. This is true even when roads are just one lane in each direction and when they are twisting, winding, and wet. We were assigned an SUV that came with a rollover danger warning and this made things … interesting. And fast. If you don’t drive the limit you are soon guaranteed to have an eager driver hanging on your tail and waiting to sneak by you, probably just beyond the next one lane bridge.

Sandwiches. New Zealand has great sandwiches. Every time we wanted lunch we stopped at a little cafe or restaurant and every time we received a great sandwich or toasty. The food was consistently expensive but consistently good.

Coffee. Australia and New Zealand are different countries (much to the surprise of one of my friends when I told him I was coming here) but they are bound together by this—they both have bad coffee, at least by my assessment. They say the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while hoping for a different result. Well I keep ordering the long black hoping to eventually experience a really good one. I’m still waiting.

Trash. If Jesus had lived in 21st century New Zealand rather than first-century Palestine, he might have replaced his “camel through the eye of a needle analogy” with “it is easier to find a garbage can in New Zealand than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And everyone would have marveled at how difficult it is for a rich man to be saved. Because good luck finding a place to throw out your trash in New Zealand. We even stayed in hotels that insisted we take it with us rather than leave it behind!

We had a really good time here, both interpersonally and in exploring a delightful country. We very much hope to return in the future.

It has been about 8 months since the release of my book Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God. And it has been an encouraging time. I wanted to share a few updates and pieces of information that may be of interest to you.

Perhaps the greatest encouragement has come from grieving families who have gotten in touch to share how the book has been meaningful to them. Subsequent to that has been people who have found comfort in the book as they have endured other losses than the loss of a child. To my surprise and delight, I have also heard some very credible accounts of people coming to faith while reading the book. A number of people have asked me whether it would be appropriate for non-Christians to read and it seems that, at least in some cases, the Lord is using it to draw people to himself.

FamilyLife Today Interview

Earlier this year Aileen and I flew down to Orlando to record a couple of episodes of FamilyLife Today with Dave and Ann Wilson. This was the first time since Nick’s funeral that Aileen has spoken publicly, and I think she did very well in providing a mother’s perspective on grief and loss. I’m really proud of her! Those episodes have just been released and you can listen to them at the FamilyLife site, on YouTube, or through your favorite podcast app (e.g. Apple Podcast, Spotify).

• Episode 1
• Episode 2

Awards

Seasons of Sorrow was nominated by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association for a Christian Book Award in the biography & memoir category. (The ECPA is an organization that works with Christian publishers and booksellers to track sales, distribute awards, and so on.) It was a blessing and honor to learn that Seasons of Sorrow won. It had also previously been named the Counseling Book of the Year by the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. This, too, was a blessing to me.

Spanish Edition

The Spanish edition, Estaciones de aflicción: El dolor de la pérdida y el consuelo de Dios, is due to be released on August 8. A bilingual friend has read both editions and assures me it is a good and faithful translation. I have had a number of people contact me about other languages and have directed them to the publisher in the hope that we will see further translated editions in the future.

Extra Resources

I wanted to remind you that there are a few extra resources available to go along with the book.

• A Letter to Parents – This is a letter I have prepared addressed to parents who have lost a child. If you plan to give bereaved parents a copy of Seasons of Sorrow, you may like to print this and include it with the book.
• Application Questions & Group Study Guide – This free guide is for people who are reading it individually and wish to consider application questions and for groups who are reading it together and looking for a reading plan as well as discussion questions.
• Helpful Things To Say To Grieving Parents – If you are walking through the loss of a child with a friend or family member, this article will help you know how you can best serve them in their darkest hour.

Thanks to all who have purchased and/or read the book, and perhaps especially to those who have given it to a grieving friend in the hope that it would provide at least a little glimmer of light in their time of darkness. May God use it all for his glory.

A couple of weeks ago I was on live radio doing an interview about Seasons of Sorrow. The interview went well, I think, and I was able to speak about Nick, about the book, and about my hope that it will bless and serve others as they pass through their own seasons of grief and loss. As soon as I hung up, I sat down at my computer and saw that I had received an email to this effect: “I am listening to you on the radio. Lately many people are suddenly dying including young athletes on the field. Many doctors are coming out and realizing it is due to the Covid vaccine. Did Nick get the Covid vaccine or have to take it for school?” That was just one of many—many emails and Facebook comments and YouTube responses that have asked, suggested, or assumed the same.

I have no interest in debating vaccines or discussing what the medical consequences of taking one may be. That is a whole different subject and one poorly suited for this medium. But what I do have an interest in is helping people understand how to serve families who are enduring the loss of a loved one. I want to speak on their behalf and say that very often pressing to know the cause of death or speculating about it is going to offend or hurt those who are grieving. Very seldom will it benefit them in any way.

Let’s establish two matters, one pertaining to your task and one to your rights.

Your task. Your task when you encounter an individual or family enduring a time of sorrow is to serve and bless them. This means it falls to you to do your utmost to be as helpful to them as possible and it falls to you to avoid doing or saying anything that might add to their pain. You are to help rather than hinder them in their grief.

Your right. You have no right to know how another person died. You may have some natural curiosity. You may have some natural fear. But you have no entitlement to that information. If it is not your loved one, then it is not your business. You can carry out your task of serving and blessing the family without knowing the details. And if you are not present in their lives, you can still pray faithfully and earnestly without knowing a single fact about it.

Of course, there may be times the family chooses to make the cause of death public and there may be times when it is a matter of public record. But there are many other occasions when the family chooses not to reveal that information, and it’s usually safe to assume they have their reasons for doing so. This could be because the death involved suicide or a drug overdose and they feel a level of shame or regret; it could be that the death was especially traumatic and they are protecting one another by not recounting its details; it could simply be that they are private people and have chosen to keep that information personal rather than making it public. Or maybe they fear that the death would be “cheapened” if it was tied to a cause, agenda, or political issue.

Do you really want to ask a brother to tell you about the day he saw his sister’s life ebb away before his eyes? Do you really consider it fair that you would ask a mother to recount how she found her son’s body after he took his life? Is it okay that your curiosity is now satisfied after pestering a heartbroken dad to divulge the most painful moments of his life? Of course not. Of course it isn’t.

When you feel that sense of curiosity, it is worth asking yourself: Why do you want to know how that person died? Is it to better serve the family? Is it to be more sympathetic or more helpful? If not that, then what is the purpose of asking? How will that knowledge better equip you to serve them? If it’s mere curiosity, you should save the family the sorrow of asking them to recount their most painful moment. You should especially save the family the pain of pressing deeper when it is clear they are not interested in divulging details. Let the family take the lead and ask no more than they are comfortable sharing.

As for us, the answer people are looking for is this: no. No, Nick’s death had nothing to do with a COVID-19 vaccine and this is easily proven by the date of his death: November 3, 2020. The first vaccine to receive Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, Pfizer-BioNTech, was not approved until mid-December, with the other vaccines following in 2021. Hence, Nick was not vaccinated and could not have been. The answer has always been as simple as a Google search.

As I expressed a year ago, an autopsy determined that his cause of death was “presumed cardiac dysrhythmia of uncertain etiology.” In other words, for causes that remain unknown, Nick’s heart very suddenly and unexpectedly slipped into an unsustainable rhythm which in turn led to full cardiac arrest. This is a presumed diagnosis, which is the best that can be done in such cases. Subsequent genetic testing that was extremely thorough turned up no other significant leads. Hence, this is as much of a diagnosis as we are ever likely to have. We have learned over the past two years that this cause of death is neither unprecedented nor as rare as we might think. Even before there was a COVID-19 vaccine there were people whose hearts suddenly stopped—even people who were young and who otherwise appeared to be perfectly healthy. Such is life and death in a broken and fallen world.

And so I urge you when God’s providence directs that you can be present in the aftermath of a great loss, that you refrain from pressing, refrain from insisting that you should know information that is otherwise not available to you. Your task is to love, to serve, to care, and to bless, and you can do all of this even when the cause of death remains unknown or uncertain.

As another week drew to a close, I found myself pondering beauty and wanting to reflect on some of the beautiful things I had encountered in the previous 7 days. Here are the ones that came to mind.

1. Fall Colors. Autumn in Ontario is almost breathtakingly beautiful during those few weeks when the leaves still remain on the trees and are turning from green to vibrant reds and yellows. Yesterday I made a long drive from the city to the countryside where I’m settling in for a while to focus on some writing projects. Along the way I got to admire so much beauty and to praise God for it. I’m thankful for the beauty of fall even though it precedes the cold austerity of winter.

2. Christ Our Hope in Life and Death. The Gettys have released a new album titled “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death” that contains a number of lovely songs. Beside the title track which may already be familiar to you, the songs “Rejoice,” “The Lord Almighty Reigns,” and “Take Shelter” are also wonderful, as is their recording of the classic “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks.” I’ve been listening to the album all week long. (Parents may also want to give a listen to J.J. Heller’s “I Dream of You: JOY” which is sweet.)

3. Ulysses. There was a time when I was adding new apps to my phone or computer on almost a weekly basis. But over time my list of apps stabilized and now I probably add a new one only once a year. One of the ones that has remained constant and which I grow to appreciate all the more as time goes on is Ulysses—a minimalist, full-screen, writing app. There is, to my mind, no app that makes writing easier, more pleasurable, or more beautiful. I never get tired of it and never grow weary of its sheer simplicity.

4. Good Books. I like to read a book or two a week and this week thoroughly enjoyed Al Stewart’s The Manual, an excellent book for men. He confronts unhealthy forms of masculinity and goes to the Bible to show what God says about being a man who is godly, upright, honorable, and distinctly masculine. I highly recommend it! (Ladies, buy it for your husbands and feel free to tell them I said they should read it.)

5. Normal Borders. At long last, Canada has revoked the requirement for non-Canadians to be vaccinated before entering the country and for non-vaccinated Canadians to serve out a 14-day quarantine after entering. They have also removed the requirement to wear masks aboard planes and random testing upon arrival. This means that American friends and family members are finally making their plans to come and visit us. We have missed them! (Strangely, the United States still mandates that foreigners entering the US must be vaccinated in order to cross the border; here’s hoping that long-in-the-tooth requirement will be removed soon as well.)

6. Friends. My small group has just begun to meet again and it was a joy to sit with them on Wednesday evening to talk about life and godliness. I’m so thankful for the gift of friends.

7. Long-exposure photography. Michaela is taking a photography class this year and each week has an assignment meant to display skill in a different aspect of the craft. This week’s assignment was all about shutter speed and long exposures—my favorite kind of photography. She decided she wanted to capture light trails, so we drove downtown to a bridge near Union Station where we could capture trails set against a skyline. Here’s the lovely shot she took:

(For those not familiar with photography, the light trails are the red lines along the tracks—a train’s rear lights that were captured as it passed from the foreground to the background over a 20-second exposure.)

Last week[note:the article is dated 2021] brought the news that Don Lewis has died—Dr. Donald Munro Lewis, professor of church history at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is remembered there with great affection not only as a skilled teacher of church history, but as a spiritual companion to many, a faithful mentor, and a man who was committed to prayer. And though I met Don only a handful of times, and though we were only infrequent correspondents, I owe him pretty much everything.

Long before Don was a professor at Regent, or even a student there, he attended Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec, very close to his hometown of Sherbrooke. Don was raised in a Christian home and became a believer at a young age. His father led a church in the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and it was as a Pentecostal that Don enrolled at Bishop’s University, a school associated with Anglicanism. Bishop’s is set in the beautiful Eastern Townships of Quebec, quite near to Montreal where my father was raised and closer still to the small towns where my mother grew up. It was on the campus of Bishop’s that these three lives would intersect.

Dad had grown up in a privileged home, the son of a Superior Court Justice. But his family life had been turbulent, often dominated and disrupted by a sister who suffered from severe mental illness and who committed suicide when dad was in his teens. (Nancy’s story, as I have explained elsewhere, became the subject of Leonard Cohen’s song “Seems So Long Ago, Nancy”.) Unusually intelligent and always interested in ideas, dad enrolled in Bishop’s to study philosophy. But though he understood philosophy, he couldn’t make himself believe in philosophy. He didn’t buy it as the ultimate explanation for his ultimate questions. His heart remained restless. Angry even. Despairing.

In the final year of dad’s undergraduate studies, he and Don Lewis became fast friends. They were soon spending hours together discussing life, faith, God, and everything in between. As they talked, Don found opportunities to explain the gospel of grace and to call dad to it. And eventually dad realized he had finally found ideas that were big enough to fill his mind and great enough to satisfy his heart. Here’s how Don explained it in the eulogy he delivered at my father’s funeral:

Slowly his questions were heard, his raging against life and God was stilled. After about six months John had found his way into the Kingdom of God. John Wesley said of the people in a small town in Cornwall of the impact of his preaching: “the lions have become lambs.” Or as Puritan preachers might have said, “The roaring lion vanquished by the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” Vanquished, but not that John ever lost his passion, or his asking of deep questions.

In the same eulogy Don said that his friendship with dad “was one of the great gifts that has shaped my life.” I know dad would have said just the same.

Meanwhile, mom had also become a student at Bishop’s and, though she succeeded academically, found herself doing poorly otherwise. She had determined that life was meaningless, that she could never find hope and joy, that there was no solution to the guilt she felt or to the knowledge of the evil that dwelt within her. She had determined she would give herself a few more days and, if in that time she could not find a reason to live, would simply take her own life and be done with it. Sitting alone on campus one day, dad came bounding up to her. They had met a couple of times and had even gone on one date, and she knew him just well enough to know that something about him was different. In his zeal, dad began to tell her all about his newfound faith. He begged her to go out to dinner with him two days later so he could tell her more about it. She went, though almost against her will. On that very evening she, too, came to faith after dad led her to some Christians Don had introduced him to.

Mom and dad were married just a few months later. With university now behind them they decided to travel through Europe and, for whatever reason, Don journeyed with them. But real life beckoned and it was not long before their ways parted. Don decided to pursue further education and studied first at Regent, then at Oxford. He became a committed Anglican along the way and, alongside his friend and colleague J.I. Packer, devoted much of his life to fostering a healthy Anglicanism. Meanwhile, mom and dad had spent time with Francis Schaeffer and his family and become committed Presbyterians. But though their ways and Don’s parted and they settled on opposite sides of a very large country, they stayed in touch, even if only sporadically. Regent’s remembrance of Don says: “Prior to Covid-19, it was not unusual for Don to spend his reading week flying from Atlanta to Minneapolis to Winnipeg to visit the many alumni and pastors he mentored.” He made many of these Pauline missionary journeys and a number of them led to our home and to my parents—his way of continuing to invest in the people he had led to Jesus.

Mom and dad had five children, and all of us know the Lord. We have 16 children between us, and they all know the Lord—at least, those who are old enough to be able to express it. But there’s more. Dad told his mom about Jesus and she believed. He told his older sister and she, too, believed. Mom told her sister and she believed. And those families, too, now boast three generations of believers. And if we trace the Christian faith of all these people—perhaps 40 or 50 of us now—they all eventually converge on Don Lewis. They all converge on a young man who simply and faithfully shared the gospel.

Jesus told a parable about a farmer who went into his fields to sow seed. He scattered it far and wide. Some fell along the path where it was quickly gobbled up by birds; some fell on rocky soil where it sprang up but, because its roots had no depth, was scorched by the sun; some fell among weeds where it was choked out by thorns; but some fell onto good soil where it put down deep roots, grew well, and produced a crop that was 30 or 60 or 100 times more plentiful than itself. And this is exactly how the Lord does his work, through ordinary people like Don when they share the extraordinarily Good News of the gospel. Don told dad; dad told mom; they told me; I told Aileen; we told our children; they will tell theirs. And so it will go until the full harvest is gathered in, until the Lord returns, until we are all reunited before Him.

As friends and family gather to remember Don, to lament his departure but rejoice in his homegoing, I find myself praising God for his life and legacy, for in a small way I am part of that legacy—that legacy of faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. “In some ways I consider you my spiritual grandson,” he once wrote me, “as I was, under God, someone who had a significant role in your father’s coming to faith.” And in just that way, under the kind providence of God, I owe everything to Don Lewis.

Today is Thanksgiving for us Canadians—we like to get the holiday out of the way a little bit earlier than our neighbors to the south. And since it’s a holiday I thought I’d take it easy and provide nothing more substantial than a bit of an update on life and family.

First, though, a word about Canadian Thanksgiving. Where America has a whole narrative behind their day, I’m not aware of any behind ours—it’s just a time to gather with family and eat a big meal together. (At least, it is under normal circumstances. Various governmental leaders here practically begged Canadians to celebrate with only their own household this year rather than invite a crowd and risk an associated uptick in infections a week or two later.) Most people have their meal on Sunday and then work on digesting it on Monday, which is the official holiday. The traditional meal is pretty much the same as in America—turkey, potato, fall vegetables, pumpkin pie, and so on. The weekend is unmarred by the flurry of consumerism that marks the American equivalent. We’re no better, though, because we’ve adopted Black Friday and Cyber Monday and “celebrate” these alongside America in November.

As for the family, my two oldest kids are still down in Louisville, of course, and we are feeling their absence today as much as we ever have. While we’re thankful that they are doing well and learning lots at Boyce College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, it’s during the holidays and at the occasions that we miss them the most. That said, we are just four weeks away from the end of the semester and their return to Canada. It can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. The quarantine rules remain in place here, so we anticipate having to isolate the entire family as soon as the kids get back home. That means two weeks with none of us leaving the house! So I guess we will at least be able to make up for lost time.

My youngest daughter is just past the halfway mark of her first “quadmester” of high school. Instead of offering four courses at a time for each of two semesters, schools around here are offering two courses at a time for each of four quadmesters. Half of each day is in school (masked and distanced) and half is at home. It’s a clunky system and one nobody is crazy about, but it’s what they’ve got on offer for these COVIDy times. It seems likely that this will be the pattern through the whole school year. It doesn’t make for the easiest introduction to high school, but she seems to be handling it well enough.

A few days ago I finished a book that will be released in the latter half of 2021. It combines a collection of new SquareQuotes with daily devotionals. I think it’s a resource people will enjoy and, even better, find helpful. And the day after I finished that book project I began a new one that I will tell you about once it’s further underway. I still have no travel plans and no sense of when I’m likely to be able to hit the road again. Frankly, I’m enjoying the writer’s life so much that I’m not sure when I’ll want to hit the road again. That said, I am looking forward to the huge Worship Round the World project that Tim Keesee and I plan to do once travel is once again possible and once churches have returned to normalcy. We’re counting on beginning that no earlier than the middle of 2021.

Anyway, to my fellow Canadians: Happy Thanksgiving! Despite the weirdness of this year and its many tragedies large and small, I’m sure we all have much to be thankful for. And to the rest of you: Happy Monday! As it happens, Monday is just about my favorite day of the week…

Over the past few weeks it has been interesting to see how different jurisdictions in Canada and elsewhere in the world have created and released guidelines for worship services during a pandemic. And then it has been interesting to see how different churches interpret those guidelines. Here in Ontario, we were given broad guidelines from the province that were to then be explained and enhanced by more specific versions from the various regions. But since all of these documents were created by governments—and governments obviously busy with many other concerns—it came as no surprise that they were often unclear and contradictory. So we have all been left appealing for greater clarity, asking for legal interpretations, and even consulting with insurance companies.

Most churches in this area have begun to worship according to their best interpretation of the rules and the clearest responses from their local health officials. For Grace Fellowship Church, that means we have to follow the full social-distancing rules when on the property. Additionally, we cannot have any singing and cannot have any social events before or after the services. We are awaiting greater clarity and hopefully a relaxation of rules in the near future. For now, though, we have now worshipped together as a church three times and switched from recording a service on Fridays to live-streaming the service on Sundays. We’ve seen a modest response with perhaps 30 percent of our people returning. Summer officially began this week, and with people taking vacations and entering into summer schedules, I don’t expect we will see anything close to full participation for quite some time.

On the family front, we continue to do well. Both my girls graduated last week through online, pre-recorded ceremonies—one from eighth grade and the other from twelfth. In both cases we were impressed with what their schools did for the grads given the hand they were dealt. The ceremony still lacked the thrill of walking across a stage to receive a diploma and the joy of being together with friends, but I guess it was as special as it could be under the circumstances. Thankfully restaurant patios opened just on time, so I was able to take each of my girls out for dinner to celebrate with them (separately, of course, since they are, after all, sisters). After all these years, we are now fully and finally done with primary school. With my middlest kid joining the oldest at Boyce College in August, the youngest has just four years of high school left before we leave that phase behind at last.

Here’s something kind of random: Is anyone else getting excited about the new product announcements Canon is set to make this month? As an avid (though amateur) photographer fully committed to Canon products, this is exciting stuff. I’ve never owned a true long lens, so am hoping (against hope, no doubt) that the 100-500mm RF will somehow prove affordable. And while the EOS R5 seems like it won’t offer any great benefits to those of us who don’t shoot much video, the R6 may be intriguing. If I sell a bunch of my old lenses, I might just be able to scrape together enough to make it happen.

In other news, we have all been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic in different ways. Each of us has experienced some measure of disruption to our lives and to our “normal.” One way of illustrating this in my life is through maps. Over the past few years I have traveled a lot. Much of it was related to my Epic project and much to speaking opportunities. But then I also made a couple of long journeys to visit missionaries, a number to visit my family (all of whom live in the States), and a few to making good use of all the travel miles I earned along the way. Since I geekily and fastidiously track all my flights, it’s simple enough to generate a map.

For 2019, that map looked like this:

That’s quite a contrast to 2020 which currently looks like this:

While granting that I’m theoretically still scheduled to do a bit of flying before the year ends, it will still be minimal compared to previous years. And though this has marked a seismic change in my life, it is one I am quite enjoying, as I’m sure I’ve said in previous updates. After three months, I think I am just beginning to hit my stride in this life of all-out blogging and book-writing. Perhaps that’s how long it takes for an old normal to become a new normal. Though I do intend to start up travel again as I’m able, I anticipate doing less of it in the future. I am becoming increasingly convinced that the bigger calling on my life is not traveler, but writer. But don’t hold me to that, especially as countries begin to re-open their borders and to extend invitations for Canadians to come back in…

After many of these family updates in which I’ve had to report, “not much has changed” I can finally say, “lots has changed.” As of today my region (Halton Region) has entered stage two of Ontario’s reopening plan. While most stores have already been allowed to open, stage 2 now permits malls, attractions, recreation facilities, restaurant patios, barbers, and so on. This is good news, though it will also begin to show how many businesses have not been able to endure the past three months of shutdown. And not many restaurants can thrive, or even survive, from only a patio. Still, it is something, and at the very least it shows the progress Ontario is making.

Just after my previous update on June 5, we got the surprising news that places of worship had been given the go-ahead to re-commence services for prayer and worship. This was especially encouraging because churches were the only context in which larger groups were allowed to meet (though weddings and funerals were subsequently added as well). While in most of life we are allowed groups of no more than 10 people, churches are permitted to have up to 30% of building capacity. Grace Fellowship Church meets in a primary school gym and 30% of our capacity is 139 people. However, we must maintain full social distancing, which means six feet of space between each household group. With that restriction we can fit no more than 80.

Last Sunday we had our first in-person service after 14 weeks apart. We were given strict guidelines from the local government (and slightly laxer guidelines from the provincial government) and did our best to apply and follow the letter and spirit of them. This means we had to maintain six feet between all households at all times, from the moment we drove in to the parking lot to the moment we drove back out. We had to put a lot of thought into abiding by guidelines that featured phrases like “we recommend” or “churches should not.” Such phrases applied to Lord’s Supper, singing, and other elements of Christian worship. In general we chose to abide by the strict interpretation of the recommendations as we await further clarifications from government and further information from our insurer. Even with all those measures in place, it was a great joy to be back together as a church. While the service was small (only about 20% of our people indicated interest in returning on week one) it was a blessing to be part of it, and I expect to see the numbers rebound steadily.

On the family front, things haven’t changed nearly as much. My younger daughter has a few projects to do, but there really aren’t a ton of options right now to keep 14-year-olds busy. The two older kids continue to work their shifts at the nearby grocery store while beginning to look forward to heading to Louisville in mid-August. Aileen and I are trying to figure out how we will get them there if the US-Canada border remains closed beyond the current deadline of July 21. It’s actually possible that we may have to send my daughter to her freshman year alone since students are considered essential (and so can cross the border) while their parents are not. While she would do just fine, I’m sure, Aileen and I would be rather broke up about that. Boyce College has a sweet ceremony for sending off students and I’d be grieved to miss it. That’s something we are praying about a lot.

What else? I’m still spending two days out of every week plugging away at a new book, due for publication near the end of 2021. With my hands still in terrible condition, I can handle only 2-3 hours of typing per day, so it moves slowly. I’m still hoping to get to Norway for a conference in October. I’m still really hoping to get to New Zealand and Australia in December, though it’s basically impossible to predict anything that far away with any kind of confidence. I’ve also got a fun, “secret” project that I hope to unveil in the fall.

Finally, I wonder if you’ve experienced this odd, new phenomenon where you are watching a movie or TV show and find yourself quietly judging people there for failing to social distance. Or even if you don’t judge them, you find yourself noticing how close they stand, how much they touch one another, how many pack into a single little elevator, how they stroll through the corridors of hospitals without as much as a mask over their faces. It is amazing how quickly we have created a new set of manners and adapted to a whole new set of social courtesies. I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before we return to the old, better, and more humanizing way of doing things. I hope it’s soon.

I trust you and yours continue to do well and continue to enjoy the rich blessings of our kind and gracious God.

Here’s a photo I snapped early one morning at Oakville’s Bronte Harbour.

It occurred to me the other day that it has been almost three months since I shook anyone’s hand—or had any other form of physical contact with any person who is not in my family. And I think the last hand I shook was Paul Washer’s. The last day I was out of the house before everything went into lockdown, he was in town and we spent the afternoon and evening together. The time concluded with me interviewing him as part of our mid-week service. I bid him farewell, shook his hand, went home, and learned a day or two later that we were being asked to stay home indefinitely. And all these weeks later, we’re still being asked to stay home and it’s still essentially indefinite. Our aptly-named Conservative Party is in power here in Ontario and is taking a very cautious approach to the pandemic. While most stores are now free to open (provided they maintain social distancing, of course), we are still expected to stay put as much as possible. We can meet in groups of up to 5 people when necessary, but, again, only with distancing or masking in place. And so we remain mostly at home. But at least if I never shake another hand, Paul Washer’s will have been the last.

To be clear, I don’t begrudge the government for their cautious decisions or relatively slow pace. I know these things are complicated and I know the Toronto area has had a very difficult time getting the spread of the virus under control. I don’t see that it would do me or anyone else much good if I were to grumble about their leadership, and I’m glad enough to leave the public health decisions to people with some expertise in infectious disease. That said, I’ve had a couple of opportunities lately to engage with decision-makers and, along with other pastors, have been able to express both appreciation to the government and a desire for clear and timely guidance to churches. As much as I would like to eat at a restaurant or take my daughter to her soccer games, the area that most concerns me is public worship. I long to worship with my church; I long to see my fellow church members. I’ve been able to express that to my government (as have many others) and now wait to see when they will take action.

In the past few weeks I’ve seen a lot of articles about the mental and emotional toll of lockdown, and I think we are beginning to experience some of that in my home. While we do have fellowship as a family and fellowship even among believers (since we all profess faith) it’s still obvious we were meant to experience fellowship beyond family. Zoom and phone calls and FaceTimes are wonderful, but they are pale substitutes at best. And then there’s just that weightiness that comes with interrupted plans and shattered dreams and uncertain futures and all the ways that change has been forced upon us. There is the harsh reality that we have worshiped at home alone for 12 consecutive Sundays. We are still doing well, but I increasingly feel the need to add an important caveat: We are doing well considering the circumstances.

The kids continue to go about their tasks—the oldest two working full-time at the grocery store and the youngest with very part-time work and very part-time school. My son has also begun his summer course from Southern Seminary—the doctrine of salvation, I believe. My girls were both supposed to graduate in a couple of weeks (one from eighth grade, the other from twelfth) but those ceremonies have been canceled. So, too, has prom. We are searching for some kind of alternative way to celebrate, but with pretty well everything shut down, it’s hard to find any good options. Take them out for a nice dinner? No, restaurants are closed. Take them out to have a special day at an amusement park or other site? No, those are closed too. Call a surprise party to celebrate with friends? No, gatherings are forbidden. Perhaps something will open up or become possible before then.

Because the great majority of my 2020 conferences had been preemptively canceled by the organizers, I chose to remove myself from the couple that remained so I could fully focus my year on writing. (I still do have one conference in Norway in October, but I am skeptical that Norway will be willing to receive me and that it will be possible for me to get travel medical insurance.) So for the first time in ages, I am really bearing down into the writer’s life, rather than the writer’s-speaker’s-traveller’s life. I think I am growing used to it and even enjoying it, though I do occasionally find myself looking wistfully at the few planes that pass overhead, wondering who is aboard them and where they are headed. I’m ready to go somewhere (anywhere!) but because I can’t, and probably won’t for some time, I refocus on my writing. I’ve got one book underway with an October 1 completion date and the prospect of another really neat project immediately behind it.

And on that note, I should probably finish up this little article and get back to my book.

A photo I took along the shores of Lake Ontario

The lockdown (or what should probably be considered a “light lockdown”) in Ontario continues, though we are beginning to see a gradual loosening of the restrictions. As of last week garden centers and other outdoor businesses were able to open, and as of Tuesday all retail outlets, except those in malls, were able to open, provided they hold to social distancing guidelines. Of course, as people in other jurisdictions have noted, the ability to open does not necessarily mean businesses actually will, since some deem it too risky or too bothersome; others are waiting until customers regain their confidence before opening up and ramping up the expenses involved in doing so.

We learned a few days ago that schools will now remain closed for the remainder of the school year (which ends on June 26). Churches and other group gatherings of more than 5 people are still forbidden and the general messaging from our government is to stay home and stay distant as much as possible. It seems likely that the next stage will come in a week or two and slightly expand group sizes to 10 or so.

Last week I was able to join a conference call with our Premier (think Governor if you’re American) and several hundred other pastors. There were also a few members of our provincial parliament on the call. They expressed appreciation for the willingness of churches to close their doors for the time being and wanted us to know they are not forgetting churches in their plans to re-open. We’ve got a few MPPs who are believers and it was good to hear from them and to know they are advocating for churches. The Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, a church-goer, told how he is especially eager to see churches open up since there has been a measurable uptick in addictions and he knows that churches play a key role in helping those who struggle in that way. While it was a helpful conversation, I still expect it will be a while before we are able to meet again in sizeable groups and a very long time before we can once again cram a couple hundred people into our meeting space.

As for my family, we continue to do well enough. My son has finished up his seminary courses and is now getting nearly full-time hours at the nearby grocery store. My daughter is getting similar hours at the same store while finishing up twelfth grade. As I mentioned before, her grades cannot fall but her bank account can rise, so she’s prioritizing work over school at the moment. We got the word that Boyce College and Southern Seminary plan to open the campus for the fall semester, so we’re hopeful both of them will be able to make their way down there in August. My younger daughter is plugging away at her eighth grade classes while also working on a writing project and joining into various online games with her friends. Aileen is spending most of her time in the garden since this is prime planting season. (In Ontario the unofficial beginning of gardening season is the Victoria Day weekend which usually falls around May 24; it really isn’t until about now that you can count on the temperature staying above freezing during the night.) Her garden is her pride and joy and she always does a beautiful job of it. As for me, not a whole lot has changed. I continue to plug away at the blog and a new book project.

It has been my observation over the past few weeks that being locked down has a way of drawing out what’s under the surface. That’s true personally and equally true for the family. In some ways that’s been a hard realization, especially on the family level. We might have thought this period of isolation would be really good for us as a family, and in some ways it has been. But it also hasn’t been quite that simple. We sometimes sit down to play a game together, but it seems that at least one of us is grumpy at any given time and prone to ruin the fun for everyone else. We sometimes have great conversations as a family, but as often as not find that we are disputing about some petty grievance or hurt feeling. So yes, it has been a valuable time, but perhaps it has been as valuable in exposing our weaknesses as in displaying our strengths. But for all that, I think our family is doing well.

On a personal level I find myself reflecting on writing, conferences, travel, and the various other components that make up my vocation. This time of isolation is giving me the opportunity to consider if I want to adjust the balance of those three things, and I am quite sure I do. I expect that my future will include fewer conferences, and especially fewer big conferences. I think the ones I enjoy most, and the ones where it feels like I offer the most value, are the ones that are based in local churches. At the same time, I am eager to focus on writing without the disruptions that come through so much travel. So I need to keep thinking this through.

And that brings me to the end of another of these family updates. I began them mostly for fun, not thinking much about how long this situation might last. I guess for the time being I will keep going with them every couple of weeks. Until then, I hope you and your family are keeping well and enjoying God’s grace.

This is a photo I took down the road on the shores of Lake Ontario

I wonder: When I began writing family updates in mid-March, would I have been surprised to learn I’d still be writing them in early May? Would I be surprised to know that we’d remain under similar restrictions? I don’t know. But it seems to me that in that stretch of time so much has changed “out there” and so little has changed “in here.” When we finally emerge from this lockdown, we will be emerging into a very different world. My few forays into stores have already given glimpses of a mask-wearing, plexi-glassed, socially-distanced, slow-paced world. Will it be this way for months? Years? Forever? Who knows.

You probably won’t be shocked to know that not too much has changed in the Challies home. Our provincial government is taking a cautious approach to re-opening, and we are still under basically the same conditions as in the past update, and the one before that, and the one before that. Basically, we are being asked to stay home and not to do anything beyond essential tasks. And so I’ve mostly stayed put except for walks around the neighborhood and the very occasional trip to the store.

My older daughter is now working full-time at the garden center of the nearby grocery store where she has been employed for the past couple of years. Though her teachers have assigned her some school work, it is quite minimal and she has been told that her grades cannot fall below their pre-lockdown levels. That has freed her to focus on earning money as she continues to save toward college this fall.

My son has a couple more papers to complete and then he will have finished his second year at Boyce College and Southern Seminary (where he is in the five-year combined program that concurrently earns both undergraduate and graduate degrees). He is actually a few courses ahead of the schedule, so is almost halfway through his B.A. and M.Div. degrees. Next week he will also begin working full-time at the same grocery store as his sister (where he, too, has been an employee since he was 15).

My younger daughter turned 14 on Sunday and had a happy birthday. She has a minimal amount of school work to do each day, and has also picked up some little gardening jobs in the neighborhood which is helping her keep busy and also earning her a few bucks. Aileen loves gardening, so eagerly helps her with this.

I continue to focus on the blog, of course, and am also remaining involved in leading our church. I am in the early stages of writing a new book that I hope to complete over the summer for release in late 2021. I expect it will take up most of my non-blogging attention until then. I’ll give you more details about that project as it comes together.

As a family I think we are mostly doing okay. There have been some squabbles as we adapt to life in close quarters. There have been some hurt feelings and there has been some need for apologies. But overall, even if this situation hasn’t grown us substantially closer, I’m sure it hasn’t driven us apart. Either way, it’s probably too soon to get an accurate measure on that.

I sometimes find myself wishing that our premier (similar to a governor if you’re American) would hasten things just a little as we look toward loosening restrictions. I have a lot of respect for him, am grateful for his leadership through this crisis, and am content to wait until he gives the go-ahead. But as I understand it, our hospitals are in good shape and admitting relatively few new patients, so I’m hopeful we can advance in our re-opening strategy quite soon. I don’t quite know what I’ll do with that slightly greater freedom, except perhaps to do some exploring in my continued hunt for beautiful photography spots. More than anything, of course, I’d like to be able to gather with my church again, and am hoping we’ll be able to do that soon in one form or another.

I do hope that you and yours are well. Whether you’re still in total lockdown or well into the re-opening phase, I pray you’re experiencing God’s kindness and rejoicing in his grace.

This is a photo I took of the wharf in Oakville harbor, a few minutes down the road from here.

God told the Israelites that rather than making a beeline for the Promised Land they would need to spend years wandering in the wilderness. This was not what they wanted and not what they would have chosen, but it was his will. Because it was his will, he would sanction no grumbling about it. His will is never evil, it is never ultimately for the harm of those he loves, so it ought to have been easy for them to submit to it and even to rejoice in it. But if you’ve read Exodus, you know this is hardly the case.

We are in our own little coronavirus wilderness now, and trying to bear up better than the Israelites. Sometimes I’m not sure what counts as lament and what counts as grumbling. I don’t much like the world we have entered into, but I also don’t want to complain about it. I don’t want to grumble about our circumstances since I’m confident that they are within the scope of God’s will. He willed for this virus to hit at this time. He willed for us to spend weeks and maybe even months in various states of lockdown. He willed for us to stop traveling. He even willed that we would not be able to meet together as local churches for a time. He willed that the economy would be struck with a great blow. I don’t like any of this. I lament it all. But I’m trying not to grumble about it. Who am I to grumble against the will of God?

But submitting to it doesn’t mean I need to like it, does it? I don’t like plexiglass dividers at checkouts. I don’t like long lineups outside of grocery stores and Walmarts. I don’t like standing on social distancing dots. I don’t like that Amazon Prime is now next-month instead of next-day. I don’t like seeing people swerve far around me as we approach on the sidewalk. I don’t like getting yet another note from yet another laid-off friend. I don’t think this is whining or grumbling as much as it’s just grappling with this strange, and hopefully temporary new reality.

So what has my family been up to over the past couple of weeks? If I’m honest, not a whole lot. Following government directives, we have pretty much just stayed at home, but for brief weekly outings to the grocery store and daily walks through the neighborhood. The weather has been hovering between cool and cold, and we’ve even had a few bouts of snow, so there isn’t much else we can do outdoors. We did have to put gas in the van for the first time in 5 weeks, and at $0.75 a liter it felt practically free. We ordered a batch of orchids from a local garden center—trying to do our bit to support local businesses—and it was a joy to see neighbors brighten as we took them to a few people nearby. Flowers are amazing that way. (Did they all douse them in bleach as soon as we turned our backs?)

The girls have small amounts of work to do for school, though they’ve been told it won’t really be graded and that it cannot negatively affect their marks, so it’s not the most highly-motivating situation for them. My son is in the homestretch for his college and seminary courses, so continues to plug away at those. Aileen has been trying her hand at baking and exploring some hobbies she had long since put on the shelf. I’m pretty sure it’s her fault that I’ve put on a few pounds in recent weeks. Just before the world went nuts, I managed to buy a used Nintendo Switch (back when you could buy such things for far less than their original value instead of far more!) and that has proven a fun family distraction for all of us. Everyone in the family can beat me at Mario Kart.

As for me, I’ve been carrying on the daily writing while also mapping out a future book that I’m hoping to write over the summer. I have begun to see the effects of a hard-hit economy with conferences being called off, sponsorship spots being cancelled, and online retailers slashing their affiliate fees. It seems like the blogging economy is going to prove just as prone to recession or depression as most other sectors. But through the years the Lord has provided well and we have no reason to think he will stop anytime soon!

More personally, I have been battling sporadic waves of discouragement. I often feel a deep sadness when I go out and see people standing in lines outside grocery stores, wearing masks and gloves. I feel a deep sorrow when I open the FlightRadar app and see not a single Air Canada aircraft in the skies over North America (as was the case the other day). I feel it deeply when one of the kids expresses grief over the good things they’ve lost and the not-so-good things they’ve gained. It is a sad time. But mostly I think I’m holding up well and rejoicing in God’s grace.

One more thing: Our government had told us that for the time being it is advisable to wear masks when we venture into public spaces. I suppose they may well mandate it eventually. I have not yet worn a mask, not only because I haven’t been in such a setting for a while, but also because it seems like a really big step—like putting on a mask before going out is somehow admitting that this is all very real and that it may not end for a long time. But I guess this is just one more thing we will all adapt to in time.

I’ll leave you with a Spurgeon quote I came across the other day that has been challenging and encouraging me. He once said, “I am certain that I never did grow in grace one-half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain.” I pray that you and I would experience his grace in that special way in this unusually painful time.

Like the great majority of other families on earth, mine is learning to adjust to unexpected new realities. It has now been three weeks since we were instructed to distance ourselves from others as much as possible, and we have done our best to comply. Here’s a little update from our neck of the woods.

My son returned home after Southern Seminary had to close its doors, and he has since dutifully completed the two weeks of isolation our government demands of those who return from international destinations. The seminary made a blazingly fast transition to online learning, so his classes have continued pretty much on schedule, albeit through a screen. This week is his spring break, but he has nowhere to go and lots to do, so his life continues apace.

My daughters have been out of school since March 13 and have been told that the earliest they will return is May 4. Just this week their schools began to organize online learning and, until schools re-open or the year ends, they will have at least a couple of hours of work to complete each day. Both are set to graduate this year, one from eighth grade and the other from twelfth, but both have already learned that all year-end activities have been preemptively canceled (trips, proms, ceremonies, etc). So their lives have been radically simplified and made much “smaller.” They are finding it difficult to be separated from their friends, though they are adapting by making lots of contact via video.

Aileen and I are accustomed to being around the house a lot, since we both work in the home or from the home. Of course the great difference now is that the kids are here all the time as well. Our house is small and I don’t think any of us would deny that we are starting to feel that smallness. While we do have a tiny backyard, the weather has been cold—just a little above freezing most days—so it has not been outdoorsy weather. All parks, fields, and common areas are now closed, so the best we can do is go for walks through our neighborhood (provided, as per current regulations, we stay at least 2 meters away from anyone else).

I’ll be transparent. I find that we are all battling varying degrees of irritability and discouragement, and sometimes succumbing to them. The best I figure, I think this partly owes to being close together with nowhere to go and little to do, and also partly to the sheer uncertainty of the present and future. In the abstract, you’d think a time like this would lead to great opportunities to do fun things as a family, to explore new ideas, to take on new projects, and so on. But now that we’re into it, we all seem to be a bit listless and unmotivated. It can seem like a lot of work to organize a game of Clue or Taboo. As the dad, I’m feeling quite a lot of guilt over not spending more time doing quality things. But then it seems like no one else really wants to do those things either. It’s like we all want something to do through the long afternoons and evenings, but often can’t actually make it happen. We are trying to embrace these days, and still are in many ways—we really are having some good and meaningful times together. But it’s not as simple as I might have thought. I’m kind of disappointed in me.

Speaking of me, a month ago, my calendar was full—probably too full. I had lots of travel to do and many conferences to speak at. In the six months between March 1 and August 31, I was to make trips to Greece and Italy, then to Romania and Hungary, then to Zambia, and finally to Mozambique. I also had several events in Canada and the US. But then, not surprisingly, one after the other was canceled until now my calendar is essentially clear until the fall. I’ve even had some fall and winter events canceled. While I am disappointed that I will not be seeing those interesting places and meeting all kinds of neat people, I have found myself surprisingly content with the reality of staying put this year—a sure sign that I had over-committed.

So I continue to write most days and to post something to the blog every day (6000 days in a row as of Sunday!). I continue to chew over future projects, and am in the midst of all the media interviews related to Epic. I go for a walk early in the morning to pray, and another walk in the evening to chat with Aileen, or sometimes a run with my daughter who wanted to try a couch to 5k. I’ve also organized our neighborhood so no one will be alone and unassisted should they get sick or fear going to the store. And then, of course, I’ve continued to be involved in my church, albeit from a distance. I do miss the church dreadfully. Online services are a blessing, but they sure aren’t even close to the real thing!

I’ve put a lot of thought into what the Lord might be doing through all of this—what he might be doing in me, in my family, in my church, in my country, and in this world. I’ve seen all kinds of people offer their thoughts, but for now I think it’s far too soon to determine this with any kind of confidence. Where I do have confidence is that he’s up to something significant, something that will ultimately be for the good of his people, the strengthening of his church, and the glory of his name. I look forward to seeing what that is, but don’t feel ready to offer any conjecture about it at this point.

From my family to yours, I hope and pray you are staying safe and experiencing a great measure of God’s grace at this strange and difficult time.

(Watching our Sunday service together)

Today’s the day — release day for my new book and 10-episode travel documentary! Epic: An Around-the-World Journey through Christian History is both a book and a documentary series that charts my journey around the world and through the ages. Touching more than 20 countries across 6 continents, you can travel the world with me to see the great big story God has been telling over the past 2,000 years.

My teenaged girls may be moderately biased, but they said this: “It’s good, daddy. It makes history interesting and uncomplicated.” And, as it happens, that is exactly what I had hoped to accomplish. This is not just history told for the sake of those who love history, but also for those who don’t! The book is beautifully-illustrated and full of photographs; the documentary captures footage of some of the most interesting and stunning locations in the world. The two products are complementary—neither one depends on the other, so you’ll get a great experience whether you choose to get one or both.

It was quite a journey and I’m glad to be able to finally share it with you!

Buy the book at:

• Westminster Books: paperback
• Amazon: paperback, audiobook, and Kindle
• Christian Book Distributors: book, ebook, audiobook

Buy the documentary at:

• Westminster Books: DVD
• Amazon: DVD and streaming
• Christian Book Distributors: DVD
• Vimeo: streaming
• (iTunes is coming soon; there are no plans to release it on Netflix and Amazon Prime)

Note that if you purchase the DVD, you’ll get a code to stream the videos for free at Vimeo.

These are strange times, aren’t they? They are probably the strangest I’ve encountered in my life, comparable perhaps only to the aftermath of 9/11 in all its scope and fear and uncertainty. Like so many of you, I’m keeping an eye on the news so I know how to adapt and how my family can do our part as the increasingly severe measures are handed down and as the increasingly tragic death toll creeps higher. For those who are interested, here’s what we’re up to just now.

My son (aged 20), a student at Boyce College and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (where he’s enrolled in the five-year program that combines the undergraduate and M.Div. programs), returned home on Saturday after the college and seminary closed their doors. He is now in self-isolation within our home since, as per Government of Canada regulations, anyone returning from any other country is required to remain isolated for two weeks. Thankfully, he shows no signs of exposure or symptoms. Though his schools canceled classes for two days, they picked up again via the Internet on Monday, so he carries on with his usual schedule.

My two daughters began their regularly-scheduled March Break on Monday. After that planned week of vacation, they have been told they will have at least two weeks out of school. It seems likely that the schools will remain closed for significantly longer, so we are assuming the girls will begin online learning by early April in an attempt to salvage their year.

My older daughter (aged 17) works at a major grocery store, and continues to take her regular shifts and also to respond to the store’s daily summons for all available employees to come in. I know they are taking extra precautions with their workers, but there is still something nerve-racking about sending out a 17-year-old to be around so many people. Still, she is doing her duty! My son works at the same store when he is home for holidays, and may begin shifts once he completes his isolation. My youngest daughter (aged 13) stocked up on library books before school closed, so has been reading voraciously, while also catching up with some video gaming and joining me for some exercise.

Aileen and I have few reasons we need to leave the house right now, so are mostly staying put, save for our evening half-hour stroll around the neighborhood (where we’ve noticed that other walkers are now giving us a wider-than-usual berth). All of my travel has been canceled up to June, and this has freed up a fair bit of time since it leaves me with many more days at home and many fewer sermons to prepare than I had planned. I’ve been putting some effort into a plan for my neighborhood that will serve the elderly and those who are in a form of lockdown or isolation.

We are expecting we will soon face a lockdown-type situation where we may not be permitted to leave home except for essential activities or emergencies, and have been preparing accordingly. (At the very least, even now it’s becoming clear that we generally shouldn’t leave home in order to protect others and to do our part in “flattening the curve.”) For this reason we’ve gotten out puzzles and games, have plugged in the PlayStation, have begun to revive dormant hobbies, and so on. We’ve also begun to read books as a family again—a habit we once loved but which gave way as the kids got older and began working in the evenings. We have also begun to take a course together. And we’ve begun to realize just how very small our house is when all five of us are around all the time!

As for our church, we had a “virtual service” this week—two of our pastors recorded an hour-long service on Saturday and we watched it from our various homes on Sunday at 10 AM. While we are so thankful for this technology, and while it felt surprisingly non-weird to worship in this way, we sure did miss our normal service, our normal people, and our normal location. I expect it may be quite a long time before we are together there again. We are meeting as elders today to begin to formulate a plan that will cover the weeks (or even months) ahead.

For now, I hope you, too, are keeping well. And I hope you’re doing your part as together we figure out what this thing is, what measures are necessary in the midst of it, and what role we all need to play in bringing it to an end.

Not many of us get to die the way we wished. But my dad did. A man of the earth, he had a great passion for plants, a love for flowers and trees and all manner of flora. He saw the beauty in each of them, the unique promise every one held to make this world just a little brighter, a little more beautiful. He committed the best part of his life to gardening, and though he was gifted at design—at analyzing what a space was and imagining what it could be—he especially loved the work itself. “Dad, you’re 70,” we would tell him. “You’ve got to stop working so hard.” But work was what he knew and work was what he loved. He told us he would be content to die if only he could die with dirt on his hands.

In the hours after his death, my sister sent me a photo of his hands—his Working Man Hands. And, sure enough, they were stained with dark, Georgia mud. He had spent the better part of the day laying floors in the apartment he and my mother were about to move into—a bright little walk-out in the basement of my sister’s house. And then, before he headed home for the day, he paused to plant some tulip bulbs in her front yard. He had envisioned the spot where a splash of color would brighten the garden when winter at last gave way to spring. And it was there, and it was then, that it happened. He died by a garden. He died with dirt on his hands.

I rushed down to be with my family—a flight from Toronto to Atlanta, and a drive from Atlanta to Dalton. When I finally arrived I was asked if I would like to go to the hospital to view his body, to see him one last time. I opted not to. I opted not to because I don’t care to have my final memory of my father to be there and to be that. I’ve got another memory I want to hold on to.

A few months before dad died, he reached his seventieth birthday, and my sisters threw him a party. Many of his favorite people were waiting to surprise him and to celebrate the occasion. But I wasn’t one of them. Not yet. Flight schedules and Atlanta traffic meant that I would be late. But when I did arrive—this is my memory: He spotted me from across the yard, his face lit up, and he gasped my name in surprise and delight. Now, I realized, his surprise was complete. Now his party was complete. He was a father delighted to see his son. And I’m happy to hold on to that memory, at least until the time we can get back to making new memories together.

I believe—I believe today more than ever—that there is life beyond death. I believe that my father has not ceased to be. Rather, his soul has simply left his body for a time. As the Sage once said, “The dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Though his body is now empty and decaying, his soul is being carefully kept by God himself—the God who gave him life and then, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, gave him new life.

That gospel, that good news, promises a day will come when all will be renewed and all will be made right. Souls will be reunited with bodies and relationships separated by death will be restored. There will be a new heaven and a new earth—a new earth that, like this one, will need to be cared for. And though I don’t know exactly how things will work there, I’m pretty sure I know just where I’ll be able to track down my dad. I expect I’ll find him in a garden somewhere, surrounded by flowers, sleeves rolled up, and, sure enough, dirt on his hands.

John Beaumont Challies was born on June 3, 1949 in Montreal, Quebec, the son of The Honorable George S. Challies and Ethel Beaumont. He earned a B.A. in philosophy at Bishop’s University. During his final year there he came to faith in Christ through his good friend, Don Lewis. He then earned two further degrees—a B.Ed from Queen’s University and an M.Div from The Theological College of the Canadian Reformed Churches.

Despite his degrees, John’s greatest love was working in the soil. “Subduing the earth” was his delight. Although he spent much of his life creating beautiful gardens, his interests were many and varied. His favorite pastimes were cooking, ethnography, reading widely, and recreational gardening. He loved wordplay and had a great sense of humor.

We—his wife, children, and grandchildren—will miss him greatly. He taught and led us well in the ways of Christ.

We are now separated, but only for a time.

Come, Lord Jesus.

Mom, dad, and the 5 kids