Hope-filled conversations about my letter of January 17 continue, and I am deeply grateful for your dozens of blog comments, other blog postings, hundreds of e-mails, and many newspaper articles and letters to the editor. Here’s the opening to an opinion piece (“Let’s bring some hope to our fragile planet”) published just last Saturday, February 20, in the Kamloops Daily News (Kamloops), page A12, written by Dawne Taylor:

I suppose the disciples had no more warning than I did—but they didn’t need to think about their answers being recorded digitally!

Last weekend, as Manitobans commemorated the life of Louis Riel, I joined a youth gathering (named Zeebu) in Portage la Prairie and sang a fair bit of Our Lady Peace.

Their song “Innocent,” for example, with its compelling line “But it all seems so contagious, not to be yourself and faceless.” With over 80 inspiring United Church young adult leaders and youth helping one another be themselves, I saw powerful inoculation against “contagious facelessness.”

What a gift it was to have 24 hours with other Canadian church leaders on retreat last week, thanks to The Canadian Council of Churches.

“There is strong shadow where there is much light.”
“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

France, Claire, and Isabella lost a father, father-in-law, and grandfather in the Haiti earthquake. France’s mother and sister remain in Haiti, waiting for necessary heart medication and more. This family, like many others, hopes that the government of Canada will do for Haitians what Canada has done for others before, temporarily loosening immigration practices to make it possible for families to be reunited.

With you, I continue to pray and act from a deep sense of relationship with the people of Haiti. It’s also been a week of responding to enthusiastic (mostly) response to my letter, “Where Is the Hope after Copenhagen?” within media interviews, correspondence, and conversation.

As we witness unimaginable pain and suffering in Haiti, we join with others crying this question and, through our tears, we hear an answer. God is in the most painful moments, the most painful places, weeping with every child, with every mother and father, with every person suffering through this tragedy.

You may have heard about the letter by this title that I have written as an open letter to all Canadians, to be read in pulpits across the United Church this Sunday (January 17th) and personally delivered to the Governor General, the Prime Minister, and other party leaders on Jan. 18th. Others, including all parliamentarians, will also receive it.

I hope that you enjoyed a change of pace over Christmas, allowing for rest and recreation. For me, this often comes in the form of movies and theatre.