"Jeremiah, You're a Prophet!" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday January 30, 2022

Scripture:  Jeremiah 1:4-10

 

 

We talked about the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier, but the other story that I was thinking about this week is Harry Potter.  (And I acknowledge that the author, J. K. Rowling, has recently been very publicly trans-phobic, but today I want to focus on the story and not the author.)

 

If you have young adults in your life who have read the Harry Potter books, there is a very good chance that they spent a good number of years waiting for their acceptance letter to Hogwarts.

 

The first book in the series begins with Harry, an orphan who knows very little about his parents, living with his aunt and uncle and cousin who aren’t very nice to him to put it mildly.  All of a sudden, owls start appearing at their house, trying to deliver letters to Harry – the problem is, he isn’t able to open any of them because his uncle intercepts them before he has a chance.  His uncle goes so far as to nail shut the mail flap, block off the chimney, forbid everyone from going outside, and eventually taking the family to a rickety cabin on a remote and deserted island.

 

And there on the island, Harry finally gets the letter – delivered not by an owl this time, but by a giant named Hagrid.  Harry opens the letter and discovers that it is his acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  This is confusing to Harry – not surprisingly – and Hagrid announces to him, “Harry, you’re a wizard.”

 

The reading that Ross shared with us today is a bit like this, only instead of Hagrid announcing, “Harry, you’re a wizard”; instead we’ve got God announcing, “Jeremiah, you’re a prophet.”

 

And Jeremiah is just as confused as Harry – only instead of asking about witches and wizards, instead he says, “I can’t be a prophet – I’m too young! I’m not able to speak well!”

 

I have to say that I can relate to Jeremiah here.  My first instinct when God asks me to do something is to try to put up barriers.  “But God, surely you don’t want me to be a minister when I’m afraid of public speaking!  Surely you don’t want me to be a minister since I’m quite happy being a physiotherapist!”

 

If we were to compare Jeremiah’s origin story or call story with one of the other prophets, Isaiah, they are very different.  Where Jeremiah protests and argues with God, Isaiah simply says, “Here am I; send me.”  I don’t know about you, but personally, I find Jeremiah’s response with his reluctance more relatable.

 

When God calls us to do something hard, it is easy to throw barriers in the way – “I’m too young, too old, too tired, too busy, not strong enough, not smart enough, not good enough. I can’t possibly!  Ask someone else!”

 

But God reassures Jeremiah.  God tells Jeremiah that he has been known to God since before he was born, and that he has been called to be a prophet for that long as well.  God tells Jeremiah not to worry about the words – that they will be given to him as needed, and then God reaches out and touches Jeremiah’s mouth, sealing that promise.  And God reassures Jeremiah, telling him that he doesn’t need to be afraid of this calling for God will be with him through it all.

 

God has known each one of us from since before we were born; and God calls each one of us to play a role in God’s work in the world.  It’s not always easy work, but God needs us especially in challenging times.  Harry was called to be a wizard in a time when that was a dangerous thing to be, when the wizarding world was on the brink of war.  Jeremiah was called to be a prophet – called to point people back to God and to way that God wants us to live – in a time and a place that was just on the brink of being destroyed by the Babylonian empire, after which the surviving people were going to be carried away into exile in a far-away place.

 

And in the same way, I might suggest that God is calling you to share your gifts in a challenging time like the one we are in right now – in a time when fear and anxiety and divisions and loneliness seem to be the prevailing mood.  Into this time and this place, with all of its challenges, you are called to a mission of love and hope.

 

And just as each one of us has a different origin story, a different call story, we are all called to different roles within the overall mission.  In the United Church of Canada, if you think that you might be called to a role of ministry, there is a process in place to help you to discern or clarify that calling, where other people help you to see it more clearly.  Before going through my own discernment process, I had the opportunity to serve on someone else’s discernment committee, and we supported her as she clarified her calling.  I remember talking about this experience with my Aunt Kathy, who had also had an opportunity to serve on a discernment committee in her own church.  Aunt Kathy said that even though it was only potential future ministers who had an opportunity to work with a discernment committee, she thought that everyone in the church should have an opportunity to go through the process.  It is very powerful to have a group of people working with you to help you figure out how God is calling you to live out this mission in your life, whether your vocational calling is to be a minister or a teacher or a nurse or a lab tech or an accountant or a homemaker or a bus driver.

 

Wouldn’t it be great if God called each one of us to our unique calling in the same way that God called Jeremiah – speaking in clear words, and touching his mouth?  But God calls each one of us in a different way to a different part of the mission, and usually it isn’t as clear-cut as Jeremiah’s call.  And so instead we work together, we ask questions of each other, and together we try to figure out where God might be calling us next, both as individuals and as the church.  One recent example is that I know that many of you have received a phone call in the past month from our nominations committee.  They have discerned that you might be called to serve a particular part of God’s mission through our church; and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who said yes to either a new role or to continuing for another term in the same role.  And at the same time, I also say thank you to everyone who honestly discerned whether this was their call and said no. A “no” answer, when it is the result of authentic discernment, is just as faithful as a “yes” answer.  And finally, I say thank you to everyone who has served in the past, for your service, even as you are stepping aside this year so that someone new can answer the call.

 

We’re called to this mission together.  We aren’t alone – God is with us, and the whole church is serving the mission together. And I thank God for all of the different ways that we are called, and for all of the different parts of the mission that we are called to!  Amen.

 

 

“Harry Potter Studio Tour: Harry’s Hogwarts Letter”

By Rev Stan on Flickr

CC BY 2.0

This is the Year of God's Favour?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday January 23, 2022

Scripture Reading:  Luke 4:14-22

 

 

What do you want to be when you grow up?  If you are one of the younger members of our church, maybe this is a question that the adults in your life like to ask you.  If you are one of the adult members of our church, maybe this is a question that you ask of the young people in your life.

 

When I was a kid and people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I went through a variety of different stages.  I wanted to be a firefighter.  I wanted to be a teacher.  I wanted to be a lawyer.  I wanted to be a speech and language pathologist.  I wanted to be a physiotherapist.

 

And I did become a physiotherapist.  But then maybe I’m not grown up yet, because many years later I became a minister.  Right now, if I think about what I want to be when I grow up, my answer has changed a bit - it has become more about being than it is about doing.  I want to be someone who is kind to everyone I meet.  I want to be someone who is generous.  I want to be someone who laughs easily and who cries easily.

 

In our bible reading today, Jesus is back in his hometown of Nazareth, back in the synagogue, in the place of worship that he grew up in.  I can picture the rest of the congregation, all of the aunties and uncles, pointing him out and whispering among themselves, “Here’s Jesus, Mary’s boy, the son of Joseph, the carpenter.  I wonder what he’s made of himself?  I wonder who he is, now that he’s all grown up?”

 

Even though we’re in Chapter 4, this is right at the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry.  In the Gospel of Luke, we get lots of stories from before Jesus’s birth and a couple of stories from his childhood.  In chapter 1, we have angels appearing to Zechariah and Mary, we hear Mary’s prophetic proclamation, and we have the birth of John the Baptist.  Then in Chapter 2, Jesus is born and is laid in a manger, shepherds come to visit him, he is circumcised and presented at the temple in Jerusalem where a Anna and Simeon, a couple of prophets, recognize that he is someone special, and then we hear about Mary and Joseph losing track of 12-year-old Jesus when they visit the temple together.  Chapter 3 includes John the Baptist’s preaching and ministry out in the wilderness, as well as Jesus’s baptism.  Then Chapter 4 begins with Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness being tempted by the devil.  And now Jesus is back in his hometown.  He has been baptized and he has resisted temptation, and now it is time to start his public ministry.

 

In the synagogue, with all of the eyes on him, he asks for the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, and he unrolls it until he finds the passage he is looking for, and he reads:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

 

I can imagine that it must have been silent there in the synagogue as he rolled the scroll back up again after reading from it.  Every ear would be straining to hear what Mary’s boy, what Joseph’s boy would have to say about this passage.  And then Jesus preached what might be the shortest sermon ever.  All that he said was, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

Luke tells us that everyone spoke well of him and were amazed at the grace-filled words that came forth from his mouth; but I can imagine that there must have been some puzzlement as well.  He is saying that these promises from Isaiah have been fulfilled – that he is bringing good news to the poor, that captives will be released, that healing has come to those who need it, that the oppressed are free, and that this is the year of the Lord’s favour.  I can imagine the questions that the congregation must have had.  “But Jesus, there are still people being held prisoner who haven’t been released.  There are people who are still in desperate need of healing.  You talk about the oppressed going free, but we are still living under the oppression of the whole Roman Empire, let alone the oppression of poverty that is all around us.  How can you possibly proclaim that this, here, now, is the year of the Lord’s favour?”

 

In Luke’s gospel, like I said, this is the very beginning of Jesus’s public ministry.  These is Jesus’s first teaching opportunity, and he uses it to outline what his ministry is going to be all about.  His ministry is going to be about bringing good news to the poor, it is going to be about releasing captives and ending systems of oppression.  It is going to be about healing.  And through all of this, people will know that this is the year of the Lord’s favour – that God hasn’t forgotten them, and God is working in this time and in this place.  This passage from Isaiah almost functions as a mission statement for all of Jesus’s ministry to come.  And so he says, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

If you were with us last Sunday, we started talking about how the church is the Body of Christ.  The Holy Spirit gives each of us different gifts, and when we share our gifts with the church, then the church together is able to serve the world just as Jesus did.  We, as the church, as the Body of Christ – we are called to this same mission statement that Jesus was – we are called to continue Jesus’s ministry of bringing good news to the poor, of proclaiming release to captives, of healing, of overturning systems of oppression, and proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour.

 

But I also come up with similar concerns to the ones that Jesus must have heard.  How can this be the year of the Lord’s favour when we are living in a world that is entering year three of a pandemic?  How can this be the year of the Lord’s favour when racism and homophobia and trans-phobia are still present in our world?  How can this be the year of the Lord’s favour when gender based violence is still a thing?  How can this be the year of the Lord’s favour when there are such deep inequalities between one part of the world and another?  As Bertis sang earlier, we sure could use a little good news today.

 

My brain wants to say, let’s wait until this pandemic is over, and then I’ll proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.  Or once racism is eliminated from the world, then I’ll proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.  Or once there is true and lasting reconciliation and deep relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in Canada, then I’ll proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.  Or once all people in the world have access to the same rights and opportunities, then I’ll know that the year of the Lord’s favour is here.

 

We sure could use a little good news today; and Jesus offers us this good news.  This moment in time, right here and right now, this is the year of the Lord’s favour.  Not some unspecified time in the future when things get back to “normal”; not some distant time when all of the wrongs in the world have been righted, but right now.  This is the year of the Lord’s favour because God is with us.

 

God is with us, no matter the circumstances we find ourselves in; and God is gifting us, by the Holy Spirit, so that we can continue with the work that Jesus began.  God is transforming us, by the Holy Spirit, into the Body of Christ so that we can continue Christ’s work of healing and of liberation and of proclaiming a message of hope and love to the world.  This is the year of the Lord’s favour, because God is with us and will be with us.

 

So what do I want to be when I grow up?  I want to be transformed to be more and more like Jesus.

The Scroll of Isaiah from Qumran (Dead Sea Scrolls)

Used with permission.

"Everyone is Special. No One is Special." (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday January 16, 2022

Scripture Reading:  1 Corinthians 12:1-13

 

This is possibly a controversial opinion, but I think that some of the best movies ever are the ones made by Pixar… feel free to argue with me in the comments section if you disagree!  They are animated films, but they have this ability to not only create deeply relatable characters, but the story lines tend to hit you in all the feels.  Movies like Toy Story (and especially Toy Story 3), Finding Nemo, WALL-E, Up, Inside Out, and so many more.

 

One of the earlier Pixar films was The Incredibles.  This is about a family of superheroes who, for reasons, have to hide their superpowers away.  The father, Mr. Incredible, has superhuman strength and stamina.  The mother, Elastigirl, has superhuman elasticity and is able to stretch out any part of her body.  Violet, their daughter, is able to both make herself invisible and generate force fields.  Dash, the middle child, has superhuman speed.  Jack-Jack, the baby, seems to have a multitude of powers by the end of the movie, including shapeshifting.

 

So they are living as an ordinary family, their superpowers a secret known only within their family.  And nobody is happy with this situation.

 

Dash, who is ten years old, is frustrated that he has to hide away his superhuman speed.  His mother doesn’t let him play any sports in case he blows their cover.  He gets in trouble when he uses his speed to prank his teacher.  At one point, he is complaining to his mother about needing to hide his superpower, and he says to her, “I thought our powers made us special,” to which his mother replies, in the way that mothers tend to do, saying, “Everyone’s special.”  Dash rolls his eyes to this response, and mutters under his breath, “That’s just a way of saying that no one is.”

 

Everyone is special.  No one is special.  It’s an interesting tension that I think relates to the reading that Ross shared with us today from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  Paul was addressing a very specific concern in the Corinthian church in this passage.  The church was gathering together, but some members of the church were being valued more highly than other members of the church because of the gifts that they had been given.

 

And Paul is trying to correct them, telling them that each person in the church has been gifted, and even though the gifts that one person has might be different than the gifts that another person has, they are all valuable because they all come from God, given to us by the Holy Spirit.  Everyone is gifted; everyone is special.  But no one is more special than everyone else.

 

Last Sunday we were talking about baptism, and how we are baptized into the family of the church.  At the end of this week’s reading, Paul picks up the language of a body – he writes that “we were all baptized into one body.”  And I think that this is important.  The gifts that we have been given by the Holy Spirit aren’t given to us for our own sake – they aren’t given to us so that we can puff ourselves up with pride, or to show off our superhuman speed like Dash wants to do in The Incredibles.  Instead, the gifts that we have been given are for the sake of the whole body, the whole church.  And likewise, the church doesn’t contain all of these gifts for its own sake, but rather contains all of these gifts working together for the sake of loving and serving the world around us.

 

A recent example here at Two Rivers Pastoral Charge might be our Mission and Service fundraiser that happened back before Christmas.  Ross and Josie brought their gift of leadership and enthusiasm to a group of artists in the pastoral charge.  This group of artists were then able use their artistic gifts to translate a vision into an actual design, and then Cathy scrambled up on the scaffolding to create the outline of a tree on the wall.  Another group of people then contributed their gift of conversation and compassion and sat down and made phone calls to everyone in the three congregations; another group of artists shared their artistic gifts to paint all of the leaves, and then all of you shared your financial gifts for the project.  One person alone couldn’t have completed this project alone – it took many people sharing their gifts to make it happen.  And the church – we weren’t doing all of this for our own sake, even though anyone who enters this sanctuary will be able to enjoy the beauty of the mural that was created – instead we were able to raise $5274 for Mission and Service, money that will go to spread love and caring and hope across Canada and around the world.

 

The new mural on the wall of Westfield United Church

 

God has gifted you – you are special.  Maybe you have been given one of the gifts that Paul has listed in 1 Corinthians – wisdom, or knowledge, or faith, or healing, or the working of miracles, or prophesy, or discernment, or speaking in tongues, or the interpretation of tongues.  Or maybe your gifts aren’t listed here – the gift for music or art or leadership or prayer or service or finances or loving others.  Or maybe you are part of The Incredibles and are hiding away your superhuman speed or your ability to become invisible.  But whatever your gifts are, they have been given to you by the Holy Spirit, and they make you special.  But because everyone is gifted, you aren’t any more special than anyone else – everyone is special, as Dash’s mother told him.

 

Right now, we are going through an incredibly difficult couple of years.  I don’t think that any of us asked to live through a global pandemic.  I’m sure that most of us would prefer to be gathered together in-person this morning rather than virtually.  And even for those of us who are introverts, who enjoy our own company, these lockdown restrictions are hard.

 

But rather than thinking of our gifts, and how we can use them for the church once things are back to “normal”, whatever that might mean, instead I might suggest that the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given you, these gifts have been given to you exactly for this time that we are living through.  You have been gifted so that we, as the church, might continue to do the work that God calls us to – the work of loving God and loving our neighbours.

 

In a few minutes we are going to be joining together to share communion, and when we do so, even though we are scattered into so many different physical locations, we will be sharing this meal as one community, as one family, as one body.  The same Spirit who has gifted you and who empowers you to share your gifts with the whole community will be drawing us together through this meal.  We will be reminded that God loves us, and our bodies and our spirits will be strengthened so that we can share our gifts with each other and with the world, even as we have to stay physically separated for now.

 

And so the question that I leave you to ponder today is – how will you share your gifts with the church and with the world in this time that we are in?

 

And may it be so.  Amen.

"Remember Your Baptism" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge

Sunday December 9, 2022 – Baptism of Jesus

Scripture Readings:  Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:21-22

 

Welcome to 2022!  I’m not going to wish you Happy New Year, since if you remember back to the end of November, the church year begins with Advent and so I wished you happy new year back then!  But because I was off last Sunday, this is my first time worshipping with you in 2022, and so we begin a new calendar year together.

 

The season of Advent was a time of preparing and waiting for and anticipating Christmas, and then we celebrated 12 days of Christmas, right through to January 6. Thursday January 6 was the feast of Epiphany like we were talking about in our Story for All Ages, when the Magi followed a star that led them to Jesus and his parents as they brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

 

In the church year, it may seem like we are now in an in-between season.  Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany are over, and the season of Lent that leads us to Holy Week and Easter doesn’t begin until the beginning of March.

 

As I was planning out the next couple of months though, the thing that caught my attention was that Christmas isn’t the end – it is also the beginning.  Christmas comes at the end of our Advent waiting – Christmas is the fulfillment of all of the things that we were waiting for and preparing for in the weeks leading up to it.  But Christmas is also the beginning.  Jesus was born at Christmas, but his whole life and ministry was still ahead of him, yet to unfold.

 

As I read though the readings assigned to the next couple of months, that is the theme that jumped out at me.  Not only does Jesus’s ministry unfold in the time that follows his birth at Christmas, but so does our ministry as the church.  Jesus lived and died 2000 years ago, but the Body of Christ is alive and working in the world today, because we, the church – we who are part of the universal church of all times and all places – the church is the Body of Christ.

 

And so that is the theme that we are going to be diving into over the next couple of months – not only will we see Jesus’s ministry unfolding in these weeks following his birth at Christmas, but we are also going to see how our own ministry unfolds.

 

And Jesus’s ministry began with his baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan River.

 

Baptism is one of two sacraments that we recognize and practice in the United Church of Canada, along with the sacrament of communion.  My favourite definition of a sacrament comes from St. Augustine, 1600 years ago.  He wrote that a sacrament is a visible sign of God’s invisible grace.  A visible sign of God’s invisible grace.  God’s grace, God’s love is always with us always. God is love, and therefore wherever God is, love is; and because I believe that God is everywhere, then love must also be everywhere.

 

But love is invisible.  We can’t see it or touch it or smell it or taste it or hear it.  We are tied to our bodies, we are embodied creatures.  But since Christmas is all about God becoming human flesh and blood, that means that God understands what it is to have a body.  God not only creates bodies, but God chose to become a body.

 

And God gives us these sacraments – baptism and communion – as ways that we can sense God’s love.  We can’t see or smell or taste or touch or hear God’s love; but we can see and hear and touch the waters of baptism; we can see and smell and touch and taste the bread and the wine of communion.  And through these two sacraments, God tells us that we are beloved.

 

We can celebrate the sacrament of communion as often as we want across our lifetime, but baptism is a once and forever sacrament.  God loves us before we are baptized just the same as God loves us after we are baptized.  But baptism reminds us that we are beloved.  Baptism is a covenant, and I wonder if marriage as a covenant might be a good analogy.  When a couple decides to get married, they love each other before they get married and they love each other after they get married, but at the wedding, they enter into a covenant with each other – they make promises to one another that are witnessed by the community that is gathered and by God.  I think that it is a bit the same at our baptism.  We make promises that, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we are going to participate in the life and work of the Body of Christ; and in return, God reminds us that their love isn’t going anywhere.  These promises are witnessed by the community that is gathered, and often the gathered community promises to support the person being baptized and their family.  God’s love for us hasn’t changed, but a covenant has been made.

 

Baptism is a special time, a holy time.  God’s love that is always around us has become visible and tangible in the waters.  And one of my favourite parts about baptism is that we baptize as a community and we are baptized into a community.  This isn’t a private Me-and-Jesus moment – this is a community celebration.  We are welcoming a new member of our church family.

 

One phrase that we sometimes hear around the church is “remember your baptism.”  But, you might be thinking, I was a baby when I was baptized, so I can’t remember my baptism.  But that is the beautiful thing about being baptized into a community – you don’t have to remember your baptism because you have a whole community to remember for you.  This isn’t an individual, singular you remember your individual baptism.  Instead it is a communal remember your baptism.

 

If you were baptized as a baby, think of all of the people in your life and in the church who were there that day, and who remember that moment when the water was poured over you.  And even if those people are no longer on this side of death, the community of the church still remembers your baptism.  And at the same time, think of all of the people you have seen baptized – even if they don’t remember their own baptism, you are part of the collective community memory that remembers their baptism for them.

 

We, as a community – we remember that we are baptized, and we remember our baptism.  We remember that God’s love is always and forever and for all people; and we remember those times when God’s love is made tangible in the waters.

 

Thanks be to God for this overwhelming gift of love made known.  Amen.

 

The Community Gathered Together by the Water

(A Church Picnic from a previous year –

a good time and place to celebrate and remember baptism!)

2021 Reading Summary

Ever since I kept a book blog, I've enjoyed writing an end-of-year post summarizing my reading for the year. For the past two years, I've tracked my reading using an Excel spreadsheet that I designed for this purpose, tracking the things that I want to track (because statistics and graphs are fun).

So before getting in to my favourite books of the year, let me begin with some of those numbers:

Total books read in 2021:  41
Fiction/Non-Fiction/Poetry Ratio:  30/10/1
Paper/E-book/Audiobook Ratio:  27/11/3
Best Reading Month:  March (7 books completed)
Worst Reading Month:  December (1 book completed)
Number of re-reads: 6 (with 4 of them being on the syllabus for a C. S. Lewis course I audited)
Number of books by Canadian Authors:  12
Number of books by LGBTQ+ Authors*:  10
Number of books with LGBTQ+ Characters**:  8 with main characters; 8 more with secondary characters
Number of books by non-White Authors*:  10
Number of books with non-White Characters**:  14 with main characters; 3 more with secondary characters
Book published most recently:  No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler (published September 28, 2021)
Book published most distantly:  The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (published 1911)
Books published before 2000:  6 (with 5 being from the aforementioned C. S. Lewis course)

* Because I am trying to read more diverse authors (especially with books that I purchase rather than borrowing from the library), I have done my best to internet-sleuth out this information. This information wasn't always available, so this data may not be fully accurate.

** Based on how the characters are explicitly presented on the page.

For my 2022 spreadsheet, I think that I am going to add a column to indicate where I got the book (e.g. library, purchased, gift).

And now for my favourite books of 2021! In no particular order...

No Cure for Being Human (Kate Bowler) - this is a spectacular book that everyone should read, along with her earlier book, Everything Happens for a Reason (And Other Lies I've Loved). The two books cover a similar time period, but examine them from a different perspective. This latest is written from the perspective of the author having survived un-survivable cancer and she now needs to figure out how to live an "ordinary" life. As this book was finished after the beginning of the pandemic, in the end she includes some things that she has learned that might apply to all of us now.

Out of the Deep I Cry (Julia Spencer-Fleming) - this is the third book in a new mystery series that I started reading this summer. They are set in small-town upstate New York, and the main characters are the Chief of Police and the local Episcopal priest. I love how theology and the rhythm of the church year are interwoven with the story. I've read the first four in the series at this point - I named Out of the Deep I Cry here, because it was beautifully crafted moving between different time lines.

Five Little Indians (Michelle Good) - this is a book that has been top of the bestseller lists this year, especially after the story of unmarked burials at Residential Schools hit the media over the summer. It is a heartbreaking and haunting and eventually hopeful story of a group of Residential School survivors and how their stories intertwine with one another in the decades after they leave the school.

 

 

 

An Everlasting Meal (Tamar Adler) - this was one of my re-reads this year. Tamar Adler is not only a beautiful writer, but she is also writing about food in a way that resonates deeply with me - food as a joy, as something that should be sustainable, with cooking as something that is accessible. And as I was just finishing this re-read, I (along with many others) managed to sign myself up (through her Instagram) as a volunteer recipe tester for the cookbook she is currently working on.

 

Hana Khan Carries On (Uzma Jalaluddin) - I loved her first book, Ayesha At Last (a Pride and Prejudice re-telling set in Toronto's Muslim community), and couldn't wait to read her newest book that came out this summer. This time around, she set out to write a re-telling of the movie, You've Got Mail (which is, itself, a Pride and Prejudice re-telling... I sense a theme here!), set as a rivalry between two halal restaurants in Toronto. Her characters feel so real to me, the story touches on Islamophobia which is a problem in Canada, and yet the families and the neighbours come together to support each other in the end. (Don't read this book if you are hungry.)

 

And that was my year in books.

Here's to more happy reading in 2022!