Moderator Mardi Tindal's blog

Report on Israel/Palestine

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:46:49 +0000

Concerns for Earth crossing Faith Boundaries at Tatamagouche

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 23:42:39 +0000

I’ve been meeting for the past two days with the committee planning the 41st General Council in Ottawa this August, and I’m very excited about what’s taking shape. Tomorrow morning I head to Tatamagouche Centre in Nova Scotia to lead a ‘Soul, Community and Creation’ retreat. Monica Graham’s story in today’s Halifax Chronicle Herald has captured some important insights about how I have come to understand the relationship between these three:

Moderator Mardi Tindal's blog: Ripples from Earth Day Webcast

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:54:43 +0000

Since our highly successful live, interactive Earth Day webcast on Sunday, there have been lots of enthusiastic additional comments and ripples that I’m just catching up on this morning. (At the end of this post I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to since Sunday.)

Earth Day Excitement Builds in the Easter season

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:59:38 +0000

I arrived home from Kootenay presbytery at midnight last night, bursting with resurrection soul-energy for God’s wonderful world and wonderful church. The packed choir loft of Kimberley United Church in Kimberley B.C. yesterday couldn’t contain the harmonies of trumpet and voice in singing and playing What a Wonderful World (music and lyrics by Weiss and Thiele, arranged by Russ Robinson.)

Wellbeing and Happiness at the United Nations

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 17:50:13 +0000

I spent last week as a participant in a High Level United Nations meeting on Wellbeing & Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm. It may be my most memorable Holy Week ever. (You may have already seen reference to this in Saturday's Globe and Mail where I was interviewed for a story about the 'Jesus Year' phenomena.)

Moderator Mardi Tindal's blog: Seeds of reckless love

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:56:52 +0000

Our worship this year has been framed by a Good Friday that fell on Earth Day last year and a Sunday in Easter that will fall on Earth Day this year. (I wrote about this in the Toronto Star on Good Friday 2011.

I took advantage of this coincidence to plan an Easter celebration of Earth Day involving

God of Yellowknife

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:35:59 +0000

Some of you have wondered about where I’ve been. Not only where my travels have taken me but how far I’ve wandered from blogging, facebook and twitter.

Since mid-January I haven’t been as active as usual on social media. There are two main reasons: a couple of infections slowed me down so much that I couldn’t invest energy beyond the many ‘essentials’; and a felt need for a more contemplative time to balance action for awhile.

With physical energy returning along with the spiritual reorientation of Lent, I am ready to be online again.

Epiphany: Witness, Leadership, and a New Path

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 20:54:42 +0000

Hope was born in a stable, and those the world had judged wise came to see. After witnessing this fragile new hope, the Magi “went home by a different way.” They were not the same.

My thoughts this Epiphany are filled with both the fragile new hope that I saw born at the UN climate change talks in Durban, and the bitter disappointment that calls us to go home by a new and different way.

Moderator Mardi Tindal's blog: "Here we are" at Christmas

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:19:17 +0000

When the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would bear the Son of God, “For nothing will be impossible with God,” Mary answered, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

What an amazingly powerful response to God’s hope for the world. With Mary’s response, Christ was born and the world came to know God’s love in new form.

Christmas Miracles

Moderator Mardi Tindal — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 09:34:00 +0000

I have seen miracles. I have seen God act powerfully, mysteriously and miraculously. I pay special attention to miracles at Christmas.

In our United Church Song of Faith we sing of how “God tends the universe, mending the broken and reconciling the estranged.” We go on to sing of the initiative that God took in the birth of Jesus, to make this mending and reconciling visible in a new way.