I am glad that Jesus was a humble man who showed us that through grace and truth we could be well.
Truth and Lies
Have you heard the terms, “firehose of falsehood” or “authoritarian disinformation playbook”.
If you haven’t heard them, you are most likely feeling their effects. They’re what drive people to tune out the media or turn off trust.
The strategy systematically uses lies to create chaos. Rather than trying to convince people that a specific lie is the truth, the goal is to overwhelm the information ecosystem until people give up on the idea of truth entirely.
The lies are specifically engineered to provoke intense emotional responses—like anger or fear. The goal is to make people act out of passion rather than rational deliberation.
Traditional sources of truth (like established media, scientists, and government agencies) are systematically attacked and discredited. This leaves people feeling isolated from reliable information and creates a power vacuum where politicians become the only source of “truth.”
And that is exhausting.
Things don’t feel well.
My internal compass informs me that to stay silent in the face of duplicity is to be complicit. I am compelled to expose lies.
However, when I moralize, the responses remind me that people are more reactive these days and are seeing things through the lens of their own perspective.
Offence is taken. Dialogue desists. Division thrives.
A Song For All Seasons
Perhaps that why one of my favourite songs offers me counsel. It’s a featured song in the Edmonton Singing Christmas Tree (which returns in December 2026), whose lyrics are fitting year-round.
All is well, all is well
Angels and men rejoice
For tonight darkness fell
Into the dawn of love’s light
Sing Alle—
Sing Alleluia
Verse 2
All is well, all is well
Let there be peace on earth
Christ has come
Go and tell that he is in the manger
Sing Alle—
Sing Alleluia
Chorus
All is well, all is well
Lift up your voice and sing
Born is now Emmanuel
Born is our Lord and Savior
Sing Alleluia
Sing Alleluia
All is well.
This is humbly living the truth of Jesus.
The Economics of Pride
Jon Tyson reminds that you can raise a lot of money by cultivating superiority in people and judging others. It’s easy to build a movement of what you’re against in part because our sinful nature loves pride disguised as conviction.
Like Jon, I have to constantly fight this subtle kind of pride from getting into my spirit.
As I age, I want to be a man who overlooks the faults of others and who remembers how much mercy I have received.
Graham Hill suggests a path to enact mercy. When I walk down a street and see the political sign in the front yard that makes me wince, look past the sign. In that house, someone is concerned for their children. Someone trying to make sense of a world that feels out of control. Someone who has cobbled together their politics from a story that made sense of their pain. A neighbour whose hopes and griefs are not so different from mine, however different the conclusions they have drawn.
Jocelyn and I are going through a daily devotional plan on YouVersion with some friends. The plan is called, “You Make Me Crazy.” You could join us if you like. A quote stood out to me on May 17th.
“Two of the biggest mistakes we make in relationships are when we react to what people say and not how they feel – or when we invalidate someone else’s feelings because we don’t feel that way ourselves.”
Selah.
A Pressing Question
Powerful advocacy groups have blended evangelical identity with right-wing populism in Alberta. Ending “wokeism” and rooting Christian values in legislative power are stated objectives.
The expressed ideal of some political and church leaders is to create a Christian Republic. History shows that does not go well for Christianity. (And what kind of Christian? Fundamentalist? Anabaptist? Charismatic? Baptist? Reformed? Catholic?)
Rev. Benjamin Cremer asks a pointed question. “If Christianity is true, why would it need state power to survive? The early church spread across the Roman Empire not through political control, but through sacrificial love, generosity, courage, hospitality, care for the poor and sick, and radical fidelity to Jesus in the face of persecution.
The church was most transformative when it had the least worldly power.
But when Christianity becomes obsessed with controlling provincial or national identity, maintaining dominance, or enforcing public religiosity, it often drifts away from the very teachings of Jesus it claims to defend.
My hope is that Christians would show Alberta and Canada the compassion, inclusion, humility, service, and care for the most vulnerable that sincerely following Jesus produces.
Divine Love
Sending you into your day with the words of Julian of Norwich (c. 1342–after 1416) who is best known for writing Revelations of Divine Love (c. 1395). She is celebrated as the first known female author to publish a book in the English language.
In the middle of carnage that would today drive most of us into despair, she dared to write:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Peace to you.
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