Mondays With Poppa Part 1

Mondays with Poppa start with this post.

I began writing heartfelt counsel to my granddaughters in 2016. And then I stopped. No reason other than they were very young and wouldn’t read what I wrote until later. I imagined later would be a long time away.

Driving to Banff for our annual Minister’s Gathering on February 8, 2026 provided me with four hours of uninterrupted thinking time. It occurred to me that today was all I had. So, there is no better time than now to re-start that writing project.

Our grandkids now number five and are in their formative years – 14, 12, 10, 9, and 7.  The times we get to be together are precious. Most of my grandkids visited Jocelyn and I at church when we were pastors at North Pointe. We’ve read Bible stories with all of our grandkids and prayed at meals together. However, I want to make certain they know why I believe as well as what I believe and the convictions I hold.

So it seems like a good exercise to consolidate my thoughts and lay them out in a fashion that a teenager would understand. To keep me accountable I plan to publish them here on Mondays. There was a popular book entitled “Tuesdays With Morrie”.  I’ll call this, “Mondays With Poppa”.

To My Dearest Grandchildren

You mean everything to me.

I’m writing you a few posts because one day you’ll have questions about who your poppa Bob really was — not just what I did, but what I believed, what shaped me, and why I made the decisions I did. Stories fade if they aren’t told. Convictions get lost if they aren’t written down. (I hope one day you’ll repeat my practice for your children and grandchildren.)

And I don’t want you guessing about what mattered most to me.

When I was your age, I knew very little about my grandfathers. My dad’s father passed away when I was a new born. My mother’s father died before I turned six. I don’t know how they thought, what they valued, or what convictions they held. What was their purpose in life? What gave them joy? Or what centred them? All that is lost to me and your legacy.

I want to do better.

What I’ll write is not intended to sound profound. The value is merely that you would have better insight to me than I had to my grandfathers.

I’m proud of you. I’ve had a ringside seat to observe you grow up and become the champions you are. And I hope that what is important to me, would in some measure, be important to you.

You are inheriting more than a last name. You are inheriting prayers prayed over decades, lessons learned through failure and perseverance, and convictions forged through challenge, joy and hardship. I haven’t lived a perfect life by any stretch of the imagination, but I have tried to live a faithful one to God.

I want you to know what anchored me when life felt uncertain, what guided me when leadership was costly, and what gave me hope when outcomes were unclear. There is nothing but gratitude for the life I’ve been gifted.

If these reflections help steady you someday, give you courage, or remind you that you come from people who trusted God, then they will have done their work.

Your World

I am concerned about the world that you will inherit.

I’ve done my best to make my corner of the world a better place. But it’s a small place. But you can expand that good into your space.

You are growing up in an era that is more unsettled than the one I was raised in. I intend no exaggeration to describe it as dangerous. Our family experienced the benefits of peace for seven decades. We’ve never known civil war or the threat of foreign invasion in our country. We trusted authority. The government, the military, and peace officers, note that appellation, were for us. A tried and tested liberal democracy served our country well from the time of Confederation.

But the times are changing. What was trusted in our province is now under threat from the rise of authoritarianism. Nations invade peaceful nations with impunity. Masked, armed agents, harass and imprison their own citizens for the purpose of terror. Worse still, there is a growing acceptance for a union of faith with power. A nationalism that is less civic and decidedly more self-righteous religiosity, grasping for power. It has taken hold of a good portion of people espousing Christian faith in America and is seeping into our country and most notably the province we live in, and is seeking a place at the tables of churches.

I am a Christian.

Christians follow Jesus.

Jesus lived a life that was the antithesis of power. In fact, he was the eternal, almighty God, who laid aside his power, took upon himself flesh, and lived as a servant, the son of man.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

Thinking

Be thoughtful in all you do.

Use your head and your heart.

Act intelligently. Don’t neglect an education, In fact, get as much sound education as you can. Knowledge will help you make intelligent decisions.

Don’t be a critic. Become a critical thinker. Now, critical thinking may lead to constructive criticism but it will keep you from something worse. The scourge of faith. Gullibility.

In my next post I want to share the most intelligent decision I made in my life.

With all my heart,

Poppa Bob

Have you written something for your grandkids? Please join the conversation and post a comment below.

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