Posted on by Lori Cartmell

This Is Who We Are

Today, Canada celebrates its birthday! July 1st is Canada Day, a holiday on which we have parties, set off fireworks, and wave the flag.

We’re all attached to our national flags, aren’t we? Each is beautiful in its own way. Some flags have blocks of colour; some feature significant symbols; others have patterns of stars and stripes. A handful of countries depict plants or trees on their flags, mine among them.

Canada’s flag has a maple leaf at its centre. In fact, the nickname for our flag is the Maple Leaf. As a nature lover, I’m proud to have a symbol of a plant on my national flag, and especially pleased that it’s a leaf from one of my favourite trees.

Growing up, I loved maple trees: I climbed them, enjoyed the sugar and fudge made from their sap, collected their red and orange leaves in autumn to press and even jumped into raked-up piles of them.

I’d venture to say that all Canadians love maple trees. The trees themselves are beautiful and stately; the wood harvested from them is so strong it can be used as the flooring for bowling alleys; we harvest precious sap from them to make sought-after products like maple syrup; and the leaves turn gorgeous colours in the autumn.

The maple leaf is the emblem of Canada. It symbolizes who we are as a people: hardy, strong, nature-loving northerners.

Just as the maple tree is important to Canadians, there’s another tree which is very important to a certain group of people:

It’s the tree Christ was crucified on.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell · 2 Comments

If This Isn’t Love…

The love of God for us is one of those topics that you could spend a lifetime exploring.

As believers, we often focus on the Crucifixion of Jesus to demonstrate God’s love.

And rightly so: Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross to redeem us from our sins was the epitome of extravagant love.

“God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” (Romans 5:8)

But I wonder if we give short shrift to the Incarnation.

The fact that God took on human form and walked among us for 33 years shows an astonishing level of love.

When Jesus came to earth, our story became His story. He chose to go through the same pain we do, and carry the same burdens we do.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Master of Disguise

What’s the best Halloween costume you’ve ever seen (or worn)?

I’m particularly fond of costumes involving puns.

Like the fellow who wore a tuxedo with the word “Sorry” pinned to his shirt and went out trick-or-treating as “a formal apology.”

Or the lady who taped a dozen photocopies of pictures of her cat to her shirt. Alert people recognized her costume as that of a “copy cat.”

A simple and clever Halloween costume involves wearing a Groucho Marx-style fake nose and glasses combo, along with a name tag that reads: “Blessing.” This makes you a “blessing in disguise”!

Did you know that Jesus occasionally appeared “in disguise”?

There were a few times after Jesus’ resurrection when His friends didn’t immediately recognize Him. It seems His identity was obscured from them temporarily.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Nick of Time

Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Do you know the feeling of relief you get when you get something important accomplished with barely a minute to spare?

Perhaps you realize at the eleventh hour that today is actually your wedding anniversary, and you haven’t yet bought a present for your spouse. But you race over to the store and manage to find the perfect gift just before they close. Crisis averted!

Or maybe you have to give a crucial presentation at work, but you’re stuck in traffic. So you take every shortcut you know and, lo and behold, you slide into the office as the clock strikes 9 AM. Your boss never knows how close you came to being late.

I imagine the thief on the cross knew this feeling.

When we speak of the “thief on the cross,” we’re referring to one of the two criminals between whom Jesus was crucified.

This is the one who said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Jesus assured him that that very day he would be with Him in Paradise.

Talk about being in the nick of time!

The thief was dying an excruciating death. He probably only had a few hours left to live. Yet even at that late hour, he professed faith in Jesus and was accepted.

His story is often given as an example of how it’s never too late to turn to God, and that’s certainly true.

But I wonder if there’s more we can glean from the account of the thief on the cross?

There’s a question that’s always niggled at me: how did he know that Jesus was indeed Lord?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Missing Epitaph

Image by Neil Chappell on Pixabay

What would you like written on your tombstone?

Maybe you’ve already given some thought as to what your epitaph should be. Perhaps you’d like a mention of your accomplishments or family ties.

You might even hope that something humorous be inscribed on your gravestone, as in the following examples:

“I told you I was sick.” (Written on the gravestone of William H. Hahn, Jr., of Princeton, New Jersey.)

“Here lies Lester Moore, Four slugs from a 44, No Les, No more.” (An actual epitaph in the Boothill Graveyard in Tombstone, Arizona.)

“There goes the neighborhood.” (Epitaph of self-deprecating comedian Rodney Dangerfield.)

“Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake. Stepped on the gas instead of the brake.” (On the tombstone of an accident victim in Unionville, Pennsylvania.)

“Here lies John Yeast. Pardon me for not rising.” (This cheeky epitaph is on a grave in Ruidoso, New Mexico.)

What was written on Christ’s tombstone? Any guesses?

Absolutely nothing.

Why?

Because He didn’t stay in the tomb for very long and isn’t there now.

Jesus was only a temporary resident in the dark chamber in which He lay.

Unlike John Yeast, Jesus did rise.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Sticker Shock

Image by Merio from Pixabay

Have you been taken aback recently by rising prices?

I think a lot of us have been suffering from sticker shock lately.

Whether it’s an item at the grocery store, gas at the pumps, or a house to live in, prices have been going up.

We look at something that we’re accustomed to buying at a certain amount and do a double-take at the suddenly inflated cost.

We think, “Are you kidding me? I’m not paying that much! They’ve got to be crazy charging that price.”

And off we stomp in a huff.

But aren’t you glad Jesus didn’t do the same?

He could easily have suffered from “sticker shock” when faced with the incalculable price He’d have to pay to save us from our sins.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

The Most Valuable Thing On Earth

Image by JamesDeMers from Pixabay

If you had to guess, what would you say is the most valuable thing in the world by weight?

If you’re a cook, you might pick costly foods like beluga caviar or white truffles. Or perhaps the spice saffron, which can go for thousands of dollars per pound.

If you’re a jewellery lover, your mind might go to precious metals like silver, gold or platinum. You’d know that gold has been revered since ancient times, and sometimes goes for thousands of dollars per ounce.

You’d be getting warmer if you worked in industry and knew that some substances used in things like catalytic converters are very costly indeed. Rhodium and palladium are even more valuable than gold.

These would all be good guesses, but not even close.

What about diamonds as the most valuable thing on earth by weight? Very rare coloured diamonds such as the red can be valued at millions of dollars per gram.

If you’re a scientist, you might get closer by guessing plutonium, used to fuel nuclear reactors. Or you might figure you’ve hit the jackpot by picking antimatter, which might power spaceships one day.

This substance requires inconceivable amounts of energy to generate. It’s estimated that antimatter costs tens of billions or even trillions of dollars per gram.

But there’s one thing on earth more valuable than even that…

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Inscribed in the Palms of His Hands

Image by Lisa Johnson from Pixabay

Have you ever been tempted to carve initials or names in the trunk of a tree?

Perhaps linking yours with those of someone you love, like “M + F” or “Josh loves Amanda”? The inscriptions could last for centuries, emblems immortalizing your love for generations to come.

(Of course, as a nature lover, I’d rather people not make carvings in the bark of a living tree. But I can understand the impulse to do so.)

In fact, people have been engraving things on tree trunks for millennia.

Birch trees are a natural choice due to their white bark. The smooth silver-grey bark of beech trees is also a magnet for trunk-carvers. Indo-European peoples have used it for writing-related purposes since antiquity. In some modern European languages, the words for “book” and “beech” are either very close or identical. No wonder the beech has been called the “patron tree” (sort of like a patron saint) of writers.

Did you know that God sometimes inscribes things in usual places, too?

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Don’t Look For The Living Among The Dead

Image of cicada exoskeleton by Franck Barske from Pixabay

When I was a little girl, I loved to explore in the woods.

One day I came across a cicada clinging to a tree trunk. Except this insect didn’t look alive: its body was transparent, and it never moved.

What was wrong with the cicada, I wondered?

I finally realized that I wasn’t looking at a live bug, but rather at its discarded exoskeleton.

When it’s time for a nymph cicada to turn into an adult, it clings to a tree and sheds its outer body. The abandoned shell remains, still clinging to the bark of the tree, while the “reborn” cicada flies off.

My mistake that day?

I was looking for the living among the dead.

Some of the Jesus’ followers made the same error.

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Posted on by Lori Cartmell

Your “Spring” Is On Its Way!

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

A beautiful red cardinal has been singing heartily outside my window the past week, as though it’s already spring.

My hibiscus houseplant has broken its winter dormancy and is putting forth flower buds.

But there’s still snow on the ground, and there’s bound to be more snow coming. This is Canada, after all, and it’s only March. It’s still cold enough outside to need a winter coat.

Doesn’t seem like spring to me.

Do the cardinal and the hibiscus know something I don’t?

In fact, they do. They sense the lengthening of the day and the increased hours of sunlight, things that have escaped my notice.

They know that spring is on its way, even if I can’t see it coming just yet.

In the same way, God knows a thing or two that we don’t.

He knows when a turnaround in our situation on its way, even if we can’t see any evidence of a change in the offing.

He knows that our “spring” is coming.

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