First, I’m hoping none of you have encountered any issues with the newsletter format of this new site; there was a hiccup I just discovered whereby signing up was requiring you to pay real cash money for my words, and I’ve now fixed that. But seeing as I imported all of you from the other site to this one, I thought that wouldn’t come up. And maybe it didn’t, for you! But I know for sure my new [potential] subscribers have had that problem. So…please consider that resolved!

Second, the semester is back in swing here at McMaster! I somehow made the annual Welcome Week In Photos post.

In talking to some folks, I realize it’s a little confusing as to what I do, and where I do it—dealing with on-campus university structures means that I exist within several subordinated clauses, or perhaps after a semicolon or two. Not the simplest grammar to diagram. So here’s the gist.

I am, for the time being an ecumenical chaplain at McMaster. The “an” instead of “the” means that I am, extremely gratefully, sharing this ministry with another person presently. Marlice is very gifted at this role, knows everyone on campus, and knows this ministry very well historically. I bumped my hours back for this year, which comes with the benefit of allowing her to be paid for, probably, work she was going to do anyway as a volunteer. The majority of the hours are mine, but I think in the Year of Our Lord Twenty Twenty-Five, this is more what ecumenical ministry on a university campus should probably look like.

So, the two of us as ecumenical chaplains work within the Chaplaincy Centre, which is housed in the student centre. Within the Chaplaincy Centre are three other folks, two of which are here more often than the third: jason, the Catholic campus minister, Fr Greg, the Catholic Chaplain (who is based mainly at the campus Catholic parish, where there is a Catholic student centre), and Michael, the Christian Reformed chaplain. It’s important to note that we have office space here on campus as recognition from the administration over the many years of the chaplaincy that spiritual care is important—but none of us are technically employees of McMaster! The ecumenical chaplaincy is supported primarily by a consortium of the Anglican Church, the United Church, and the Presbyterian Church. We rely on grants and other sources of funding to keep afloat, like all non-profits.

Within the last few years, however, we have also come under the umbrella of the university-wide Spiritual Care and Learning Centre (which you saw me type above in the photo caption). This was founded by a former ecumenical chaplain, Andy, in order to serve the needs of all spiritual folks on campus. And as you might imagine, we have a lot of communities that form this giant city-within-a-city. We work together on initiatives that benefit all of us, we support students in large events, we offer places for prayer, meditation, and worship across campus, etc. [And all of this comes under the wider, more bureaucratic umbrella of the Student Success Centre. But these folks are beyond my pay grade.]

So that’s where I dwell, in a nutshell. What’s most important is that I try for a balance of programmatic events (regular soup and bread lunches on Wednesdays, hospitality during exam periods, etc.) and a “ministry of presence”. My predecessor, Andy, once told me that chaplaincy is essentially loitering with intent—a phrase which he did not claim to create. I imagine it’s been in use in the field for a very long time. But that was the first time I’d heard it, and it really resonated.

Third, my Canadian citizenship application is now in the processing phase! It’s a lot of fun watching things get ticked off, and wondering about the humans reading over my materials. You’ll hear from me more about what this means to me later.