Author: Jim Cantelon

In a 1968 BBC interview with JRR Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the Rings”, Tolkien stated that “human stories are ultimately about one thing-death”. He read a quote from Simone de Beauvoir where she writes about her mother’s hanging on to life in the last few days before she died. “There’s no such thing as a natural death,” she writes. “Nothing that happens to a man is ever natural, since his presence calls the world into question. All men must die: but for every man his death is an accident and, even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.” “Well, you may agree...

2024 has arrived with all the hope and optimism that usually accompanies a new year. Mind you the hype is more than a bit muted in that 2023 was so fraught with sorrow. The wars in Ukraine, the Middle East, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Yemen, accompanied by volcanos, earthquakes, droughts, and various ecological crises have left us all depressed if not traumatized. It’s tough trying to be positive. Nevertheless we know from history that the human race is resilient and always manages to outlive “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”(thank you Shakespeare). We are survivors. We survive ( and...

I think most of us find the angelic song, “Peace on earth good will to men”, which they sang over the hills surrounding Bethlehem a bit of an unrealizable hope in these troubled days. It seems that chaos on earth has eclipsed the heavenly choir’s rejoicing at our saviour’s birth. Wherever we look we see and hear about wars, earthquakes, volcanos, environmental crises, sexual assaults, governmental dysfunctions, economic meltdowns, and social dislocations, to name a few. Peace seems to have fled the scene. And yet… History teaches us that any era, let alone a year, decade, or a day are...

Among the several(!)books I’m currently reading is “Church History in Plain Language” by prof Bruce Shelley. It’s a great overview of both church and world history written in everyday terms. His description of the tumultuous Middle Ages (6th -16th centuries) can be captured in a few sentences when he quotes Pope Gregory’s sermonic lament at a time when all of Western Europe was in chaos: “What is it that can at this time delight us in this world? Everywhere we see tribulation, everywhere we hear lamentation. The cities are destroyed, the castles torn down, the fields laid waste, the land...

I was in studio yesterday recording December’s “Jim Cantelon Today” TV shows. Currently I’m in the book of Matthew and presenting Jesus’ teaching on prayer in his “Sermon On the Mount”. It’s the best template for prayer from the Son of God Himself. It is timeless and covers everything. Indeed it is totally relevant to our day. At one point he says, “and deliver us from evil”. In the original biblical language it reads, “and deliver us from the evil one” (referring to Satan). The Bible describes this evil one as a “roaring lion” seeking whom he may “kill and destroy”. It also identifies him...

There’s no denying “the elephant in the room”- the turmoil in the Middle East. It’s troubling, polarizing, and painful. For our family it’s personal because Jerusalem is our hometown. We lived there for seven years, planted King of Kings Church in the heart of the city, raised our children and thrived in its history, culture, and friendship. Indeed our family history will be forever impacted by the “Holy City”. In my sermons I would occasionally refer to what is called “the second coming” of Christ. This topic had immediate relevance for us because the sites of the crucifixion, burial,...

As Westerners we tend to think our ways are best. We are often guilty of seeing poorer, developing nations in a dim light, in need of our superior expertise in the “art” of civilization. Sometimes with the purist of intentions we condescend. It’s more than a wake-up call however to immerse oneself in one of these “needy” cultures as Kathy and I did last month. Out in the rural areas of Malawi, visiting orphans and widows who are provided Home Based Care by our dedicated Somebody Cares volunteers we saw again the sincere child-like joy of the poorest of the poor as they sang and danced their...

Kathy and I recently visited a child-headed household in a remote rural village in Malawi Africa. Our WOW ministry has taken us to hundreds of similar situations over the past 23 years yet this visit touched us deeply. Sitting on the ground at the entrance of her one room mud-brick home was a small 16 year old girl with a 6 month old baby daughter in her lap. She was frail and all alone. She told us her parents had abandoned her when she became pregnant. As for her boyfriend, the father of her tiny daughter, he had moved to another village. She was destitute, sad, and totally vulnerable to...

There’s an old saying “big doors swing on small hinges”, referring to outcomes in history that are often predicated on seemingly inconsequential decisions by unknown or even anonymous people. There are any number of examples, perhaps one of the most extreme being the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 by one bullet shot from the gun of a disgruntled unknown Serb precipitating WW1. Closer to home would be the unknown arsonist(s) who has plunged present day Greece into the worst wildfires in EU history. It’s a serious truth that a single individual can literally impact...

As many of you who follow us on our website know, WOW has been providing Home Based Care (HBC) for at-risk orphans and widows (Mainly because of HIV and AIDS infections) in sub-Saharan Africa for 23 years. The Covid 19 pandemic exacerbated the need, to say nothing of the ongoing crisis of opportunistic diseases that victimize patients without immune systems. For the past 5 years we’ve also been very involved in the care of “the least of these” in a nation that for security reasons shall remain nameless. One other nation we’ve been involved in is Ukraine since Russia invaded over a year...

I received a report recently from one of WOW’s partner ministries with a few pics covering the gifting several of their volunteers with bicycles. These volunteers, in some cases, have been walking up to 20 kilometres a day to provide home-based care (HBC) for seriously ill and/or dying orphans and widows. Most of the afflicted ones are suffering from HIV and AIDS with the added complication of opportunistic diseases such as tuberculosis. WOW’s volunteers are mostly widows themselves although there are a few men ( mainly pastors) who provide HBC care as well. They minister faithfully every...