The Bedford House Blog

2022 Annual Report

Read our 2022 Annual Report Here    

Enough Already

Enough already Our local economy, our local watershed, is our household. In our household there are some with more than enough. In our household there are some with less than enough.   In a consumer culture we can forget how to depend on one another. How might we re-imagine our common good?...

Precarity

Winter 2023, draft for Bedford House Annual Report Here we are again at the end of another amazing year of grassroots relationship-growing. Lots of lessons learned. The challenges of being “guided by the voices of under-resourced catalysts” while trying to meet the expectations of an...

if the voices of marginalized peoples

I came across the Alliance model for change on a visit to Calgary last spring. Lead organizer Ryan Anderson gave me a thumbnail of how ordinary citizens have been Changing the Conversations in Calgary’s municipal politics.

Words of Wonder

Wind, rain, snow, moon

The Wind that wants to be seen

From my bedroom window I look up the driveway between the lilac hedges north over open fields from where winter arrives   most days She arrives with her weather silent and naked I have to look for her in treetops   But today She rushes at my doorstep Howling between the gaps in my door...

EDGEy conversation

EDGEy Conversation with Rev. Allan Smith-Reeve and Zoe Chaytors of the EDGE Network. 

The Rev. Allan Smith-Reeve knows about the power of social good initiatives. He has used Bedford House Community Ministry and its programs, such as Bridges Peterborough, to build relationships with his congregation at Greenwood United and to strengthen the community of Peterborough, Ontario.

A Canadian Nativity

The Saviour’s people would have been colonized and living under the rule of a foreign Empire.

Conscientization anyone?

Last Saturday I attended an all-day gathering of representatives from United Church Communities of Faith in our Eastern Ontario Region. Interesting to see how an old church sanctuary can be wired to offer big screen video displays and invite online participants to not only listen in but also...

Two headed Snake

I belong nowhere I belong everywhere Both I am lazy I am a workaholic Both Mindful and thoughtless Woman and man One and many Saint and sinner Whole and broken Still becoming and perfect the way I am now Totally unique And perfectly ordinary Whatever is true The opposite is also true I am not my...
the seventh wave

the seventh wave

Can we hear the ancient call to repent and follow Jesus’ fearful path towards a counter-cultural witness? 

The second decade of this century saw three, inter-related, historic waves crashing on the shores of Canadian consciousness.  While each of these powerful realities are not new – we’ve been warned for decades that the reckoning is coming – it seems to me that the “seventh wave” – – the largest and most powerful in a series – has crashed this year on all three of these powerful realities.

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