My Inciting Incident

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Constructs and Prayer: Building Belief Without the Baggage

April 18, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 0 Comment

We live according to our beliefs. “Beliefs” is an all-encompassing term encapsulating our convictions, our values, our understanding of reality and our constructs. The impetus that decides whether we stop and give $5 to a street person or keep walking is based on what we believe our moral obligation to be in that moment, how we believe that individual might spend that money, whether we believe we can spare the inconvenience and potential awkwardness of the interaction and whether we…

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Grief is For Us

April 10, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 1 comment

I love teaching. I’ve taught all kinds of things over the past 20 years or so. High school computer science; middle school math; web design; guitar (I don’t play guitar, so figure that one out), college communications and digital marketing. Quite the array of subject matter. My favourite thing to teach, though has been the Bible. Well, if I’m honest, it’s teaching in such a way that inspires, challenges and encourages and usually uses the Bible as the means to…

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From Pool to Garden: The Gifts of Reflecting

April 3, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 1 comment

30 years ago I’m swimming in our neighbour’s pool. We aren’t very close with these neighbours but we’re friendly enough. We ride the bus together, skate on their rink in the winter and, well, swim in their pool. Their house is about 500m down the road from ours and they have a big property, 1.62 acres to be exact. The pool is massive, as far as home pools go, situated in a super warm greenhouse with a strong smell of…

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Healthy Parent-Kid Adult Relationships: Where We’re Planted Matters

March 27, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 0 Comment

Good morning, son; twenty years from now maybe we’ll both sit down and have a few beers Whenever I listen to “Still Fighting It” by Ben Folds, this one line just pops out. It materializes in my head, forming an image of what one day might be. As an aside, another line, “You’re so much like me, I’m sorry” is also capable of ripping apart my soul and would require more than a few therapy sessions and some serious self…

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Why I No Longer Read the Bible and Why Maybe You Shouldn’t Either

March 18, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 0 Comment

I grew up with the teaching that reading your Bible every day was one of the key traits of being a faithful Christian. We called this “personal devotions.” Personal was key here. There are times when we are to be in community learning together and then there are also times where it’s “just me and God” and all the distractions of the world and those around us are diminished so that we can clearly discern what it is that God…

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Our Queen of Simplicity

March 10, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 0 Comment

It is somewhat serendipitous that my wife’s birthday landed smack dab in the middle of the week in which “simplicity” happened to be the word to write about for the #2021WordChallenge. I feel compelled, and in fact am eager to dedicate a week of my writing to the one who demonstrates to me the beauty and allure of simplicity every day. I’m also quite eager to share this photo of her. There’s been this thing over the past few years…

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Google Devices and Inquiry

March 7, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 0 Comment

We have a Google device in each bedroom and in the main living area in our house. I am fully confident there is an increasingly growing group of computer nerds in Silicon Valley who, each morning grab their Starbucks, clock in and then pull up a chair around a table with a “Bill Family” label affixed to a speaker, ready to listen in on all the comings and goings of our exciting home life. I don’t blame them, really –…

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Tiny Particles and Theological Constructs

February 27, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 0 Comment

Bizarro World Quantum theory is interesting. Well, at least it’s interesting when your entire reality has been shaped through a Newtonian understanding of the universe. When the A+B=C, static, binary approach to physics is all that you’ve been handed and therefore all that you have to make sense of reality, then quantum physics is downright baffling and literally beyond comprehension. In other words, this stuff is interesting for all of us. You just gotta dive in. Truth be told I…

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I’ve got this Thing. And it’s a Problem.

February 20, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 2 comments

I think I’m a pretty good guy to be around most of the time. When life is humming along, things are falling into place, and stress-inducers are at a minimum, I’m a tolerable dude. I handle my kids well, I dote on my wife, I smile a lot. Steve’s the life of the party when life goes swimmingly. But I have this thing. When I can’t find my wallet or my computer is on the fritz or the furnace gives…

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Focusing in on Focus

February 11, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 2 comments

My daughter’s been getting into the Art Hub for Kids thing lately. For those not in the know, Art Hub is a channel on YouTube with video after video of a dad and one of his kids drawing cartoon-y type pictures – ice cream cones, unicorn mermaids, Hatchimals, dinosaurs, emojis, etc. Basically, all the things 6 year olds go gaga over. Viewers are instructed step by step on how to draw and colour each picture. It’s basically that part of…

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Satisfaction Over Comfort

February 1, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 1 comment

Last week’s #2021WritingChallenge Word of the Week was balance and this week’s is purpose so I’ve decided to combine the two into a long-winded, rambling post. Yikes. A conversation I had with a buddy this past summer has been sitting with me for months now. We had stopped to skip some rocks along a river during a hike and were discussing some of the deeper things of life. To be honest I don’t recall all the specifics of the convo…

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Shaping Worldviews. In Order.

January 21, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 3 comments

This week’s #2021WritingChallenge is the word order. My eleven-year-old is reading Bruxy Cavey’s End of Religion right now. It’s a treatise on the toxicity of religion and how it is antithetical to everything Jesus was about. For those unversed in the ways of Bruxy (or unfamiliar with the actual portrayal of Jesus in the Bible), this may come off as counterintuitive – “Heh? Didn’t Jesus come to start a religion? Why would he be opposed to it?” But actually, it’s…

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Where I Turn for a Safe Landing

January 16, 2021 Steven Bill Comments 1 comment

The week of January 8th’s #2021WritingChallenge is the word ground. At about 2:00am on December 4, 2020, my family and I were sleeping soundly when 2 strung out bad guys found their way into our living space through our attached garage. Exactly what their path of invasion was I’m not sure but they came into our living room, our kitchen and our entryway and snatched all of our computers, phones, devices and purse. They left through the same door they…

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