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Our Last Confession; or, Until We Meet Again

Unfortunately, we have some sad news to share with you. After three years of reflection, encouragement, and contemplation, Stephan and I (Cricket) have decided to bring Confessions from Crickets to a close.  We are both in very different places than we were when we started this blog. In 2018, Stephan was in the final year…

FACE MASK by Kirushanthan Krishnapillai

I feel like I’ve been wearing this face mask since long before this pandemic. Not only covering my mouth and nose but my whole face.  I feel like I’ve been wearing this face mask for years now. Covering my true identity from my family. Covering the person who God called me to be. Scared of…

Blast from the Past: Seeking Hinduism, Finding Christianity”

We’ve got something a little bit different for you all today (hey, didn’t we say that last time?): the first video entry of Confessions from Crickets! About two years ago, I was asked to speak at the somewhat confusingly-named Men’s Breakfast (confusing because it’s open to everyone) at my home church, St. Andrews Presbyterian Church,…

Goodness Amidst the Suffering; or, Stories of Life

For this installation of Confessions from Crickets, I wanted to try something a bit different and write it more like a sermon. You’ll have to tell me if you notice any difference, but one thing that all sermons should have is a basis in scripture, so here’s today’s ‘readings:’ John 9:1-41 Matthew 16:21 James 1:2-4…

To Raise a Village; or, Fostering Accountability and Growth in Our Communities

I’ve talked a lot about community on this platform. Whether in terms of Christian friendship, the stretching of community that we have seen in the pandemic, or just how much I believe in the power of relationships to change the world, I think it should be pretty clear by now how highly I value our…

An Update on Our Absence

A lot has happened over the last several months but our God is still good. I hope you have all been keeping safe and happy wherever you are. It’s been quite a while since we’ve posted here, for which we’d like to apologize. I don’t know about you, but I thought I would be less…

Emotional Ministry; or, When You Don’t Understand How You Feel

Imagine living in a world where you just don’t understand how you feel. Imagine, in this world, that no matter how you try, you just can’t quite express your emotions in a way that makes sense. For some of us, this isn’t some alien reality. For some of us–and for me–that’s just the world we…

A Statement on Institutionalized Racism and the Demands of Justice

In the past week, a wave of vocal outrage and just anger has been kindled in many of our communities due in part to the unjust killing of George Floyd and the suspicious death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet. Yet, if we are being honest with ourselves, this is less a new spark than it is the…

Pathways of Listening; or, Focusing on God’s Presence

Imagine the closeness we have with our best friend, our significant other, family member, or even girlfriend or boyfriend. We all talk to them on a frequent basis, we spend time with them, and even when we’re away (as most of us know acutely right now), we long to be near them, to even hear…

Letters from Isolation; or, Confessions of a Community Seeker

Content Warning: Discussion of COVID-19/Coronavirus. Jump to the bottom for a prayer and some support & community building resources. During these times of uncertainty, many of you may feel isolated. Many of you are probably not working or have been laid off, aren’t going to school or just aren’t going out, period, and seem to…

Dear Beloved; or, Choose a Bigger Love

Well it’s about that time again. The aisles of red and pink have long since cropped up in Dollaramas across the city. The jewelry stores are going hard on their radio ads. You can’t see them, but you can bet that dating apps have appeared on the phones in the pockets of half the people…

A Letter to Myself; or, Hindsight is 2020

It’s now 2020, and I think for a lot of us, the start of a new decade encourages us to look back at where we were at the beginning of the one that has just ended, and think about just how far we’ve come.  As someone whose entire teenagehood fell within this last decade, this…

“A Timothy in My Life;” or, An Internship at St. Andrews

Originally Published: December 14, 2019 If you ever find yourself in the middle of Scarborough (or at least south of the Town Centre), and you walk along the small road that skirts the North side of Thompson Park, you may come upon a small church with a tall steeple. Behind the old brick walls, down the…

See A Change; or, As the Nose on Your Face

Originally Published: November 27, 2019 As I was thinking about what to write for this post, a familiar joke popped into my mind. Stop me if you’ve heard it. Why did the boy throw his clock out the window? He wanted to see time fly. Sorry, that was pretty quick; I guess there wasn’t a lot…

When You Fall; or, what is Worship? – A Message from October 26, 2019

Originally Published: October 28, 2019 The following message was given at the St. Andrews Scarborough Praise and Worship Night on Saturday, October 26th, 2019. It adapts and expands upon our earlier series, “Drawing Near,” from August 13th. What comes to mind when you hear the word worship? A lot of us, when put on the spot, would…

Thankful Disciple-Makers; or, Mentors Move Mountains

Originally Published: October 14, 2019       We at Confessions from Crickets would like to thank all our readers for being patient with us these past few weeks as we have lapsed in our normal posting schedule. It’s been a time of transition for both of us, as we’re starting new school programs, jobs, and phases of life.…

Better Plans; or, Joshua’s Walk with Christ

Originally Published: September 16, 2019 Today, for the second installment of our My Walk with Christ series, it’s my pleasure to introduce Joshua Chacko. I met Joshua at Urbana 2018, specifically in a South Asian lounge they’d set up for the conference. I got to share my story of faith with him and he got…

To Youth and to Future; or, Building Relationships like Jesus

Originally Published: August 27, 2019 “The Youth Are the Future!” It’s a phrase we’ve all heard before in one iteration or another, but it’s one of which I grow more and more convinced every day. If you were to ask me why I am so passionate about youth, that would be my answer.  I’ve spent…

Drawing Near; or, A Week of Worship

Originally Published: August 12, 2019 Drawing Near; or, A Week of Worship What comes to mind when you hear the word worship? A lot of us, when put on the spot, would say that worship is about music. We have images of guitars or pipe organs, Hillsong or church choirs. But the Bible tells us…

Love Transforming; or, Kamal Walk with Christ

Originally Published: July 22, 2019 Hi everyone! I’m Kamal Soobrian. If you’ve read practically any of the posts on this site for the last year or so, you probably know me as Cricket’s girlfriend. This week, Cricket and Stephan (the blog’s editor) have asked me to be a guest writer. Specifically, they want me to…

REMIX; or, Stories of Love in Action

Originally Published: July 7, 2019 If you’ve read the title of today’s installment, you can probably guess how excited I am to have the opportunity once again to talk about one of my favourite things in the world. That’s right, it’s conference time–the Toronto REMIX conference to be specific! For those who haven’t perused my other…

Alphabet Soup; or, Living with a Learning Disability

Originally Published: June 23, 2019 Do you remember when you first learned the alphabet? Around two or three is probably when you started to grasp the meaning of those strange sigils. Not long after, they started stringing together into words just like these, and a world of communication began to slowly trickle into your life.…

New Places, Old Faces – Part 2; or, Living a Ministry of Peace

Originally Published: June 8, 2019 My family situation has been difficult lately. The other day, my mom had borrowed my phone for a few minutes to talk to my cousin. In the middle of the call, my girlfriend, Kamal, called me–a photo of the two of us, faces pressed together, flashed onto the screen in…

New Places, Old Faces – Part 1; or, Living a Ministry of Peace

Originally Published: May 25, 2019 CW: Discussions of violence, suicide What would you do if you encountered the person who had mugged you? How would you feel? What would you do if you were on the same bus as that person? What thoughts would rush through your head? Would you get off the bus? Would…

Urbana 2018; or, How to Change the World

Originally Published: January 19, 2019 Have you ever seen a black swan? No, I’m not talking about that Natalie Portman movie from 2010—I’m talking the bird, with, you know, feathers and stuff. No? Well neither had most of Europe until the 1800s. Found almost exclusively in certain parts of Australia until they were introduced by…

Desert Island Family; or, the merits of Christian Friendship

Originally Published: November 27, 2018 I would like to dedicate this blog post to all my friends, both those who know Christ and those who don’t. Thank you all for being there for the happiest moments, darkest moments and the toughest moments of my life. Without God and you all I honestly don’t know how…

Building a Relationship with God; or, How to Turn on the Lights

Originally Published: October 29, 2018                                                           Picture this: you’ve just been told the greatest news you’ve ever heard. Maybe you got that job you’ve been desperate for, or maybe that guy/girl you like finally said yes to a date. Heck, maybe you heard Subway was having a two for one sale on footlongs (it could…

Gratitude, or, the Ministry of Thanksgiving

Originally Published: October 15, 2018 The other day when I was on Instagram, I came across a friend’s Instagram story that said the following: “There’s something I realized last night when I celebrated Thanksgiving with my family. What I realized [was] that we all tend to wait for a certain date to say thanks for…

The Dominican Republic; or, New Ways of Seeing

Originally Published: September 24, 2018 On April 29th, 2017, when I was still a relatively new Christian, I had the opportunity to go on my first overseas mission trip to the Dominican Republic. I was there for 11 days. By the end of it, I had been baptised and given an entirely new way of…

Learning to Breathe; or, Loving yourself like God loves you

Originally Published: September 10, 2018 Close your eyes and imagine with me for a second. Wait–no don’t do that; most people can’t read with their eyes closed. Okay, let’s try again. Keep your eyes open and imagine with me (that’s better). Imagine you’re sitting in a plane, 30 000 feet in the air, on your…

Back to Serpent River, or when God’s ways are higher than ours.

Originally Published: August 27, 2018 As promised, we’re back here again talking about Serpent River. For those of you who aren’t familiar with what exactly ‘Serpent River’ is, I’d encourage you to go check out my last post or just check out this info video on Serpent River below this paragraph. The video talks about…

Serpent River; or, first mission trip

Originally Published: August 6, 2018 Content warning: Discussion of residential schooling and other impacts of colonialism on indigenous peoples. “The kingdom of God is like a summer camp.” I don’t remember where I first heard that–I know it’s not technically scriptural, cuz really summer camps weren’t a thing circa 32 CE, unless you count the…

Suicide; or, dealing with the devil

Originally Published: July 23, 2018 CONTENT WARNING: This post deals with sensitive topics, including depression and suicide. Please don’t read any further if you think this may be triggering to you. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need someone to talk to. Take care of yourselves, friends. Even though I am part of God’s…

Worry; or, scars of the past, visions of the future

Originally Published: July 9, 2018 If you know me in person, you know how much I worry about the future. And, well, if you don’t know me in person, it’s about time you found out. I’m pretty sure we all worry about the future from time to time. We’re trained to be worriers from a…

REMIX; or, dedicated listening

Originally Published: June 25, 2018 Confession time (ha, get it?): I’m a huge conference junkie. I love going to the panels, doing the workshops, meeting all the people, and generally just having a high-focused place of learning. There’s just something about the dedication that radiates from a place like that–everyone is together for the same…

Baptism; or, the time I was renewed

Originally Published: June 11, 2018 Welcome back everyone (not really sure why I start these like a lecture, but it’s my blog so I can do what I want.) This will probably be a short one. To quote Journey, I’m gonna try to keep it ‘sweet and simple’–well, I can’t really say if it’ll be…

Money freak; or, how God provides for all

Originally Published: May 28, 2018 Money, when you boil it down, is all just numbers. Important numbers, yes–sometimes really fun numbers–but numbers nonetheless. The thing about numbers: they never end. If you were to meet me a few years ago, you’d see someone who was addicted to this constant flow. Money made me happy, but…

Hinduism; or, the time I came to know Jesus

Originally Published: May 14, 2018                                                                                    Welcome back to Confessions from Crickets! Whether you’re following up after the first blog post or finding my page fresh (if that’s you, read my introduction here), I want to sincerely thank you for joining me! We covered a lot last time about what the goal of this blog…

Introduction; or, Why I’m Here

Originally Published: April 30, 2018                                                                                    Why crickets? And better yet, what are they confessing? If these are the questions that come to mind, having stumbled upon this humble corner of the internet, I’m not particularly surprised. If you’d like to find out, please, stick around. Put your feet up–get comfortable! If, on the other…

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