Fireflies
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Fireflies

Out in the countrythe stars speak to you.Sometimes their silver tongues singshimmering in vast choirsin cathedrals of night.Beneath their singing,two boys run over dark earth,racing, tumbling, laughing through the dusk,fast as a rabbit’s heart beating,its blood dancing, pulsing through veins… My twin brother ahead of me,breathing out brightnesswithin warm night windas we drift through soft…

Preaching the love and welcome of God
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Preaching the love and welcome of God

By my early 20s, I had developed a spiritual disorder for which I don’t have a name. It consisted in the ability to wring from any biblical text the worst possible news, even when this meant adopting theological positions that I wasn’t wholly convinced of, or that contradicted each other. Be ye perfect, as I…

Introducing the winners to CC’s Portrait Contest!

Introducing the winners to CC’s Portrait Contest!

Congratulations to the winners of Christian Courier’s Portrait Contest! We asked contestants to capture their encounters with friends, family and strangers after our shared experience of isolation. The submissions we saw this year are evidence of the creativity that runs throughout our communities, a creativity worth celebrating. Here’s to your creativity and courage! A word…

Are we actually doomed?
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Are we actually doomed?

Vaclav Smil is a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The title of his most recent book may be a little misleading. The book is not primarily for ignoramuses like me who wish to understand how our modern…

Things Too High For Me
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Things Too High For Me

Lord, my heart is not haughty: Of course, I had the advantage of birth: born in Springside,voted least haughty hamlet in Saskatchewan. Nor my eyes lofty: One pretty much follows the other: farming town, curling rink,proud of our blizzards, which kept us from taking the Yellowheadto Yorkton – massive, unpredictable city. Neither do I exercise…

Facing the brokenness
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Facing the brokenness

No one else spoke to me about my mother. Not my kindergarten teacher, not the kids in my class, not the neighbors, not people from our church. So begins this memoir, describing the confusion of Jane Griffioen as a four-year old, totally puzzled as to why her mother was taken away on a stretcher from…

Savoury reads
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Savoury reads

Where to start with the foods I’ve enjoyed eating over past weeks? There was pan-seared (Alaskan) halibut with pesto pasta and roasted cherry tomatoes. Bircher muesli for breakfast with fresh blueberries. Moose Tracks ice cream (thank you, Kawartha Dairies!). Fresh scones with butter and a warm cup of coffee. Thinking of this wonderful food only…

Seeming fair and feeling foul
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Seeming fair and feeling foul

It begins, once again, with Galadriel telling the story of an ancient war. This time it is the story of the First Age – the story of how the elves left paradise in Valinor to journey to Middle Earth and to take revenge upon the fallen angel Morgoth. These battles are bigger of course, and…

Portraits of the Queen
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Portraits of the Queen

When I was a child, a framed portrait of the Queen hung on one wall in our church basement. At the other end of the hall was a large, colourful mural of Iona, an island in Scotland. It was painted by a member of the congregation, and I remember being warned as a child to…

Praying in Schiphol airport
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Praying in Schiphol airport

“The Qur’an is a masterpiece of language,” my tour guide says, her face radiant. “It’s a miracle.” “I experienced some of that beauty,” I say shyly. “I memorized al-Fatihah.” “You memorized al-Fatihah?” I don’t blame her incredulity. I had cold called a mosque in downtown Oshawa, and my tour guide was the founder’s wife. She…

The beauty of betterment
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The beauty of betterment

What does it mean to be “good?” Michael Schur, an established television writer and producer (The Good Place, The Office, Parks and Rec), is fascinated by humanity’s many answers to this question. How to be Perfect is his unconventional and conversational moral philosophy primer. With cheeky wit and gracious, self-aware insight, Schur ponders the theories…

‘And what if he tells you to make poems?’
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‘And what if he tells you to make poems?’

“Though I have never been to Mount Olive, New Jersey,I have spent years of my reading life on the Mount of Olives,trespassing, looking for a brown-skinned teacher…” writes Brad Davis in his book’s title poem, inspired by a news report of a trespassing teen in Mount Olive, New Jersey. The poem summarizes well the quest…