Reflecting on Sylvia Keesmaat’s “Prayers for peace in the midst of the Israel-Hamas War” (CC online, Oct. 23), I recall a line from another of Bruce Cockburn’s songs, “Justice”: “Everybody loves to see justice done on somebody else.” These are troubled times. I struggle with memories of when I lived among the peoples of Palestine:…
Great Creator, / I hold up my one fragile life / between the dirt from which you drew me / and the sun we spin around. / Eight billion of us wander this groaning crust together. / Your Spirit once hovered over the water / and we can only hope still hovers today, / as the seas continue to ruse around us.
I step out my front door and in the distance, I hear a freight truck and some cars. There is no thunder of tanks or rolling explosions. I look around my cul-de-sac, the fences are straight and painted. My neighbour has de-thatched his lawn. There are gardens quietly resting in backyards, fruit trees are dropping…
One of the best things about Christian Courier (in my biased view) is that you’ll come across Canadian artists you’ve never heard of before. Chances are you first heard of poet Andrew Lafleche and photographer Karene-Isabelle Jean-Baptiste right here, with us. We don’t want your engagement with these brilliant creators to end there. That’s why, at the end of the year,…
God scatters leaves / the way my grandchildren scatter / their drawings. / Too intent on creating to pause, / they make another / and another.
This hymn was composed for Remembrance Sunday and sung for the first time in Coventry Cathedral in England. During his years in ministry, Rev. Kaan helped form the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. His focus was always on inter-church relations, human rights, and peace. Born in Haarlem, his experience as a young teen under Nazi…
Three times I take the day: / tear it out, crumple, toss, / start over. Something feels off; / I fumble for the spine. / I listen but all I hear / is a humming sound / like that of an aging / appliance.
Creator of all / we are waiting for the sky to fall. / We look on in horror at children killed, / homes and schools bombed, / smoking rubble filling the streets.
This is the sound of the harvest / beyond that row of spruce and aspen / the straining and purring of cogs, belts / and pieces of metal doing their work / to separate the seeds from the chaff
The cold stone walls, their slime, the hard floor, the rags of rags.Way up high, a grate and sometimes a ray of sunlightor a breath of wind. His skin red and rough and raw.He knew there was no healing. Not this time. He dreams first of the desert, its cold nights,burning sand in bright day,…
Having never lost everything in a fire,I’d like to think I’d see it philosophically,take the distant view: things are replaceable; ortranscendent view: earthly things are transitory. I’d like to think a house is a house,the bedroom (with Deb’s own colour scheme and feng shui,and my son’s painting over the nightstand),simply a comfortable place to sleep….
I was sitting on the back deck in ourtiny backyard in shadethat protects me from the hot morning sun I spend the restof the year longing for & I realized that this this solitude where all I hearis the hum of our neighbours’air conditioners & the high screechof cicadas this solitude where long-stemmedblooms bob at the slightest…
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