A Thought
if you look at the end / of a day, / at geranium streaks of sky, / a shot of sun fading in a vertical beam, / herds of clouds that flock to the west
‘Can the Holy Spirit indwell a cyborg?’
Daily advances in science and engineering are making it possible to alter humans mentally and physically. Our technological advances are quickly outpacing our ethics. Betty Spackman, an installation artist currently residing in Langley, B.C., is drawn to the gaps between our philosophies, belief systems and technological abilities. We accept pacemakers and functional eyes, “the crumbs…
John Franken: a life devoted to creation care
Among the guests at the grand opening of A Rocha’s Buck Creek Canfor Hatchery and Nature Centre in Houston, B.C. in September 2021 were Mr. and Mrs. John Franken, long-time residents of the Bulkley Valley. A Rocha is an international Christian conservation organization. John was a devout Christian whose witness involved creation care, strengthening local…
A menagerie on canvas
In his short essay “The Truth of Space,” the British critic and philosopher John Ruskin asked his readers to perform a minor experiment. He asked them to draw two dark shapes on a piece of paper. The further back you go, he explained, the more indistinguishable the shapes become from one another, but you still…
Weather or not
Had King David lived in Ontario, I think a September day might well have inspired him to write Psalm 19. You know the sort – where the sapphire sky beckons your gaze irresistibly upward and your heart craves something more. It’s nothing less than a glimpse of the eternal. The breeze is like a heavenly…
A rare bird, a new word and why I quit my ‘life-list’
Not being from the UK, I wasn’t exactly sure what a “twitch” was, when I came across it in the following caption recently: “The Long-toed Stint generated one of the biggest twitches seen in Britain in years.” The photo was on a Bird News website, part of a post about a rare bird sighting in…
Dishabille
Autumn is one of my favourite seasons (the others are winter, spring and summer). In autumn one can harvest potatoes, carrots, late cabbages, painted corn, hemp, beets, winter squash and more. Summer is a fading memory for me. And autumn has its times of glory, to be sure: when the aspen leaves resemble gold coins….
Tending Creation
So there we were, my husband and I, running down a country road in shorts and sandals chasing three black sheep. We were sweaty and frustrated, having just spent the last hour trying to convince those sheep to head back into the barn instead of out across the road. We were also scared – the…
Simple folk
If there’s a list of birds I hate, the house sparrow must be near the top. It’s a bird of farms, McDonald’s (house sparrows love spilled French fries), and city parks. House sparrow plumage is made up of browns and black. No skylark, it chirps monotonously rather than sings. It expels tree swallows and bluebirds…
The kite lady
I can say without reservation that flying our kite is Rachel’s favourite thing to do. Unleashed in the wind, the colourful fabric and long tail is eye-catching and mesmerizing. As often as possible, weather permitting, we drive Rachel and Janneke to The Spit. It’s a narrow tree-filled stretch of land alongside the Welland Canal that…
Quirky humour blended with a passion for conservation
Author Bibi Dumon Tak blends quirky wit, scientific knowledge, and conservation facts with poems formatted as modern communication techniques to draw young readers into the world of creatures with hooves. In an email conversation between a wild boar and a pig, a radio announcement about a cape buffalo, a 911 call about a mountain goat,…
Greed or grace?
Each morning for weeks, we wake to a minor civil war just outside the bedroom. A fierce food fight at the hummingbird feeder. It lasts all day. Six or more are at it. No tolerance for the other’s existence. No matter that food is in abundance; no matter that each can have a private spigot;…
