Driving north on Highway 21 to a doctor’s appointment
A blindingly bright January morning. /
In the distance ahead, to the east, /
a wink, /
a glint of metallic shimmer.
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Burn site beauty
Have you ever seen a charcoal painting? Ken van Rees has captured the marks of Saskatchewan burn sites on canvas. The paintings are on exhibit at the Shurniak Gallery in Assiniboia, south of the forest that inspired the series. These canvases have been the work of the last fifteen years. In 2010, van Rees was…
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Loving attention
Psychologists have long been interested in attention. It is a phenomenon at the heart of consciousness and self-awareness. It is real for all of us, but at the same time it is not well understood. We all know what is meant by the word attention, but a simple scientific explanation is elusive. Attention can span…
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Going east to fish
When I moved to B.C., I was amazed at the number of people who travelled from the Prairies, Central and Atlantic Canada to fish. I presumed that I would become a chinook, coho and steelhead fisherman. It didn’t happen. I did continue fishing in streams for the first year or two. Then I was introduced…
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It is good
When my childhood friend Inge de Beus landed at Pearson International Airport three decades ago for a visit, she sheepishly carried with her a Canon EOS 1000. Neither of us had a clue how to operate it. “No worries,” her partner had said at home in the Netherlands. “It’s foolproof.” And indeed, he was right….
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When heaven comes down
In a note to parents at the conclusion of this hopeful book, which explores what the Bible teaches about heaven, author Jordan Raynor writes that when he was a child, he dreaded the thought of heaven because, after all, what would there be to do for a kid who loved to play and paint. However,…
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Thirteen ways of looking at the garden
After the city, the garden /
is quiet, the leaves green /
enough to absorb every cry. -
Hey God, how about a miracle?
Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me?” (2 Kings 20:8) King Hezekiah was seriously sick when the prophet Isaiah came to tell him to set his house in order because he would soon die. Hezekiah was heartbroken and cried to God for more time. God sent Isaiah…
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Resurrection among the ruins
Can there be resurrection /
among the ruins? /Dare we imagine new life /
rising from these streets of death? -
Trump’s impact on science
As I write this at the end of February, science journals are full of the consequences of the Trump administration’s actions on science in the United States and elsewhere. With the pace of changes and the court cases launched, it is not clear what the situation will be when you read this, but whatever happens,…
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Hearing Elohim
In the age of Google translate, learning a second language might seem like a thing of the past. I hope not! Let me explain why, for humans, translation is not optional. Most of us think of translation in linguistic terms – interpreting an idea in one language and expressing it in another. Understood more broadly,…
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Mirror, mirror, on the wall
It was a cold morning back in January, as the nurse and I bundled up the girls for a trip to McMaster Children’s Hospital for a scheduled visit. When the appointment ended, we wheeled the girls from the clinic to the large accessible washroom that includes an adult-sized change table. The intentional design with the…
