For her birthday, I am buying Betsey a trip to Iqaluit to visit our daughter. The ticket money, which is considerable, will come from an annuity that my Aunt Harriet bought for me decades ago and which we have now cashed in. You could say that the old annuity has been redeemed. Rather a pregnant…
Anniversaries have a way of shifting our perspective. They invite us to slow down and remember the road behind us, noticing what has changed and what has stayed the same. With Christian Courier marking its 80th year, I’ve been reflecting on nostalgia and memory: how the past shapes who we are today, and how God’s…
I see dead people – a lot. As a classically trained anatomist with a passion for cadaveric dissection, my context for that famous line from the 1999 film The Sixth Sense is far more literal. I have spent the last 15 years of my career regularly working with deceased bodies (specifically, cadavers) to teach aspiring…
When I was a child, I loved chocolate pudding. We’d put a little milk, just the right amount, on top and then use our spoon to create reservoirs, mountains, creeks and rivers. And then eat the geographic world we’d created. When I was a child, I loved rainstorms so we could take popsicle sticks, sharpen…
Then he (Jesus) said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions’ (Luke 12:15). A handful of years ago I heard about Swedish Döstädning when I read Marareta Magnusson’s book The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. I…
“Check it out,” says Jack. His cellphone screen displays a 1966 Massey Ferguson 165, exactly like the tractor we had when we started farming. “Gas?” I say, “Multi-power?” Jack nods vigorously. “Wow,” I say, duly impressed. “Yeah, and it’s a pretty good price compared to the others.” “Others?” Aha! There’s more to this conversation than…
British thinker and podcaster Elizabeth Oldfield has given the English-speaking world a gift via her first book, Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. This title comes from a quotation by St. Irenaeus, born in Smyrna (now Izmar) in AD 130: “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Oldfield explores…
A manager I worked for at a not-for-profit agency once explained to me why she chose to work there. “I want to make a difference,” she said. She had no children, and here was one way she could leave her stamp on the world. I suspect that everyone longs to make a positive difference in…
Praying at a public event has challenges. People might have other beliefs or no faith tradition at all. I consider this when I open meetings with prayer at our Florida retirement park. When prayer respects differences, most people appreciate it. Resurrection mysteries This month Christians celebrate Easter, and every Sunday is a celebration of Easter….
Sister Julia Walsh’s memoir opens with her feeling intense pain and tasting blood. She describes falling from a cliff near her childhood home and sustaining life-threatening injuries. In this broken state, she cries out: God, help me. At the time of this fall, Walsh was 25-years-old and fresh into her training period as a Franciscan…
I’ve been with the Christian Courier for a year now, and it’s been such a joy. Looking back on this year of columns, including the one the editors wisely rejected, I asked myself what common thread runs through them. It is, simply, the Christian life. It’s a wonderfully inexhaustible topic, if there ever was one!…
“The volcano room will be here.” The architect indicated the spot with his cursor on the shared screen and continued describing the blueprint for what will be a children’s hospice home in Dundas, Ontario. I was part of a Zoom call with others who were invited to offer feedback in the design stage. The children’s…
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