The Bad Kimchi Club
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The Bad Kimchi Club

It’s one of those days – all gray and grouchy, the sun seeming to have pulled the sheets over its head and gone back to sleep. I’m sipping coffee on my yellow recliner, trying to feel as happy as the chair looks.  And that’s when she calls. “Emily?” my pastor’s wife says. “I made you…

Humble Hospitality
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Humble Hospitality

“There is nothing greater than giving people space to be,” says Nicola Bartel, executive director at Mercy Canada. “To go into those dark places and not be alone. That’s the love of God when he promises that he will never leave us. And when he sits with us in that dark place and in the presence of somebody – a neighbour, a friend, whoever that is – he works in that community, in that beautiful space, and helps someone walk through it and out of it.”

Love Up Close
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Love Up Close

My mother came to visit. This was a big deal because these days we live five thousand kilometres apart and I hadn’t seen her since I was home last year when my dad died. We email and video-chat fairly regularly, but that isn’t the same. It isn’t face-to-face. She came at the end of September and stayed with us for a month. When I told friends about this visit, they paused, then asked rather deliberately how it “actually” was. A whole month with your mother in your house?

Lead with Love
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Lead with Love

I watched a televised debate recently among 20 or so Democratic presidential candidates. As they engaged with the topic of immigration, Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, observed that “the Republican Party likes to cloak itself in the language of religion. . .