Our collective shock at the recent grim discovery of 215 children’s bodies at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., means one thing: that we didn’t listen. Indigenous people have been trying to tell Canadians for years about residential school system tragedies; to our shame, we have not really heard or understood….
Over the past year of lockdowns and restrictions, public libraries have figured out countless creative ways to continue serving their communities during a pandemic. In addition to regular lending services, libraries across Canada now offer online programming, news subscriptions and entertainment as well as curbside options such as printing services, free Wi-Fi, activities and community…
Nine-year-old Brenda lives with her father and grandmother in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Brenda’s mother died when she was young so Gran takes care of her while her father goes out to work. Brenda thrives in that loving environment characterized by nutritious meals, healthy expectations, financial stability and Sunday worship. For a school project about someone…
Based on the life of Clarence Brazier, born August 28, 1906, in a log farmhouse near Magnetawan, Ontario, this compassionate, informative children’s picture book relates how “for nearly one hundred years, Clarence had a big secret.” The third of seven children, Clarence and his family worked hard to survive. Big for his age, Clarence readily…
They are tiny. Whiplash spines with two dark eyeballs and a sagging orange egg sac belly. They torpedo along the bottom of the pale blue trough, crowd each other. I can’t see the fins that beat invisibly, thin as a breath, as one by one, each in its own mysterious time, the tiny fish struggle…
When South African documentary filmmaker Craig Foster fell into a personal Slough of Despond, he came close to drowning emotionally and mentally. Netflix’s 85-minute My Octopus Teacher records his year-long recovery with daily baptisms in the eight-degree Centigrade sea off Cape Town. There he discovered he was not alone. As baptism declares, he died to…
I imagine setting up a table in the student union with a sign that just asks “Why?” Part of the mission of Geneva Campus Ministry at the University of Iowa is to help students explore this question. The university gives the students knowledge and helps them develop skills but often ignores the fundamental question of…
Part COVID response and part post-COVID recovery, the federal Canadian Budget 2021 resembles a long, expensive shopping list more than either a clear future vision or a blueprint out of a COVID-recession. The budget is organized under three themes: 1) Finishing the job against COVID-19; 2) Creating Jobs and Growth; and 3) A Resilient and…
COVID compounds our losses. In this poem, Jennie narrates to us her own experience of the unthinkable: losing access to her church when she needed it most. We are grateful to Jennie for sharing this intimate, candid journey with the readers of CC. I.When you are raisedunder an onion dome of a roof,where icons watch…
It is difficult for most of us to fathom how long Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were married. According to the Bible, the normal human lifespan is three score years and ten (Psalm 90:10), which suggests that the normal marriage might last between 40 and 50 years. But the Queen and her consort were married…
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