The disability camp that started a revolution
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The disability camp that started a revolution

“This camp changed the world, and nobody knows the story.”  So begins co-director and narrator Jim LeBrecht in the opening scenes of Crip Camp. A critically lauded award-winning documentary film directed by LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham, Crip Camp tells the story of a summer camp and its impact on the disability revolution in the United…

COVID etiquette

COVID etiquette

I just started reading The Madness of Crowds, the newest Louise Penny book. It’s part of a quintessentially Canadian murder mystery series set in fictional Three Pines, Quebec. Penny’s books are beautifully written, tightly woven, plot-driven masterpieces; and she’s put out a new one every summer since 2005 like clockwork. Last year, while writing The…

Engaging our secular world

Engaging our secular world

In Wisdom from Babylon, Gordon T. Smith tackles the question, “What does it mean to provide leadership for the church in an increasingly secular context?” Smith is president of Ambrose University and Seminary in Calgary, a long time Teaching Fellow of Regent College, and author of several books on spirituality and vocation. The book is…

A field manual for racial justice
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A field manual for racial justice

Following the critical success of The Color of Compromise (2019), an exploration of white Christians’ participation in racism and white-dominated churches’ complicity, silence and tacit approval of racism throughout the history of the United States, Jemar Tisby offers this eminently practical exploration and application of his “ARC of Racial Justice” in How to Fight Racism….

Hoping for renewal
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Hoping for renewal

The idea of summer brings to mind popsicles, sprinklers, bare feet in the sand and camping in a tent. Yet those images belong to my own childhood. Summer holds a different flavour now as a mom. Specific to the needs of Rachel and Janneke, it means more time at home and less respite.  This summer…

Grace in the dark

Grace in the dark

In his little devotional book Wishful Thinking, Frederick Buechner says we should not look to Scripture for answers first of all, but instead listen to the questions it asks. Good advice. Certainty is a luxury the human race can ill afford. Conviction that “we” have answers and “they” do not has created a good deal…

Mother tongue

Mother tongue

De taal is ons vaderland, waaruit we nooit kunnen emigreren. Language is our fatherland, from which we can never emigrate. This slim volume of eclectic essays is a rich exploration of questions of identity, landscape, family, and translation. It is of particular interest to Dutch immigrants who might enjoy a thoughtful, playful look at language…

Review of the Chief Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny

Review of the Chief Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny

Since December, I have been caught up in the Chief Inspector Gamache series by Canadian author Louise Penny. Of the sixteen titles in the series, I have completed ten so far. In the spirit of full disclosure, my reading order was dictated solely by their availability at my public library, whether in audiobook, hardcover, or…

Finding life in a cold-water companion
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Finding life in a cold-water companion

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…