The blue van turned off Royal York Road onto South Drive. The man on the back ramp gripped a bar with one hand, and with the other, pitched my bundle of papers onto the side of the road, just a few feet from where I stood. A biting wind carried an early snow flurry. A…
Daily photos of massive rubble from Gaza and Ukraine are disturbing for those who value human life, and for people like me with a “no waste” ethic in our bones. So much needless destruction. In the context of global concern about planet earth, it seems incredulous that humans cannot mobilise enough influence to stop such…
It was about a year into Covid, mid-lockdown, and unlike any time before, when I felt fear pressing in all around us. Too much social media, not enough genuine connection. Too much entertainment and too little prayer. Distraction, distraction. There was yet another crisis demanding our collective attention. I don’t remember if it was a…
When Martin Vegt tried to hang up a poster promoting a film on Palestine at his local Christian Reformed Church (CRC), he was rebuffed. “‘You’ve got to separate politics from church,’” he was told, “but the stance that they have now is political, too,” Vegt said in an interview with Christian Courier (CC) in early…
Last year I also wrote a summer column from the Netherlands, “Look for hope.” Then we were here for a few weeks, mostly on an extended family visit, but now it is five months because of my wife’s sabbatical. As a result, we have had a much more in-depth experience of the state of this…
It’s still dark when I wake up. A thought pierces my heart: today is the funeral. Four days ago, on February 22, 1944, an American bombardment tore the heart out of Nijmegen, our city, and shattered our family by killing my eight-year-old brother, Jos. Jos is short for Josef, meaning “God adds.” Yes, God adds,…
I ended yesterday’s reflections by suggesting that, for all its insidious, even hideous, qualities, Trump’s threat to absorb Canada also represents a gift. Let’s explore what this gift means in the context of this question: how can we as Christians, and as a country, respond with hope-filled, constructive and effective answers to this threat? To…
On November 26, Israel and Hezbollah finally agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon, bringing reprieve after more than a year of violence. At the end of September, Israel had launched a ground invasion and intensified its bombing. As a communications specialist with World Renew, I’ve been receiving updates from my colleagues living in the midst…
The fall of the Assad regime in Syria December 8 was easily the best political news of 2024. It was a moment of hope and freedom for Syria, and a moment of truth for the international powers that have created so much devastation in the region over the years. It is also a moment for…
“You can’t understand what it means to us when you come to us in this hard time,” the bishop said. It was our first day in the West Bank: a dozen Canadians on a 10-day Solidarity Pilgrimage hosted by Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem. Despite only living four miles away from where we…
November takes us on a strange journey from All Soul’s Day to Advent, with Remembrance Day in between. I’ve been thinking about the poem “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. Like everyone else my age, I remember memorizing it in school and reeling it off with my class, all standing chock-a-block in assembly together with…
Americans have done it again. They have brought Donald J. Trump back to the White House after a hotly contested election campaign filled with plot twists worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. Who could have foreseen that President Joe Biden would bow out midstream and yield to his vice president, Kamala Harris? Who would have…
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