Children’s book should also be read by adults
Categories: OpinionBarbara Nickel has done something very clever with her book Dear Peter, Dear Ulla. She brings Mennonite history to life as she presents the daily struggles of two related families who find themselves on opposite sides during the Second World…
A small town that cares
Categories: OpinionThe recent floods in southern British Columbia have wreaked havoc in many ways, devastating towns and roads, and deeply impacting communities. In the face of this disaster, our small town of Yarrow, in Chilliwack, B.C., has been a source of…
Readers write: December 6, 2021 issue
Categories: OpinionA very big community of not-very-close friends Re: “Weak ties matter,” Sept. 27, page 11. It’s been a long time since I have been impacted by a column like Arli Klassen’s. I don’t think I have ever heard someone draw…
Inspired by ‘this ground’
Categories: OpinionIn 2015, some of the summer staff at Mennonite Church Manitoba’s Camps with Meaning wrote a song called “This Ground.” The song makes the simple observation that nature inspires us to pray. It encourages us to notice the beauty of…
Alternative service camps
Categories: OpinionAlternative service camps during the Second World War brought young men from various traditions and regions together. Pictured, Reverend David P. Reimer of Manitoba, centre, is posing with conscientious objectors in Seebe, Alta. Reimer was secretary of the elders committee…
‘Bring what you have’
Categories: OpinionI was driving the night shift that week, hauling wood chips to the pulp mill in The Pas, Man. I pulled into the Esso C-Store in Nipawin, Sask., a little after 11 p.m., closing time. As I filled my mug,…
It’s about flourishing
Categories: OpinionA reader who comes from outside the religious community asked what I meant by the term “flourishing” when I used it last month. I had written that God desires the flourishing of all peoples, especially the marginalized of our global…
The waiting place . . .
Categories: OpinionIn Dr. Seuss’s book Oh the Places You’ll Go there is a section about “the waiting place.” It is depicted as an undesirable and useless place to be. I wonder if our Advent waiting sometimes feels like that kind of…
The third side of church splits
Categories: OpinionThey can be necessary, but they are usually devastating. Church splits, in my experience, are not often talked about in Christian circles, yet they are not uncommon. Church splits are necessary for many different reasons, including: Splitting to put an…
Victim or Perpetrator: What am I?
In the aftermath of an investigation by two Mennonite institutions, that found my late father guilty of sexual misconduct (June 7, 2021, page 24), I am trying to decide whether I am a victim or a perpetrator. My father, Frank…
Readers write: November 22, 2021 issue
Categories: Opinion‘We are in a climate emergency’: MC Canada Mennonite Church Canada leaders released the following statement on Nov. 4 during the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland: Climate scientists have been sounding the call for decades, and the urgency of…
Keeping a kettle out of the landfill
Categories: OpinionThe last time my in-laws came north to visit, they brought us a broken electric kettle. We had gifted it to them at a long-ago Christmas. Now, years later, it stopped working. It was under warranty, but that only applied…
Oakella Prison Farm
Categories: OpinionHerb Wiebe, facing camera, visits with an inmate at the Oakalla Prison Farm in Burnaby, B.C., in 1970. A growing number of British Columbia Mennonite men volunteered to befriend inmates through the M-2 (Man to Man) program, a prison visitation…
Every tribe and language
Categories: OpinionI expect everyone has forgotten what I had to say when I spoke at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate’s chapel a few years ago. But I know some remember that I asked students to read Scripture in their own languages. For a…
What do I miss about church?
Categories: OpinionAfter a month in the woods by myself, my sabbatical plan is to spend three months listening to people who aren’t a part of church culture, to see how they view church and understand why they don’t go to church.…
Readers write: November 8, 2021 issue
Categories: OpinionReaders respond to ‘living simply’ Re: “What is enough?” Sept. 13, page 11. Randy Haluza-DeLay beautifully draws our attention to a way of life marked by enough—sufficiency. Without discerning what is a need and what is a want, we will…
We are a global family of faith every day
Categories: OpinionI remember a conversation with my mom when I was a child. “Why is there a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day, but no Children’s Day?” I asked. My mom’s answer was rather predictable, “Every day is Children’s Day!” Across…
Gluten free
Categories: Opinion“Gluten free” proclaims the sign on one of these desserts at a Waterloo North Mennonite Church potluck in 2011. How have the offerings at your congregational potluck changed over the years? What traditions have endured? If you could convey the…
But then there’s those snakes
Categories: OpinionOur lives—Holly’s and mine, that is—changed to a significant degree. Our oldest granddaughter, Maeve, who is 19, has moved into our home. Maeve comes to us from Ontario, where she left her family behind to begin the next portion of…
Reading is (mostly) good
Categories: OpinionWhat is the most dangerous place in your community? The speaker at a large gathering of Christian university students queried us. “It is the library!” he answered. Not the power plant or the open construction sites or the places where…
Opinion/columns
