Author addresses collective trauma in new book
A new book aims to help Christians process collective traumas. In All Our Griefs to Bear, seminary professor Joni S. Sancken suggests practices that church leaders and members can use to nurture resilience and compassion as they work through the traumas they face, including the pandemic. The book, published last November by Herald Press, is…
Concussion inspires albums about the Psalms
If Mike Janzen hadn’t been thirsty one night seven years ago, it’s possible he wouldn’t have recorded his three most recent albums. In 2021, the Toronto singer-songwriter released the first two volumes of The Psalms Project—19 songs he composed while recovering from a debilitating concussion. Janzen got up in the middle of the night in…
Meeting pain with compassion
“I can talk about mental health and, specifically, suicide risk, because nearly every day I ask someone if they have thoughts of wishing to die.” Ruth Bergen Braun is a recently retired Canadian certified counsellor who has first-hand experience with clients who think of suicide or have lost someone to suicide. In a sermon that she…
‘You don’t need words to do it’
Sometimes people go through experiences that are too difficult to talk about or too confusing to articulate. Art therapy helps many people process and heal when at first the words are just too hard to find. Lauren Harms “One of the real gifts of art therapy is that the inexpressible can come out in lines…
Moral distress in pandemic times
Cindy Wallace Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Cindy Wallace was feeling out of sorts. Each new day seemed to bring more bad news, more uncertainty from leaders around the world about how to manage the virus, and more divisive politicking on all sides. In the midst of the unease she was feeling, Wallace was…
New mental-health website consolidates resources
Communitas Supportive Care Society has launched a new peer-support website, a comprehensive site that puts mental-health resources as close as the click of a mouse. The effectiveness of peer support lies in its simplicity: People with lived experience of mental-health challenges support others on the journey towards mental wellness. Peer-support workers (PSWs) truly understand the…
Toews adaptation a poignant, honest look at grief
Toward the end of All My Puny Sorrows, Lottie (Mare Winningham) sits in her Toronto apartment comforting her sobbing daughter, Yoli (Alison Pill), noting, “The pain of letting go of grief is just as painful—even more painful—than the grief itself.” This sentiment colours the film’s entirety. At its core, the movie, based on Miriam Toews’s…
Mental health, trauma and the non-profit sector
“You can’t pour from an empty cup.” The words came from a place of kindness and empathy, from someone who knew the feeling. It hit me to my core, because I was empty. It was 2015, days after the photo of the Syrian child Alan Kurdi was on the front page of newspapers around the…
My cousin couldn’t manage the pain
Note: This reflection deals with the subject of suicide. On Nov. 27, a Saturday, I received a long text message from my cousin Richard (I’m using only his middle name here, for privacy), also sent to other extended family members. “I hope none of you ever have to go to a pain-management clinic,” he began.…
Stand by me
With one in five Canadians experiencing mental illness in any year, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, it is likely that most people might be called upon to support a loved one with a mental illness. But many people are at a loss as to how. Diana and Erika (all names in this article…
