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A live play, an endless search committee
My husband and I attended a performance of A Salesman in China at the Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario this week. The play, set in 1983, is based on the true story of the American playwright Arthur Miller traveling to China to direct the performance of his play, Death of a Salesman. Relations between the two…
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On the death of Grand Chief Cathy Merrick
Last Friday, Cathy Merrick, Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, collapsed while speaking to reporters outside the Law Courts building in Winnipeg. She was taken to hospital but did not survive. She was 62. Prior to serving as Grand Chief, Merrick was Executive Council member and then Chief of Pimicikamak Okimawin, the Cree…
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Spelling bees and air shows
For me, Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition is a touchpoint, reminding me of my childhood, and a sign that summer is coming to an end. When I was a child, my parents, siblings and I would come to the CNE, as we called it, several times during its three-week season. Showing my age, I will tell…
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Binding and loosing in an age of division
For the past three years, the United States has been my home, and in the U.S., division is impossible to ignore. Liberals on the left, conservatives on the right. Of course, Canada is not immune to these divisions, and neither is the church. In this context, what hope does the church have of discerning the…
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Let’s agree to disagree
In my Zimbabwean African culture, elders are so revered that they are never seen as doing anything wrong. It is considered very rude to argue with one’s elders, even when we are certain that they are incorrect. Young people must bow their heads and make peace by being acquiescent. I vividly remember a time when…
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Can’t we all just get along?
Are you losing hope in the possibility of everyone getting along? Division in the church is nothing new for me. I grew up in a harsh, conservative fundamentalist church that judged everybody. Especially liberal Christians. In my early 20s, I became agnostic and relentlessly judgmental toward conservative Christians. I returned to Christian faith and church…
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Big tent, small centre
Here in British Columbia—the West of the West, where West and true East meet in North America—we sometimes tend to look more toward the traditionalist faith of the church in Asia than to the progressive, whiter, older Mennonite lands of eastern Canada. We also continue to be influenced by the neo-reformed fundamentalism of our dear, and…
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Readers Write: September 2024
Questions about MCC ethos I appreciate Canadian Mennonite’s reporting on the open letter from terminated Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) workers (“Involuntary,” July 2024). Well done. When I first read the open letter, I was distraught, but I shouldn’t have been; the appeal for accountability should be heard by leadership in all of our organizations. I’ve witnessed abrupt…
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From fresh cabbage to ‘shovel-ready industrial land’
On an average day, approximately 320 acres of Ontario farmland are lost to development and, apparently, now it’s our turn. This spring, the farmers across the road from the 100-acre farm where I grew up, a 20-minute drive west of Kitchener, received a visit from an employee of an American company that handles farmland expropriations.…
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Living my land acknowledgement
I was nervous the first time I offered a land acknowledgement in church, wondering how people would respond. Afterwards, one person thanked me while another questioned whether a land acknowledgement had any place in a worship service. I took the question at face value and considered why I believe it has a place in a…
