From mould to masterpiece
Joel Penner is a time-lapse filmmaker based out of Winnipeg’s West End neighbourhood. But he doesn’t capture typical scenes like sunsets or the bustle of the city. Joel Penner. His films reveal mould creeping onto raspberries, liquid oozing out of watermelons and flesh-eating beetles devouring snakes. “I initially got into decay because I love looking…
Peace is possible
I love camp. I love the silliness, the excitement and the community. Most importantly, I love the learning opportunities and teachable moments that camp can offer. Camp provides an atmo-sphere for growth: budding friendships, self-discovery and confidence-building experiences that young people carry with them throughout their lives. At Peace Camp, based at Conrad Grebel University…
Raspberries and communion
On Holy Week we gather to celebrate communion along with the Christian church throughout the world, as Jesus invited us to do. As we do so, we remember how Jesus shared the last supper with his disciples in the intimacy of the upper room; all dipping in the same dish with him, without knowing the…
The colour of prayer
For my birthday last month, I asked for markers. Since then, I’ve spent several hours in my soft front-room chair, copying out verses from the Psalms in a large, empty sketchbook I’ve had for years, illuminating the letters like a not-very-talented medieval scribe. I meditate on the words as the texture of the paper, the…
Pressed into the ground
“It’s nice to get to choose our humility,” my father reflected recently. Sometimes, however, we don’t get to. What do we do when we feel forced to be humble—what we often call humiliated? Our dictionary says the words humble, humility, humiliate, human, homage and humus all share a common etymological root relating to earth and our…
‘We must act and we must do it now’
This is a critical time in the world. From environmental threats like the Kinder Morgan pipeline, to the troubling rhetoric coming out of the United States after Donald Trump’s presidential win, many people are wondering: How can I make a difference and work for positive change? More than ever, we are in need of brave…
Imagining peace 30 years after the Berlin Wall
On Nov. 9, 1989, I held on to my mother’s hand as hard as I could as we pushed through the crowds on the dark streets of Bonn, the capital of Germany at the time. At one point we were pressed against one of the storefront windows as too many people were making their way…
Moments like these
Youth Farm Bible Camp is just that: Bible camp in a farm atmosphere. Located outside of Rosthern, Sask., we have wide open spaces holding pastures for horses, goats and sheep, and the many paths of our corn maze. Although some things around the yard have changed over the past 74 years, we still hold the…
A small effort is ‘making a difference’
Travelling from Canada to meet with Congolese and Angolan church leaders in Africa, Rudy Dirks is struck not by the cultural, social and economic differences between himself and those he meets, but rather their similarities. “We are trying to navigate ourselves through a complex world, trying to do the best for our families, facing spiritual,…
The sound of the soul shifting
To feed our mind we go to school, to fix our body we go to the doctor, to feel our hearts we go home, and for our soul to flourish—that is when we go to camp! Camps with Meaning is a space where we leave the ordinary routine of life and take a week or…
