Costly perfume
On April 15, dramatic images of Paris’s burning Notre Dame Cathedral captured worldwide attention. Nearby, local citizens and tourists stood singing and praying in grief. Could it be that this majestic symbol of faith, art and culture was crumbling before our eyes? (Photo: flickr.com_47563907512_Olivier Mabelly) Within 48 hours, over one billion euros had been donated…
First impressions
Confession: I once shooed a visitor away from “my” bench at church. (I was saving a spot for my husband.) Fortunately, the visitor stayed and I could apologize for my thoughtless act. My family has stories of times when we, as visitors, felt anything but welcome at a new church. Once, my husband and I…
No more of this!
One morning in the second full week of Lent, I woke up to the first sign of Easter. It had been a dreary season of violence. In the beginning of March, a shooter injured six people at a Chicago club. On March 15, in New Zealand, a gunman killed 50 worshippers in planned attacks at…
Are we there yet?
Do you remember those family car trips? In the front seat, Mom and Dad are navigating, driving and planning for the next pit stop. In the back seats, kids are staking out their individual spaces, trying to stave off boredom and bickering. Everyone is looking forward to the adventure ahead. Someone calls out the question,…
Moving beyond ‘climate grief’
Last December, unbeknownst to each other, my daughter-in-law and I bought each other bamboo toothbrushes as Christmas presents. Earlier in the year, she had heard me lament the plastic toothbrushes I was regularly contributing to the local landfill. In the larger scheme, those toothbrushes didn’t seem very important, but the long life of those plastic…
Can church be more like camp?
Every winter, I hear a radio advertisement for a back-to-the-woods summer children’s camp in Ontario. The ad closes with the tagline, “You send us your child, and we’ll send you back a new one.” It’s a great slogan. It points out that renewal and transformation occur when people are pulled away from their daily routines…
In conversation
What are Mennonites talking about? As a national publication, Canadian Mennonite pays attention to the issues that matter to readers far and near. Here are some topics that emerged in 2018. In the spring, attention was on the protest against the Trans Mountain pipeline in B.C., particularly the involvement of Mennonite Church Canada’s Steve Heinrichs.…
New things ahead
In this first issue of 2019, you’ll notice some things are different on the pages of this magazine. There are changes in the design, thanks to the creative work of designer Betty Avery. After 11 years, it was time to refresh how CM looked on paper. Gone are the shaded boxes that strained the eyes…
‘Fear not’
In the past few weeks, a theme has emerged in my Advent singing and Scripture reading: fear. Fear is all around us. A recent book about a fearmongering president is on the bestseller list. Politicians and pundits stoke a public paranoia, using it to boost their own power. Credible scientific reports alert us to the…
Stories of generosity
The young couple was living far from home, juggling college studies and part-time work, in preparation for overseas missionary work. Their first child was due and then complications set in. It was a difficult birth, and the hospital bill totalled much more than their meagre budget allowed. When the time came for the new father…
