October 1stFive Minutes on Friday
PEPPERNUTS
Claire introduced our two-year old grandson to these treats several weeks ago and he promptly finished them all off! It looks like they would make a good Christmas stocking stuffer.
EXPERTS
‘An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.’ [Neils Bohr, physicist]
This really requires no commentary. The six o’clock news will provide abundant evidence of Bohr’s claims.
HOSPITALITY
Last Saturday, Claire and I took a long ramble (that’s British for ‘walk’) in Chief Whitecap Park.
In 1882 John Lake came west seeking to found a temperance colony. He met chief Whitecap who recommended a site along the South Saskatchewan river, present day Saskatoon. He and his people showed exemplary hospitality to the new settlers.
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
Call to action #80 - We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Aboriginal peoples, to establish, as a statutory holiday, a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour Survivors, their families, and communities, and ensure that public commemoration of the history and legacy of residential schools remains a vital component of the reconciliation process.
Yesterday, September 30, Canadians observed National Truth and Reconciliation Day. It recognizes the tragedy of the residential school system which led to severe inter-generational trauma in our First Nations communities. The discovery of some 751 unmarked children’s graves at a former residential school site in Saskatchewan has only compounded the pain. Lord, have mercy.
BEING HUMAN
Kate Bowler, a Mennonite who teaches at Duke University, is a cancer survivor who documented her journey with cancer in a wonderful book, Everything Happens for a Reason (and other lies I’ve loved). She has just written a new book, No Cure for being Human (and other truths I need to hear). You can read her conversation about the book at the following link.
https://www.christiancentury.org/article/interview/living-and-leading-our-mortality?
These words really stood out for me:
“Before, I connected most with the idea that being human was agency, choice, the ability to make decisions and make tomorrow different than today. All that sounds hilariously American for a Canadian, but I always had this desire to be a human bulldozer, and when I couldn’t act in the world, I always felt really stuck—and less myself.
And then I had the sort of luck that would not allow me those delusions anymore: a stage-four cancer diagnosis. I had thought I was a third of the way through my life. I loved the idea that everything was all possibility. And then when it wasn’t, I honestly don’t think I knew what being a human looked like. It felt like failure.
Part of this more recent season has been moving from cancer as a crisis to a feeling that life is a chronic condition. And if I’m going to have that kind of theology, my prayer needs to forever be both for my own pain and for the pain of the world. God, let me see things how they really are.”