Opinion

When I started seminary three years ago, I realized I didn’t know how to talk about God.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

I clutched the oversized cup of bubbly liquid in my hands. The room was dark, and I navigated the stairs frightfully. We were late. I was with my brother, sister and dad. We fumbled our way to our seats. I sat down just in time to glance up as the big blue letters appeared.

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….”

I’ve been writing this column for four-and-a-half years, and I’m sure I’ve used the same ideas more than once. In this, my last column, I return to the two core ideas that I get passionate about the most often.

There is plenty of danger in a single story, and yet my story is not dissimilar to many others.

Each year, A Common Word Alberta brings Muslims and Christians together in Edmonton to plan an annual interfaith dialogue.

I’ve been thinking about simplicity. Are today’s Canadian Mennonites committed to faith-motivated simple living? Am I?

History lesson
Will Braun’s editorial about Di Brandt (“The institution of messiness,” September 22, 2023) is a valuable piece that I hope many people will read.

In the past two centuries, the arts have gone through an unprecedented transition in Western societies, and our institutions—including churches—have often been resistant to that change.

When I first started working out at a CrossFit gym, my muscles ached constantly. 

After a few months, I asked one of the trainers, “When does the pain go away?” After clarifying what kind of pain I was referring to, he said, “Oh, that never goes away. This is your new normal.” 

How many sermons do you remember from 25 years ago? Likely not many. 

Even the most meaningful and formative sermons from long ago tend to fade and become less a specific memory and more an unrecallable influential moment; a ripple whose impact remains but becomes indistinguishable the further life goes beyond that moment.