By Sara Pippus Spring arrived early this year. Still, it crept in soooooo slowly. I’ll admit I watched it closely, day by day, desperate for signs of refreshing. I watched in awe this year as each leaf unfurled and each morning brought new changes. The shifting seasons should be commonplace with no surprises, it happens all the time after all. But after a spirit-crushing winter of mourning my dad, I see spring’s abundance and generosity afresh. Green sprigs struggling up through the warming earth and birds coming home from winter holidays bring a wellspring of joy. As seasons go, spring…

It’s Saturday morning and I’m lying in bed. My phone buzzes and I see a text from an old friend, her black letters floating on a yellow cloud. We text about green tea and dreams and soon we are discussing the nature of truth, and how two opposite things can be true at the same time, like I can be disappointed and relieved at the same time. (I had applied to start a doctoral program at the University of Lethbridge, but just received news that I did not make the final cut.) We move on to the topic of memory,…

Note: This article was written earlier in the year, but it is too good not to be published. We hope that you enjoy Arlene’s ramblings. By Arlene Manson The month of May is a bittersweet month for me.  It is both the month in which my father was born and the month in which he died – 45 years ago this year.  Also, the first week in May is Mental Health Awareness week which reminds me very much of my mother and all the struggles she had with her bipolar disorder.  The month of May also encompasses Mother’s Day, where we…

By Janelle Ross A year ago, my mom had a heart attack. She was in Hawaii when it happened. She’d been feeling rough and finally went to see a doctor and within a few days she was airlifted back to Canada, had open-heart surgery, and was eventually sent home with a bunch of pills, a list of instructions, a schedule of follow-up appointments, and a heart-shaped pillow to hug when she was getting out of bed or up from her chair. I saw her in the hospital, the day after her surgery, and to be honest, she didn’t look great.…

By Leslie Dempsey In January, my best friend of 35 years and I took the trip of a lifetime to celebrate our fiftieth birthdays. We had been planning this trip for over three years. We didn’t know where we were going or how we were going to get there, we just knew that we were going to spend a week together. Somewhere. Anywhere. We handed our budget and our wish list over to a travel agent, eventually settling on a week-long trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. One day, while we were lazing about on the beach- reading, napping, and discussing…

By Jennifer Wallace I love my neighbourhood.  It isn’t perfect by any means.   There have been sirens on occasion.  There have been events that have left me concerned.  Despite these moments, I know that I really do love my neighbourhood.  It has lovely established trees.  It has houses that have lived.  But overall, it is the neighbours that make it where I love raising my kids. Over ten years ago, I started canvassing for the Canadian Diabetes Association.  It is a cause that is near to me as I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 29 years ago in January. …

Painting By Samantha Ratcliffe I only really started painting in March of 2015, after attending a one-month program that helps people struggling with anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. If you do not know, I have struggled daily with these for the past 4 years. I realized, from this program, that I needed to have some kind of hobby and so I decided to try out painting. This painting is one of the first ones I made. I wanted to paint a lotus flower because of its symbolism and what it means for me in regards to my struggles with depression.…

It is 5 o’clock in the morning, and no, I am not up enjoying the prospect of an earlier sunrise. I am cat-sleeping. A couple of hours at a time – which is OK in some ways, but something about which I feel guilty, or tell myself that I ought to feel guilty! It’s not a new thing; I love sleeping, but I don’t seem to be able to do it when everyone else does. There is a lot of advice out there about what one ought to do to sleep, but of course it’s contradictory and, for me at…

I love watching children’s faces as they get to the best part of the song: “And the house on the sand went SPLAT!” Everything about their body language—the violent slapping of the hands, the hard wrinkling of the face, the wicked crook of the mouth- suggests that the SPLAT moment is not something we want to experience in life. Yet, there are SPLAT casualties all around us as God’s chosen people—people who no longer have a spirit of fear, but one of boldness—people who have access to the same power that raised Jesus from the dead!  Why is that?  Why…

By Andrea Muirhead Spring is in the air and maybe that has caused me to do some spring cleaning in my mind. I have been challenged to look deep and I fear I found an attitude of privilege. It has slowly grown and invaded my view of the world, giving me a sense of superiority, and I don’t like it! “Love each other in a way that makes you feel close like brothers and sisters. And give each other more honour than you give yourself” (Romans 12:10 ERV). Powerful words that speak to my heart. “Live together in peace with…