Archive

A Healing Bridge?

April 7, 2015 Melodie Davis

By Deborah Froese It may not look like much, but the abandoned 90-hectare site of Kapyong Barracks in Winnipeg, Manitoba is prime real estate. It could also be a healing bridge, according to Steve Heinrichs, Mennonite Church (MC) Canada’s director of indigenous relations, and compiler of the 2013 book, Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry: Conversations on Creation, Land Justice, and Life Together (Herald Press). The former military base is currently at the centre of ongoing litigation between the federal government and seven first nation communities in Manitoba that want to transform it into an urban reserve. Heinrichs views the development as […]

What Has Photoshop Wrought?

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April 3, 2015 Jerry L. Holsopple

I have been experimenting with a new photography printing project in which I transfer layer after layer of photographic inks printed on plastic to the same piece of wood, building a transparent depth that I hope the viewer will gaze into and discover new things along the way. I describe this method to my students as doing Photoshop without a computer. That of course is not fully true. I still shoot with a digital camera, use Photoshop or Lightroom to process the image, use a computer to run the printer that puts thousands of droplets of inks onto plastic—but I no longer […]

When Will I Ever Use This Stuff?!

April 2, 2015 Melodie Davis

Has your child (or maybe you) ever taken a class where he or she asked, “Where or when will I ever be able to use this?” The problem solving skills that math teaches you are irreplaceable. You need the analytical ability that math develops to solve almost every business problem. Lauren is a longtime church friend who recently posed this great question on Facebook: “One of my sons is questioning why he needs to learn algebra. If you use upper-level (algebra or above) math in your occupation, please give a brief response as to what and how it is applied!” […]

What is Dove’s “Men Care” Up To?

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March 27, 2015 Matthew Kauffman Smith

When I see commercials with aloof dads, I don’t think much of them. The mom talks to the camera, the kids eat and play, and the dads act clueless (uh, honey, where do we keep the cheese?). I’ve heard the arguments that these commercials make dads look like idiots, and I buy that, but after years of watching mothers mis-portrayed in commercials, I’m not going to pretend that we dads are major victims. When I watch these commercials, I know I am not going to buy whatever they are selling anyway. So I just hit the mute button, check email, […]

Flipping Your Faith

March 26, 2015 Melodie Davis

If you or your church is at a transitional point—like seeking a new pastor or formulating a new vision statement, or desiring to branch out in new ways and shake up the same-oldness— sometimes it is helpful to go back to basics and study the words and life of Jesus. Our longtime pastor (24 years) retired last year and we are in this phase. This winter I helped to team-teach an adult Christian education class on The Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald Kraybill, taking an in-depth look at the historical and cultural context for Jesus and his teachings. Kraybill is a […]

Ordained to be reverent

March 24, 2015 Celeste Kennel-Shank

Culminating two years of being a licensed minister, and following eight years of seeing an inkling of a calling to pastoral ministry grow into a deep truth in my life, I was ordained in December. For me to be ordained, to be a reverend, is to live with the knowledge of human limitation (including my own) while also seeking a deeper relationship with God and helping others to do so. Since then, one of my delights has been stepping into and claiming the title of “the Reverend.” Staff members at the hospital where I work as a chaplain address me […]

Cinderella

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March 20, 2015 Michelle D. Sinclair

When I was a kid, we only owned two movies: Disney’s Bambi and Cinderella. And since Bambi’s mom [SPOILER ALERT] gets shot by a hunter and dies, I’m sure we never watched it more than three times. Our VHS copy of Cinderella, however, we wore to shreds. To this day, my mom can quote several scenes in that movie verbatim—and she’s not a movie quote person. Thus, when I learned Disney had made a live-action version, my inner 6-year-old did pirouettes of glee. The film also presents an interesting vision of racial equality, where races as we know them live […]

How “Free” Can Our Speech Be?

March 19, 2015 Melodie Davis

I was only in the second grade. A friend had borrowed the pretty, red tennis shoes I kept at school in my cubby for physical education, if my memory serves me correctly. She wore them outside at recess without asking me and got them very muddy. I can still remember her looking up at me from the floor of the classroom as she attempted to scrub the mud off with a few wet paper towels she’d gotten from the restroom. “It won’t come off,” she pleaded with woebegone eyes. For most of us, freedom of speech does not include the […]

Leviathan

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March 13, 2015 Vic Thiessen

Just to see how much alcohol the characters in the film consume is enough to make you cry, and that is only one of many sad things about life in modern Russia.

The Importance of Family Planning at the End of Life

March 12, 2015 Lauree Purcell

Editor’s Note: The second in a two-part series on “Families and Aging” by Lauree Purcell. She has written for Another Way previously. A former city planner, Lauree and her husband, Steve, are parents of two teenage daughters and are members of a Methodist church. Last time I wrote about the positive changes that my family embraced as my parents decided to move nearby in order for us all to spend more time together. My father now has advanced Parkinson’s disease. My mother and I have been holding vigil for several days and have found great comfort in singing to him […]