What does it mean to have a homeland and to long to return to it, or to choose to stay where you are because you have buried too many family members to pick up and leave again? What is worth sacrificing for your homeland? Two recent Estonian films flirt with answers to that question with very different narratives and styles. Two recent Estonian films flirt with answers to that question with very different narratives and styles. Tangerine opens in 1992 with a saw blade running through a board as Ivo makes another tangerine crate. He is Estonian but has lived […]

Editor’s note: Lauree Purcell is a freelance writer and mother of two teenage daughters in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I met Kathy Whitten about 15 years ago at church, and I’ve always been impressed with the many ways she energetically helps and befriends people throughout the community. I look up to her as an amazing role model because she’s truly inspiring. This is about her volunteer work at the Free Clinic, which has served the city of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County for 25 years—and I’m guessing there may be a similar clinic and volunteers in your own community. Having someone to listen […]

by Randy Klassen Does our place make a difference to our praying? That’s the question that came to me one morning last fall, as I realized my morning prayer walk took me right across the river from Saskatoon’s federal prison, the Regional Psychiatric Centre (RPC). How do my prayers take my location, my community, into account? Christians are often taught a posture of prayer with eyes closed—but if that also teaches us to shut our minds to the realities of life in our neighbourhood or our nation, our praying will be not only blind, but lame. I see things differently now. […]

Whenever a new movie comes out that addresses the period of slavery in the United States, viewers must confront that sordid history anew. In 2013, we saw 12 Years a Slave, and a month ago, we saw a remake of the miniseries Roots. Now comes Free State of Jones, another of the many films that are “based on a true story.” (See my column “Not Based on a True Story,” Jan. 30, 2015.) We easily decry the evil of “those people,” whose racism is so blatant and so violent. But this doesn’t necessarily challenge our more subtle or hidden racism today. […]

I was clearly distracted. My husband was getting ready for minor surgery. The morning had been a blur of phone tree–type frustrations dealing with two different medical insurance issues. There were other paperwork hurdles, but you don’t really need or want the other details. A small inkling of dread and despair began to creep up my chest. One of our vehicles was in the shop for inspection and needed to be retrieved. And, oh yes, there was that leftover fried chicken to pick up at church from a Saturday night graduation party. (Pay attention to the fried chicken clue.) After […]

By Rachelle Lyndaker Schlabach In the documentary “Detaining Dreams,” Abed, a 15-year-old Palestinian, tells how he was arrested by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint in his home while sleeping and then was taken away, handcuffed and blindfolded. While in detention he was beaten, interrogated and placed in solitary confinement before eventually being released on bail. Abed’s story is not unique. At the end of April (the most recent numbers available), more than 400 Palestinian youth were being detained by the Israeli military. A recent report showed that three-quarters of children who are detained experience physical violence after their arrest. Two separate […]

In the 1960s, psychologist Robert Rosenthal conducted an experiment with laboratory rats, identifying half of them as smart and the other half as not smart. In reality, the rats were indistinguishable from one another. They were all just lab rats. As Dory starts piecing her story together and other characters enter the plot, the movie starts to find its own identity. Rosenthal gave a rat to each of his multiple helpers, told them if their rat was smart or not-so-smart, and then had them guide their rat through a maze. Rosenthal concluded that the rats deemed “smart” fared better because […]

Editor’s note: Third in a three-part series: On Growing Older. You might be noticing a theme here the last couple weeks in this column: I am getting older. This is the last of my three-parter and I hope to move on to other topics! But since so many newspaper readers these days are also “older,” perhaps you can identify. And if you are a woman and you hope to get older (especially in light of the alternative), this might be worth reading. When my post-exam card came back, it reported I had an abnormality. I called right away for an […]