Life from Canada to Latin America, one word at a time.
Despite a broken back, I love going to physiotherapy. There is nothing like starting your day with an engaging conversation about social change, trickle-up policies, and leadership styles with an almost complete stranger as he holds your body in various awkward positions. Recently, my physiotherapist and I have begun brainstorming how to solve the social
When I was a kid, my siblings, cousins, and I invented a game we called the Crazy Game. It was simple: everyone would take a turn telling all the other players, one by one, what to do. Then, on the count of three, everyone would do that thing. It was chaos. Kids would end up
I spent last Sunday at the hospital. I woke up with back pain so bad I could barely manage to get out of bed. When I did, after complicated gymnastics that would have been hilarious if they hadn’t hurt so bad, I almost blacked out. After calling 911, I couldn’t even manage to be charming
“There are no perfect people. There are no perfect projects. We are not measured against perfection, only called to do what we can, to set out on an exploration to an imagined destination, an imagined good. So forget about the fear, forget about the guilt, forget about the fact that the doorway makes no promises.
For half my life, I believed that women should not speak from a pulpit. Of course we were equal to men, but we were also different. Different in a way that meant we probably should seek other avenues for influence. We were more a reflection of God’s beauty and a little less his [God was
One of my favourite things in Colombia was feeling like I had a superpower to make people talk to me every time I walked down the street. I would say hi to every person I passed, old or young, and they would respond back, socially obligated to return the greeting. In reality, it was less
“So let us look for beauty and grace, for love and friendship, for that which is creative and birth-giving and soul-stretching. Let us dare to laugh at ourselves, healthy, affirmative laughter. Only when we take ourselves lightly can we take ourselves seriously, so that we are given the courage to say, “Yes! I dare disturb
Imagine a machine that measures tenderness towards the earth. Perhaps it is a satellite sent from a distant planet, measuring oil wells against gardening, carbon in the atmosphere, minerals left in the ground, dinosaur bones still buried. To measure tenderness may be spreadsheets and adding machines, the legal tender to which we owe our existence.
I come from a long line of freezer people. We save and we store and we plan and we work. Growing up, every Sunday after church, we would go to the grocery store to buy food on sale to put into the freezer. After a Saturday bake day, we would stick loaves of bread and
Since March 2021, I’ve been trying to write this blog post. I probably have written thousands of words of draft text. I had the chance to share an Easter reflection at our staff meeting this week, and was given three minutes to speak and two minutes for a ritual. That beautiful constraint birthed this very
Anna L. Vogt 