Life from Canada to Latin America, one word at a time.
At one point during a discussion on development paradigms at the last MCC retreat, Terry directed us to divide into two groups, depending on our first instinct when entering a new group of people or situation. In one group were all the people who immediately look for the power structures. Who has control and who
My apartment has been filled with blessed silence the last few days. On Monday night, I lit candles, slowly ate dark chocolate, drank a glass of white wine and read a book, all while listening to piano music. I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks. Ely is gone. For three week, Kristina and
“To care is neither conservative nor radical. It is a form of consciousness.” -John Ralston Saul. For most of my fellow Canadians, election season ended Monday night. My news feed is slowly returning to its normal fare of cat videos and pictures of people’s babies. Yet every time I shut off my facebook and walk
We spent a day a couple of weeks ago hiking through farmland and fields in the San Rafael National Park, nestled in the foothills of the Andes. It was a sheer delight, not least all of all because the lunch ladies, instead of sandwiches, packed us styrofoam takeout containers overflowing with overcooked spaghetti and meat
For not being at all Catholic, Saint Francis of Assisi keeps appearing in my life in strange ways. The first time was during my freshman year at university, when I went to a meeting of the International Social Justice Club. The leaders passed around green cards printed with the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi.
When I used to sit on street corners in Mampujan and drink apple flavoured pink pop with my neighbours, the conversation sometimes turned to the months and years directly after the community’s displacement in 2000. People would tell me about multiple families living together in one classroom of the Maria la Baja school, poorer than
The Parkway was glorious this morning. The sun was shining and there were people everywhere. I saw a man carrying a giant bouquet of helium balloon figures, a baby with an enormous hair ribbon eating an oblea, an elderly man pushing an even older man in a wheelchair, a tiny political rally directly across from
The Stolen Camera by Naomi Shihab Nye Since the camera was stolen everything is a photograph— pink bloom against white stucco, serious face of the potato chip man leaning over his cart. In the square, gypsies with brilliant skirts twirl among palm trees. I reach for the camera, to hand it to you, but it
Every lunch and dinner at the conference last month included a giant bowl of iceberg lettuce. There were different dressings and toppings for the lettuce at each meal. If that had been the only vegetable option, it would have been a little sad. Instead, there were generally at least two other veggie choices and I
“A society is an act of communal imagination and belonging is the outcome of that imaginative act.” Adrienne Clarkson The first time I heard the word Mennonite, it sounded like belonging. As my parents explained their ancestral history, of coming to Canada as refugees from war and revolution in Russia, I gained access to an
Anna L. Vogt 