I will not tire of declaring that if we really want an effective end to violence we must remove the violence that lies at the root of all violence: structural violence, social injustice, exclusion of citizens from the management of the country, repression. All this is what constitutes the primal cause, from which the rest flows naturally. Óscar Romero, The Violence of Love: The Pastoral Wisdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, compiled and translated by James R. Brockman (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988), 200. Canada is not irredeemable as an idea. As a country founded on nation-to-nation treaty relationships in …
Since 2004, the Art of Hosting has been offered every autumn on Bowen Island, British Columbia, where I live. I was a participant in the first one and since then have been on the hosting team every year. We love hosting people here, as the island itself is such an incredible place to be and to sink into relationship with one another as we learn and explore participatory leadership and facilitation. What I especially love about this offering is the people that we work withe on our teams and the questions we get to be in together. In the past …
Is it my imagination or was 2021 and 2022 WAY harder on us all than we know? I’m in a place of finally releasing – after being able to let go of my dad and all the arrangements we were holding around his funeral – and I’m slowly feeling the release of tensions, emotions, thoughts, attachments and feelings that I have been carrying for god knows how long. This past winter especially, during the months of ever lengthening light, has been hard. I started to turn a corner in April, but the weather in the west coast was cold and …
My beautiful dad died back in December, and with COVID it has taken us nearly six months to organize his memorial service. But yesterday we had it – and you can watch it here – and I think he would have loved it. So today I wake up for the first time in my life not having a father to call and wish a Happy Father’s Day. So instead, I will just leave my eulogy for him here. Thank you all for coming. I know it means a lot to our mom and our family and a lot to each …
Alberta Billy has died. Alberta was a woman who changed my life. She was a residential school survivor and a member of the United Church of Canada and very respected We Wai Kai Elder from Cape Mudge on Quadra Island. In 1985 she told Bob Smith, then the Moderator of the United Church of Canada that the Church needed to apologize for the destruction of Indigenous culture and spirituality (watch this video). Bob took on the challenge and in 1986, at its biennial General Council in Sudbury, the Church brought forward the proposal to issue an apology. I was an …