Peace Treatments

 We took our oldest granddaughter camping this weekend.  Spending the weekend with a 10 year old without her parents can be eye opening.  Those fears about whether or not you did a good job as a parent can find an answer in time spent with a grandchild; my daughter is raising this gem and somehow, perhaps selfishly, perhaps wrongly, it feels like at least a wee bit of it reflects on me.  Does my daughter have her questions about the kind of mother she is?  Is she getting it right despite me, or not getting it right because of me?  The legacy of motherhood nevers seems to settle into a compassionate accepting space of knowing you did the best you knew to do and all that is left is to wing it with grace through any generational fall out. That said, I'm thinking my daughter must be doing a fine job at this motherhood thing because my granddaughter taught me a very powerful lesson today, and she doesn't even know it.  As we were on our way back home, we had to stop and get gas; as

 Have you been feeling it, this disturbance in Creation?   Things are unsettled. Think back to December 2019, when we first heard about a strange new virus on the other side of the world and fast forward to today.   All that has happened in between? Covid and variants, waves 1 thru to 4, where we're at now in my little of the corner of the world But there's also polarization over politics, left v right;   over masks,  for v against;  over vaccines, yes v no  over refugees, let them in v keep them out  over race, critical race theory v no such thing as white privilege over faith, Christian nationalism, civic religion v deconstructed spirituality, contemplative ways And somehow it's all become conflated. Then there are the children; they have found children's graves at - so far 3 - residential schools  in Canada and there will be more.   Painful as this is, the torch of justice and the spirit of reconciliation have been relit and enlivened again - pray God, let it be sust

Flattery is telling someone what you think they want to hear in order to manipulate them to your way. Compliment is telling someone something positive about them and may or may not have self serving motives behind it.  Perhaps you genuinely do think they have the best laugh or nicest smile and you simply want them to know that, no sticky motives about it. Neither of these is encouragement. Encouragement is defined as the act of giving someone support, confidence or hope.  There is a strengthening component to encouragement.  Someone is downcast, discouraged and about to give up and you come along with support, which strengthens their confidence and helps instill some hope in them.   Renewed confidence and hope equate to courage, so in a sense, encouraging someone is giving them courage. I used to think that this sort of encouragement had to be done with words, words that spoke truth and life and went to the core of someone's soul, shining light into darkness, compelling t

It's been over 2 years since I last posted a blog  on here. In that time I've moved to a small interior town in the province where I live.  My new town is nestled at the end of an arm on a large lake.  The lake fronts the town while a mountain has it's back.  It's lovely here, and quite the change of pace from the big city. In that time I completed a post graduate diploma in Christian studies from a theological seminary only to be bitten by the bug so that now said diploma forms the first half of another MA.  It's occurred to me that sustainable and transformative peace building entails more than understanding the theories and being competent at the practices of conflict management; on the contrary sustainable peace building need involve the heart, spirit, soul of a person.  Hence, the integration of spiritual formation and spiritual direction into my peace building practice. In that time I stopped colouring my hair and am now a white haired grandmother who

The first time some one suggested that I, as a white female settler person, experienced an inherent privilege, I was offended. My instinctual defensiveness rallied to assert that I came from a broken home, a violent home, certainly not a well-to-do cushy home.  The circumstances of my childhood and teen years led to poor choices, including substance use and not finishing school; for a period I was homeless - not roofless - but homeless nonetheless and unemployed and living off the good graces of family and friends.  How did that make me privileged? Several years later, when pondering my violent history in comparison to the violent histories of my First Nations female friends, I came to the conclusion that my whiteness lent my experience of violence and sexual abuse a different, more positive, more strengthened outcome. You see, in my case the violence and abuse were not systemic; I may have been caught in the quicksand of  familial violence and sexual abuse, but had unlimited, un

Was in an Alternative to Violence community circle not that long ago. Talk about a mixed crowd. Talk about a smack up the side of the head kind of learning experience. Talk about walking out of a room never quite the same. I met a woman who most would label a crack head. She told me a story about how when she was on the streets, one day she felt an overwhelming sadness and despair. She sat on the corner of Hastings and Main and cried and cried and cried, and people walked past. She said if just one person had of stopped and looked at her, seen her person hood and ask her how they could help, she would have felt like she was not so alone. She would not have attempted to take her life that day. Now many years later, she has found her purpose, and the love of another, is in recovery and struggling to recapture the dreams she once held, intentional about making them come true. I thanked her for honoring me, for letting me into her circle and telling me her story. From now on I will ste