Newspaper columns Archives – Page 28 of 62

No matter how desperate, we are not alone in this world

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / January 4, 2016 / 2016, African culture, Christmas, home, lost children, poverty, refugees, the road / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Monday, January 4, 2016)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It was evening and dark and dozens of voices, mostly African, by candlelight and under bright stars, were singing carols in front of our long-time East African home.

It was a moment to reflect on the days ending 2015, and a moment, also, when I was asked to say a word.

“So where does everyone go at Christmas?” I asked the kids more than anyone.

“Home!” they yelled into the night air.

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Caught between health care and (the worst parts of) religion

Leave a Comment / New Vision, Newspaper columns / December 12, 2015 / 2015, African culture, C-Sections, caesarian section in Uganda, caesarian sections in Africa, health care in Uganda, maternal mortality, religiosity, Women's rights / 5 minutes of reading

(The New Vision – Saturday, December 12, 2015)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ She questioned if having the surgery was “God’s will,” but the truth is that she was afraid and misguided and besides her own safety, she was leaving her unborn child’s life to hang dangerously in the balance.

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The spirited ways of Pope Francis

1 Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / December 5, 2015 / 2015, African culture, Christianity, Pope Francis, Pope Francis in Africa, poverty, spirituality / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, December 5, 2015)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ I am not Catholic.

And, like you, I have my images of fatherhood.

The better ones have more to do with the holiness of, say, my boy with a ball and a catching glove on our sun-filled front lawn than with the Holy Father coming to visit.

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The winds of political change blowing hard

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / November 7, 2015 / 2015, Istanbul, journalism, travel, Turkey, Turkish politics / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, November 7, 2015)

ISTANBUL, Turkey ✦ This starts in Hamilton where I was driving to my local polling station amidst dead leaves blowing everywhere, as hard as the winds of political change.

It was the first time in 14 years I was around in the fall to see the trees lose their lifeblood, a moment in time, even as we all, after our simple X on a paper put in a cardboard box, watched change blow into Ottawa.

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A hope in hell

Leave a Comment / Christian Courier, Newspaper columns / October 12, 2015 / 2015, Christianity, free choice, hell, Jesus Christ, Jesus in hell, spirituality / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Courier, October 12, 2015)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ They’re out there, people who’d say that they don’t believe in hell any more than they believe in heaven, but you can never be sure what anyone really thinks about these sorts of questions because you can hardly expect anyone to be honest with you when they don’t know how to be honest with themselves.

Your neighbour might say that it’s nothing but malarkey – heaven, hell, God, the devil, the entire lot of it (this is the 21st century, after all) – but he’d tell you that he doesn’t believe in gravity, yet his disbelief doesn’t run so deep that he’d actually step off a tall building.

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Life is in the small pleasures, the simple moments

2 Comments / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / September 26, 2015 / 2015, dogs, dogs in Africa, faithfulness, family life, German Shepherds, pets, small pleasures, the good life / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday, September 26, 2015)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ Our dog, Zak, is a fine-looking German shepherd with a deep bark and a good name. (I mean, if your name is all you can ever fully own, surely that’s true for dogs too.)

He’s wary of strangers and, I suspect, would give his life if called to. He has a funny relationship with his food, never uses his doghouse, (preferring our back door), and loves rolling in the morning dew.

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Of lions, children and innocence of lives given

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / September 4, 2015 / 2015, Aslan, Baraah Fakierah Foundation, Cecil the lion, Chronicles of Narnia, eucastrophe, lions, suffering, war children, Yemen, Yemen’s civil war / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, August 29, 2015)

HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ If you were a lion you’d have little in common with any little girl, unless it’s the summer of 2015 when you could both die horrible deaths on the other side of the ocean and people on this side would know.

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Truth under cover

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / August 22, 2015 / 2015, Christ's cross, marriage, religious symbols, symbols, the Charleston massacre, the Confederate flag, wedding rings / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Week – August 2015)

HAMILTON, CANADA ✦ The ring that my wife put on my finger on the day that we married stayed there for some years until the sorry day it flew off while my arm was in mid-upstroke in an Ontario lake.

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