Recent Columns

(Christian Week - April 2015) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It’s easier to kiss a lamb than a lion, I suppose, even though I’ve personally never tried to kiss either. Even in Africa all these years, I’ve never been that close to a lion.

Some days I wish I was more musical, at least as musical as the rest of the family. I think the dog wishes the same for himself. Sensing this, yesterday I let Zack listen to Handel on my i-pod. It was Handel’s Concerti Grossi Op 3. I held the buds in his big German Shepherd dog ears. He […]

(The UCU Standard - March 19 - April 5, 2015) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ As a boy I hoped for, and believed in, small and foolish things that at the time seemed big and sensible enough. Now I hope for things that are big and sensible enough to my children, even if I think they’re small and foolish to me.

Eliana is the baby that shouldn’t be in this world. The latest is that this little Ugandan girl, about five months old now, is on the cusp of weighing 2.5 kg. It’s a sort of tipping point, doctors believe, and from here it will get much easier for her to put on weight and fight […]

It was last evening. “Dad,” she said. “Can I hold the leash?” “No.” “Please,” she said. “No.” Zack, our big-as-a house German Shepherd, has been a little disobedient on his walks lately, chasing the monkeys and whatnot. Liz wouldn’t be able to hold him. “Zack has given even Mum a hard time lately,” I said. “You […]

“Daddy, it’s The Giver!” Liz said when we found the DVD for a thousand shillings, about 40 Canadian cents, at a hole-in-the-wall movie stand across the road from the edge of the university. At home, we saw it even worked, never a guarantee with these sorts of Ugandan movie outlets. For those not familiar with […]

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, February 21, 2015) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ He was Swiss and we were talking over coffee and he said he’d just read my story about Canada’s new look at assisted suicide. He spoke as if I’d written on this, which I had not, or maybe he called it my story simply because I’m Canadian. He said he didn’t know what all the fuss was about. Europe, after all, liberated itself from any shameful baggage on assisted suicide long ago. If you want to die, he explained, you can easily go to places and doctors for help.

Next time we have Nutella — a food item I allow my children to eat every 6th Monday of the month – we will have a moment of silence. This is to mark the rich contribution made by Michele Ferrero, the inventor of Nutella, who died this week. And not just Nutella, friends, but Kinder […]

  In November 2014 I returned from my African home to speak at the Hamilton Convention Centre on the theme of The Nature of Peace. This was on the invitation of the YMCA of Hamilton-Burlington-Brantford, which holds an annual Peace Medal Breakfast to honour the people of Hamilton region who work towards peace. Following is […]

This is the sixth and final excerpt from an address I gave in Hamilton, Canada in November 2014 on the Nature of Peace. Excerpt #1 is here and #2 is here and #3 is here and #4 is here and #5 is here. + This is what the nature of peace is like. It’s a long, hard journey. Peace is a marathon. […]

When you’re an 11-year-old and a boy in your class asks you to go out and it’s the day before Valentine’s Day and he even gives you a rose, what’s a girl to do? This was the situation yesterday for Liz. Of course, it takes great courage for a boy to muster all it takes […]

(Christian Week, February 2015) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ “Love is better than wine,” is how the writer of the Song of Songs put it. “Love is stronger than death.” Solomon, said to be the wisest of men ever, is credited with the words that resonate with meaning even now, almost 3,000 years later, even in our time, as insecure and fickle an age as any.

We had an interesting dinner guest recently. The kids’ eyes buggered out when he told his story, how he ran for his life, leaving wife and children behind, because he simply wanted to worship the God of his choosing. Why is it that some people are so fearful and threatened by such basic free choice […]

It’s a beautiful morning in Africa, not just because the sun is rising and the birds are singing and the monkeys jumping, but because my daughter too is singing. She has been working on this piece for weeks – it’s an Adele song – and I will never tire of hearing it because there’s a […]

This is from Peter, a Ugandan music teacher explaining one of his first interactions with his future bride-to-be. These two youngish Ugandans were around our dinner table last night. Their initial conversation went like this: Her: Do you remember my name? Him: No. Her: What kind of teacher are you that you don’t remember your […]