death Archives – Page 4 of 6

The long and mysterious road to sainthood

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / October 18, 2014 / 2014, African plagues, Amurk Corp, Bethany Paquette, Christianity, death, ebola, Graham Greene, humanity, intolerance, Olaf Amundsen, sainthood, spirituality, The Power and the Glory / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, October 18, 2014)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It’s hard to know what it means to be human some days, let alone a saint, but there are clues here and there, like in this novel, The Plague, by Albert Camus, where two atheists – one a doctor, one a journalist – have a brief conversation.

They’re in Africa fighting a devastating plague when one says to the other, “It comes down to this. What interests me is learning to become a saint.”

There’s a mystery to the whole thing, a hunger, a longing …

The long and mysterious road to sainthood Read More »

Good-bye. And God be with you.

Leave a Comment / Daily Dad / September 29, 2014 / 2014, camping, death, eternity, God's presence, our Ugandan home, saying good-bye, school life, school trips / 3 minutes of reading

It was ‘good-bye mommy!’ and ‘good-bye daddy!’ this morning with all the waves and smiles while bus after bus rolled out of the school parking lot. Hundreds of kids went one place or another, this direction and that into the Ugandan countryside – it can be strikingly beautiful – on several class trips. Our own three

Good-bye. And God be with you. Read More »

Grieving Robin Williams. His bus rides home.

3 Comments / Daily Dad / August 12, 2014 / 2014, Awakenings, death, depression, God's nature, grieving, Patch Adams, Robin Williams, Robin Williams movies, Robin Williams' death, soulfulness, suffering, suicide / 4 minutes of reading

The scene is a snowy one and there is a bus travelling down the road. And as the bus roars along, these are the thoughts – you can hear them right inside his head – of the traveller aboard. He’s looking, with all his pain and hope too, out the bus window. “All of life

Grieving Robin Williams. His bus rides home. Read More »

Courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten

2 Comments / Daily Dad / June 7, 2014 / 2014, courage, D-Day, death, Liz's birthday, Moncton's RCMP killings, Normandy, prayer, sacrifice, Sharlene Bosma, suffering, Tim Bosma / 3 minutes of reading

It was the nightly news and she wore a large summer hat and a smile on her face while she sat in a golf cart and talked to the cameras, but there was pain too, we all know that, because her husband was murdered last summer. And while the wheels of justice turn slowly to

Courage and sacrifice will never be forgotten Read More »

Jim Morrison’s grave and the cold, muddy earth

Leave a Comment / Daily Dad / June 3, 2014 / 2014, brevity of life, death, family travel, idolatry, Jim Morrisson's grave, Père Lachaise Cemetery, Steve Taylor, travel / 3 minutes of reading

Something from the other side of this blog, from thomasfroese.com, this commentary here, or below, originally published in Christian Week, some thoughts from Paris, from the Père Lachaise Cemetery. It’s one of the world’s most remarkable graveyards, a solemn place that we as a family recently took some time for on our way home from Africa. + Known by our

Jim Morrison’s grave and the cold, muddy earth Read More »

Known by our love ( … or the things we’re against?)

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / May 23, 2014 / 2014, brevity of life, Christianity, death, Jim Morrison's grave, Père Lachaise Cemetery, religiosity, spirituality / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Week – Friday, May 23, 2014)

PARIS ✦ Dead rock stars aren’t the only idols to worship out there. Houses and cars, retirement portfolios, relationships and sex—or, well, religion—can be equally distracting in a fallen world looking for things as nebulous as truth and meaning.

But come to the Père Lachaise Cemetery and see for yourself the cult of rock-star celebrity. In this gothic and tumbledown resting place of some of the world’s best-known artists—Chopin, Bizet, Proust, Oscar Wilde to name a few—Jim Morrison’s grave is by far the most visited.

Known by our love ( … or the things we’re against?) Read More »

The joke’s on us. We’re all living to die. In the meantime … the miracles

Leave a Comment / Daily Dad / May 21, 2014 / 2014, brevity of life, cancer, death, death of parents, humour / satire, life / 4 minutes of reading

We had to pee in the bottle the other day, all of us for our annual check-up and vaccinations against death in Africa. I mean we did this one at a time, in privacy in different bottles, of course, and it wouldn’t even matter that much except for the fact that the doctor soon after

The joke’s on us. We’re all living to die. In the meantime … the miracles Read More »

The valley of the shadow of death

4 Comments / Daily Dad / May 7, 2014 / 2014, cancer, death, decision making, funerals, God's love, God's nature, our Canadian home, Pascal's wager, suffering / 4 minutes of reading

The two neighbour boys are 8 and 5 and it looks like their father is about to die. It’s this morning. My kids and I walk to school with them and the boys’ mother. The 8-year-old is in Hannah’s class. What can you say? + It’s yesterday evening and we, Mother and I, that is Jean

The valley of the shadow of death Read More »