suffering Archives – Page 2 of 10

Grab death and scream “mine!” And what does it turn into?

Leave a Comment / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / March 19, 2016 / 2016, assisted suicide in Canada, assisted suicide worldwide, Canada's Bill C-41, death, doctor-assisted death, suffering / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 19, 2016)

MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It was getting late and she, my 12-year-old, sat on the couch and looked into the nothingness and pulled from the air a comment as plain and profound as any.

“You know,” she said, “People don’t know how good they have it.”

This is what happens when you live in Africa. You see things. Life. People. Suffering. Death sometimes. You get perspective.

“They don’t know,” Liz said. “People don’t know.” Canadians don’t know. This is what she said.

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Winning and losing and other sacred moments

Leave a Comment / Daily Dad / February 11, 2016 / 2016, our Ugandan home, school life, sickness, soulfulness, suffering, the garden, winning and losing / 3 minutes of reading

It’s morning, just past sunrise, and the youngest, Child #3, gives me a big hug at the door. “Wish me luck, Daddy!” she says. Today is Track and Field Day at her school. She will run and jump and all that. It will be good for her body and her soul too, and I am

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How a world with assisted suicide would look

3 Comments / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / February 1, 2016 / 2016, death, doctor-assisted suicide, human rights, suffering, The Giver / 4 minutes of reading

(The Hamilton Spectator – Monday, February 1, 2016)

It’s 2049 and I’m an old man. I’ve made my decision. (At least I thought I made it.) It’s for release.

I’ve been given a choice in a pleasant manner for an injection or capsules. Soon this will all be over, another release into elsewhere, into eternity.

They’re out there, opinion polls on this procedure, on “release,” what in your day was called “doctor-assisted suicide.” Apparently most people are in favour. You have to wonder, though, about the questions.

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The boy in the striped pajamas, and a 12-year-old girl

2 Comments / Daily Dad / October 16, 2015 / 2015, Anne Frank House, Being 12, Dachau, Froese family history, Opa Froese, suffering, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, the Second World War, war / 4 minutes of reading

We were sitting around the couch the other evening and Liz, all 12 years of her, like she was pulling it out the empty space around her, said the sort of thing that can linger in a room a lifetime. “You know,” she said. “World War II was just awful.” I suspect she meant that

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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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Wrestling with angels

Leave a Comment / Christian Week, Newspaper columns / May 15, 2015 / 2015, African politics, African university life, death, fear, fear and anxiety, suffering, terrorism / 3 minutes of reading

(Christian Week – May 2015)

KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ It was an unremarkable day, birds and the African sunshine, the sound of a distant lawnmower, the dog laying quiet in back, shoes nearby, tea, a half-eaten yogurt, when fear washed over me like a river. Nightmares, yes, can come anytime.

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Formal wear at Rideau Hall, naked in Dachau

Leave a Comment / Daily Dad / May 7, 2015 / 2015, Dachau, death, family holidays, Order of Canada, school, soulfulness, suffering, working holidays / 6 minutes of reading

Barely in the country from our family holiday in Germany, and not really fully unpacked in our Hamilton condo, the kids continue to live in what is their never-ending Holiday Land. They’ve been back to school this week in Canada, sure, sure, but just for three days, before tomorrow morning, right around sunrise if Yours Truly is

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Where angels and devils collide

4 Comments / Hamilton Spectator, Newspaper columns / May 7, 2015 / 2015, concentration camps, Dachau, life in concentration camps, suffering / 4 minutes of reading

(Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, May 2, 2015)

DACHAU, GERMANY ✦ I may be a ghost you don’t even believe exists, but before I get there let me tell you about this scene in the Arthur Miller play “Incident at Vichy,” where there’s a well-to-do professional, (like I was when I lived), standing before the Nazi authority now in town.

The man, dignified with degrees and references and these sorts of things, presents what he has to the Nazi who then asks, “Is this all you have?” The man nods. “Good,” says the Nazi, throwing it all into the garbage. “Now you have nothing.”

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