Observer Backs Darwin
The United Church Observer, the independent magazine of the United Church of Canada, is sponsoring a traveling exhibition focusing on the life and work of Charles Darwin currently on display at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum.
Authorcommunications
PWS&D focuses on Central America
Alex Macdonald is the new program coordinator for work in Central America at Presbyterian World Service and Development. He has been the program assistant for communications since June 2006, and will fill the position effective June 2. He is fluent in Spanish, and has already been busy travelling to Central American countries to meet the church's partners and familiarize himself with the projects there. The Central America portfolio was previously managed by Guy Smagghe, who also coordinates PWS&D's work in Asia and government relations. According to Ken Kim, PWS&D's director, the change “reflects the increase in complexity and scope of our programming throughout the region.”
Contagious Christians
The number one passage in the Bible that has been a substratum for my vision of ministry has been Acts 2:42-47. Here is how Eugene Peterson renders it in The Message):
Small Steps; Big Changes
When I applied for the internship offered by Presbyterian World Service and Development to work with the Institute for Women's Research Training and Development in El Salvador for nine months, it was not done on a whim. I had spent the last three years looking forward to the moment that I would apply for a position overseas. In my final year of undergraduate study – majoring in International Development and Women's Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax – a friend told me about an international internship program funded by the Canadian International Development Agency. I immediately did some research and decided that I too would participate in an overseas internship following graduation.
Audacious Hope : Remembering Forward
The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” – Ezekiel 37:1-3
Audacious Hope : INTERSECTION
Norman Wirzba writes in Living the Sabbath of “the principle that was well-known in ancient or traditional cultures: bodily health includes the health of many bodies, human and non-human, we necessarily live with.” He echoes the teachings of Canada's First Nations that everything around us, animate and inanimate, is “all my relations.”
Turner fights malaria
ENI – CNN founder Ted Turner, who once called Christianity “a religion for losers,” has launched a joint initiative with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the United Methodist Church to raise US$200 million to fight malaria in Africa, which kills more than one million people each year.
Dutch Christians tallied
ENI – A new reference book lists 648 denominations and movements, making the Netherlands the country with the second-largest number of Christian groups in the world, after the United States which tops at 2,000 in a similar book.
Dying Young
My mother is in a nursing home and the doctor just gave her six months to live. But when he found out she couldn't pay her bill, he gave her another year. Last night after spending some time with her, the thought hit me: If I stay in peak physical condition, I will live long enough to be a drain on the medical system. And so I have uncovered three ways to ensure this does not happen.
Audacious Hope : Walks of Reconciliation
It was fitting that the Marketplace Court at the Forks in Winnipeg should be the last stop in our national Aboriginal and Church Leaders' tour. For it was here, at this traditional stopping place at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, that Aboriginal peoples gathered for centuries to meet, to share food and medicine, to discuss issues of common concern and to trade. It was here, too, that new inhabitants of Canada met with the Aboriginal peoples and shared their cultures, thereby offering an opportunity to grow together as peoples and become enriched as individual human beings in building bonds of friendship and new understanding.
Audacious Hope : Gifts from God
“We are appealing to the general public to talk to their Members of Parliament, their legislators … to encourage them to get the Prime Minister of Canada to formally apologize for the atrocities that occurred at the hands of the governments of the past,” Chief Lawrence Joseph of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations said to the 500 people gathered at the Saskatoon Western Development Museum.
Fair, Bright, Majestic
Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon,
Audacious Hope : First, Confess, Then, Celebrate
Sunday, March 2 was the launch of Remembering the Children, a cross-Canada tour promoting the upcoming Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Residential Schools. Aboriginal and church leaders gathered along with a colourful collection of singers, dancers, musicians and children in the Grand Hall of the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa. This enormous hall, designed by Aboriginal architect Douglas Cardinal, is home to six reconstructed Native houses from coastal British Columbia and 43 totem poles, the largest collection in the world. Through the three-storey windows, you can see across the river to Parliament Hill. It proved an appropriate backdrop to a dramatic evening.
A True Church
I Believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sins…'
Earth Hour
Earth Hour, March 29, 2008: People across the world turned off their power for one hour. KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives, an NGO supported by the Presbyterian Church, held an event at Holy Trinity, Toronto, where the gathered signed a petiition to Prime Minister Harper to redirect oil and gas subsidies to more sustainable energy sources.
Justice is a daily thing
It is nice to see social issues displayed in your magazine, as happened in the February 2008 edition. However, I think there is a problem with your analysis. You ask your readers to support charity but you do not mention justice.
Bitter Reality
Being the Easter time of year, I feel I should express my sentiments regarding prayer and “thanks be to God.”
Need a little history of Victoria Royce, Toronto
At a church service this morning, we were directed, by our Minister, to this website, to see the article about our organist and choir (Knox Dundas).
Barrier-free housing
Please allow me to share some relevant information regarding the topic of barrier-free housing (universal design) that I believe would be of benefit to my fellow Christians. In my 15+ years of community health care (two years as an ambulance attendant and 13+ years assisting adults with disabilities) I have been exposed to a number of different types of barrier-free environments and have come to appreciate their many benefits… the most important of which is the ability to remain in your home for as long as you wish. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has the FlexHousing program that discusses topics such as accessible design, healthy housing materials and safety considerations as examples. Given my experience of working for adults with disabilities, I have found the FlexHousing program to be outstanding in content and logic. CMHC refers to FlexHousing as building smart and I think you would agree after reading their publications, some of which are available as a free download or printed publication.
Another perspective on Afghanistan
Letters in January reveal a wide range in Presbyterians' attitudes towards Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, ranging from pacifism to a belief that it is divinely ordained. Perhaps I could add some comments to the mix.