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I’ve come to realize that what I was receiving was a collective response to years, decades, centuries of my co-workers’ and friends’ experiences of racist attitudes.

The question isn’t just simply about what is “safe” or “not safe.”

With us was a man, the brothers’ uncle, who for many years—and in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds—had held on to hope that one day his nephews would join him in Canada.

In the days and weeks after these losses, he waited. He waited for his church to reach out. He waited to hear from the elders. He waited for his pastors to visit.

Although some support programs are in place in the churches, we are called to reach out to the communities and develop initiatives that are available to everyone.

The Confederate flag serves as a portal through which non-Southern white people can project their own guilt of racial bias onto the Southerner.

As much as I try to be fair and irenic, there are times when the truth is divisive. Truth divides between true and false, right and wrong. And politics do intersect, at certain points, with ethics.

There’s little, if any, scientific or psychological support to these theories. There are benefits and drawbacks to these self-discovery tools.

By reading mostly those who reinforce my perspective on the world, I encourage the conditions that make it easier for me to avoid and even condemn those who are different than me.

I am a Canadian Indigenous man who is a Sixties Scoop Survivor. I love Canada Day, but I have encountered hostility about celebrating it. Here’s why I think we should.

With death knocking so closely at our doorsteps, thoughts turn to the big questions: What happens to us after death? Is heaven real? And what’s it like there?

When we are not part of someone’s journey in a participatory way, it’s easy to miss what is really going on with someone else. When we don’t know the behind-the-scenes story, it is easy to misinterpret what is really going on.

It’s like a Jeopardy game show answer: “These are the three reasons oftentimes given as to why someone with a drinking problem cannot get sober.”

A masterpiece is defined as the best work of an artist. So we are the best work of all that God created.

My racism degrades bearers of God’s image, even while it distorts my own humanity. It is abhorrent in God’s eyes.  And I am guilty of it.

I’ve just finished riding all the roller coasters at Canada’s Wonderland. All seventeen.

Even a few months ago, predicting the rise of drive-in churches was laughable.

Work has moved online for most who are still working. Social distancing and the “stay-at-home” order isolates us, making us feel out of touch and socially disconnected.

I am a risk, not a certainty. If the coronavirus comes for me, the doctors could use their point system to give a ventilator to someone else instead.

Of course, I am only human, and while there are many times where I am glad to hand over the reins to God, sometimes fear and anxiety creep their way back in.

As Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us more than 50 years ago, “a riot is the language of the unheard.”

As our communities begin to think about the gradual reopening of other businesses, parks, and services, it is important that church leaders also carefully consider what your congregation will do as these restrictions are lifted.