Dear Grandmother Anne ‘How do we parents say farewell to our beloved children’ by Carolyn Pogue This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ Dear Grandmother Anne,Strangely, some of us don’t even know your name. When I tried to refresh my memory and read about your life in my Bible, I […]

by Carolyn Pogue ‘This Thanksgiving, I’m celebrating the tenacity of women and girls’ This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ . It will be a great day when “uppity women” are merely regarded as humans with brains, voice and strength. I agree with one sign I saw in a recent […]

by Carolyn Pogue While speaking freely about racism, one can always use a little bit of help from friends This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ .    My husband Bill and I drove to Ontario this summer before heading down to New Hampshire and Massachusetts to visit friends. Still, […]

by Carolyn Pogue This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ Calgary’s St. Brigid’s heralds a new era with womenpriests I can walk to church in 15 minutes, but last week, I drove to the deep south of Calgary in search of St. Brigid of Kildare Catholic Community. I met Monica […]

by Carolyn Pogue In our new Canada, we can be our authentic selves This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ . Also, check out “Sorry: Why Our Church Apologized” at Wood Lake Book Publishing In The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America, Thomas King begins […]

by Carolyn Pogue This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ Lent means always walking up that awful hill. The road to Golgotha can be so long, tedious, difficult. And at the top? Crucifixion. And then the grave. Lights out. Despite that, therein lies the beauty of our story. It’s about […]

by Carolyn Pogue This posting originally appeared on the United Church Observer’s website at ucobserver.org/pogue_blog/ Is deep Christian meditation any different from a shamanic journey? What’s a United Church woman doing on a shamanic weekend in a yurt? Satisfying her curiosity? Answering her own question about how to re-view the world? Listening for echoes of […]

by Donna Sinclair It’s been over three months since the federal election; one month since Christmas. Partisan sniping in Parliament has recommenced and newspaper columnists are inexplicably (to my mind) arguing for a foolish pipeline.  The festivities are over. As W.H. Auden says, we are now  “back in the moderate Aristotelian city… And the kitchen […]

by Donna Sinclair There was a time when all my mittens were stiff with candle wax. It was almost a secret signal, a way to discern other protesters. If you hold a vigil for peace outside the office of your Member of Parliament, you are going to drip candle wax on your mitts and down […]