Since it is almost NHL playoff time, I thought I would start this week’s column off with a hockey analogy. Anyone who has ever played hockey, or any other team sport for that matter, is well aware that being successful as a group requires a balance of individual strengths and a commitment to the success… Read more »
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. – e e cummings One of the most life-affirming experiences I have had recently came courtesy of a woman who has survived some of the most traumatic experiences a human being can live through. When she was twelve years old, this First Nations woman, a… Read more »
I remember a very wise person once telling me that one of the luckiest things you can come across during the course of your day is the opportunity to face a challenge that will cause you to grow and change in ways you never expected. It is during these times of being stretched and shaped… Read more »
I think that no matter how mature we may be, or how many life experiences we have had, accepting criticism is something that rarely comes easily to human beings. Unfortunately, this is usually true, even if the criticism is totally constructive, valid, and delivered with the best of intentions. Perhaps criticism tends to sting so… Read more »
It has often been said that play is “the work of children.” It is how they interact with and learn about the world. Playing with building blocks and train sets, hula hoops and skipping ropes. Splashing in mud puddles, creating masterpieces in finger paint, and running through mid-summer sprinklers. We take it for granted that… Read more »
It is sometimes very tempting, and dispiriting, to imagine that we have very little control over what happens in the world around us. Throughout the world, there are wars, riots, and signs of impending economic and environmental collapse. Sometimes we feel insignificant and powerless, as though we were plankton caught up in the great surge… Read more »
And so it begins. I’m talking about the news coverage of the Robert William Picton case. As you are almost certainly aware, Picton is the man accused and currently being tried for the murder of six women who had disappeared from Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. It is an immensely long and complex trial, and because… Read more »
For many people, the months after Christmas are a real emotional letdown. After the anticipation and excitement of the holiday season — with its socializing, music, food, time off from work and school, gift giving and sense of heightened spirituality — winter months that follow can seem some of the longest and dreariest of the… Read more »
A friend of ours, a school teacher, informs us that in recent years there has been what amounts to a minor exodus of students away from the public school system in favour of private schools. Sometimes, this move is initiated for religious or other valid and well thought out reasons. Often, however, the reason for… Read more »
I think many girls, as they are growing up, are taught to be unhappy with who they are. Advertising agencies are too quick to tell us what is wrong with us and offer products that will make everything better. If we are too heavy, they have the diet products that will make us thin and… Read more »