vilmablenmanJun 212 minCelebrate! It's Summer SolsticeCelebrate it! Today, June 21st marks the summer solstice in our northern half of the hemisphere. It’s the longest day and night of light,...
vilmablenmanMay 243 minDecisions, DecisionsWe make them daily—monumental or inconsequential, from the moment we awake. Get up now or five minutes from now? Do I have a quick bowl...
vilmablenmanApr 182 minApril--Arrival and DepartureIn his ground-breaking post-war poem, “The Waste Land,” T. S. Eliot argues: April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead...
vilmablenmanMar 162 minLent--Loaned TimeYes, it’s the simple past tense of “lend” but when capitalized, the word, “Lent” denotes a liturgical season—40 days preceding Easter....
vilmablenmanFeb 83 minMy Black Church & Black IdentityAs another Black History Month rolls in and rolls on, I’m thinking of the forces that shaped my sense of Black identity, thinking of the...
vilmablenmanJan 43 min Go for Goals!It’s Day 4 of 2022. How are you doing so far with your goals and resolutions? I’m asking you this not because I’m a goal-setting guru or...
vilmablenmanDec 14, 20212 minChristmas Comes AgainIt’s another Covid Christmas with Omicron arriving just in time for the holidays. Oh dear. But despite the sobering reality of a pandemic...
vilmablenmanSep 30, 20212 minTruth & Pain Today, the last day of September, the sunflowers bend their heavy heads, still pointed sunward. Today, the first National Truth and...
vilmablenmanJul 1, 20212 minCanada Day or Crying Day?So, it’s Canada Day, and I don’t know what to say. What to say in the wake of the 215 remains found in unmarked graves at Kamloops Indian...
vilmablenmanJun 14, 20212 minSummer Birthday--Bring It On!Yes, it happened again—another birthday, last week in fact. But I must say, after 60 plus years, I’m getting used to birthdays. And I’m...
vilmablenmanApr 24, 20211 minTake a Deep BreathThis week we held our breath for the George Floyd murder verdict. Seems like we've been holding breath for years, for many reasons:...
vilmablenmanApr 23, 20212 minHolding HopeLast Wednesday, I looked out across the backyard, past the wet fence, seeing only the milky morning sky and thinking: Another sunless day...
vilmablenmanMar 31, 20212 minTake This Trip This Easter!Gethsemane Virtual Tour For Tired Pandemic Travelers This is the place, Gethsemane, an olive garden grove, much like your apple orchards...
vilmablenmanFeb 20, 20212 minBlack History Month: BitterSweetIt was 25 years ago that Jean Augustine, the first Black female MP, stood up in Parliament and introduced a milestone motion: Declare...
vilmablenmanAug 24, 20202 minBack To School in Covid Times?School will be a strange new world this September with Covid-19 still in the air.
vilmablenmanJul 19, 20202 minSummer Reset for Mental HealthWith the heat wave and patios opening, you’d think we are ready to wave goodbye to the pandemic and the anti-racist revolution.
vilmablenmanJul 5, 20202 minRead my Canada Day-Inspired Poem: Lullaby for Olivier Le JeuneI want to sing for him, sing something his mother may have sung before she found him missing, sing to him as he lies cold.
vilmablenmanJun 27, 20202 minSpeak Right Words Right NowFinding the right words for the uncomfortable conversations on race.