A new book aims to help Christians process collective traumas. In All Our Griefs to Bear, seminary professor Joni S. Sancken suggests practices that church leaders and members can use to nurture resilience and compassion as they work through the traumas they face, including the pandemic. The book, published last November by Herald Press, is a follow-up to Words That Heal, a 2019 book in which Sancken explores preaching as a way to engage with trauma. That book was inspired in part by the death of her sister-in-law, who died unexpectedly at the age of 34 following a brain aneurysm. Sancken, an ..read more

If Mike Janzen hadn’t been thirsty one night seven years ago, it’s possible he wouldn’t have recorded his three most recent albums. In 2021, the Toronto singer-songwriter released the first two volumes of The Psalms Project—19 songs he composed while recovering from a debilitating concussion. Janzen got up in the middle of the night in April 2016 to get a drink of water and blacked out, falling face first onto the floor. A few moments later his wife was by his side, helping him back to bed. When he awoke the next day, he knew something was wrong. In the weeks that followed, Janzen began to fe ..read more

According to Lule Begashaw, psychotherapist and team lead at the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, the mental-health team is seeing a big increase in requests for help since the COVID-19 outbreak. She says that “newcomers are a vulnerable population that has definitely been overlooked.”  Due to Alberta government funding cuts, the waiting list for counselling is getting longer by the day. “Clients struggling with mental illness should be cared for in a timely manner,” she says. “The unavailability of care should not be tolerated.”  Unique concerns of refugees and immigrants i ..read more

Note: This reflection deals with the subject of suicide. On Nov. 27, a Saturday, I received a long text message from my cousin Richard (I’m using only his middle name here, for privacy), also sent to other extended family members. “I hope none of you ever have to go to a pain-management clinic,” he began. “They are a joke and out for money.” Richard, who had been battling cancer and severe back pain for several years, went on to reflect about the inadequacies of the health-care system for managing pain, starting with the patient being steered to a psychologist to talk about pain instead of ge ..read more

Over the past year, everyone—pastors included—found themselves in situations requiring problem solving and emotional fortitude. Pastor Ken Tse, from Edmonton Christian Life Community Church, talks about the stress of seeking ways to minister to an older congregation that was not tech savvy. He worked to make sure that each member received training on Zoom, so everyone could participate in online activities. Before COVID-19, the mental health of pastors was already a concern, but now there is so much more possibility of burnout. When talking about clergy mental health during COVID-19, Mennonit ..read more

“I can talk about mental health and, specifically, suicide risk, because nearly every day I ask someone if they have thoughts of wishing to die.” Ruth Bergen Braun is a recently retired Canadian certified counsellor who has first-hand experience with clients who think of suicide or have lost someone to suicide. In a sermon that she preached at Lethbridge (Alta.) Mennonite Church, she answered the questions: “How do we view Christians who chose this path? Have they given up on God’s help?” The church community in Lethbridge has a question box. Pastor Ryan Dueck encourages his congregation ..read more

Sometimes people go through experiences that are too difficult to talk about or too confusing to articulate. Art therapy helps many people process and heal when at first the words are just too hard to find. Lauren Harms “One of the real gifts of art therapy is that the inexpressible can come out in lines and shapes. . . . You don’t need words to do it,” says Lauren Harms, the pastor of Calgary Inter-Mennonite Church who works as an art therapist at her practice, Lily Inspired. She earned a dual diploma in art therapy and expressive arts facilitation from the Winnipeg Holistic Expressive Arts ..read more

Cindy Wallace Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, Cindy Wallace was feeling out of sorts. Each new day seemed to bring more bad news, more uncertainty from leaders around the world about how to manage the virus, and more divisive politicking on all sides. In the midst of the unease she was feeling, Wallace was reading Standing at the Edge by Joan Halifax. “It was in that book that I encountered the idea of moral distress,” Wallace says. “Really simply, moral distress is seeing something that is wrong, having the sense that you could fix it, but you aren’t in a position to do so. Usually, beca ..read more

“You can’t pour from an empty cup.” The words came from a place of kindness and empathy, from someone who knew the feeling. It hit me to my core, because I was empty. It was 2015, days after the photo of the Syrian child Alan Kurdi was on the front page of newspapers around the world. This was the moment when the world finally awoke to the realities of the global refugee crisis. Now the images were all over the news. It was relentless; the suffering seemingly endless. This wasn’t the first time, nor the last time I’ve felt completely exhausted, overwhelmed and burned out by my work. Within ci ..read more

With one in five Canadians experiencing mental illness in any year, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association, it is likely that most people might be called upon to support a loved one with a mental illness. But many people are at a loss as to how. Diana and Erika (all names in this article are pseudonyms) have both watched their adult children cope with mental illnesses for years. Diana’s daughter has experienced an eating disorder, thoughts of self-harm and self-identity issues that have profoundly affected not only her, but the entire family’s relationships. Watching their child ..read more