Month: February 2017

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Donald Trump is President. Everything’s Not Okay.

Credit: National Review
He’s in charge now.

It’s been one month now since Donald J. Trump officially became POTUS.

«How bad can it actually be?» ,we consoled ourselves at the time. Most of what he had said during the election campaign could be put down to inflated campaign rhetoric, not meant to be taken literally, just meant to grab headlines and to rouse voters from their natural state of peevish indifference. Or so we thought.

Well, as we’ve since found out, it actually is that bad. Continue reading “Donald Trump is President. Everything’s Not Okay.”

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A Cup of Cardamom Tea

A cup of tea and conversation can go a long way towards building a peaceful society.

Last Sunday, fifteen Montreal mosques opened their doors to visitors. The gesture was both concrete and symbolic, a necessary step in the healing process following the savage shooting at the Centre culturel islamique de Québec mosque on January 29.

Still, I couldn’t help thinking that opening the doors to invite in the wider community takes a great amount of courage. Had my house come under attack, how willingly would I open my door to visitors? The natural and quite understandable tendency in the aftermath of an attack is to withdraw, to close doors, to protect oneself.

To open up to the outside is to surrender oneself to the goodwill of neighbours, to declare one’s vulnerability but also one’s faith that the world is, essentially, a good place and that people are, essentially, good.

Taking off my boots and shaking the snow from my coat, Continue reading “A Cup of Cardamom Tea”