Category: Themes
-
Our Music: Opening Hearts
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood Music can help us through our challenges. For performers and their audiences, music can be a healing and life-changing experience. Music heals us by creating a space of feeling and beauty. In the congregation, and in singing with the Comfort Choir (see below), I have seen the opening…
-
Families Growing Together: Facing The Everyday Challenge
by Margaret Evans, Director of Lifespan Learning My community of religious educators has an ongoing conversation about “Full Week Faith”: how can faith and spirituality be practiced everyday of the week in households? Whether you celebrate Hanukkah, Christmas, Eid al-Adha, Yule, Kwanzaa, or not much at all, there is a still moment somewhere within the…
-
Our Music: Listen To The Soul Of The Music
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood What do you hear when you listen to music? It is a very different experience to sit back and listen to music than it is to be actively involved in making it. Can you hear the musician’s breath, the sound of their body in relation to their instrument?…
-
Families Growing Together: What Does The Voice of Your Family Say?
by Margaret Evans, Director of Lifespan Learning Have you experienced that inner voice? Perhaps you hear your mother’s voice in the back of your head saying, “That is a TERRIBLE idea!” Others might hear a positive voice enthusing, “You Got This!” We’ve all heard those voices. We know their helpful spirit or their hindering negativity.…
-
Our Music: The Strength and Wisdom of Grandmothers
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood I first became aware of the Raging Grannies at the Melancthon Quarry protest that the Spirit Choir attended at Queen’s Park. A group of brightly dressed older women attracted a lot of attention when they began singing protest songs for all to hear. It was incredibly moving to…
-
Families Growing Together: Coming of Age
by Margaret Evans, Director of Lifespan Learning Rebellion is an evil word often attributed to teenagers who are struggling to achieve some level of independence. It’s a curious word because it can be utilized in both a positive or negative light. I suppose its attribution depends on which side of the argument one stands. Coming…
-
Our Music: Restoration and Strength
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood For me, summer is a time for privacy and pleasure. I have more time to focus on my own interests and developing my skills. September marks the return to community, the return to service, a time to be renewed by the intention to focus on what is good…
-
Families Growing Together: Awakening Into a New Experience
by Margaret Evans, Director of Lifespan Learning Renewal, or beginning again, is best achieved when we can notice our own internal conflicts and work with them. Restart. Remember. Remind. All these words have something in common. They suggest something old that has been brought back to the present. Whether it be through memories, activities or…
-
Our Music: Offering a Gift
by Susanne Maziarz, Music Director at Neighbourhood “What gift can we bring, what present, what token?” These are the opening words of a United Methodist offering hymn. At some point, we have been asked – or have asked ourselves – these all-important questions. While deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world we have felt…
-
Families Growing Together: It Takes A Village To Raise A Child
by Margaret Evans, Director of Lifespan Learning What would our world be like if we asked what we could give to the world rather than seeking just what it can give us? What would our country be like if every giving holiday were about giving something of our character? If you could give anything to…