Thanks for spending some time this weekend with Things I Wrote Down. We had a full and busy weekend here at the Kooman household filled with food, fellowship and celebrating a good friend’s massive achievement.
It’s nice to be with people. Even nicer to be with good people and to have them over to your home. It felt like the official launch to the Fall, the first of what will be many celebrations and feasts.
Soon the sweaters will be out, the leaves will turn, and the daylight hours will be short and sweet. For now, here are 3 Things that stood out to me on the web this week, with a poem.
The funeral watched around the world
I tuned into different parts of the funeral for Charlie Kirk that took place today in Arizona. So did people from around the world. Every speaker that I caught as I listened to different portions while I tidied up our home after the aforementioned party, preached and foregrounded Charlie’s faith.
JD Vance, the Vice President, made a remark that was fascinating to me. He noted that he was often uncomfortable to share his faith in his capacity as a politician. That in the last 11 days since his close friend was assassinated, he has shared his faith and the gospel more than in his entire political career.
It’s undeniable that there’s something big happening. Hearts are being revived, and more than ever (which was already a lot), faith is coming to the fore in the USA.
But this moment, when Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, forgave her husband’s assassin, was a moment that is rightly going viral online. What a testimony of forgiveness and love. Just wow.
Friends and politics
Do you find it tough to have deep conversations with people these days, especially about issues in the news? We’re probably more divided than ever.
I enjoyed this article from The Free Press about a writer who found herself self-censoring, had a personal awakening, but then started to lose her friends. As she found her voice, she found out her voice wasn’t welcome at the tables she tended share drinks and conversations at.
This article details her experience of losing a friend and then finding her again, and what it took to get there.
Canada's favourite children's author opts for MAiD
I don’t know about you, but MAiD makes mourning so strange. Whenever someone dies of natural causes or unexpectedly, we mourn, we remember, we celebrate their life. When a doctor ends the life of their patient, there’s another layer (I describe the feels in this post after my aunt chose to be euthanized).
Canadians felt that this week when we learned that our favourite children’s author, who has dementia, has chosen to get MAiD. Robert Munsch whose books are a staple on Canadian children’s book shelves and in the classroom, made news this week with a writeup in a New York Times profile.
It turns out he was approved for MAiD in 2021 and made the info public then, when he got the dementia diagnosis, but many missed the news. The National Post walks through the details of how the close to 500,000 Canadians who have dementia can have it as a “qualifying, stand-alone diagnosis for MAID,” according to legal guidelines.
God help us.
Poem
Each week I like to share a poem. Here’s a few poems from my collections of poetry God/he.
he is a ghost
once-pagan brought
back
from the dead
reading Chesterton
and suddenly
wide eyed again
looking with surprise
at the world
*
he is flammable
you could burn him to a crisp
char his flesh
until there’s only
ash left on
bone
*
he said a prayer
to God
on paper he wrote
it down
folded it up
and left it
in a place
he could not easily
reach
I fell apart when Erika said she forgives him. I watched the entire event, and many speakers brought tears to my eyes. I'm praying that Canada wakes up and gets some leaders with morals. The euthanasia thing is out of control. God is the only one who should decide when our time is up.