One winter when I was 13 and my brother was 14, we took a family trip to New Hampshire. To ski. Because my brother really wanted to. He promised he would teach me how to ski. My elderly dad, an avid outdoorsman and sports enthusiast, had never, however, in his long life, skied, and was wary of its potential dangers involving bone protrusions and close encounters with trees. He agreed to take us despite.

As a humourist I have often asked myself if my lighter reflections were appropriate in a time of such deep division and grief. As a columnist for over 10 years, there have been times when I have wondered if I should change tack, focus on darker or more politically edgy work, addressing the catastrophes of our times. It is surely fair to ask if one’s lightness, at a time of dark, is fitting or even welcomed. Truth be told, I continue to be torn. Humour, I know, has had a role to play in every context since the beginning of time, as a mediating influence, a salve or as a weapon to address contentious topics.

In his beautiful Apostolic Exhortation, “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis reminds us that as pastoral people we have to accept tension between fullness and limitation, and not be concerned with immediate results.

In an article published in the National Post on Dec. 29, columnist Joseph Brean queried the meaning of the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s. It was a curious piece. Brean asked what the week is all about concluding that it is “this least wonderful time of the year (that) is either an under-appreciated winter interlude of nothingness, or a bland calendrical purgatory of suspended animation.”

On the evening of Saturday, Jan. 13, the Alberta Emergency Management Agency sent a province-wide alert on people’s cellphones stating that the province’s electrical grid was at high risk of having to implement rotating power outages. The day had been bitterly cold across Canada, including Alberta where all-time low temperatures were recorded.

The timeframe to extend medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to those living with a mental illness is fast approaching. From March 17 onward, people whose sole condition is a mental illness are expected to be eligible to end their suffering through MAID.

Snow has finally starting falling in Saskatchewan, as January brings in a new year and its usual push for resolutions. At the same time, my social media feed is also full of gentle reminders that it is okay to just have made it through. I have been thinking about how these two extremes can be healthily connected at the heart of things. Just as snow falls gently over the ground, and fog wraps its way over the earth, it is a gently held intention that allows us to move peacefully through the season we are in.

In the recent flurry of jarring communiqués from the Vatican, a rather important instruction may have been missed by most. Within it, one key sentence may also have been overlooked. It’s the December instruction from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on the proper handling of the ashes of the deceased following cremation of a baptized Catholic Christian.

This new year has rolled in with a sense of helplessness in the face of major crises facing humanity. How do we have any realistic expectation of overcoming:

The Christmas season is a time of rest for me. To clarify, I mean the Christmas season as we celebrate it in the Catholic Church, from Midnight Mass through to the baptism of the Lord.