As a child, I was fishing off a wooden dock at the small lake near the town in B.C. where I grew up when a farmer from Saskatchewan and his son appeared  as if out of a dream I didn’t know I was having.

In summer 2021, I had the pleasure on the local public golf course where I play to be part of a foursome of walk-ons that included a diminutive albeit athletic 30-something Asian woman.

I once interviewed the Irish Times columnist and author John Waters, a very devout and public Catholic, about changes roiling through Irish society that were creating pressures to amend the Constitution in areas such as abortion and gay marriage. I noted that despite the Church’s long dominance over Irish politics, an equally long-standing antipathy toward it could be found in figures such as James Joyce.

Pretty much a primary requirement for all-candidate debates in any election is that a government candidate be there to debate why the government should be re-elected.

Walking recently through the University of Toronto campus, I noticed a young fellow on the other side of the street jogging energetically past.

Writing last week in the Jesuit publication America, associate editor Jim McDermott posed a 30-word query that should become the reflection-starter of our time.