By Janice Selbie, MPCC Recently, I got very sick. Not the kind of sick where you stay home from work and want your mom to bring you chicken soup. I mean really sick. The kind of sick where your body stops negotiating and simply announces, “We are shutting this operation down temporarily.” For days, I could barely function. I needed a wheelchair to get to and from urgent care, where I received IV saline infusions every day because my body was struggling to stay hydrated. It was the sickest I...

by Janice Selbie, MPCC Welcome to Easter, the annual holiday with the most confusing branding. Is it about resurrection, chocolate, or a rabbit running an egg distribution scheme? Somehow, “He is risen” and “check behind the couch for jellybeans” coexist without anyone questioning the plot. It’s a holiday that offers very little logical consistency yet demands a great deal of emotional participation. For those with religious trauma, it can feel less like a celebration and more like a reunion...

By Janice Selbie, MPCC Grief does not require belief in the supernatural. The recent tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, BC, has shaken many of us. I have loved ones impacted by this loss, and like so many of you, I have felt that familiar drop in the stomach that comes when something unthinkable happens. In the days that followed, I recorded a reel with a simple message: Atheists mourn. We mourn deeply, fully, and fiercely. Grief is not owned by religion. It is owned by love. Yet when tragedy...