This is not a column about my minor medical woes, but it does begin with one.

In the summer of 2022, I noticed a small lump growing in the middle of my arm. It was the size of a large pea, and hard and uncomfortable to the touch. Thankfully, my general practitioner had good news: the growth was quite benign, just unsightly. He froze it off with liquid nitrogen; it left a small, flat scar.

But three years later, the growth had come back. Early this year, I arranged a referral to a dermatologist for that lump and another concern; I was booked in for six months later. I tacked the appointment letter on my fridge, and checked it almost every day.

Many Canadians are all too familiar with the fear of forgetting a specialist appointment still half-a-year or more away.

The war between the U.S. and Iran has put some of us in an uncomfortable position.

On the one hand, we can feel like cheering on the Iranians as we watch them stand up to the American bully. It’s like the enemy of my enemy is my friend, as the old saying goes.

On the other hand, Iran doesn’t feel like much of a friend because of its terrible human rights record — including its treatment of religious minorities in that country such as Christians, Jews and Baha’is.

Those abuses only seem to be increasing due to the war. The United Nations has condemned the Iranian government for how it is treating religious minorities during this time, saying it is using the war as “a smokescreen to deepen their machinery of repression and carry out crimes under international law with impunity.”

Three Canadian denominations have taken another step towards reconciliation with Indigenous people.

At a June 18 gifting ceremony here in Winnipeg, the United, Anglican and Presbyterian churches made a collective gift of $1.5 million towards the construction of a new permanent home for the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) at the University of Manitoba’s Fort Garry campus.

In so doing, they were following up on the four calls to action for Canadian churches from the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report.

One of them, call No. 59, asked churches that were involved in operating residential schools to support ways to help members of their congregations learn about their church’s role in colonization and residential schools.

In response to growing threats around the world, Canada is increasing its military spending. In March, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the country had met its NATO benchmark of spending two per cent of GDP on defence, with plans to spend five per cent by 2035.

Is this the right direction? Is the money being spent in the best way possible? And what about other forms of international engagement such as aid, diplomacy and peacemaking?

Those were some of the questions raised by 14 faith groups in the United Kingdom in July in response to that country’s decision to increase military spending by 20 billion euros (C$32.5 billion) per year over the next decade.

In a joint letter with other organizations, the groups expressed “grave concerns” about how spending on weapons was being given priority over other ways of promoting global security such as aid, diplomacy and peacebuilding — things that are “essential and underfunded tools in building a safer world,” they stated.

Religion should unite, not divide.

That simple, straightforward message is at the core of a short film by Peace Media’s Elana Sztokman, an American Israeli social justice and feminist activist, anthropologist, journalist, book author, community organizer, podcast host and, most recently, filmmaker. Her mini documentary, The Faith That Draws Near, was just named a winner of the Global Peacebuilder Award in the 2026 Religious Freedom Film Competition.

The Religious Freedom Film Competition is sponsored by Empower Women Media, a multi-faith communications company focused on human rights and religious freedom. Its annual film competition recognizes female creators for works that explore religious expression, interfaith co-existence and women’s empowerment.

The Faith That Draws Near is just five minutes in length, but those few minutes is all that Sztokman needed to demonstrate what she sees as the true power and potential of religious observance in Israel/Palestine.

Daniel Dacombe is looking forward to the World Humanist Congress in Ottawa.

“I’m going to network with other humanists from around the world,” said Dacombe, who works for Shared Health and lives near Niverville.

“I’m looking forward to meeting people from other countries who have been building their own humanist communities, especially in places with more restrictive laws around non-belief.”

The theme of the Congress is “Humanism as Resistance.” That theme was chosen because, as the organizers put it, this is a time of “resurgent authoritarianism, escalating religious nationalism, and the aggressive spread of anti-science disinformation.”