August 23, 2025
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HERE'S MY TAKE
I heard someone rhetorically ask the question in this week’s title during a brainstorming roundtable on Monday. We were planning the content for an upcoming event, focusing on themes, formats, and potential speakers. The questioner pointed out that there were different ways of knowing. Difficult topics, such as death and suffering, can be understood by listening to firsthand stories as well by hearing from individuals skilled in discussing broader ideas. Furthermore, the platforming of the less familiar speakers makes a statement both to the audience and affirms those involved in a vocation.
The question echoed in my mind throughout the week, though I had no particular reason to think about hospices and death specifically. Instead, I found myself reflecting on this: the way we answer the question about hospice workers can reveal a great deal about our fundamental beliefs and priorities. Our answers also inform our behaviour and understanding in many other dimensions of life, revealing our views on dignity, agency, flourishing, as well as how we communicate our priorities.
In our Comment Manifesto (full disclosure—I am publisher of Comment magazine), we highlight “different ways of knowing” as one of the six pillars of what we’ve called Christian humanism. It reads like this:
We believe there are different ways of knowing—that the thinker and the practitioner have equally valuable wisdoms worth airing, that relationship and context matter for the ways in which we perceive reality, that the child with Down syndrome perceives truths that a Nobel Prize winner cannot, and that there is a need for those who inhabit these myriad ways to share space and learn how to pursue understanding—perhaps even revelation—together.
In an era in which narrative is sometimes valued at the expense of truth, as if there is nothing objective outside of ourselves and we only find truth through our own stories, it is important to emphasize that words and ideas still matter greatly. I would argue that the absence of meaningful words and coherent ideas has resulted in so much of the unanchored behaviour that we reflect on in this space every week. But we won’t get a flourishing society only through words. Words matter, but love matters too. We may think in words but we behave in response to a mix of motivations, and winning an argument is a very different thing than making a disciple.
Perhaps that is why the illustration of the hospice worker resonated with me. The point could have been made with any example—the carpenter’s craft requires different knowledge than the architect’s design or the engineer’s specifications. Beautiful buildings emerge, however, when the carpenter’s precise muscle memory combines with the architect’s imagination and the engineer’s mathematical precision. There is a sense in which this is obvious.
But is this also true in caring for others as they die? Here, the usual metrics of efficiency are turned on their head. The outcome does not measure the “success” of the hospice; 100 percent of hospice patients die. Success for a hospice is when it provides the conditions for a “good death.” A hospice serves the dying patient as well as those left behind who are affected by that death. It captures all sorts of stuff for which words don’t quite suffice, as anyone who has experienced it knows.
What is hospice care about? It is about respecting human dignity. It is about respecting life, not because of what it can contribute, but because of what it is. It is about allowing suffering, along with the meanings and lessons only it can teach us, while managing it in a manner that both minimizes the pain and comes face-to-face with reality.
The fact that the vocation of “hospice worker” came up in our roundtable tells us something about our cultural context. While caring for the infirm and dying in non-curative ways has always been part of human behaviour, the concept of a “hospice worker” as a distinct vocation is relatively recent. The focus of palliative care is to address, rather than deny, suffering. It can be substantially relieved, but a patient’s “dying well” involves acknowledging and supporting a patient’s struggle with suffering, rather than denying or pathologizing it. I speak from experience. Having been bedside at the death of both of my parents, I can attest that there are lessons and even a unique beauty that can come from the process. While death is personal, it is never alone. Someone’s death also shapes to varying degrees the future lives of the family, friends, and others left behind.
“Does the hospice nurse know they matter?” From the thank you speeches that I’ve heard at funerals, in many cases they do. Almost always, families will explicitly name and honour those who most directly helped them during the death and grieving process. But the question has broader import, and not just for shaping event agendas. Naming the hospice worker involves showing respect for a different kind of knowing and caring—one that isn’t measured by the usual metrics of efficiency. It shows respect for human life and dignity in a particular manner that is as relevant for how we live and treat others as it is for how we care for those who are dying. And in a very unique way, it reveals something about our sense of flourishing. This would include an understanding of the world and life that recognizes that suffering and brokenness, and even death, are real, but that there is also hope, purpose, and meaning beyond the grave and into eternity. Does the hospice nurse know they matter? That is a question that is not only relevant for hospice workers, but for all of us, shaping not only how we might die, but also how we might live.
WHAT I’M READING
Early Alberta Election?
It sounds wild, but Calgary Herald columnist Chris Nelson argues Alberta Premier Danielle Smith might be tempted to visit the lieutenant governor this fall to ask for an early provincial election. Apparently, some in Smith’s cabinet are giving Prime Minister Mark Carney ‘til mid-September “to provide tangible proof his Liberal government isn’t blowing smoke about fast-tracking major projects and making Canada an energy superpower.” Without that proof, writes Nelson, Alberta’s premier would have a pretext to head into a campaign to “ask for a strong mandate to make one final push to convince Ottawa that [Alberta] needs support and respect.”
Constitutional Conflict
“Many of the Constitution’s flaws remain hidden when America is governed by decent men but become obvious and dangerous when it is not,” writes New York Times columnist David French. Long known as a fierce critic of Donald Trump, French makes the case this week that the US president is taking advantage of the language of the American constitution to act in an imperial manner. French’s answer is to amend the constitution—something even he admits is fraught, given the polarization of the American public.
Success, Failure, and Stalemate
It seems everyone has a different take on how well (or how poorly) the Trump-Putin and Trump-Zelensky meetings went at the beginning of the week. The National Post featured commentaries that suggested the meetings were a success for Ukraine, possibly a continuing stalemate, and a success for Russia. Meanwhile, The Economist offers a different take: that Russian President Vladimir Putin comes away from his Alaska meeting emboldened in his efforts to divide the United States from Europe and the West.
Thinking Inside the Box
For around US$2,000, Ukrainians can buy a Life Capsule, which the Globe and Mail describes as “a two-metre-tall steel safety box designed to protect against blast waves, bomb fragments, and falling debris.” With all the Russian bombings and missile strikes on their country, Ukrainians who can afford one are buying protective boxes that can fit a bed and a few other items to give them a bit more security in the midst of a war zone.
A Geneva Human Rights Video
This 17-minute YouTube video is something quite different from what I usually recommend here, but I point out this tour of eight Geneva sites because it highlights the historical and geographic connections to the history of human rights, bringing together both familiar and lesser-known facts. If you are unsure what connects John Calvin, the Red Cross, and the United Nations beyond the city with which we associate them, this is worth watching.
MEANINGFUL METRICS
We can question the precise numbers from this online survey, but the methodology is adequate at least to get a sense of the issues on which public perception is quite different from reality. I found it interesting to note how Americans tend to overestimate “identity” characteristics near the top of the chart and underestimate many “behavioural” characteristics, like reading a book or owning a car. The data don’t lend themselves to any particular explanation for the public’s misperceptions, though we should remember that correlation is not causation. In any case, it’s worth remembering how wrong the public’s—and our own—perceptions can be.
TAKE IT TO-GO
The bar that Insights has set for itself is that a successful round of offerings includes chomping on a bit of horseplay with words. But today, I need you to rein in your excitement. It’s deadline time, the mane parts of this newsletter have been drafted, but this space remains blank. Unsure of how to successfully complete this round, I turn on the TV for some inspiration (or to excuse my procrastination). There I discover that Sportsnet is replaying an equestrian competition from Spruce Meadows, Alberta’s iconic (and not adequately known) horse jumping venue. There’s not much in common between newsletter writing and horse jumping, save for the fact that both riders and writers race against a clock to meet a deadline without faults. We’ll skip the fancy finish, letting our Calgary friends know that the Masters tournament at Spruce Meadows falls on Labour Day weekend. Based on our regular visits when we lived just down the road from this iconic and inadequately known horse jumping venue, I’m confident in recommending it as worth a visit. Insights takes its regular break for a long weekend next Saturday, but we’ll gallop back into your inbox on September 6th, and meet all the standards with a wordplay derby.
Until then.