We Are Not Numbers

As a statistician and epidemiologist, my life has been involved with numbers related to populations and their interpretation. We often hear statistics on the number of people who have experienced certain events, be they painful or pleasurable (such as the 2 million currently displaced people in Gaza, or the more than 4 million Canadians now receiving subsidized dental care), but rarely have information on how this is affecting the individual. I have been inspired by the book “We Are Not Numbers”, a collection of writings by young people from Gaza about their own thoughts and feelings.

We can explore our own experiences of situations in which we have felt that we are seen only as a number and how one could possibly change that perception.

About Summer Worship Circles: Our church celebrates many traditions and diverse beliefs, and we explore these in different ways during our services each week. Our…