They don’t say it in schools in Ontario anymore, of course, but in the day, they did, we all did, day after day, year after year, right alongside the playing of God Save the Queen, the prayer that is The Prayer, the one that is called the Lord’s Prayer. By the time I finished my […]
I believe in you. I love you. I am here. Read More »
The two neighbour boys are 8 and 5 and it looks like their father is about to die. It’s this morning. My kids and I walk to school with them and the boys’ mother. The 8-year-old is in Hannah’s class. What can you say? + It’s yesterday evening and we, Mother and I, that is Jean
The valley of the shadow of death Read More »
We arrived at the chapel to find Timothy’s casket sitting heavy at the entrance. This, yesterday morning when we had walked down the familiar green hill to the chapel, the university chapel of dark wood and century-old brick, a place the children have known as Sunday school for some years, a place now to say
Timothy Mugisha died in his mother’s arms Read More »
It’s morning in Africa and, as often, today started with reading and listening to Brahms while on the cross-trainer and enjoying the brightness of the day’s creation. And here the creation is now Zack, our new Young Dog, plus four new rabbits from Sam and his significant other, plus Bilbo, The Cat’s Girlfriend, so named
Morning in Africa with the animals Read More »
My children love to tell it, and told it again not long ago, this joke, laughing and tripping over themselves to the punch-line. It goes like this. There’s a scientist and God. And the scientist challenges God to a contest of who can make the better human being. God tells him that he’s on, at
The joke of creation Read More »
She’s a scholar of the Old Testament and her reading glasses sit on her nose, and then she takes them off, and then they’re on again, and she’s talking about hope and my son Jonathan is here in the group of adults because he has asked if can stay. The rest of the seven-year-olds, known
Children and hope at one crossroads or another Read More »
‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled,’ is what he said. ‘Trust in God. Trust also in me. My Father’s house has plenty of room.’ This is what Jesus told his friends. That he was going to get things ready. That he’d come back to get his friends when things were all set. He’d have to
Tim Bosma, dream house builder. Don’t let your heart be troubled. Read More »
We’ve heard the story so many times – Jesus died, Jesus rose from the dead – that we think we know something about something, and maybe we do know, if nothing else, a profound hope, the hope of eternal life not on some fluffy cloud playing a harp with cherubs floating around, but a hope of
A different sort of Easter bunny story Read More »
