New Year’s Light
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New Year’s Light

After all the gifts, one more. A new year ahead. A fresh start, if you want that, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You don’t need to change anything. You can just keep going. There are loud voices at this time of year crowing about all the changes we can make. Be stronger, be thinner, be greener, be better. But newness comes with or without our effort. Newness is a gift.

Love Up Close
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Love Up Close

My mother came to visit. This was a big deal because these days we live five thousand kilometres apart and I hadn’t seen her since I was home last year when my dad died. We email and video-chat fairly regularly, but that isn’t the same. It isn’t face-to-face. She came at the end of September and stayed with us for a month. When I told friends about this visit, they paused, then asked rather deliberately how it “actually” was. A whole month with your mother in your house?

Where is the faith in bad news?

Where is the faith in bad news?

Bad news on the radio. Breakfast on the table. We sit together and drink coffee. Listen. Morning after morning. The news might be local or international and these days, it’s often tense, sometimes shocking so it can be hard to take in. Sometimes we get angry and the kids ask questions that we try to answer, and we try not to rage. Then more bad news: bad decisions, bad outcomes, bad weather on the horizon.

A Tree Cathedral

A Tree Cathedral

There was a sign on the window stating the cathedral was closed that morning for trimming, but the man sold us tickets anyway. There would still be plenty to see, he said. Just follow the path and enjoy.

Surprised by Social Media

Surprised by Social Media

Last September, I bought my first smartphone. The next day, I flew home to Ottawa because my father had been moved into a hospice and the doctors said he wouldn’t have long.

Open Windows

Open Windows

Summer. Slower pace and open days. Sunshine, if we’re lucky, and some fine warm weather. A few days ago, I was biking through the park and a fellow cyclist shouted out to me, “these are the days we’ve earned!”

Road Trip
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Road Trip

Ten years ago, the Spouse and I drove across Canada with our two small children. You might even say our too-small children. Blue was not yet two years old and Beangirl was only approaching her fourth birthday.

Lenses and Ladders
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Lenses and Ladders

I spent one day last week tidying our bookshelves because they needed it. They were a jumbly, unstable mess of books and papers, everything balanced horizontally and pushed in the wrong spaces. The poetry shelf threatened to collapse. The travel books had found their far-flung ways everywhere, appropriately enough, and the novels were on the march.

The Sight of Old Stones
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The Sight of Old Stones

My kids had a week off from school earlier this month, and we decided to visit Stonehenge. The bigger kids and I had been to the stone circle before, but we hadn’t explored the wider area, and the Spouse and the youngest hadn’t been there at all, so it seemed like a good educational trip. Something old, something new.

The Gift of Welcoming

The Gift of Welcoming

When I write my column The Messy Table, I focus on identifying and shaping spirituality within my family. That was also the subject of “The Spiritually Vibrant Household,” a Barna Group webcast last month in which they introduced their new study, Households of Faith. Their aim was to share new research on the rituals and relationships that turn a home into a sacred space, asking the question: what does a spiritually vibrant household look like today?

Teach Us to Pray

Teach Us to Pray

When friends of ours moved several years ago, they gave us a tall stack of books. These were obviously loved books – underlined and annotated – so I suspect space was the determining factor. Or maybe moving was just an excuse to disperse cherished works amongst interested friends.

Walking with Mary
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Walking with Mary

LONG STRIDES MEAN SHE is angry, but I’m not sure who is to blame. She’s also scared and that one is easier. She always worries about him, especially when she hasn’t seen him in a while. I can hear her muttering under her breath. Enough is enough. He needs to come home.