Serve and observe
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Serve and observe

The word round can suggest futility, but it can also describe a continuous loop, year after year of opportunities to serve and to observe, to grow food and to eat food, to speak loudly and to meditate in silence, to labour and to stand in awe.

New light for the old dark
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New light for the old dark

Sometimes, new light comes among us as something small. Just a little flicker against a large landscape. A listening, a hope. It can begin with one, but catches and around it, a community collects. Then, in togetherness, hope strengthens and grows into faith. The old dark still surrounds it, but now there is light.

Redeem the ordinary days:
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Redeem the ordinary days:

My brain is converted – I can tell you the doctrines of Christianity – and even sometimes my heart, but not my imagination. When I picture what makes a good day or the good life, it is basically like American consumerism. Suffering does not enter my view of the good life, which shows that I still have a long way to go, because Jesus suffered.

‘Meternity’ leave and our desperate need for Sabbath
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‘Meternity’ leave and our desperate need for Sabbath

If, as Christians, we are working to bring the whole creation, and not just our own lives, back to God’s intentions, we need to be attentive to an entire society that is groaning for rest.

What a book can do
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What a book can do

Each of these books fostered my empathy for those who are different from me. My neighbourhood is expanding; so is yours. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don’t do, and more in light of what they suffer.”

A history, told in the shadow tongue
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A history, told in the shadow tongue

Now if your experience is anything like mine, you may have noticed that times of change are when Christians turn on one another, flinging accusations of heresy and false witness. Churches split like this all the time. Let this go on long enough, and you have assorted armies of one, each convinced they are the true bearers of the old ways and vowing vengeance on any and all who say otherwise.

Crisis in the cubicle
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Crisis in the cubicle

“What do you like to read?” Most readers have an answer ready when faced with this question at the proverbial cocktail party: mysteries, nature writing, biographies of renowned poker players. I would get bet good money that no reader has ever answered by saying that she likes to read about offices. Our modern workplaces, so goes the thinking, are just the sort of dreary, soul-deadening environments that we wish to escape when we read a book. Who would want to read about them?

The Light Between Oceans
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The Light Between Oceans

Looking for a page-turner this summer? I can’t stop thinking about the novel I recently finished. It came along on our family’s beach vacation as an easy read, and it was easy in a “can’t-put-it-down” sense.

The light through the cracks
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The light through the cracks

I love the law. I love the rules, and I love the mess. And our criminal justice system is a mess. People can be so dumb and also so cruel. Poor people have little access to justice, and there are no easy answers.