Seven tips for concerned grandparents
If you’re concerned about your child’s parenting style, you’re not alone. Here are a few ways to mitigate conflict in your relationship with your adult children and grandchildren.
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Challenging Gen X’s memory
The “decade of greed” in the subtitle of Charlie Angus’s memoir refers to the 1980s. For Generation Xers like me, that era brings memories of music, outlandish fashion and youthful energy. Angus, recognizing the fleeting joy of nostalgic indulgence, remembers the 1980s differently. A new economic way of thinking emerged then: putting profit ahead of…
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Taking the long view in public policies
“Look up – look waaaaay up.” That is how The Friendly Giant invited children to expand their horizons through the magic of puppets on TV. In a similar way, Indigenous brothers and sisters remind us to consider seven generations ahead and seven generations backward to broaden our perspective on specific decisions. Being mindful of wider…
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A letter to the future
To my dear grandchildren, If God blesses you with a normal life span, you will live to see the year 2100. At that time, I will have passed and been buried next to your Oma (who is already in glory), awaiting the day of resurrection. This letter is my encouragement to you, to be read…
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The wind that blows our sails
In case you missed them, the other parts of the Stories from Grace Manor series can be found here. We’re back in our corner of Grace Manor. We sit in our usual spots, with our coffee mugs on the table – our own mugs, since we’ve decided to be eco-responsible and bring them from home….
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Library revival
Our church is in the middle of a library renaissance. It began when my wife and I were going through its books and found that 80 percent no longer served our congregation. After much sorting and recycling, we are learning that physical books – paper and ink, words and images – still have a big…
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Big tech goes west
On a recent spring course in Korea, I had the unique opportunity of visiting a variety of businesses and universities. A highlight of the trip was attending the 2025 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Expo in Seoul. I heard the same message over and over: AI is here to stay and is developing at a rate faster…
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The good of marriage
Two months ago, our daughter Theresa married Paul in a downtown church here in Hamilton. Four days later Nancy and I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary. Then, a week and a half after that, we attended the wedding of Nancy’s niece in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I’ve not written about marriage very often in this space,…
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Between two sips of coffee
We’re in our corner. There’s a thermos of Douwe Egberts coffee on the table. Today Pete is the server. Instead of Gemberkoek, we have apple pie, which Broekie pulled out of a bag and set beside the thermos. So Broekie brought the pie, though we know Corrie baked it. He hands a plate to each of us and slices the pie into six pieces.
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Why listen when you have all the answers?
My friends said that we should have a name for our coffee club, so we decided to call ourselves the Young People of Yesteryear (YPOY). Douwe, smiling, said, “The Y P bothers me a little. It’s more like how to P today.” We all laughed at that. “In the past, it was a stream . . .” he paused for a few seconds, until Broekie shouted, “of iniquities!” and without missing a beat, Douwe said, “Yes, now it’s more drops of blessing.”
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Whales and waterfalls
“We are all going to die by 2040,” the tour guide said flatly, “based on the cascading negative effects of climate change.” As shocking as that sentence was, I was more taken aback by the fact that it got zero reaction from his audience. This was last June: I was a chaperone with a group…
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What your grandparents didn’t tell you about aging
Aging – is it a blessing or a burden? A long life is considered a gift; the longer one lives, the more they experience. And yet, paradoxically, society poses it as a problem to fix. Get older, pop culture says, but don’t let the years show on your face. Grow, but don’t allow the hardships…
