In the flurry of my newly-four-year-old grandbean’s birthday party, while I washed Romaine lettuce under the tap–preparing a salad to accompany my daughter’s lasagna–the child came to me. Grabbed my hand and said, fiercely intent, “Nana, tell me the story of Jonah.” “Later, love. I’m helping Mama make a salad. I’ll …
Since creation, two corresponding questions have risen, set, and risen again. Like the sun and moon, they loom large on the horizon of human thought. “Who is God?” and “Who am I?” The Bible records that God created man(kind) in his own image. History shows that man immediately began creating …
Gourmet food. French-accented waiters. Alabaster columns, domed ceilings, and ghosts of nobility and dignitaries. But when I’ve forgotten much else about that elegant business dinner, I’ll remember the man sitting to my right. “What are you having?” he asked, studying his menu. The buffet,” I said. (It seemed a safer …
It’s Thanksgiving day as I write this. The dining table extends clear into the living room. We’ll gather round it in a few hours, a collection of family and friends. They’ll arrive any minute, expecting laughter, food and fellowship. We’ll have that—and pumpkin too. Most of our family likes pumpkins—the …
The world’s a bleeding mess, God. It’s time to raise praise anyway. For faith, family and friends, always at the top of my list. But for other things too. In these days of tremendous trouble everywhere, thank you for good and bad news. One reminds me to pray, the other …
At 9:14 a.m., one blizzardly weekend last spring, I picked up my home office telephone and dialed long-distance. Someone picked up. “You’re on, Kathleen.” “Good morning, fellow scribes! I never thought we’d be meeting like this!” For the next forty-five minutes, I delivered the most awkward keynote address I’ve ever …
God never says “No,” except for one reason—to provide a better, “Yes.” Let me explain. I stopped at an old neighbour’s place the other day to keep a promise too long past. A few years ago, he and his wife had joined the Preacher and me and two other friends …
I read a media list of 25 Influential Atheists recently. They were all well-educated, and, in some circles, highly respected. The list inspired a search for a similar list of 25 Influential Christians. Nothing. 25 Prominent Thinking Christians? Zip. 25 Christians? Nada. (Kidding.) I did find an early 2000’s TIMES …
God has gifted us all with seven days per week. Like beads, he strings them together with a sturdy thread of words—read, spoken, even written. The pattern of my beads is simple: I spend three days a week in a small house, in a small town, doing ordinary, necessary things; …
While the Preacher took himself out of province to visit family for a few weeks, I laid a flagstone path to the back garden, hoping to surprise him on his return. The path didn’t impress him much. He liked it even less when the edge of one stone broke a …
