Lakshmi* is a Christian Dalit woman I met in India years ago. Her gentle smile and deeply haunted eyes, caught in a photo, captivated me long before I made the trip. Over there, despite the barriers between us—language, nationality, distance—we formed a connection I can’t explain. During a Bible study …
Who said, “Practice makes perfect,” anyway? I’ve been a practicing Christian for over four decades. Many days I feel I’ll never get it right. In spite of a lifetime of following Christ, I still haven’t sprouted angel wings or sprung a halo. (Just ask my family.) Sometimes I can’t even …
“Know what? We need a scapegoat,” I told the Preacher. “Someone to take the blame for everything that goes wrong around here.” He chuckled. It all started the day the car stereo died. We’d had music on the way to our friends’ home, but driving back, the radio wouldn’t turn …
The Preacher and I spoke at one of our former churches a while back. The platform seemed lower and wider, but the church had changed little in two decades. It took a long time to get to my seat—too many friends lined the aisles. And I would have missed Lisa …
Could have been his grey hair. Most likely his walker, a long-term result of his West Nile neurological Disease. But a few weekends back, someone much younger guessed the Preacher’s age at 75—almost two decades up the road. It stuck in his craw, I think. At precisely 8:45 last evening, …
When presented with what seems indisputable, first-hand evidence, I have a remarkable ability to leap to wrong conclusions. Decades ago, en route home from our honeymoon, the Preacher and I stopped overnight at my parents’ home. Another pair of visitors—only a few years further into their marriage—camped on an air …
While riding in our daughter’s family van, I asked our four-year-old grandson about the auction he and his dad had attended earlier. “Could you understand the auctioneer, Benjamin?” I said. He chuckled. “He talks very fast!” “Do you know your Daddy can talk like that too?” Our son-in-law learned the …
On January 12th, Haiti quaked. Its foundations rattled, cracked and crumbled. So did its people. What followed the horrific physical devastation was even worse: a tsunami of loss and grief that roared into the lives and homes of Haitians and compassionate people worldwide. Did it crash through your walls too? …
The friends who sold us our house warned us about its unfinished basement. “It’s bone dry down there—no water for ages. But the floor has white powder. The stuff just keeps coming up.” Indeed. The first time I visited the basement, I almost scampered back up its painted grey stairs. …
I almost always wear green—spring green. Ask anyone who knows me. But I decided to wear something different to church one day. Black pants, a short-sleeved black shirt, and a hand-crocheted gold tunic—lacy, and lightly sequined. I’d bought the top for my daughter at our favourite thrift store. “Hey, Amanda, …
