“Each morning comes along and you assume it will be similar enough to the previous one – that you will be safe, that your family will be alive, that you will be together, that life will remain mostly as it was.”
That’s from Cloud Cuckoo Land, American author Anthony Doerr’s new book.
“Then a moment arrives and everything changes” (64).
In Cloud Cuckoo Land, the world ends roughly five times…
Read MoreI’m yanking persistent weeds through the black shroud covering last summer’s flower beds. It’s Good Friday. Steve, who has only 15 days left to live, is sitting in the sun keeping me company – that simple act of marriage – while I weed and muse…
Read MoreThe time: Ash Wednesday, February 1996. The place: worship in the chapel at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Sitting there, eyes closed, the words of the service washing over me but not really sinking in until suddenly the singing of the psalm refrain began to filter through. The voices lifted in prayer were singing “Mon Dieu, donnez moi un coeur nouveau….”
Read MoreI struggled with the meaning of Lent this year. With the wars and so many conflicts in our own town, country, and the world, I wondered what my Lenten practices should be? Would fasting from food help in a world full of suffering and uncertainties? What should be my prayer focus? What should I do as almsgiving for Lent this year?
Read MoreWe first wrote “twelve hours of daylight” in 2016 as part of an anthology (FEAST) of spoken word poems that are still unpublished. Like most of our work, we take our deep love of the scriptures and weave them together to speak to current realities. In this particular poem, there are a few references to cities, including Vancouver and Montreal, where we were living at the time of writing…
Read MoreIt’s been two years since the world began shutting down where I live in Saskatoon. My Facebook and google photo memories have been popping up these past few weeks with the events that I still remember as the last time I did this or that.
I see the memory of my gratitude for my birthday gathering and I can’t help but think “ahh, the last party we threw.” …
Read MoreWhen Amy asked me to write a reflection about Lent, I wasn't sure if I would do it. To be honest I wasn't sure if I was qualified to do this as my first “real” introduction to Lent was from people around the New Leaf table and my mother-in-law. Because in my tradition, we don't really observe Lent. Growing up in Texas, I thought it was only for Catholic people to do…
Read MoreMost years I have come to long for Lent, and this year perhaps more than most. I’m not sure how I was first initiated into practicing this season but it likely began with noticing the change in liturgical colours decorating my rural Protestant church. Purple must have captured my imagination…
Read More
