Category Archives: Popular Posts

“Oh, No!”

When our grandson was a preschooler, he loved to line up his toy cars on the coffee table. He and his dad would drive them around imitating the sounds of engines starting, horns beeping and tires squealing. Inevitably, they would … Continue reading

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Calling Forth the Divine

Mom with Harry, Ron, me, and Sylvia in 1959 My parents were married on November 1, 1952, three weeks after Mom landed in Canada. Six years later, at the age of twenty-five, she had four children to look after and business accounts … Continue reading

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Love Decides Everything

Mom and Dad met one day when she brought milk on a dog-cart to the cheese factory where my dad worked, near her family’s farm in a village outside Zürich. She was seventeen, smart and beautiful; he was twenty-three, strong, handsome and … Continue reading

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Stories of an Everyday Pilgrim is available!

I am excited to announce that my book, Stories of an Everyday Pilgrim, has been published and is available! To celebrate this long-awaited moment, today’s post is the first story in the book. Here’s more about how you can get a copy. … Continue reading

Posted in Childhood, Homelessness, Popular Posts, Prayer, Stories, Stories of an Everyday Pilgrim | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Responding to the World Contemplatively

How is God calling me to respond to our beautiful, broken world? The same way I am asked to do everything else: contemplatively. “Contemplatively” simply means living out of the reality that we are always in union with God. The apostle Paul said, “In Christ we live … Continue reading

Posted in Creation, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Beauty Stares Me in the Face

Every time I look in the mirror, I’m reminded that I don’t look very beautiful. Ouch. Did I say that out loud? Beauty is a sore subject with me, yet over the past few years, God has awakened me to its glory. … Continue reading

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The Other Voice in My Head

I’m doing it wrong. The voice in my head didn’t mince words. What “it” referred to wasn’t something innocuous like following a recipe; it was my whole spiritual life. Sometimes I’m so confident. I write confidently; I live confidently. Other times … Continue reading

Posted in Poetry, Popular Posts, Poverty of Spirit, Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 239 Comments

The Gardener

How powerless the soil is to produce anything on its own. I am praying with Jesus’s parable of the sower and the seed. I can relate. No matter how hard I try, those three unreceptive soils are in me, impeding … Continue reading

Posted in Mystical, Popular Posts, Poverty of Spirit, Prayer, Praying with the Imagination | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

In the Shelter of God’s Wings

I imagine myself in the shelter of God’s wings, safe and warm. Angels relieve me of my duties. I can hang up the worries of my day, click off my brain, and rest. Be still, I tell myself, close your … Continue reading

Posted in Popular Posts, Prayer, Stories, Stories of an Everyday Pilgrim | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fire!

“There’s a fire. A woman’s screaming for help,” my husband said and ran out the door. I followed Fred across the lawn to the townhouse building next to ours. Smoke billowed out the front door of an upstairs unit. Someone was calling … Continue reading

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