This spring I took the Canadian from Northern Ontario to Alberta. Via Rail, our national passenger service, lived up to the hype and then some. The towns we passed are not featured on most maps. I boarded in Folyet where a tiny unmanned building sits forlornly facing the tracks, its back to the dark and…
Performing for an Audience vs Building a Village
An Instagram question caught my attention today. It went something like this: do you want an audience or a village? So many of us are on social media posting and refreshing, clicking and liking but to what end? The question made me think about the difference between an audience and a village. For this article,…
What is Grannycore trying to tell us?
In the spring edition of the magazine Magnolia, editor Joanna Gaines writes: "When I think about balance in design and food, I'm drawn more to harmony than perfect symmetry. In a home, it's the blend of old and new, soft curves and hard lines, investment pieces and vintage finds that creates a truly lived-in look."…
The Literary Resistance
Like the French resistance, Christian authors work in solitude to deliver messages that the culture doesn't like and actively works against. We are the resistance. We resist the culture and the agendas of the age. We resist the use of literature to manipulate and warp the minds of readers, especially the young and vulnerable. We…
Those Who Have Gone Before Us
This summer my daughter and her little girl stayed with us for a few days. One day, I showed my granddaughter a bowl that had belonged to one of her great-great-grandmothers. With all the sincerity of an eight-year-old, she said she wished that they were still alive. She wanted to meet them and talk to…
Signs of Life
I like a tidy house. In a novel I read recently, the main character – an older lady detective- observed during her investigations how much she loved the victim’s house. It was messy and cluttered and she loved it. It made me wonder if my habit of quickly tidying away any mess or clutter sometimes…
A Conversation with a Stranger
On a vacation to Ireland, we were on our way to the Cliffs of Mohr when we stopped at Dunguaire Castle. As we walked up the drive, we were surprised to find a woman sitting there knitting colourful headbands like it was the most natural thing in the world. Her name was Eileen Ferguson. She…
The Wisdom of a Certain Age
I’ve realized how my relationships with my children have shifted. They are all adults and now they’re the ones giving me advice and, sometimes, I find myself taking it. They have each gone their own way. They are married or living with their partners. They have children of their own that they are raising and…
The gift of taking a break
Galway~ April began while I was on vacation which gave me, among other things, a ten-day break from social media. One reason for that was practical. I don’t think it’s wise to announce to the world when your home is empty. I also wanted to enjoy my vacation without the stress of posting, coming up…
Imagine a word show
Imagine if writers could be like artists and put on shows but instead of hanging canvases on the walls we hang novels and poetry and songs and chapters and plays and character sketches. We would fill so many rooms with our words. Words on top of words. Words spilling out of doorways and piling up…
