Recent Columns

The last note in this space was that life is a gift and life is a mystery, both clichés and both true. The other truth, as true as the sun rising every morning, is that we’re not made to live forever. The children’s Papa, their grandfather on their mother’s side, said this to me right around […]

There are New Year resolutions and most are a waste of breath because if you or me or anyone is going to make a change, if you’re that committed to it down to the atoms in the cells that make up the fiber of your being, then the chances that such a lasting change starting […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Monday, January 4, 2016) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ It was evening and dark and dozens of voices, mostly African, by candlelight and under bright stars, were singing carols in front of our long-time East African home. It was a moment to reflect on the days ending 2015, and a moment, also, when I was asked to say a word. “So where does everyone go at Christmas?” I asked the kids more than anyone. “Home!” they yelled into the night air.

It is difficult to leave, to walk out the door onto the road and all that uncertainty, to leave the familiar and walk into the unknown, but it’s what any of us are called to, even as Jill and Eustace are called in The Silver Chair. This is that C.S. Lewis story where these two […]

  Today’s post is a wish for a blessed Christmas for you and yours, a wish for peace and joy and all the things that (thank you, Paul) are to be seen at least through a hazy mirror even here and now, imperfectly yes, the sort of things of the heart that one day we […]

“Hey! So how is fatherhood going?” “It’s picking up,” he told me. “Hah! Well said!” Which goes to show that fatherhood is neither for the faint of heart nor those who want to get much sleep. In this case, the father was a new father of just a couple of weeks. You already know him, […]

(The New Vision - Saturday, December 12, 2015) MUKONO, UGANDA ✦ She questioned if having the surgery was “God’s will,” but the truth is that she was afraid and misguided and besides her own safety, she was leaving her unborn child’s life to hang dangerously in the balance.

Hannah says “The Pope is cool” and Liz says “He’s like a grandpa.” Which means that he would have to be a Dad. Which means (let’s just pretend) that he would have to be married. Which leads me to a recent excerpt on said Pope, this excerpt from a recent column: In truth, I can easily picture […]

‘Where does everyone go at Christmas?’ I asked, and all the African kids yelled ‘Home!’ and that’s how it started, a brief word shared last night from the front of our own home where a few dozen carollers, mostly Ugandans, gathered. It was our annual contribution to Christmas things here at the university that we’ve […]

The children of Uganda are disappearing. And it’s hard to know where they are going. I have written about this before, as it relates to the horrible issue of child sacrifice. Sometimes there are remarkable good news endings to these stories, for example the story of our friend, Richard, and how his little boy was […]

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, December 5, 2015) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ I am not Catholic. And, like you, I have my images of fatherhood. The better ones have more to do with the holiness of, say, my boy with a ball and a catching glove on our sun-filled front lawn than with the Holy Father coming to visit.

The news of the week is good news. Our family friend, Dorothy, a Ugandan who has filled this space from time to time, had a change of heart and mind and decided, with her husband Patrick, to get herself to a Kampala hospital for a planned caesarian section after all. You’ll recall the great concern […]

So, the Children’s Mother is gone AGAIN (do you have your ticket for tomorrow’s gala?) and I’m Single Daddin’ It AGAIN for the 417th time since we shared our wedding rings and started this family. Although, I do confess, keeping precise track of things (including wedding rings) is not my greatest strength. “I can’t believe […]

It’s morning and the sun is up, shining on the mud, and Zak, the dog, has left his bright orange ball to chase Tiblets. Tibs, as Liz is fond of calling him, is the poor cat who just took off into the bush. There is another way, though, and one of our cats, Mister Bubbles, […]

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, November 7, 2015) ISTANBUL, Turkey ✦ This starts in Hamilton where I was driving to my local polling station amidst dead leaves blowing everywhere, as hard as the winds of political change. It was the first time in 14 years I was around in the fall to see the trees lose their lifeblood, a moment in time, even as we all, after our simple X on a paper put in a cardboard box, watched change blow into Ottawa.