Recent Columns

It was Don Cherry on one of his Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Hockey videos, a Christmas gift brought back from Canada, and we were wondering about Don’s background and we researched that while his life was full of hockey, his formal education didn’t go past high school. “See,” said Liz. “Don Cherry didn’t get an […]

It’s early morning and I’m out with the dog and he barks and chases a monkey and this is just the start of another routine day in Africa. I’m thinking about it, too, the sad news of the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman. A father of three, like myself, he was also virtually my age. […]

(Christian Week - February 2014) KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ If you’re too busy to read this, just ignore it. I mean, really, I understand. We’re well into 2014 and there’s some serious new clinking and clanking that likely needs your attention. Yes, in our brave new distracted world, the one that never really turns off anymore, (I was recently in a funeral in Uganda where the cell phones rang and rang and rang), it’s a fresh year to slip further into it, this new place where it’s hard to know what – and who -- is real.

(The Hamilton Spectator - Saturday, February 1, 2014) It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. — From the poem Invictus KAMPALA, UGANDA ✦ Much has been made about the tremendous story from Africa that ended 2013, that of Nelson Mandela and the worldwide send-off he was given, and rightly so. Mandela will be remembered as the embodiment of William Ernest Henley’s poem, Invictus, that 19th-century verse describing a man who, as Henley put it, fell in the clutch of circumstance, who knew the bludgeonings of chance and bloody head, who found wrath and tears and horror, but through it all was unafraid and, in the end, “captain of his soul.” Well over a month after Mandela’s death, his name is still easily spoken across Africa.

Monday afternoon Work. Eat lunch. Salad. From a Kampala restaurant. Seemed okay. At school, sit down for rest on stairs while getting kids. Nausea. Liz, do you still have some TP in the car? Drive home. Call Babe. Babe, I’ve been hit by something. Can’t get any milk, I say. Stop at gas station. No energy. […]

Me: “Good morning Captain Underpants!” Kid 1: “Morning Dad.” Kiss. ++ Me: “Hey Little Lady!” Kid 2: “Hi Dad.” Neck snuggle. ++ Me: “Good morning Pretty Girl!” Kid 3: “Uhhh.” Kiss (attempt). ++ Me: “Babe, you’re such a better surgeon that I am. Any way you could fix my watch band with some Crazy Glue?” […]

So the kids’ school, an international school in Kampala, has after-school clubs. They’re very handy to give Mom or Dad a bit of extra time to finish one chore or another before kid pick-up and that 45-minute drive home through the (ugh) Kampala traffic. Yes, the clubs are life-savers. Not. Take the baking club. My […]

I don’t know how we get on these enlightening talks at the dinner table, but the other day we – the kids and Mom and I – got onto hell. Yes, hell, home of Satan. You know, Satan, the entity who prowls around the earth looking to wreak one sort of havoc or another. (Not […]

So over the weekend Hannah and I did a little dance because Hannah wanted to dance in her new birthday bathrobe, this during an intermission of The Sound of Music, the first time all five of us sat down to watch it together. Maybe Hannah danced too because we’re still basking in the glow, that […]

It’s just past 6 in the morning and Hannah is eating her toast and yoghurt, and from behind her I put my one hand on her shoulder, and then my other hand on her head, and I throw my own head back and then in a sort of bellowing loud voice I start into it all. “And […]

We were in the car and Liz was looking rather thoughtful, the sort of look that kids have when you know they have something important on their minds, and she finally looked at me and said, “What if you and Mommy had a big fight. What would happen?” “We’d forgive each other,” I said. “Okay,” […]

Every good parent needs to scream at their kids regularly – I recommend five times a kid before lunch – and so I’ve given my son Jon a good tongue-lashing over what he brought on all of Toronto and Hamilton and beyond this last little while. Jon is the member of our family who wished […]

I don’t really believe in New Year resolutions or those Bucket Lists either, but I guess if I were to drop dead today I’d be content. More or less. Well, you know, within reason. I realized this right around the time my eight-year-old did a face-plant in the snow while we were skiing yesterday. Jon went down […]

She kept all these things in her heart. This is what the ancient Scripture tell us. Mary kept these things in her heart, and she pondered it all. She pondered that the shepherds came to her and Joseph and their newborn to see with their very eyes; pondered the astounding news that angels had somehow […]

(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, December 21, 2013) ENTEBBE, UGANDA ✦ It’s the end of another year of words. Words that have routinely informed us and words that have even sometimes, like summer snow, given a fresh look at everyday things. Like what happened recently in Africa during my children’s nightly reading, a story both troubling and reassuring. “You know,” I said, after, “things will happen in your life. Bad things. And nobody will be able to save you from them. I won’t be able to and neither will your mother. But let me tell you something. God loves to take these sorts of things and turn them into something good.”