The two neighbour boys are 8 and 5 and it looks like their father is about to die. It’s this morning. My kids and I walk to school with them and the boys’ mother. The 8-year-old is in Hannah’s class. What can you say? + It’s yesterday evening and we, Mother and I, that is Jean […]
The valley of the shadow of death Read More »
Even on this side of Easter, forgiveness is no easy thing. Christ said so much during a beachside breakfast with his friends on a lake not long after the remarkable events of Easter weekend. He did this during that rather poignant exchange with Peter, that friend of urgency and largeness who, just days earlier, while
She’s an astronaut, a space walker, a scientist of scientists, way up there in the cosmos, first floating free for some time, just on a tether, then, after some drama, getting into a tiny space capsule, into her driver’s seat of sorts. She is bright and pretty and has a one in ten million view of creation,
God’s not dead. He’s living inside my son. Read More »
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.
What would Philip Seymour Hoffman say? – Enjoy the ordinary Read More »
We arrived at the chapel to find Timothy’s casket sitting heavy at the entrance. This, yesterday morning when we had walked down the familiar green hill to the chapel, the university chapel of dark wood and century-old brick, a place the children have known as Sunday school for some years, a place now to say
Timothy Mugisha died in his mother’s arms Read More »
It was just my daughter Liz and me in the living room, a quiet moment in the evening when I said to her, ‘I went to Tim Bosma’s funeral.’ Of course, one never knows if there is a right way to talk about this sort of thing with children, about death, about murder, about the
Tim Bosma’s funeral II – What do we tell the children? Read More »
The children had dental appointments and I was running late and so found myself in the back without a program in hand, a thousand people in front of me, a thousand faces, a thousand hearts, some in black clothing, some not, all coming together for one purpose, to say goodbye to Tim Bosma. We listened
Tim Bosma’s funeral: a bittersweet day Read More »
‘Don’t let your hearts be troubled,’ is what he said. ‘Trust in God. Trust also in me. My Father’s house has plenty of room.’ This is what Jesus told his friends. That he was going to get things ready. That he’d come back to get his friends when things were all set. He’d have to
Tim Bosma, dream house builder. Don’t let your heart be troubled. Read More »
