Learning Their Names
A couple of years ago, over the summer holidays, we explored a common feature of southern Victoria: the rock pools along the coast. Most of the bay coastline from Melbourne down to Point Nepean is sandy beach, but right at the beginning of the smooth curve down to the peninsula, rocky shore replaces sand. The […]
Wondering at Beautiful Skies and Suffering
Mongolia has a beautiful sky. It’s big, it’s clear and in the 1990s, it was the place I loved to look. In the evenings the air would be crisp and it would sting my cheeks and nose as I lifted my chin to look at the stars. When it got too cold, I’d run swiftly […]
A Tale of Two Skies
It was a tale of two skies that morning. In between my panting and my praise, I diverted from my morning’s walk to dodge the muddied puddles that would lead me closer to the cliff’s edge—closer to the place where wonder happens. The thumping of my own heart would be no match for the thunderous […]
This Week’s Theme: Wonder
Wonder creates a pause. We might marvel at the miracle of new life at a baby’s first cry. The fireworks of color painted across an open sky as the sun edges over the horizon. The bright green of palm trees and rice fields against the expanse of blue sky as harvest time nears. But that […]
When God Paid For Christmas
Money was so tight my freshman year in college that my family cancelled Christmas. We were struggling financially, and the three jobs my dad was working afforded him only four hours of sleep a night — with too little monetary margin to waste on presents. When my parents told us there wouldn’t be any presents […]
Celebrating Together
Serving overseas often turns our Christmas traditions upside down and inside out. Scarves and snow and sparkly lights and conversations with extended family are no longer part of a normal Christmas. And when driving through neighborhoods to look at lights isn’t possible, when cutting down a real tree to take home to decorate is out […]