I woke up early this cold morning, shivering as thoughts surged around in my head. Reflecting on my late-night reading, I could not get Parvana, from Deborah Ellis’s The Breadwinner, out of my mind. Although her dreams were brutally crushed, this young Afghan girl found hope enough to rise above the ashes. Parvana’s story forces […]
Why does the lofty sunflower grow so large that the stem can no longer hold the exquisite flower? Why does the intricate sky shows a myriad of different stars every clear night? Why did the butternut squash grow so large this past summer that it tried to obliterate the succulent peppers and tomatoes in its […]
As I look out my window this morning, I am struck by the beauty of the dazzling sunshine reflecting off of the multiple solar panels that cover our sunroom. The cozy warmth of the wood stove, coupled with the heat produced from newly installed panels, makes sitting and reading a divine experience. As I enjoy […]
“Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.” —G.B. Shaw “Our culture has traded books for Web page views, words for icons, and study for entertainment. We have, in fact, become a society full of people who are merely functionally literate rather than deeply […]
We will continue learning through living tonight and tomorrow and the day after, no matter what we do or where we go. Durham has helped us come to grips with reality and helped us to see how everything is basically rooted in the Great Creator, Christ, who directs us in our day-to-day experiences. —Jane Reitsma, […]
Last autumn, my well-ordered garden kept producing, even after most of the crop was declared “finished.” Despite my springtime efforts to create an orderly and predictable garden, by October, my neat and tidy rows of vegetables were made unkempt by the throngs of “volunteers” that decided, without informing me, to populate the patch: gourds wending […]