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A Fresh Pair of Eyes
The most exciting thing I’ve done in quite a while is drive through an automatic car wash. I know you’re thinking. A carwash is “just a carwash”, but maybe that’s you’ve never driven through one with small kids.. Recently I took my 6- and 2-year-old daughters through an automatic carwash. Just before we drove in,…
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Concerning the Planting of Trees
The first house we bought came with an un-landscaped yard. Over the course of a few years we covered the barren clay with grass, a small garden, and a few bushes and trees. As we stuck those first little sticks into the ground, we laughed, knowing that these little trees would likely only mature long…
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Which race would you like to win?
This weekend I’ll be running a relay race as part of the Manitoba Marathon. Big events like these are a lot of fun to be a part of, as thousands of runners hit the pavement together. One of the most important things to keep in mind when you’re part of a running event is which…
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Savour the Good Stuff
Life is beautiful right now. Really, it is. It’s spring. The trees are blossoming all over our neighbourhood. We have this tree in our front yard that’s covered in white flowers. “I don’t remember it being this beautiful last year,” my wife pointed out last night. And the birds are singing. Robins are ordinary enough,…
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The Problem of Spring
Spring arrived today. And we never doubted it would come, did we? Because it always comes. And yet, leaning into another bitter North wind in April, it’s easy to lose sight of this expectation. This evening as I walked through a park, listening to a chorus of frogs in a wet field that was deathly…
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The Noise Inside
“Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau Many of us would admit to living noisy lives. Often we’d say that our environment, or our culture are to blame. We look at always-on technology, our crazy schedules, our boisterous kids, but these are often red herrings, distracting us from where the…
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Every runner has a story
Earlier this year I ran in the Manitoba Marathon (I ran the half marathon). While I ran, surrounded by thousands of other runners, the sound of a million footsteps striking the asphalt like raindrops, I had a realization: Each of these runners has a story. This shouldn’t have been a ground-breaking realization, but we’re often…
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Learn how to die, learn how to live
I heard a preacher once share that he much preferred conducting funerals than weddings. It sounded kind of crazy at the time, but I think I’m beginning to understand. I went to a funeral recently. My great uncle Ben, after a long, full life, passed away. The funeral itself was a rich celebration of a…
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Spring Always Comes
Spring has finally arrived in Manitoba in full force. Our town is coming out of hibernation and taking a collective deep breath of rich spring air. When spring arrives every year, the memory of winter never seems so bad. But I remember this winter, somewhere between January weeks of sub -30 temperatures (Celsius, but…
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Maybe This Christmas
Christmas is upon us, complete with its full calendars, packed parking lots, and growing to-do lists. My annual fear is that, amidst the flurry of activity surrounding Christmas, I will race from store to event to activity without taking so much as a single deep breath to soak in all the richness around which the…