When I was planning our wedding in 1974, I dreamed of carrying a bouquet of lilacs and lilies-of-the-valley.  However, I was assured that it would be too costly, and since our wedding was tiny, I opted for a corsage instead.

Strasbourg, France is a city full of romance.  On the Saturday...

It isn’t the most beautiful of towns in Germany, and I’m sure it isn’t the most impressive church.  The little town of Breisach isn’t even one of the tour options on our Rhine River cruise.  But in the interest of easing into our cruising experience, Dave and I...

We seem to have become a regular stop on the journey of a black bear as he/she comes out of hibernation each spring.  For the last few Aprils, this lovely creature has shambled through our yards, lolled in our swimming pool, and climbed up our eucalyptus tree for an afternoon snooze. ...

My husband and I are not experienced or comfortable foreign travelers.  It should therefore come as no surprise that our dream vacation to celebrate our fiftieth wedding anniversary with a Rhine River cruise should have started as a bit of a nightmare. 

It began when the car that took...

Ever since 2004 I have attended the biennial Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in Grand Rapids.  This three-day gathering of writers from all faiths held at a Christian university is chock-full of encouraging and insightful words, especially appreciated by myself, a book...

The ladies along the shoreline dance,
willowy, zoftig, expressing their glee;
they strut their stuff, those with hair aflame,
in a perichoresis of love.  And we

who behold them, laugh at them, with them,
and join in the dance, sisters and friends.
Bronzed and immobile they gambol still
as one...

               sweet alyssum in the morning
                                  A haiku

                       In...

After church on Good Friday, I came home to cook dinner.  As I often will do, I turned on the TV as a sort of white noise as I went about my work.  Surfing through the channels I happened upon a rebroadcast of “The Passion of the Christ” just as the scene where Peter is...

I’m not a Roman Catholic.  But this week, my annual cousins weekend brought me to Little Rock, Arkansas.  With Palm Sunday approaching, my cousin Susie, our hostess, asked if the others of us felt a desire to go to church.  Her daughter’s family is Catholic, so we...

Have you ever thought that when you put someone on a pedestal, you have made them into stone or cold metal?  The thing you admire them for has more to do with your own need than with who they really are. 

The people we admire are complex; they are not always noble or kind or...