For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
We love stories with a happy ending. After a spell of struggle, our heroine learns what really matters and walks into the sunset, preferably with orchestral accompaniment. When The End lingers on the screen, we feel satisfied if all the loose ends have been tied up. The kiss in the rain seals the deal. The... Continue Reading →
Arthur Reginald Ruddock (1947-2025) There was a moment, always just before the slam of the car door, when I’d catch the sound of your engine pulling into the driveway. Mom would unlock the kitchen door, and I’d run to meet you—always faster than my sisters—because I wanted the first hug, the newspaper, the moment. Cartoons... Continue Reading →
Tomorrow I turn fifty. It’s not a milestone I’ve dreaded, though I’ve certainly felt its weight approaching. But it’s not the weight of regret. It’s the weight of awareness—of having carried things, for a long time, that were never mine to hold. Of having mistaken anxiety for purpose. Of thinking I had to make something... Continue Reading →
The world feels as if it is holding its breath. The headlines sound like history clearing its throat: invasions, posturing, populist righteousness, tribal resentment, and the slow encroachment of another global bloodletting. You can feel it in the fear people carry, simmering just beneath casual conversation, in the desperate attempts to find who is to... Continue Reading →
There’s a kind of spiritual theatre that I grew up around—a world where the Holy Spirit arrived with fireworks: tongues and trembling, declarations and deliverance, prophecy and power. You were supposed to feel it. To be moved. To be filled with something electric, uncontainable, divine. And sometimes, people were. I never was. And there were... Continue Reading →
All concepts of utopia are ultimately forms of tyranny. Whether those utopias are religious and promise some sort of Paradise; whether they strive for liberty through ideological frameworks like socialism, capitalism, or democracy; or whether they are socio-cultural and attempt to achieve harmony through celebrating a common cultural or linguistic identity, they all ultimately suffer... Continue Reading →
I want to season this piece with grace, if possible. So I am going to ask your pardon upfront if it sounds like I am being dogmatic or bitter. That is not my intention. I don’t want to go on a crusade against certain types of Christians; that said, I do have serious reservations about... Continue Reading →
One of my favourite television series is The Big Bang Theory. If you are unfamiliar with the programme, one of its central characters, Dr Sheldon Cooper, is a freakishly intelligent physicist who has absolutely no social skills. As brilliant as his mind is, he simply cannot relate appropriately to other people. Sheldon regulates his relationships... Continue Reading →
Nathan (my four-year-old son) is obsessed with snakes at the moment, so whenever we go to the library, at least two of his six books for the week are field guides to snakes. Bedtime routine lately consists of a story, followed by paging through a snake book and discussing one or two at some length.... Continue Reading →
On one of my business trips, some colleagues and I lay outside on the lawn at the bed and breakfast we were staying at, looking up at the stars. Somebody remarked that a heaven where there was no pain or hardship would not be a heaven at all. She pointed out that all of her... Continue Reading →
Vapors In The Wind 