Merry Christmas, one and all!

Merry Christmas, one and all!

Christmas Day. From the terrifying duration of contractions in a dark barn on a cold night for a young teenage girl and her even more terrified fiancé-cum-midwife, to the birthing of a little boy, the early hours of this day crept forward. In the meantime, terror came...
A Cup of Water

A Cup of Water

It’s the nightmare of every host and hostess. A request for more food or more to drink – but there isn’t any more! (that’s why we usually over-compensate by an over-abundance, just to be sure it doesn’t happen on our watch!) If it’s the fourth day of Jewish wedding...
Different Story, Same Lesson

Different Story, Same Lesson

A writer once made this revealing statement: ‘Every front-sided strength has a back-sided weakness.’ I’ve come to understand this more and more over the many years since, that our admiration/envy? for someone’s strengths can obscure their less admirable traits. I...
Isn’t that upside down?

Isn’t that upside down?

(still more, as I see it)  It’s now been a whole week! A week of extreme ideas, extreme waiting, extreme excitement, extreme lows and extreme highs: in short, exhausting on many fronts. There’s even extreme effort in keeping anxious thoughts at bay, in keeping a watch...
The Birth of Wonder

The Birth of Wonder

I invite you to invest a few minutes of your day, basking in the following songs on this Christmas, Day 6:  Gather Round, Ye Children Come Away in a Manger Mary giving birth to Jesus was a wholly natural event – painful, long, complicated, messy, exhausting – and yet...