There’s a longstanding joke among the residents of Nebraska. The Midwesterners claim that if you don’t like the weather, you only need to wait 10 minutes. In a state where you can experience the joy of snow and 80 degree weather within a 24 hour period, you can understand where this position originates. A positive […]
This is a reworking of an earlier post that was part of the Generous Lent series, just to make it more widely applicable. Feel free to share it around if you think it’s helpful. A good listener is never short of friends. Some people are naturals at this popular skill, and you might be lucky […]
I’ve been binge-watching Nashville lately, and here’s a song from the show that has stayed with me. It’s called ‘A Life That’s Good‘ and is performed in the show by a few different combos of characters, but here, by teenager Lennon Stella and co-star Charles Esten. The following clip is her and her sister (both […]
Yet again a post in this series is purely about pointing you to someone else’s cool post. Glennon Doyle Melton writes at Momastery about the difference between feeling like saying ‘no’ to someone or something and finding the words to actually say it. Even harder for teenagers, in endless intense situations with friendship capital at stake […]
This is part of a series on the experience of re-reading LM Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables books as an adult. This one focuses on book two, Anne of Avonlea, so you may want to wait till you’ve read the first book to catch up here, though it’s not really full of spoilers if you’ve read […]
I want to be like Anne when I grow up. My occasional Mighty posts are about this kind of dynamic: encountering characters in literature that actually change you for the better. Laura Ingalls is one, and so far I’ve also written about Cassie Logan, Alex Archer, Jean Valjean and the Tillerman children. There are plenty […]
We’re now in Holy Week, where Lent morphs into Easter. In my house we’ll continue lighting our Lenten candles and saying the sentences about Jesus that go with them, but there are plenty of other special things coming along this week that can take their own place in household spirituality. So here’s a bunch of […]
Pop quiz for those of you who live in, or are interested in, parliamentary democracies, like the United Kingdom, New Zealand and other such wonderful places: What’s the difference between Cabinet and Caucus? What’s the difference between Government and Parliament and the House of Representatives? Can you describe in a paragraph how a law gets […]
[Trigger warning: if you have experienced sexual assault, please just be aware that rape and rape culture are discussed in this post. Many of the links similarly lead to pages that need a trigger warning.] Sad, sickened, shocked, triggered, appalled, horrified, not-actually-that-surprised. Most New Zealanders could tick most of those boxes this week as our […]
Trigger warning for discussion of rape and child marriage. The tragic, terrible death of an eight-year-old Yemeni girl made international news this week. You might have read reports that a little girl died from injuries she received during wedding-night intercourse with a 40-year-old man who had just married her. Coming from a much more fortunate […]