Richie McCaw, the All Black captain some call the best rugby player ever, has a plan for winning the next World Cup. It involves a long holiday from rugby. What a wise and counter-cultural choice. In a society that is not only getting busier, but feeling prouder of the acceleration, the relentlessness of our activity, rest […]
When my baby started moving around and exploring, I heard myself saying ‘Be careful!’ an awful lot. My husband and I are pretty relaxed about SBJ taking risks and maybe getting a bit bumped. We don’t make a fuss if he falls over (when he falls over) and mostly neither does he. Our standard has […]
Letters of Note is an extraordinary site, publishing transcripts and facsimiles of fascinating correspondence. There’s a huge range. The most popular letter ever on the site is this one from a former slave to his former master. The most recent is this beautiful letter from Fiona Apple, written just last week, to her fans in […]
You’ve got to be kind to yourself, right? For many of us, life has some pretty tough parts or patches. As part of a wraparound strategy for self-care, it’s good to have a bunch of little things that can just make a day easier, or give us a little pickmeup on a sad or slow […]
When social work researcher BrenĂ© Brown discovered the crucial importance of vulnerability for human wellbeing and connection, she had a breakdown. Well, she says in her 2010 TEDx talk, ‘I call it a breakdown, my therapist calls it a spiritual awakening.’ She was a perfectionist who wanted to clean up messes of all kinds. She […]
Christmas carols start wafting through shops earlier and earlier each year, but this year one thing about Christmas is later than usual. The church season of Advent runs for four or so weeks before Christmas, helping us to imagine life before Jesus, and anticipate the celebrations of his birth. This year it begins on Sunday […]
I want desperately to be able to say to you, “He’s my greatest teacher, and it’s so humbling, and I’ve learned so much,” and I expect to get to the end of my life or his and be able to say that, but right now I can’t. What I can say right now is that […]
A guest post by Sam Kilpatrick. My wife is awesome. Of course I have to say that because I’m married to her, and she is sitting across from me in the lounge! We’ve been talking about some of the ways in which I’ve made a difference in ministry or teaching or work and then it […]
One of the perils of parenthood is believing we’re in charge. I’m talking about how we can overestimate the influence we have on our kids. They look like blank slates when they come out, right? Gunky, wrinkly blank slates. Ready for us to clean up and write the story of their lives on. But of […]
I attribute my brilliant and amazing parallel parking skills to all the Lego I played with as a kid. I’m good at reading maps, too. Here’s a step up, though, if you want to encourage not just spatial development, but the kinds of skills in technology and design that lay the groundwork for an engineering […]