A very warm welcome to first-time guest poster, Lisa Sengelow! I invited Lisa to write this post about the impact of Naomi Wolfâs book on her, expanding on a comment she made in a feminist motherâs Facebook group we are both part of. She wrote such a brilliant piece – this post right here! – that […]
A friend of mine is preaching her first sermon tomorrow morning. Woo hoo! Tonight I wanted to wish her well, in words of encouragement that caught both the weight of responsibility that comes with this calling, and the lightness you can access when you remember you’re part of something so much bigger than your own […]
This series is inspired by Candlestick Press‘ Ten Poems about Mothers, which contains the Fleur Adock poem (the first post is here). I’d love to hear your recommendations for poems to include in the series. Just leave a comment below. I’ve read and performed a fair amount of poetry in my life, through Speech and Drama lessons, […]
In my favourite English bookshop, Mr Bâs Emporium of Reading Delights in Bath, I always seem to come out with cards as well as books. Itâs the only place thatâs true, and itâs because they carry a wonderful series of poetry masquerading as greeting cards. Candlestick Press produces themed collections of poems. Among the âcardsâ […]
From Rudolf and Santa to Slinky Malinki and the proverbial Pukeko in a Punga Tree, thereâs a Christmas picture book for everyone. In most bookshops, though, Baby Jesus is hidden behind Grinches, trains and elves. If youâre in the market for Christmas books for kids that tell the story of God coming into the world as […]
A warm welcome to Stacey, who wrote this excellent guest post – thanks so much! Stacey is a meat-eating, raw-milk advocating, pro-vaccine-ing, long-haired, homeschooling, MSc-degree-holding, quilting, left-voting, mystery-novel-loving, arm-chair-permaculturing, chicken-owning, fair-trade-chocolate-eating, hippie-ish Christian mother of 3 (going on 4), who just had fish and chips for dinner and whose children are, (right now as I […]
Yay! Advent is my favourite season in the church calendar, and it’s almost here! Actually, Lent was pretty cool this year, too, with our superduper Lent with Kids series, but the inspiration for that came from all the fun and surprisingly helpful things we did at home during Advent. So here we are! I […]
Just a little post prompted by a quote: Cry, the Beloved Country is one of my favourite and most formative books. I read this quote from it today at the beginning of a collection of photographs and stories, Displaced Reflections, by Oddny Gumaer, cofounder of Partners Relief & Development. You can see more on this book here, her second […]
The latest booklovers’ chain-letter going around Facebook seems to be a challenge to list (without too much agonising) your ten most ‘influential’ books. Heavens. To stay in the spirit of the challenge I’ve tried to write this in one sitting, presumably missing a lot of worthy contenders, but hopefully capturing some kind of truth. And […]
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 […]