The View From Here

Popular posts from this blog

There are two ways I could tell this story. The first would be to wait a little while longer until I have some more clarity around how this narrative will actually unfold. This is my preferred way of sharing anything personal: wait until things have worked themselves out, and only then drill down into my experiences for whatever I think might be helpful (or at least mildly entertaining) to others. Lessons learned, victories won, tales to be told. I’m not alone in this. Most of us prefer to tell our stories from the end backwards. In the middle, things are too messy and too uncertain and, well, too raw. I had a conversation once with a friend who was in the midst of an unspeakably challenging season, and we wondered together what it would be like for him to tell his story right there in the middle of it—right there where he wasn’t even sure he would make it out alive. And so the second way I could tell this story of mine is to do just that, to tell it from the middle, which is where I

Tearing Down and Building Up

I have no illusions that the photo is going to take home any awards—even an amateur photographer like myself knows I can do better than this. Heck, a four year old with an iPhone could do better. But it’s the photo I took, and while the truth is that I’m tempted to drive around the corner and redeem myself with a Pulitzer-worthy shot, there’s actually something about the photo’s completely uninteresting composition that captures the heart of what compelled me to pull over in the misty rain on my way home from the gym this afternoon. I first heard about the plans for this property a few years ago when a rumour started swirling that the long-standing church located on a corner lot at a busy intersection in our neighbourhood would be torn down and replaced by stacked townhouses. The plan was for a new church/community centre to be constructed on the opposite end of the property. It’s no secret that Canadian churches are struggling to stay open—that story has been told time and time again—

A Brush With Death

“I nearly killed a man tonight.” And just like that, the slightest of lulls in our dinner table conversation was shattered like a paper-thin sheet of ice flying off the roof of a car and colliding with a cold burst of wind. I was probably being more dramatic than I needed to be about what had happened, but it was also the truth. Half an hour earlier, for what felt like the hundredth time, I set out to drive the well-worn route between our home and the restaurant where my sixteen year old son has been working for the past few months. Last week, I reminded him that if he would finish his driver’s training course, he could do this drive and the drive home four hours later all on his own. Imagine the freedom! (And I wasn’t even talking about him!) We’re heading into the darkest depths of winter in Southwestern Ontario, so even though it was only five o’clock, it might as well have been midnight. The street lights were on, creating a glow on the roads in the half-melted snow, and even thou

A Good Honest Shuffle

Search This Blog