A Good Honest Shuffle

From a bit of a distance, I can see the leaves on the highest branches of the Autumn Blaze Maple in our backyard catching fire as they stretch upward into the cool, early fall sky here in Southern Ontario. Sitting indoors, though, in the comfortable spot where I spend the early moments of my day in quiet reflection, I can only see a third of the tree at most, and only a solitary branch of red against the backdrop shades of green. But even a third of something beautiful is enough to inspire someone who happens to be paying attention, and so, one day last summer, I snapped a quick photo from this same vantage point when our tree was still in the fullness of its summer glory. When we moved into our current home seventeen years ago, there was a small and rather unimpressive Ivory Silk Lilac in the back corner of the yard, but nothing else to provide our growing young family with any kind of shade. This made for plenty of hot summer days in the backyard with no relief from the heat and humi...

And just like that, it was gone. The silver, 7-seater 2008 Grand Caravan that had been parked in our driveway and part of our family for the past decade slowly backed out onto the street, shifted gears, and drove away to live out the twilight of its life registered under the name of a grateful new owner. No comforting hugs or firm handshakes. No floral arrangements delivered courtesy of long-lost friends and distant family members. No eulogies or photo boards or virtual guest books. All that remained was a Kijiji ad that would be taken down within the hour and an insurance policy that would be amended with neither pomp nor ceremony. A couple of weeks ago, when the first of many potential buyers was on the way to take a look at our minivan, I grabbed a container of all-purpose wipes and the old vacuum we keep in the garage for cleaning vehicles and I got to work. I started by taking out the winter floor mats that I never bother removing thanks to the amount of dirt that accumulates over...

We stopped for lunch at the Athabasca Glacier, our food spread out on the tailgate of a pickup alongside Highway 93, right in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. On the crest of the range, the imposing and yet rapidly disappearing remnant of a previous ice age spreads out across the sky, a stark reminder of how small and finite we humans really are, but also of how even these comparatively frail frames of ours can have a disproportionate effect on the environment in which we live and move and have our being. When we pulled into the parking lot, we were greeted by zero degree temperatures and six-foot high snowbanks, both of which seemed strangely out of place given the mild weather and complete lack of snow in Calgary, where this road trip of ours began. In fact, though, it would be more accurate to say that this road trip began several years ago, when my longtime friend and mentor, Tom, first encouraged me to come and see what he was up to. There was a stretch of more than a decade whe...

Everything around me is different. The tall, coniferous trees at the edge of the conservation area marking the western boundary of our rental property belie the truth that I am nowhere near home. At a glance, they could pass for a species native to Ontario, which is the first thing my son pointed out when he saw them towering over the yard. Their slender, skyward-stretching trunks mimic the palm trees that thrive here in Central Florida, but instead of the iconic spreading leaves that show up on most every postcard sent from this sunkissed state, the branches on these trees are covered in unusually long needles with small pockets of seed cones mostly hidden from sight. There’s a small lawn sprawled out between the house and the trees, but again, it only looks like the kind of lawns that I’ve walked barefoot across since I took my first steps. In truth, the turf here is thick and coarse and crunches underfoot, more straw than grass. In a cardboard box in my parents’ home, there’s a ph...

He had tried this move once before. It worked out well enough then, but he wasn’t sure he’d get the same result the second time around, and that made him nervous.  He stood there motionless while the floodlight in her parents’ carport cast dark shadows over her shoulders and down the length of the snow-covered driveway. It must have been those same shadows that made him question the look on her face, that made him doubt what he was feeling, that caused him to second guess the subtle hints he sensed that she was trying to send his way. He stood there awkwardly, as only a 15-year-old boy in love can stand, wondering if it would be better if he just took a small step backward and brought the whole uncertain moment to an end. That first step could be followed by another while he glanced at her ever-so-briefly to say goodnight— yes, this was definitely a better idea —at which point he would then turn and casually make his way down the street, playing it cool around the corner until he w...

“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 ...

I was wrong; this is my final entry. It’s December 17, 2018, and while I suppose this could go on indefinitely as our story continues to unfold, yesterday was a significant day in the life of our church and it feels like sharing some reflections would be a more fitting way to wrap things up.  It was the next to last Sunday before Christmas, so the morning’s service was anything but typical. It’s the third week of Advent, so for starters, there was the weekly lighting of a candle to mark our ongoing journey toward the celebration of Christ’s birth. Then, as you might have guessed if you’ve ever stepped foot in a church around this time of year, a gaggle of twenty-some children took their places on a small riser at the front of the sanctuary waiting to perform a seasonal song, replete with adorable actions and wide, stretching smiles. And because you can never have too much Christmas—a sentiment shared by just about every church in town during these high holiday seasons—once the you...