I find myself in the USA as I resume posting at this site after many months. And I am spending a good deal of time with my grandchildren growing up here. They have a profusion of toys, according to my standards, with the result that they seldom stay with any of them or take good care of them. They just do not have the joy of making the most of a limited number of toys, choosing favourites among them and finding new creative ways extracting more and more fun out of of them. Birthdays, with the...

The story of the Good Samaritan offers unfailing inspiration and challenge. Of the three persons who encountered the victim in the story, the person who responded to the need was the one least required to do so, or the one on whom the victim had the least claim. But on the other hand the Samaritan seems to have been the best equipped to do so. He was apparently a seasoned traveller, equipped with the essentials for emergencies like this, familiar with finding lodging in unfamiliar situati...

FINDING MEANING In my time of reflections this morning, I was reading the story, “One Little Candle”, in Rachel Remen’s ‘My Grandfather’s Blessings’. It is the story of a nursing administrator for whom “This work is holy. It is my calling.” But, “Only my patients know. I am afraid that people will laugh.” So she keeps the meaning she finds in her work to herself. But one day she hesitantly put up a candle and lit it in the course of a retreat session where people set up objects symbolic ...