When my husband and I received our teaching degrees after five long years at the University of Victoria, we became qualified to teach at schools in British Columbia, Canada. We were able to sign up for interviews and to look for jobs in … Read more

I recently had a colonoscopy, as many others have had. It's described as a medical test that is used to detect changes or abnormalities in the colon or large intestine. During the procedure, a tiny video camera allows the doctor to view … Read more

I make mistakes constantly. One would think that after living for just over six decades, I would be full of so much wisdom that I would never do anything incorrect again, but the older I get, the more I repeat the same mistakes, even … Read more

"The church failed me!" I used to say. My two sons were abused by their choirmaster. The youngest died, and my eldest lives with the impact. I saw that church as a body of sinners, the kind of blame that much of the outside world gives to … Read more

This week, I heard the roar of the garbage truck, and I realized that I had two blue recycling boxes, which they had emptied, to bring back into the garage. I thought of our other house, before we moved, where every week, the boy next … Read more

It happened suddenly. In my den, I stepped away from my ironing board and lost my balance. Mid-air, I dreaded injuring my already-compromised hip. Almost at the floor, the seat of my pants caught on a plastic projection sticking out from … Read more

Your friend is murdered. You are the one who ends up in prison. Everything seems hopeless. At the last minute, someone invites you to follow him. You find yourself outside the prison walls. You rush to tell your friends. This is a … Read more

Each winter, it was evident that our old house lacked what would help keep us cozy. For five years, my wife and I lived in a home nearing one hundred years old, a home built before air conditioning, a home constructed to remain cool in a … Read more

Some chuckled, while others appeared confused. "Stinking thinking leads to nasty actions." I said it in a ninth-grade Bible class when the subject came up while studying the believer's armour — particularly the helmet of salvation. And it … Read more

Philosopher Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Of all the parental and church instructions I hurled out my youth window, it might seem strange that a rebellious teenager would … Read more

Once a challenge, technology has almost relegated them to the annals of history. Mastering a road atlas is taxing. The more territory it covers, the less detail there is present and the more jumbled the highways, interstates, and cities … Read more

When we moved into our new home more than a year ago, it had been completely renovated, but there were many things on our list of improvements that we wanted to make. We built storage racks in the garage, installed … Read more

The most enduring moment in the movie, Saving Private Ryan, comes at the very end. Ryan, now an old man, is visiting the graves of American troops in France. Immediately following D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Army Chief of Staff … Read more

I still have my Presto pressure cooker sitting on a shelf in the basement, unused for many years. The pressure cooker works by taking very little water and creating steam under pressure, and so reducing the cooking time. There is … Read more

I gave the page a quick scan to make sure there were no mistakes. Wow! Here was a misspelled word the spellchecker had overlooked! I quickly corrected it by deleting the incorrect letter of the alphabet and inserting the correct … Read more

The other morning I was sorting the laundry into piles of cottons, polyesters, darks, whites, and heavily soiled clothes. My usual, mundane ritual of sorting and throwing the various piles of clothing into the washing machine turned into an adventure … Read more