Once upon a time, a little girl in Bryn Athyn dreamed of visiting England, where three of her grandparents had come from. Time passed. The 6th grade countries project was an easy choice for her – England. More time passed. She returned from a prom one evening to the news that Charlie Cole was going to send her to the British Academy Summer School [BASS]!

While in England, she met a young man whom she thought looked a bit like Paul McCartney (Beatle mania had been at its peak only 2 or 3 years before). More time passed. He came to travel the USA on a Greyhound bus, spending time with her family. More time passed. She decided to visit this young man in his homeland, to get better acquainted. She would ‘earn her keep’ by helping in the New Church school in Colchester [long since closed]. Before a year had passed, they were engaged. They returned to Bryn Athyn to marry (because who wouldn’t want to be married in the Cathedral she’d attended almost every week of her life?). They returned to the UK so he could finish his college course. And she has made England her home since that day nearly 45 years ago, living happily ever after. The end.

Except it’s not the end. I’ve been ‘blooming where I’m planted’ for a long time now. I have evolved from a young woman fully immersed in Bryn Athyn life (the hub of the General Church) to someone living happily as a ‘satellite’ member of the Church in England, with only occasional direct contact with other NC people (apart from one other family – great friends – in our own village). How did that transition happen? Continue reading From Hub to Satellite →

Lately, my kids have been making me think a lot about truth. My two-year-old isn’t always very good at telling the truth. It’s always a little startling when your innocent baby figures out how to lie, but I’ve realized that it actually makes a lot of sense. She doesn’t tell the truth when she doesn’t want something to be true. For example, it’s a struggle getting her to admit to having a dirty diaper. She doesn’t want to be changed, so she pretends that her diaper is clean. Continuing to play is a far more pleasant prospect than having Mommy vigorously wipe smelly stuff off her bum. I don’t really blame her for reimagining reality in cases like this, but still, she has to learn to tell the truth, even when she doesn’t want to.

Just writing that out is a bit of an eye-opener: we have to tell the truth, even if we don’t want it to be true. It’s humbling to realize how often I have to relearn this same lesson. There are all sorts of untruths I tell myself because the reality doesn’t always seem terribly appealing. I bet you can relate to this too. Here are just a few things that come to mind for me:

I deserve a treat for all of my hard work today. “Deserve” is a pretty strong word. There is nothing wrong with rewarding oneself for a job well done, but for me at least, a “treat” usually means junk food. I might be rewarding my taste buds, but I’m punishing the rest of my body. That’s not much of a treat in the long run. On top of that, this kind of thinking typically omits honoring the Lord’s part in all of my successes. I’m not deserving. Not really. I just have the most amazing Heavenly Father helping me out. All the time. That in itself is actually a beautiful reality, but one I manage to ignore far too often. Continue reading Tell The Truth →

How do young people today decide where to stand on the issue of legal abortion? The issue has taken on such heated arguments politically, religiously, and personally that it is hard to listen, read, or speak about where lines should be drawn, or when laws should permit or forbid the act of separating a pregnant woman from the unborn child she carries in her body. That is what abortion literally means, and the physical act required to remove the unborn child from the mother has profound consequences.

One of the reasons I think people have a hard time thinking and speaking about abortion is that is an unpleasant subject and that those people to whom we are speaking have such a variety of opinions, often hard held opinions, due to their political views or personal experience.

Considering the over 50 million abortions that have been performed in America since abortion-on-demand was made legal in the United States on January 22, 1973, it stands to reason that few families have escaped the trauma of deciding what to do when faced with an unintended pregnancy within their family. What families decide to do, I believe, becomes the basis for their family members’ hard held stance on the abortion issue thereafter. They preach it, they defend it, and they counsel others to do the same as they did.

I know that’s what I do. My family faced the challenge of unintended pregnancies that met the typical formula for unquestioned abortion: high school and college aged pregnancies. The future plans and careers of my children were suddenly at stake, balanced against the lives of very small, as yet undetected, unborn babies. Continue reading If Only She Knew →

5, 4, 3, 2, 1…. Happy New Year! And so begins another new year.

As we turn into a new year, 2018, I am given over to thoughts of new beginnings and new years resolutions. Well laid plans for this new year. However, I have to wonder whether my plans for this year are worth making in the first place and if I am going to succeed.

I have to ask myself what is different to this time last year. I made well laid plans for 2017 but what happened?

Let’s just say that 2017 wasn’t a good year… neither was 2016. And if I’m to be totally honest, 2015 was a bit of a washout in terms of resolutions unachieved.

The purpose of New Years resolutions is to make some kind of change to ones behaviour or undesired trait or to accomplish some kind of personal goal in order to ultimately improve ones life. Continue reading New Year – New Beginnings →