Rolling on the River – Hamilton Spectator
There’s beauty, Bob Dylan once wrote, “in the silver singing river.” He could have been thinking of one of my most remembered rivers, one in a pastoral region of Europe. It’s the quiet, tree-lined Marne-River Canal of France, slipping past very old villages of the rustic Alsace-Lorraine region, near the German border.It’s a meandering waterway, winding eastward from a village with a name that’s as hard to forget as it was for me to pronounce: Xouxange. (Click on the article's title to read the complete story.)
Review of Tom Harpur’s Book “Born Again” – Montreal Gazette
On the first day of May 1971, Tom Harpur, a Rhodes Scholar and Anglican minister, began a career in journalism as religion reporter for the Toronto Star. He’d hold the job for decades and become, to many, Canada’s leading newspaper journalist on religion. (He also wrote widely read books.) He’s highly provocative; one of his books, The Pagan Christ, takes the view that Jesus wasn’t an actual person. In some theological circles, his name provokes disdain. (Click on the article's title to read the complete story.)
Give Grief A Chance – United Church Observer
I remember the afternoon years ago in Nova Scotia when my grandmother died. My father, her eldest son, wrote her obituary at the kitchen table, then phoned the funeral director to arrange her service. He walked to the man’s office 20 minutes away, but about an hour later I was surprised to see him coming back up the front steps. The funeral director had arranged almost everything before my father even arrived. After all, the man knew my grandmother was a faithful Presbyterian, so he’d called her minister asking that Wednesday afternoon be available for her service. He phoned the organist and choir director since they’d certainly be taking part. He phoned the cemetery to have her grave ready. Tuesday, the day before the service, would be for afternoon and evening visitations at her home, her casket open in the living room. So my father simply chose a casket, signed a document or two, and that was that. All went as my father liked things to go: in keeping with custom. That’s how it was back then. (Click on the article's title to read the entire story.)
Isle of Wight – Hamilton Spectator
For many years, I’ve been an island man, liking them for a variety of reasons. Perhaps it’s because I was born on an island, which, it sometimes seems, almost assures that throughout life a person has a preference for being by the sea, its salty scent in spring, its snowy ice in winter.So, it’s that way in my travels — I’m not just drawn to islands, but, in subsequent years, inevitably drawn back to them. (Click on the article's title to read the entire story.)
La Jolla, California – The National Post
We settled in a condominium apartment, Bella Capri, a few minutes walk from the shops and the shore, where surfers ride the waves by day, and at night the sound of the sea crashing on the rocks, and running on the sand, lulled us to sleep. (Click on the article's title to read the entire story.)