Category: Seasonal

From the Blog

Seasonal

Adding up to 40

I am not a ‘numbers’ person. I failed my Year Twelve maths half-yearly because I preferred to read the examples rather than practice them. Then my parents hired a handsome, exceptionally tall swiss math’s tutor called Kris, and I sat down and worked. Sort of. And yet, despite my arithmetic deficiencies, for the last few weeks, I’ve found myself circling equations in my head, drawing different pathways and combinations, all with one terminus. Forty.

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Amazing Grace

Angel Words for Earthly Fears

Our daughter has recently acquired a new fear. I say acquired as we tend to collect fears in our family, like some people collect stamps. Ever since a seagull swooped down and took a chip —not even her chip, mind you, but a chip in the hand of someone standing nearby her— E has convinced herself that every bird, at every time, in every environment, is a chip-stealing, beady-eyed vigilante.

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loss

The Mixed Emotions of Mother’s Day: Guest post by Sue Crowley

Today we are doing something a little different in this space. My dear friend Sue Crowley is visiting us to share her thoughts on what she rightly calls  “the deeply complicated day” that is Mother’s Day. Sue is a surgical children’s nurse with a heart that pulses with compassion and creativity. Through sharing some memories of her own mum, who she lost seventeen years ago now, Sue speaks for all those who find Mother’s Day carries extra freight.

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Faith

The Glory in Inefficiency: A New Year post for Parents and Perfectionists

Like any good (recovering) perfectionist I began 2016 all thirty-six hours ago with plans and intentions. The official, grown-up name: resolutions. Precariously perched on the freshly painted, unsullied doorstep of a new year, I looked back over my shoulder nostalgically at all that had now passed, the beautiful and the baffling, the tried and the trying, the welcome and the woeful of 2015, and I thought to myself — how can I make 2016  better?

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Faith

Part of the Picture

‘I want to be that girl’, she said, ‘that girl in the picture.’ It was a rare moment of peace in a busy month. Isn’t that the irony? December, the advent season, the traditional holiday period, a temporary cessation of work, celebration of the incarnation, is filled to the brim with obligation. Not that it’s all bad. Most of what goes on is very very good. Perhaps it’s the internal pressure that really bites, the pressure we put upon ourselves. The endless to-do lists we compose in the middle of sleepless nights.

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Seasonal

Adding up to 40

I am not a ‘numbers’ person. I failed my Year Twelve maths half-yearly because I preferred to read the examples rather than practice them. Then my parents hired a handsome, exceptionally tall swiss math’s tutor called Kris, and I sat down and worked. Sort of. And yet, despite my arithmetic deficiencies, for the last few weeks, I’ve found myself circling equations in my head, drawing different pathways and combinations, all with one terminus. Forty.

Read More
Amazing Grace

Angel Words for Earthly Fears

Our daughter has recently acquired a new fear. I say acquired as we tend to collect fears in our family, like some people collect stamps. Ever since a seagull swooped down and took a chip —not even her chip, mind you, but a chip in the hand of someone standing nearby her— E has convinced herself that every bird, at every time, in every environment, is a chip-stealing, beady-eyed vigilante.

Read More
loss

The Mixed Emotions of Mother’s Day: Guest post by Sue Crowley

Today we are doing something a little different in this space. My dear friend Sue Crowley is visiting us to share her thoughts on what she rightly calls  “the deeply complicated day” that is Mother’s Day. Sue is a surgical children’s nurse with a heart that pulses with compassion and creativity. Through sharing some memories of her own mum, who she lost seventeen years ago now, Sue speaks for all those who find Mother’s Day carries extra freight.

Read More
Faith

The Glory in Inefficiency: A New Year post for Parents and Perfectionists

Like any good (recovering) perfectionist I began 2016 all thirty-six hours ago with plans and intentions. The official, grown-up name: resolutions. Precariously perched on the freshly painted, unsullied doorstep of a new year, I looked back over my shoulder nostalgically at all that had now passed, the beautiful and the baffling, the tried and the trying, the welcome and the woeful of 2015, and I thought to myself — how can I make 2016  better?

Read More
Faith

Part of the Picture

‘I want to be that girl’, she said, ‘that girl in the picture.’ It was a rare moment of peace in a busy month. Isn’t that the irony? December, the advent season, the traditional holiday period, a temporary cessation of work, celebration of the incarnation, is filled to the brim with obligation. Not that it’s all bad. Most of what goes on is very very good. Perhaps it’s the internal pressure that really bites, the pressure we put upon ourselves. The endless to-do lists we compose in the middle of sleepless nights.

Read More