Blog
We Creatures of the Earth Must Move and Move Again
. . . a matter of sense—the thousand-eyed, thousand-eared alertness of a flock. The strategies are given names— I don’t know them. What sticks for me is how the air itself is altered. The way light bends back from bellies and wings as they turn. Churchmouse is back home—only to ponder what it means to go... Read More
Is a stair any place to belong?
“In the country where I now live, there is no word for home.” That’s the first line of Isabel Huggan’s 2003 memoir Belonging: Home Away from Home. As we prepare to confront the power of the sun at Churchmouse After Hours in approximately 17 hours from now (7pm Wed evening!) my mind is turning to the last two... Read More
Its Place Among the Elements
I didn’t hit me until I began choosing things to read for April’s Churchmouse After Hours, “Beginnings and Endings,” just how often stories end at the beginning, or begin at the end. There’s “The Closing Down of Summer,” Alistair MacLeod’s haunting 1976 story about a group of Cape Breton men—all related—who are... Read More
‘A happy love. Is it normal?’
[PLEASE NOTE! Our next Churchmouse After Hours Coffeehouse is Wed, April 26. 'Endings and Beginnings'. See info below.] Of course love is the heartbeat of humanity. But why? How? I for one, came away from March’s ‘Churchmouse in Love’ After Hours coffeehouse with an even deeper conviction that love is... Read More
Light in dark places
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.’ We read those words in the prologue to John’s version of the Gospel, where ‘the light’ refers to Christ, the life that has come into the world for all people. This is an important theme of Easter, and it becomes dramatically evident for us... Read More
Bears tobogganed down the hills
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow—Billy Collins, “Snow Day” Welcome to our first Churchmouse After Hours afterword. In future, we’ll post a little highlights blog after each event. At the first-ever Churchmouse After Hours we pondered the mysteries of hoarfrost, ventured onto frozen waterways, stayed... Read More
Churchmouse After Hours: Birth of a 21st Century Coffeehouse
* In my imagination, a hidden bookshop is about as exciting to happen upon as a pirate’s lair or unmapped island or lost, underwater city. Of course, in any self-respecting bookstore, all these other wonders and more do exist—between covers, on the shelves. My five-year-old son and I, one Saturday morning... Read More
Parish & Community
It’s interesting how the Wheel of history turns, and how knowledge or attitudes that were foundational at one time in history becomes lost or is left behind only to reappear, transformed, many years or decades or even centuries later. The idea of the ‘parish’ and its relationship to ‘the community’ is a bit like... Read More