Each spring I wait for our blue irises to bloom in June. Typically, on a fine day in February, unlike true gardeners who do proper cleanup in fall, I remove the old stocks. I attribute my unseasonal timing to the glories of teaching wonderful university students and grading their many papers. A great privilege, but not as favourable for gardening, or so I say. February is late for this task, but now even I can’t procrastinate any longer. Still, good gardening habits or not aside, the irises bless us with their elegance year after year after year. By early May, their green leaves stand soldierly once more. 
And on some magical late May or early June evening, when at the 49th parallel the setting sun in the northwest shines with elvish beauty through the leafy green just so, there the blue irises at the entrance to our herb garden reign supreme. Shining sentries, serene, in salute to every good thing.
Blue irises. Did you just say, “Your irises are purple”? Yes, you’re right— in most lights, they’re royal purple, even translucent violet. But I often see them as blue. Maybe because my papa’s eyes were blue.
The irises are a transplant from my parents’ garden, a gift that my papa gave us the year they sold the family home. In his quiet gracious way, Papa, a wonderful gardener, like my husband too, quickly dug up the prize irises for us to resettle them in our own garden. Without a word spoken, we knew that their loveliness should recall the family home of many decades by flourishing in new soil. And here, transplanted, they thrive, bearing witness to my father’s (and mother’s) love, which surrounds us still. 
They testify of family—past, present, and future—planted on the soil of good fatherhood (and motherhood). They signal Heavenly Joy, cheering us on. Danke, Papa, danke.
And so, in early June, as the blue irises (purple, yes) herald the approach of Father’s Day, I’m filled anew with gratitude for my father’s legacy. He was a runner who ran the race of his long life well, track and field in his early years, 
and caring for his family, friends, younger ones he mentored, and others all his days. In track and field, he loved the 100 meter dash best. But in life, I’d say he was the long distance runner. You could see that he had his eye on the goal, and in his heart what mattered most in this life and for all eternity. Dad embodied what it means to be faithful to God and good to man. I owe him (and my dear mother) much, much, much.
But as I’m deeply grateful, rejoicing, I consider how Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, and Christmas, can be fraught with sorrow. It can bring on the terrible reminder of “the father wound” that many suffer from—whether through a father’s absence or other trauma. To say the very least, “the father wound” must be faced before healing can begin. “Happy Father’s Day” means—what?
This season, I’d like to contemplate what good fatherhood means. I’m thinking of those who are crying out to have a good father, and of those who have seemingly stopped asking. I’m thinking of those who dearly wish to be fathers themselves but for whatever variety of reasons, can’t. The blue irises speak to me not only of the gift of my biological father, but also of the good fatherhood of the many who mentor the young. These heroes, often unsung, do not go unnoticed. And in the race of life, I’d say they’re first-class winners. It’s powerful to have such a good father, an Abba, in your life. The world needs “Abbas and Ammas,” as one friend who tirelessly nurtures the next generation declared.
This Father’s Day, I salute all the good fathers—my own, my husband, my brother, my son—all, biological fathers or not—teachers, pastors, authors, and other mentors who willingly take on the noble burden of caring for the next generation. And like my papa the runner, I am inspired to run my race—in thanks for his example and support, 
and because, first and foremost, we have Our Father, who art in Heaven. . . . Every image of good fatherhood is a reflection of The Heavenly Father’s heart. In the words that have been attributed to George MacDonald, that I can’t now locate, “This is and has been the Father’s work from the beginning–to bring us into the home of his heart.”
Happy Father’s Day! I hope that this season will inspire each of us in some fresh ways. Thanks for reading, for listening!
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Watch for my July blog: “Summer Children.”
If you have more than one hometown, or maybe even had to flee yours, what stands out for you? What special things has your hometown blessed you with (even the unpleasant or very hard things) that have shaped you?
A lot of people move here but some of us get to be born here (sorry, yeah, that’s the ingrained Vancouver pride, or snobbery—take your pick—we never seem to get over it). The mountains, the ocean, the forests—well, it’s a supremely beautiful setting. Even the coastal rain is worth it, we say (most times)—liquid sunshine, right? After a long journey from the Old World in the wake of war trauma, this lovely city-by-the-sea is where my family planted their flag.
Thanks for reading, for listening!
Or is all grief horrid, unholy, the pain we cannot welcome? Then again, is holy grief the only kind of grief, the right kind—the other kind of grief is . . . is what? Can someone tell me what unholy grief would be? I have my moments when the thought that any kind of grief could be thought unholy startles me, even strikes me as wrong.
As the well-worn cover of my copy of C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain testifies to, besides the Psalms, the Book of Job, Lamentations, and other books in the Bible, this is one of my go-to books when it comes to grief. I go to The Problem of Pain because its author gives no pat answers, no quick consolatory phrases, nothing that minimizes one’s experience. And I go to this book because the author openly declares his own inadequacy for addressing the subject. (When empathy seems lacking, “good advice” feels empty, even rude, doesn’t it?) In his Preface Lewis speaks of the irony of him having written a book on this subject. The disconnect between what he believed about pain and what he felt about pain was such that he wished that he could have published the book anonymously. To which his editor responded that he could explain to readers that he “did not live up to [his] own principles!” While Lewis was willing to speak to the intellectual problem of pain for about 140 pages, he didn’t for a moment feel qualified to teach the necessary “fortitude and patience” when facing pain—and this is what makes him such an authentic fellow pilgrim to have at your side. I applaud his words here: “. . . nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.”
My own grief over the passing of our colleague Chris resulted in the essay, “A Holy Grief: The Pilgrim’s Path to Consolation.” The essay begins like this: 
Extreme angst, even despair, looms before each one. But Lucy responds to fear with prayer, and little by little, while the darkness is just as thick as ever, she begins to feel a bit better. Then the light grows, the albatross in a voice that sounds like Aslan’s whispers, “Courage, dear heart,” and after a while they are once again in full sunlight. Once again it is clear that Heaven is the one true help. Fear, even debilitating fear, is real, but does not have the final say when we exercise the faintest glimmer of hope—or, as in this case, someone else exercises it on everyone’s behalf. To stick with the boating metaphor,
I’d like to draw your attention to a marvellous reflection featuring our 
and green stems make bold promises to become daffodils and tulips in the coming weeks. But the days are often grey, and a surprise snowfall, rare, is almost, dare I say it, fun? Be careful what you wish for! I will say this: it’s certainly brighter.
that invite greater numbers of eagles to soar on the updraft and flocks of smaller birds to huddle together as they ride the waves in community. Glide, ride–this is how to take in stormier weather. Perhaps the shorebirds can teach me a thing or two about beauty in the waiting.
Absolutely: “Even youths grow tired and weary. . . .” And beware: with this season of fatigue they say the rates of depression and anxiety peak. Then, in these last couple of years especially, how often have you heard people say, “Everyone is so tired, so tired.” How often have you noticed a kind of exhaustion, physical and otherwise, in yourself and others? So, yeah, spring fatigue is a thing—and then some with cumulating fatigue.
In our world where dark forces flex their muscles, where natural disasters shake the planet, having something of this “passion of patience” seems to be the best response. So maybe let’s consider enduring seasonal fatigue with this kind of patience that is not exactly lethargy (or not lethargy at all, regardless of our tiredness) but is carried by a distinctive energy—not enormous energy, not yet anyway, but a quiet willingness to expect energy to revive us. Then we can venture to face fatigue in a quiet hope. Instead of succumbing to depression and anxiety, we might journey along in the expectation of hope that is yet to be fulfilled. And with such a quiet hope in the not-yet-but-still-to-be comes the faint stirrings of surprising joy.
me. And, last but not least, let’s allow ourselves to rest, to pace ourselves. We have it on the best authority: take one day at a time (Matthew 6:34).
Early February has me eyeing my heart-shaped cake pans and wondering if a fluffy white angel food cake baked with coloured sprinkles and, naturally, adorned with pink icing, will crown the evening. And what about heart-shaped cookies again? My sweet tooth still delights in cinnamon hearts.
I explore the wealth that fairy tales offer for our life’s journey, and also consider the ways in which we might misread them. It’s written for anyone who loves fairy tales but also has questions and concerns over them. Are they good? Or are they bad? Do we even need them? And just what is “happily ever after”? In this book I follow the story of a grandmother writing to her granddaughter Annie for the first twenty-five years of her life in which they explore these treasured stories. Rather than giving readers false expectations of life, how do these stories leave us richer and more able to navigate the challenges, sorrows, and joys of life with wisdom, courage, and love? 
This Valentine’s Day—and indeed, this month of February, being heart month—my hope for myself and my readers is that we can ponder the ways in which we can celebrate love. Maybe consider how our lives might become like a love letter to others. Think more about the different human loves—affection, friendship, romantic love—and like C. S. Lewis in The Four Loves, ponder that in our brokenness each of the human loves must become transformed by the fourth love, God’s love, charity, in order to become ever more true. It’s a journey.
January: A new number on the calendar, another opportunity for those New Year’s resolutions. But sometimes the December festivities leave us a tad tired (and that’s a polite way of putting it). Maybe the Christmas tree is still up. If Christmas was a good season, it really is a sweet reminder, too precious to take down quickly. (I don’t understand those Christmas tree burnings that are scheduled even before Epiphany, January 6, the coming of the magi, when in some traditions Christmas is celebrated. February, is it, the right time to consider taking down the tree?) The tree needles still look pretty good, right? Even though we’re after solstice, the lights and decorations console during these dark days. Perhaps keeping the tree up a little longer acts as a bit of a safeguard against the midwinter blues that could be just around the corner—maybe. Couldn’t hurt.
But in this state, where we presumably do not lie to ourselves about our unpleasant feelings, neither do we get closer to love. Nothing is solved, not yet. Nor are we being terribly truthful, because resentment has the power to become a broken record, replaying over and over, crowding out the fact that our hurt feelings are only one piece of a very big story, a story that could have the most excellent outcome if we would only let Grace have its way with us.
Only then can we rid ourselves of those toxic thoughts, the clinging resentments. Do it seventy times seven, as Jesus said (Matthew 18:22), meaning without number, every time we need to. Yes, we will need to, again and again. But then maybe we are helped in knowing how seriously we need forgiveness ourselves?
If you haven’t heard this before, or would just like to hear it again, here’s the link: 
How counter-intuitive to resentment: the humility needed to forgive is in fact “the mightiest sword.” Humility: as T.S. Eliot writes in Four Quartets, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire / Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless” (“East Coker,” ll. 97-98).
Don’t dwell on the past sorrows because God is doing a new thing, making a way where there formerly was no way, a way that leads to life (Isaiah 43:18-21).
I come from people who made paper stars for Christmas. They made them in their native Poland, and when their pilgrimage took them to Canada’s West Coast where I was born, they were still making them. And here my parents taught my siblings and me to make them.
Their beauty, simple yet elusive, is a testimony to faith and love, to courage in uncertainty, and to lasting goodness. They are a small reminder of the homeland I never knew but have since happily visited, and to the meaning of homeland as we are pilgrims at various stations. They speak to me still of the meaning of Advent and Christmas when we would be making these paper stars.
A marvel, this shining magnificence made by loving hands and a joyous heart. How its humble quadrangular form held the beginnings of splendour spoke volumes: a sign of family, of homeland in the heart across the globe, and of the meaning of the Christmas miracle wherever we find ourselves to be. Christ has come, and He is coming back. There is no loneliness that He cannot fill, no sorrow that He cannot redeem.
Here’s how. The awareness that opportunity doesn’t come around the same way again heightens our sense of the preciousness of our days. Just as C. S. Lewis has said, “There are no ordinary people” (“The Weight of Glory”), we’d have to likewise add, “There are no ordinary days.” Each day is a unique gift, bringing not only its unique challenges but also its unique blessings. Let’s not waste the day on trivia. Let’s guard against toxic ideas, emotions, and actions. In other words, writing toward one’s own death, which is really living toward one’s own death, means we’re more prone to choosing wisely with the result that we’re better able to transform from being static people for whom seemingly little can change to becoming dynamic people who initiate change. We become increasingly present to the moment, and therefore living our lives to the fullest. The awareness of living toward one’s death (with the emphasis on living) acts like a magnifying glass revealing noteworthy details. Or like a crucible in which the various particulars of our lives undergo yet higher pressure, often painful at the time, but resulting in a new creation.
The second Monday in October, or the Sunday preceding it, is the day we try to get together with family and friends to celebrate with turkey and all the trimmings. For our American family and friends, the last Thursday in November is the great day. And autumn brings the biblical Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot. 
Gratitude for the music heightens my sense of hearing.
The best fairy tales teach us that we live in community, and that we are offered countless gifts to help us on our way. Good magic happens through community.
(This beautiful venue came about through the artistic talent and amazing organization of one dear staff member and her kindly helpers.) Students, colleagues, family, and friends filled the gently lit room overlooking the lake. Family and friends from as far away as California tuned in online. A graduate drove up from Washington State, bringing a bouquet of flowers. 
Monika Hilder 