Zucchini bread is baking in the oven (only because it rained this morning and it's not 90 degrees inside the house) and chai is steaming out of a china cup. And I'm writing. Perhaps the quintessential afternoon for any quiet homebody. But outside, the world feels so violent and hostile. So virulent, capricious, volatile. More…
Yesterday
It was only yesterday you let go of my index finger and toddled across the second story veranda of the Colegio Evangélico Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, just outside the apartment of your great-great-grandpa Saword. A block from the beach, the salty breeze tangled your already curly hair into a golden mess of delight. It was only…
#100
It feels appropriate that the 100th post on this blog should be the one before us: news and philosophical rabbit holes. But first, let's celebrate. 100. It's taken me a few years to get here (my very first post here was in 2019) which makes it even sweeter. Thank you to each of you who…
Death is a Promise
Death is a PromiseThat there is another side. The Earnest of Eternity;A slim channel betweentoday and Tomorrow. Death is a PromiseThat full Redemption still waits.The Great Price has been fully paid;A blood-soaked settlement.But Home is yet to come. Death is a Promise That there is another side. They walk through but leave us behindOur tears…
On Miracles
In our cynical, western, enlightened minds, miracles are generally a thing of the past. Supernatural is almost synonymous with superstitious and indeed, the superstitious are often the ones looking out most keenly for the supernatural. As a realist, the facts are the facts. It is what it is. This is, admittedly, often to my detriment.…
Happy 8th Glory Day
Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it. But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Inter-assured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss. Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but…
Let’s Travel! Campeche, Campeche
Is this post cheating? maybe. I'm not doing much writing. Instead, it's an invitation for you to pack those bags and travel to one of the most iconic cities in the southeast of Mexico. Walled and fortressed against pirate attack by the Spanish, Campeche was a hexagonal shaped, compact colonial city founded in the 16th…
Hello 2023
Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you had a great time over the holidays and wish you a year ahead filled with blessings and the glory of God in your life. Last year (in March, maybe?) we made a slight change to our family devotion time and I thought you might enjoy skimming the following list.…
Healing.
Yesterday was Winter Solstice. Here, half way between 15 degrees N and the Tropic of Cancer, night began to fall at 5:30. The early darkness is a weighted blanket, enveloping weary souls with comfort and peace. There is no cajoling to play outside until nightfall, few obligations to be out. Like a yearly Sabbath, winter's…
Piece of Poetry
The waiting seemed a small price that dayFor what the King had promised to repayHis faithful servant, his duty doneWhen homeward he his horse had spunWith jewels dancing, a gold crown hungThe great King’s beauties on his tongueFound at the gate he once had leftA little family no more bereft The waiting doneA Glorious welcome…
penelope alves 