Holding the world

Posted on March 17, 2012 by doradueck

I’ve never done this before. Caressed a globe, I mean. We’ve had a globe in our house for a long time, purchased in the days before maps were finger-tip accessible on the computer, when we had young students in the house who needed to see where countries in the news or homework were. But holding it in my lap? No.

That, however, is what the Lenten Prayer Guide I’m following asked me to do this week: Settle into your comfortable place with a map of the world or a globe. Hold [it] in your hands as you breathe deeply. Continue reading →

A Certain Woman: for IWD

Posted on March 8, 2012 by doradueck

A small stop along our Lenten journey to celebrate International Women’s Day — with a poem, first published in Sophia in 1999, slightly revised here. Continue reading →

Guest post: When Lent coincides with dying

Posted on March 5, 2012 by doradueck

Leona Dueck Penner

Leona Dueck Penner is a long-time writer, especially in Mennonite media. Most recently, she was national correspondent for Canadian Mennonite magazine. She and I were in a writing group together for several years and the friendship formed there has continued. I’m so pleased that she is willing to share her reflections on Lent as a guest post here:

When M. asked me what I was committing to or giving up during Lent this year, I replied spontaneously: “Well, I haven’t really been thinking about Lent very much up to now in relation to Jesus’ journey to the cross because we’re quite literally experiencing an ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ journey ourselves, with pauses at varying stages of the cross, as my brother-in-law L. continues on in his slow journey towards death.” Continue reading →