Summer is upon us, the longest day of the year just past, and so is the time I normally say I’ll be back with these missives in the Fall. As you can’t have helped notice I’m retiring from the work of Touchstone on June 30th but not from friends. After 40 years of this structure I’ll be free to see where the wind of the Spirit blows my little coracle of faith.  

We’re three days from the longest one of 2024 – the extended daylight is a wonderful gift for us – body, mind and spirit. Our gardens are burgeoning with colour, shape and fragrance. However, it does depend on our security and freedom because so many would long for a garden, or even one flower or piece of vegetable in their world of famine and destruction.

A few Sunday mornings ago I travelled the back country roads to London by way of Stratford to visit a dear friend in hospital.  I wasn’t going to church but as I neared the town of Linwood there were dozens of horse-drawn carriages and buggies powered by powerful standard bred horses heading toward church. They are more properly called Old Order Mennonites, but Amish looked easier in the title.  

“Bob from Cranbrook” responded to a recent Monday Thought with: “Been thinking about you a lot lately. Thanks again for this thought.  You should write a blurb on 'thoughts' some time soon. What is it about thoughts that are worthy to express to others? What is a 'thought' anyway? A thought doesn't just hang in the air. It’s connected and grounded to many other thoughts unexpressed or suppressed. Anyway, I'd like to hear your take on this after all the thoughts you've bothered to share with me and others. BJ” 

There’s lovely restaurant not far south of us called Terra Cotta Inn. Almost equally far north is a town called Terra Nova (don’t blink or you’ll miss it!). Proximity is apparently not an aid to memory because when we start discussing going for a drive to either place I can’t think of their names for the life of me.