Marilyn R. Gardner's Blog, page 37

#OnlytheGood – Volume 5

This weekend it was a delight to be around family as we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving (yes – it’s a real thing and actually older than Thanksgiving in the United States!)  We had the added gift of my niece, her husband, and little girl (Lauren, Sheldon, and Aria) visiting for the last two days. Aria quickly wormed her way into my heart. I love this child. The family lives in Thailand, and my niece’s husband is from Colombia, so Aria is growing up with English from her mom, Spanish from her...

Roll, Cut, Measure & Mix – Love, Legacy & Pie

 

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We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend. Many of the extended family came from around the world to see my dad and get together as a family. Celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving was a great way to feed the family while we honored the Canadian side of our extended family.

All families have holiday traditions and ours is no exception. Every year at Thanksgiving my dad makes a winter fruit pie. None of us really know what’s in the pie. We just know three things: It is delicious, it is ma...

A Life Overseas – When You’re Sure God Loves Ann Voskamp More Than He Loves You…

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”I’m pretty sure God loves Ann Voskamp more than he loves me.” 

I wrote this to a friend recently. I don’t even know Ann Voskamp, but I was still convinced that when it came to actual love, I was in the dog house and Ann was in the castle on the hill.

I mean, what’s not to love? She clearly loves Jesus. She gives money to the poor. She eats off the land (she’s a farmer’s wife for god’s sake). She adopts kids from places Far Away. She writes books that are poetic and lyrical and get onto the...

#OnlytheGood – Volume 4

Last night we walked along the Charles river. The moon was full and glorious. We looked across the river at the Boston skyline, the full moon gracing the sky, and for a few minutes, all was well.

This edition of #Onlythegood brings you a baby and a cat, an artist who paints for cancer patients, a story about a child of two worlds, and a link to third culture kid blogs and resources. Enjoy!

That Time #Ramona Made Everyone Smile for a Few Minutes. In the midst of all of the catastrophic news on...

Evil is Real – So what do we do?

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“Evil is real – and powerful. It has to be fought, not explained away, not fled. And God is against evil all the way. So each of us has to decide where we stand, how we’re going to live our lives. We can try to persuade ourselves that evil doesn’t exist; live for ourselves and wink at evil. We can say that it isn’t so bad after all, maybe even try to call it fun by clothing it in silks and velvets. We can compromise with it, keep quiet about it and say it’s none of our business. Or we can wo...

#Only the Good-Volume Three

Welcome back to #OnlytheGood! In today’s line up is women driving, immigrants revitalizing a community, books for refugees, and notes from a nomad.

Saudi Arabia women hail end of driving ban.  In Saudi Arabia women have campaigned for a long time to have the right to drive cars. Since 1990 female activists have organized protests to change this law. Manal-al-Sharif, who organized the Women2Drive campaign, said “I cried”. She then tweeted:

You want a statement here is one: “Saudi Arabia will...

Life as Story

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“In the end, people don’t view their life as merely the average of all its moments—which, after all, is mostly nothing much plus some sleep. For human beings, life is meaningful because it is a story. A story has a sense of a whole, and its arc is determined by the significant moments, the ones where something happens. Measurements of people’s minute-by-minute levels of pleasure and pain miss this fundamental aspect of human existence. A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficul...

Sacred Spaces

On Saturday, my youngest daughter, my mom, and I shared laughter and joy in an unlikely space – a women’s fitting room.

We began with tea and decadent sweets at a European tea house and restaurant. In an elegant space we sipped our tea while whipped cream, chocolate, raspberries, strawberries, almond cream, and meringue mixed together in fruit tarts, chocolate mousse cups, and Viennese Torts. It was delightful in every way.

Satisfied and full of whipped cream we headed off to shop for dre...

Masala Dhaba Memories

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Sights, sounds, and smells can transport us to places we love in mere seconds.  I hear the Call to Prayer and suddenly I am in Pakistan, walking the dusty streets of Shikarpur. I smell curry and shut my eyes – I could swear I am at the Marhaba in Murree. But I’m not, I’m in Central Square, the fragrant smells of the Indian restaurant wafting across the street luring me back to my childhood and begging me to enter. 

The imagination is a wonderful, terrible thing. 

In the novel Anything Consid...

Lewiston, Maine – It’s a Good Story

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“The way they play together, the way they get along, that’s the future of our cultures together…” – Coach Mike McGgraw

The story of Lewiston, Maine is a good story. It’s a story of integration and resilience and how a group of refugees and immigrants can revitalize a dying community.

It all began in the late 1990s when Lewiston was a dying city. Historically a mill town, Lewiston had long seen an economic downturn and jobs had vanished like the leaves off a tree in late fall. In 2001 that...