Talking to a tree

I hur­ry along the nar­row path. The rain has final­ly over­tak­en me, here in the rel­a­tive wilder­ness at the edge of Read­ing. I know there will be a place to shel­ter around the cor­ner. There it is, the plane tree. Knob­bly, lop­sided and with branch­es that almost reach the ground. Hug­ging it would take four …

To the north

With four hun­dred peo­ple aboard the plane hur­tles through the night. I try to find a posi­tion to sleep. If I lean too much to the right, my leg falls asleep, but when I sit up, I get cramps in my neck. My thoughts do not leave me alone. The news that we received a …

Farm life

I am sit­ting at the kitchen table, sip­ping a cup of fresh mint tea. Through the win­dow I see the clouds fly by; the wind is often very strong. I look out over the val­ley, with the city of Coy­haique down below. In the dis­tance you can see the snowy moun­tains of Patag­o­nia. On the …

About elves

I am tak­ing part in a study group about Lauda­to Si, the encycli­cal of pope Fran­cis. We use a study guide from CAFOD, a catholic aid agency. I find the meet­ings very inspir­ing. Here is a short video clip: The movie is a call for action, but  this has a spir­i­tu­al basis. The big theme of …

Run for your life

There is noth­ing like a half hour run to start the day full of ener­gy. The sun peeks through the low hang­ing clouds and the sky looks dif­fer­ent every morn­ing. At moments like that I am total­ly in touch with my pri­mal feel­ings: run­ning across the savan­nah instead of star­ing at a com­put­er screen. My …