Time to play with sadness!  We’ve all done it.  Boo, hoo, hoo! we have playfully cried. And we might even end up giggling at the end of our playful sadness.   Real tears, real sadness, is essential to our well-being.  Tears are not a sign of weakness.  Tears are the movement of very real emotions deep within.  If we don’t cry, or at least feel sadness to the point where we can feel tears at the edges of our eyes, then the emotions get stuck and harm us, and sometimes others, in the long run.  But tears can be hard to...

Time to play with joy!  Does that sound odd to you!   Isn’t joy natural?  Why would we need to play with joy? However, when I walk down the sidewalk, the smiling faces stand out because there are so few of them and so many sad and stressed faces.  I was flicking through photos of the models wearing a particular designer’s fall line of clothing and what I noticed is that none of them were smiling or happy.  They all had very stern faces.  It seems to be the “in” thing in the fashion industry. How sad!   And then there...

Time to play with alarm!  Hard to imagine, yet we do it all the time.   Hide & seek.  Peek-a-boo.  There are all sorts of games where we play with what alarms, with our fears.  “Daddy, be the monster and chase me!”  “Mommy, pretend you’re a ghost!”  All of these are ways that we and our children play with our fears and build some resilience and skills for facing them.   My husband had a wonderful rhyme he used with our boys when they were little (think 2-3 years).  They would sit on his knee.  He would tightly hold their hands...

Time to play with frustration!  What’s your reaction to that statement!   First of all, let me say – there are no such things as bad emotions.  Emotions are neutral and they all need to be expressed.  There are lots of statements out there about good emotions and bad emotions, and programs that encourage children to express the “good” emotions but supress the “bad” emotions – but there is no truth to that. Of course, we like emotions such as happiness better and have a bigger problem with frustration or its evolution into anger.  But all emotions need to be expressed! ...

Playing with emotions!  For the next few weeks, I’m going to explore playing with frustration, sadness, fear, separation, happiness, love and more.  But why play with emotions, you might ask?   I was walking along a path from a beach in PEI this summer.  Ahead of me were a family with young children.  The youngest, a little girl about 3 years old, was trailing her mom and sobbing.  The mom, without turning back, declared, “I don’t want to hear your crying.  I didn’t come on holidays to hear you crying all the time.”  Now, it would be easy to place all...

Doing nothing is doing something! In this time of year when our schedules are filling up again, activities are starting, and school is back in full swing, it seems that there is more than enough “somethings” to fill every minute of the day.  What at first may seem fun can quickly settle into an exhausting schedule, a demanding schedule, into which we try to fit family meals & sleep!   Into this frazzled kind of time that creeps up on us, the wisdom of our Judeo-Christian scripture speaks: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under...

For a lot of people, populist Christianity makes no sense, isn’t credible or relevant.  I think these folks have a point.  I don’t blame them for thinking so, especially if their source of information is primarily TV, radio, angry editorials, scathing social media posts, or some hapless simpleton blaming the recent hurricanes on God’s judgement against gays and lesbians—yes, that was really said.  And sadly, similar pronouncements continue to be voiced out-loud that are equally vitriolic and full of hate against “others”.  No wonder many steer away from church and Christianity.    At times, it feels like an up-hill struggle to...

I’m comfortably settled in seat 13E for the 5 ½ hour flight home from Halifax.  I scan through the selections of onboard entertainment and select a film called “Lion”.  After a light-hearted chat with the young landscape design guy on my right who has somehow managed to fold his lanky 6’ plus frame into the window seat, he puts his hat over his face to catch some shut-eye after a long and shall we say… arduous Cape Breton family reunion.  Susan, seated on my left is well into her book.  I pop my ear buds in and press “play”.    The...

Take a bit of time each day as a family to reflect on your faith. It's a great spiritual practice that helps your children and you grow your faith. Print this out - and take it with you wherever you go. Everything you need it right there. Summer_Reflections_for_Family_2017.pdf Blessings for restoring your spirit this summer! Rev. Susan  ...

First of all, when answering a child’s question, remember:  -Children usually want simpler answers than we give them.   -Children may not be asking the question we think they are asking.   -Children love answering their own questions.  -There is no bad question.  -It is okay not to have an answer right away..  -It is also okay to say that some questions just don’t have answers, at least not right now.  ESPECIALLY – remember that children love answering their own questions.   This is a question to turn back to your child. Why do they think that they didn’t just magically get a...