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Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'
To make Comments write directly to Jim at
jimt@quixotic.ca
14
Oct
2023
Look away so you can see
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday April 27, 2023
A neighbour and I go for a walk most mornings. These days, the sun has risen already, but it hasn’t risen high enough to shine on our side of a high ridge.
As we walk, we can watch the sunlight creep down the slopes on the far side of the lake. And then across the lake, to reach us.
We can almost see the edge of the light moving downwards.
Almost.
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14
Oct
2023
Earth Day celebrates our favourite planet
Author:
Jim Taylor
Earth Day, April 22, 2023
Where would you live, if you had unlimited choice?
Perhaps you’ve thought, “Paris. Or the Italian Riviera. Or Bali…”
Driving through picturesque small towns in rural Ontario, I used to think, “I could live here.”
And every time I drove west into the mountains, I felt myself exulting, “I want to live here…”
But the question involves something more than that: On what other PLANET would you want to live?
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14
Oct
2023
Celebrating Easter with Canada geese
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday April 13, 2023
We had a Sunrise Service on Easter morning. In a park, on the edges of a lake. A couple of Canada Geese wandered up from the water. As our minister talked about the significance of Easter, the two geese stood a safe distance behind her in rapt attention, heads cocked to one side.
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14
Oct
2023
Giving away the secrets
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday April 6, 2023
“How do you guard an idea?” Donald Schmidt asked in his book, Easter for Progressive Christians.
The question had never occurred to me before. I know how to defend a place. Obviously, with security cameras. Fences. Armed sentries.
Medieval rulers surrounded their castles with moats.
The U.S. builds barriers along its border with Mexico, and mutters about doing the same with Canada.
But you can’t do those things with an idea.
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14
Oct
2023
The sexiest time of the year
Author:
Jim Taylor
Thursday March 30, 2023
Less than ten days into official spring, and the daphne bush by my front door has purple blossoms opening like lips awaiting a kiss.
Last year’s peonies are poking green fingers through the soil.
The buds on my neighbour’s magnolia tree swell as if pregnant with possibilities.
And that reliable harbinger of spring, the rhubarb plant from my mother-in-law’s garden 30 years ago, has thrust a dozen dark red erections through the debris of last year’s rotting leaves.
Sorry, I can’t help using sexual imagery to describe spring.
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