As you can see, I am blogging again, after a four month break—but now using a new platform, with a fresh address/URL. This platform has new features, including the facility to sign-up to receive posts directly into your in-box, as well as the opportunity to feature three posts on the home page.
My first set of ‘featured posts’ focuses on pieces that I’ve written about my mother, Gwen, over the years. This is because mum died on 1st October. A week or so after the service, I was typing away and my finger slipped on the keyboard. I intended to write ‘generosity’, but on the screen I saw ‘gwenerosity’ instead—with the ‘w’ sitting next to the ‘e’!… How appropriate! For those who knew her well, mum was so selfless, so hospitable, so other-centered, so positive, so self-deprecating—and so generous.
As one more way to remember and give thanks for my mummy, ‘generous Gwen’, I’ve trawled through all my photos, selecting a favourite fifty—and then whittling it down to a ‘first eleven’. Given my enjoyment of cricket, ‘first elevens’ work better than ‘top tens’—plus it gives me an additional photo!
(as we were instructed to look at her, I suspect).
when we take a little holiday a few miles from this spot.
She’d never been there, with its view across to her beloved Huia.
Grandma wearing his Roskill Grammar School jacket always provokes a smile for us.
New Year’s Day 2023—at Piha Beach.
The final one in her lifetime? A namesake, Gwennie Windsor!
nice chatting
Paul
PS. While a cricket team plays ‘a first eleven’, there is always an extra player available as a substitute fielder (or ‘twelfth man’ in old English), so that means I can choose one more photo. I’ve always regretted that I don’t have a memorable photo with my Dad in his final years—but not so with my Mum.
I was rushing back from Hyderabad to sneak into having the final hours of a 60th birthday at home with the family in Palmerston North. I had a short transit at Auckland Airport and my mum, gwenerous as ever, came out to wish me a Happy 60th Birthday…
About Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
Recent Posts
It was my very first training seminar with Langham Preaching. April 2009. We were based at the OMF Guest House in Chiangmai, Thailand. As I wandered the property, I came across this striking quotation on one of the walls: So striking, in fact, that I stopped to take its photo! But is it really true?…
Ten years ago, Ode to Georgetown was my response to being surprised by grief when the only church I had ever pastored closed its doors. Last week brought the news that the theological college which I attended, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS), was to close most of its Chicagoland campus. I have been feeling a…
I am neither painter nor poet, musician nor actor. With Art and Music and Drama classes at school, I was present in body—but absent in spirit and skill. However, as a teacher, there has been the occasional flare of creativity in the crafting of assignments. One of my favourites is one of my first ones.…
John Stott was the first one to help me see the tension in Jesus’ teaching on salt and light. They are pictures for how his disciples are to live in society. Salt pulls them in, keeping them involved. Light holds them back, keeping them distinctive. Being light responds to ‘the danger of worldliness’, while being…
Wonderful photos of Mum. She was most photogenic when being hugged.
Thanks for sharing, Bob.
Beautiful Tribute to Mum and Gwenerosity…love your heart and sharing this!