Growing With Our Grandchildren

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Hello, friends, Shirley Showalter here, co-author with Marilyn McEntyre of The Mindful Grandparent: The Art of Loving Our Children's Children, from Broadleaf Books, May, 2022. Having embraced elderhood, we invite you to do the same.

In 2013 I published Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Previously, I was a professor, a college president (Goshen College), and a foundation executive (the Fetzer Institute).

Most recent blog posts

My computer wears a new sticker.

An Election Day Meditation: Voting, Praying, Singing

It’s a grey day in the Shenandoah Valley. The scene in front of me looks upside down. The clouds are lower than the mountains. The transition between sky and land, heaven and earth, is not clear. Threshold spaces are like this. Neither one nor the other. Neither yet both. Our country, too, stands at a…

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Father Michael kneeling

How to Live: Prophets, Poets, and Mystics

After one returns from pilgrimage, the sense of living inside a movie recedes. Then certain remembered single images stand out. For me, Father Michael Rodgers,  Glendalough pilgrimage guide, quiet in demeanor, kindly in manner, yet passionate in his love for his special place stood out. How many times had he told the story of St.…

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On the grounds of the Dromantine Conference Center, Newry, Northern Ireland. Easy to imagine leprechauns cavorting here.

The Return Stage of Pilgrimage: Reflecting on Celtic Spirituality

I’m back in the red chair looking out at fog-covered mountains, feeling grateful. The dire hurricane forecasts at end of our trip to Ireland gave us pause, but all of us eighteen pilgrims on Tour I of Eklectic Pilgrimages to Ireland have returned safely. Thanks be to God. Our itinerary kept us stepping. In fact, one day…

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