go and see the ocean…
I took my first solo road trip about a month after my divorce proceedings began. I drove from Virginia to North Carolina to visit friends. It was crisp and January. I’d been snowed in for five days before by a bad ice storm. I got on the highway. Then all of a sudden, there was Shenandoah, clean and resplendent. I pulled the car over on the empty shoulder of the road. For twenty solid minutes, I sat stunned by what I saw and for the first time, I knew in my bones that I never had to be where I’d been again. I never had to sit in an empty apartment waiting for a husband that would not come home. I didn’t have to attempt to mend anyone or attempt to believe unbelievable excuses. There was simply Shenandoah. And all that silence. And me…
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author musician theologian
Maggi has kept a blog since September 2003, writing about theology and faith, the arts and literature, and a little about life and random nonsense...
In an increasingly secularised society few people have a good working knowledge of the Bible. Yet a great deal of our culture is built on stories or ideas that come from the Bible. Literature, art, music, language and even the fabric of our society - such as our justice system - are built on Christian concepts and biblical references. The Writing on the Wall provides a fascinating introduction to the Bible's best-known, and most influential, stories. Each chapter gives some background to the text of the Bible, and shows how the stories have become enmeshed in Western culture. Adam and Eve, the ten plagues of Egypt, The Prodigal Son and Mary Magdalene all feature - along with how the Bible has influenced everyone from Shakespeare to Monty Python, and Caravaggio to Banksy. 
Giving It Up explores the Lenten idea of 'giving up', taking it beyond the traditional idea of simply abstaining from something, and suggesting instead that what we need to give up is our existing ideas about God. With a daily readings for each day of Lent, from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, it follows the heroes of the Bible who had to give up their own too-small ideas about God.
This is Maggi’s bestselling book of daily readings for each day of Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. Advent is the beginning of the Church year, and marks the anticipation of the coming Messiah. These readings explore how beginnings and endings in our own lives are illuminated by the different Gospel narratives of Christ's coming.
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I first saw him in 1977 at an outdoor concert in Toronto, and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen him since then. Mind you, he does come fairly frequently to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival, so maybe I’m cheating.
Maggi, if this were the last night of the world, I’d tell you that I always enjoy your blog. So I will!