I had promised myself that I wouldn’t write a COVID-19 column.

In June we celebrate St. Vitus’ Day, a time that honours an unusual saint whose influence was seen throughout Europe generally and in Germany in particular.

As I was driving to work this week, I saw a sign outside a neighbourhood church. It read: “Prayer is the original wireless form of communication.”

A good friend of mine, a fellow scotch aficionado, sent me a story which is an adaptation of a well-known leadership story, popularized by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. 

This new year my resolution was to be less punctual. Why? Because punctuality has always been both my obsession and my curse. 

It truly does seem, at times, as though the news of the world is relentlessly despairing. 

I was admiring a friend’s potted plant recently when she noted that I had just missed the flowering. “I forgot to water it,” she noted, “and it just bloomed.” 

Of all the stained glass windows we have at St. Mary’s University in Calgary my favourite may well be an image of the Christ child with the “doctors” of the temple (Luke 2:41-52) which is installed in our library, St. Basil’s Hall. 

For many of us of a certain age, “Who Are You?” by the Who is a seminal song, made popular again as the theme music to the TV show CSI. 

Recently I read a wonderful LinkedIn entry by Aron Laxton about the U.S. Navy’s efforts to study and reinforce aircraft based on planes that had been damaged from the front. Engineers studied and mapped the bullet holes that peppered the “wounded” planes and determined that additional armour needed to be added to the wingtips and to the central body of the aircraft.