The spring weather has rolled in, has brought new life to the environment. Green grass, leaves bursting out, plants growing in the garden. I’m always excited to see the bleeding heart surge out of the ground as it grows so very quickly. We are ahead of schedule this year, especially after days like this past Saturday when we were over 20C.

And this year we have a puppy to make it extra special. We’re avoiding public parks until he gets fully vaccinated, but we did have some time on Saturday in an out of the way corner of a park where Paige was celebrating her 7th birthday. Hard to believe how much she has grown since we moved here. She loves coming to visit us and even more now that Nugget is in the house.

Meanwhile Jason and Celine have headed off to Portugal. This morning’s NY Times reported wide spread power outages in Portugal and Spain causing chaos at the airports and major cities, but they seem to be just fine and are today, spending the day driving into the rural area along the coast.

Lastly, I wanted to mark the passing of Pope Francis. I am not Catholic, have never been and wouldn’t be…but this man has been impressive as a world leader. While he is the head of state for the Vatican, I would like to think of him as a denominational leader, not a political one. His history of caring for the poor, living with integrity, moving the Catholic church to a more inclusive posture and opening dialogue with prisoners, the poor and marginalized should strike a chord with every Christian who really believes that the Jesus of the NT was first and foremost interested in the sick and poor.

I hope the world leaders who attended his funeral gave serious thought to how they use their own influence.