Independence is a word cherished by most in this country. On July 4, 1776, the United States of America officially declared its independence from Great Britain. My home country of Canada was not officially declared independent until 1982!

I write these columns the week before they are published, so this piece will be read two days after the presidential election. It is safe for me to predict, now less than one week out, that roughly half of this nation is cheering the election results, and the other half is sorely disappointed, perhaps even angry. I suspect this could be said of any election.

Tonight is Halloween, and my wife and I will be dishing out candy to the costumed kids coming to our door – it’s a good way to meet neighbors – but we are not promoting the celebration. No giant skeletons or inflatable ghosts clutter our front yard, and no lit jack-o-lanterns sit outside our front door, which may explain why we do not get many callers. Not to worry, I have taken it as my personal duty to eat any leftover candy, a duty from which I will not waver.

I met a gentleman a week ago who told me that his son is the pastor of a “growing church.” We like to hear churches described that way, but what does it mean? It is typically meant to communicate that the number of people attending that church is growing. No reflection on the aforementioned “growing church,” but increasing attendance is not necessarily the evidence of a growing church.

I have admitted before in this column that I am a horrible horticulturist. My home is the place where plants go to die. Yet, as I type this column, outside my window sits a tall, lush basil plant – a picture of health. I had purchased it as a small plant along with a big bag of plant soil at the garden center earlier this year. With regular watering it did well for about a month, but one day it began to look tired and wilted. I gave it some plant food and more water. The plant must have assumed that was its last meal because it soon looked dead. I was about to add another plant to my list of kills until my wife said in passing, “I think your basil plant needs more soil.”

I am afraid of heights and have been all my life. I once worked in the city of Toronto, and from my workplace I could see the CN Tower. Occasionally I would look up from my work to watch its elevators climb the outside of the spire then disappear into its pod 1500 feet off the ground. One day, in what could only have been a moment of insanity, I agreed to visit the CN Tower with my parents and my wife.

I often write about bears, birds, weeds, and ants, so maybe I should change the name of this column to “Mr. Mike’s Nature Corner.” Turtles have become the celebrity creature in our household. For the past several weeks, almost daily, an assortment of box turtles has crawled under the fence into our backyard. At first, we assumed that they, like the occasional bear, were just passing through, but we soon learned that our yard is a destination.

In 1985, I went on a short-term mission trip to Haiti with a small team from our church. We were going to help Hosean International Ministries (HIM) build an orphanage in the town of Pignon, 40 miles south of Cap Haitien. There was a lot riding on this trip.

Have you ever sat in a class lecture, a business presentation, or even a sermon and realized that you haven’t a clue what the speaker is talking about? I have.

I just completed a summer sermon series in the Psalms, a common practice among churches. I was motivated by the need to preach more from the Old Testament and a desire to keep up my skills with the Hebrew language.