From my mother and my father. My Christian faith is the most extraordinary gift and the gift I treasure most.

Here in my classroom with all of the quotes around me that I love, Atticus Finch from To kill a mockingbird” courage is not a man with a gun. Courage is when you know you are licked before you begin but you begin anyway”.

Integrity for me means that my word is my word and that I talk the talk and walk the walk. I show up with full integrity every day in the workplace and in my relationships.

On Friday afternoon three girls, very large in stature, ran into me. I felt myself falling. I had absolutely no control over my body and then one of the girls caught me and held me in her arms. I heard one of the other girls saying: ” Miss you looked like a little girl.. sorry Miss”. I was completely vulnerable and I had no control over my body but I was caught. I was safe. That is a valuable lesson.

Yes, I am. I am a child of God and love and serve God. I am faithful to my faith and the Holy Catholic church. I am able to do this with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God..

I am always doing the best I can and always doing everything as if I do it for God.

Fear. Fear of disaster and calamity. I need to seek more time with God so that I will be sure that my life is in good hands.

Just to have work, just to have food, just to have a clean warm bed to sleep in. To have no pain, to be healthy and to have enough to eat.

Gratefulness makes me stand in awe of the goodness of God.

What does it mean an extraordinary life? An extraordinary life for me means to know that I belong to God. That I can communicate with God in meditation and in His presence. For me, it means to live a life of peace and freedom. Freedom from slavery to addictions and.enslavement to people and places. For me, it means to have the surety of life after death in communion with the angels and saints and with God in eternity.

A new way of being in the world.

When I look at the mountains around Queenstown. I immediately think of the verse in the Bible: “Where shall my help come from. My help is from the Lord who created heaven and earth and who never fails the work of his hands”

With my beloved husband Stanley and at Paxton our little house in the Wairarapa.

My faith. My great love for God and the great love for my family, my beautiful daughter Grace, my grandaughter Madelin, my beloved Stanley and my son Benjamin.

Never thought of that before. It brings a shift in perspective I think.

In my little corner of the bed with my husband breathing next to me. When I hear the rain outside and I am warm and safe. That is shear bliss!

Struggles with growing old. MY legs do not want to jump anymore and my back is painful. I am reminded of the present and to take this moment as a gift.

The wild wonder of Alaska. the bears and the moose and the mountains. The Northwest Passage and the great plains of Africa. Elephants and herds of buffalo. A child’s face and my husband’s hands. the inside of great Cathedrals and the Remarkables.

I value truth. God says in his word: ” You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. I value my faith, my family, fresh air, clean water and a clean bed with white cotton sheets. I value the earth and the wildlife and clean rivers and moose. I value beauty and a clean heart.