ALL RESOURCES BY Christopher de Vinck
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Develop Your Children's Gifts and Talents >
I believe that we are born with habits of being that we inherited both from our ancestors and from God.
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Wake Up and Go to Life >
My father gave his family a simple, loving treat that added a simple purpose to his day's labor.
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Manage People, Not Robots >
I treat them as my brothers and sisters, as my neighbors, as my friends, and I share my vision with them.
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The Beauty of Good Work >
Does anyone ever really see the quality of our work? Does anyone really care?
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We Are In This Together >
"Just step in and use what you need. We are in this together."
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How to Love Your Work and Your Coworkers >
I am in charge of 32 English teachers in the second largest high school in New Jersey, and it is my honor to serve those teachers as their boss.
What Does Honest Labor Produce? >
My brother Oliver was blind. He could not speak. He had no intellect. Oliver was in bed all his life, born with severe brain damage. I asked my father one afternoon, "How did you take care of Oliver for 32 years?"
The Sailboat >
When a small leak in the roof took me into the attic, I found my son's two-foot sailboat leaning on its side. The plastic hull is red. The deck blue. The sails are white. When I bought it 20 years ago, I thought the sailboat could replicate the pleasure…
Why I Write >
I began to write when I was 23 because I was lonely. I filled my longing with poetry and the muse. The more I wrote, the greater my purpose to write. I wanted to share my vision of happiness with people, and I wanted to entertain.
Fred Rogers, the man many of us knew from Mister R…
Holy Ground >
We have confused what it means to do valuable work.
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Birds Do It. Bees Do It. >
One of our county parks here in New Jersey has a wonderful display of honeybees. The park rangers created a window so that visitors to the nature center could observe bees in their labor.
The Sorrows That Push Us Forward >
In my early twenties, I met Betty. It was September 1972; we were in college, waiting before class. We were both early, standing in the hall, and as I looked at this young woman, I could not know that within her was a destiny I could not imagine.
We…
My Father’s Sailboat >
When I was a boy, my father had a dream to build a sixteen-foot sailboat in our basement and sail it on the Madawasaka River in Ontario, Canada.
There were six children in our family: my three brothers, my two sisters, and I. One of my brothers was…
A Boy’s Image of God >
At first, I couldn't understand the loss I felt when I heard Fred Schweg had died.
Fred was a carpenter in the small Canadian town that my family and I had visited every summer for the past 50 years. When we were children, our first destination in…
You are a Writer >
I have been a writer for 28 years, and anyone who creates anything knows the road is paved with doubt. Can I write? Am I a fool to think that I can compete with William Carlos Williams? F. Scott Fitzgerald? Harper Lee?
Many years ago on the set…
That was a Great Game >
"Dad, can you help me with my English homework?"
"Hey, Dad? See my baseball mitt?"
"Dad, I need a ride home. Can you come get me?"
And so for 23 years my children defined who I was in the house that my wife, Roe, and I bought 26 years ago. …
A Cup of Coffee in My Name >
Last week as I was leaving the house for the newspaper, my wife asked if I would buy her a medium cup of coffee. I drove to the Quick Check, parked my car beside a snow bank, and walked inside the brightly lit store.
Jeannie, the manager, smiled,…
Bathrooms, Backrubs, and Best Friends >
Once a week at our house, my job is to clean the bathroom. Twenty-five years ago, when I first took the job, my wife, Roe, was disappointed to see that my idea of a clean bathroom amounted to folded towels and a new bar in the soap dish.
But today…
A Childhood Wish for Walkie-Talkies. Over. >
When I was a boy, I wanted walkie-talkies for Christmas. My best friend Johnny and I had a plan. He would stick his antenna out his bedroom window, and I would do the same, and we would be spies together at 10 o'clock at night. We also planned to use…
Or We Can Whisper , >
At five o'clock each morning, the Benedictine monks of Weston Priory in Weston, Vermont, gather to pray and sing. Like the sun yawning over the horizon, from their rural home, these good men extend their spiritual selves worldwide. Their devotion to…
