I am the second of six sisters – a big family by today’s standards, and a lot of girls in one household  by any standards! We are now very post-modern women, scattered all over North America, not much opportunity to see each other, so on and so forth with the usual “haven’t got time” excuses. Friends, too, have been left behind over the years and miles (or kilometres here in Canada.) E-mail helped for a while, but we are all overwhelmed with messages. Facebook is good, but you have to get admitted to the inner circle of “friends” before you can connect and that can lead to some embarrassing mistaken-identity moments. So the blog is the next big step.

I am heartsick over the lack of communication in my life. Where did everyone go? Or maybe – where did I go? How did I manage to wander off into the Canadian outback (well, London, Ontario) with nary a faretheewell?

And so much changed in my life. Some of you knew me as Julie Bragdon, artsy rebel, some as Julianne Armstrong, fairly serious artist and theology student. So why the name change, and why the major wardrobe shift?

Who would have expected me to become Plain dressed, prayer covering, Quakerly Anglican? Who would have anticipated the major sea change in my life?

God did. It was His idea.

God called me into the Anglican priesthood, into a wonderful, intense, challenging marriage, into traditional life, into the whole Plain way of life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it.