At times like this, I feel the small curse of my introspective nature and its obstinate demands, how it wants to be allowed, wants my unhurried and undivided attention, how the moments of life insist on being metabolized and given expression. As usual, having failed to stop and tend to this unmitigated part of myself, […]
“…If hard and bitter ways should be our lot, help us to remain steadfast, never complaining about our burdens even in the most difficult days…” — from a prayer by Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, shared for October 11, 2017 Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not cast us off forever! Why […]
I am of the first generation After Kennedy—that is, I grew up annoyed at the way my teachers would get all misty and heartfelt about a shared experience that I had zero way to access. But via my alma mater, I found another ‘in’ to Kennedy through his hat-tip embedded in this speech: “Why does […]
I’m reading Traveling with Pomegranates, a dual (dueling? no-!) memoir from Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor. I’m not going to tell you about it, except for that I randomly ended up with a copy, and happen to be almost exactly Kidd’s age as she was writing. Looking into another writer’s head while she’s […]
We have been digging into the authority of Scripture in Theology class. We’ve done a semi-formal debate, and now we’re completing a paper. Though in the meantime we’ve also been tackling the Trinity—even tougher!—and are in the midst of Providence. (Did you know theologians make providential jokes? It’s providential that you’ve heard them! Or haven’t […]
(ni bon, ni juste) Starting a Pandora station by choosing the band Blood, Sweat, and Tears makes a gloriously funk-filled sonic experience with no tweaking needed. By choosing Chicago, the drift into Air Supply and REO Speedwagon is quick. People are paying attention. It’s not just your kids who attend to what you do more […]
The smell of hospitals in winter, And the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters but no pearls… —Adam Durtiz, “A Long December” The sky is creamy blue. The sunlight has turned the tops of the leaves gold, but the heat has softened to 70°, so we just might be changing seasons. The dapples […]
I think our naïveté has caught up with us. Back when I was a bride, back when I was first becoming a systems administrator, digital communication drew me like a magnet. The field was called “computer-mediated communication” back then, when it was new and a year’s papers could be encompassed in a single volume. […]
I made this for myself over a year ago, well before I began my latest educational adventure. The way my fall term is shaping up, the quote is prescient: I am four weeks in and am bewildered at the way ‘things’ are going. I’m uncomfortable, ‘quite sunk in my own esteem’ (as the English Regency […]
[As the LORD your God has charged:] These words that I am commanding you today must always be on your minds. Recite them to your children. Talk about them when you are sitting around your house and when you are out and about, when you are lying down and when you are getting up. Tie […]
