By encouraging the consumption of more meat…, of refined carbohydrates, and of trans fats and chemically extracted oils…, the government-endorsed dietary model may have led to more deaths than it claims to have prevented. Mark Bittman, Food Matters (2009). p57. I was rereading Food Matters — good book, though Michael Pollan’s roughly contemporaneous Food Rules […]
If you know the John Fogerty song, and know how much I love the movie Bull Durham, you’ll think I’m writing about baseball. But that would be silly, because I know just enough baseball to remain my mother’s child and no more. I’m writing about my personal trainer. Or the adult swim team I belonged […]
This is not, directly, my story. This is a story that belongs to my mother, peripherally, and her father more directly. Or it’s a set of fabric strips from old shirts that we traditionally stitch together about like this, adding some batting and family backing to make it a little more sturdy. I never lived […]
I am (and have been) fine — physically, emotionally, daily. I wrapped up the semester well, sudden pivot to distance-learning notwithstanding. Clear-eyed, I knew what I wanted to put in place in June to support the rest of my (COVID-emptied) summer and how to go about doing so. I have perhaps done a tithe of […]
Look at the large letters I’m making with my own handwriting! —Apostle Paul, Galatians 6:11 (CEB) So since “being the people of God” didn’t stop when Austin TX started sheltering in place, and since the truth that Jesus Christ lived, died, and was resurrected is still true, Christendom will be observing Easter on Sunday, and […]
Many, many folk — good historians at heart — are saying: as the pandemic wraps around the globe, write a sentence or so each day. That way three generations or so into the future can know what was on our hearts, and not just what was on our minds, or what we said to chivvy […]
(written March 11, 2020)As I became a flirtatious teenager, I began referring to myself as decorative, reciting: Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin… Matthew 6:28b, NKJV It was meant to be backspin on an array of things, all at once. On a stereotype of women as decorative, […]
I’m experimenting this week. Not only with being more routine in my devotional routine — that’s an easy Lenten move, and besides, I do that every week — but with ten different minutes of silence. So to recap: there’s the reading three poems that I added in front, the fourish verses of Scripture copied, the […]
I still haven’t heard Christian Wiman in person. My friend and colleague Travis, who helms LOGOS Poetry Collective here in town, had… what’s the phrase, secured? Wiman to read at the February event. Scheduled for Thurs 27th, last week. I’ve been leaning forward toward this since it was a strong gleam in Travis’ eye so […]
One of our required classes at school is “introduction to [the theology of] mission and evangelism.” My attitudes about this topic are many, varied, and contradictory… for me, it sweetens the deal to explicitly point out the “theology” part because, well, it’s only twelve weeks. Can’t do much in this arena in twelve weeks. ** […]
