Gaining a heart of wisdom
I did not intend to have a dog in my home who is so tall that he can rest his chin on the dining room table. It was never my intention to take walks with one hundred and fifty pounds of dog on the other end of a leash, and I certainly did not plan to love that long-haired slobber… Continue reading Sit. Stay. Abide.
According to commentators, the final syllable of the name Jerusalem suggests the words "peace" [shalom] and "prosperity" [shalvah]. We don't hear it in our English rendering, but try this instead: think "yer-u-sha-lay-im." (Hear it now?) At any rate, both peace and prosperity were in short supply during Nehemiah's tenure in Jerusalem, but he was a man… Continue reading Just One Thing: Peace
Going into a job interview, I used to worry about over-selling myself. At some point, I decided that I would rather lose out on a job opportunity than to suffer the indignity -- six months down the road -- of wondering if my boss was wishing she could find that stellar employee she had thought she was hiring. … Continue reading Intimacy 101
Another name has joined Father Tim and the Reverend John Ames in my directory of beloved fictional pastors. Rowdy Slater stands apart from the others (and from most real life pastors, I expect) in two important ways: 1. Neither Fr. Tim nor the Rev. Ames could look out over his congregation and say, "At one… Continue reading The Redemption of Rev. Rowdy
"May we so pass through things temporal that we lose not the things eternal." This was my daily prayer during the years when my boys were tiny, and even though I'm not from a tradition that uses prayer books or puts the emphasis on the first syllable in the word "collect," I've recently started praying these words again. I'm… Continue reading Just One Thing: Inconvenience
For years I celebrated Easter as if it were a stand-alone holiday, singing "Up from the Grave He Arose" without giving much thought to the horror of the Dying or the silence of the Dead. Providentially, my early efforts to incarnate and to enliven an invisible God in the hearts of four sweet boys found a way into the obtuse heart of… Continue reading One Weekend in History
Is there anything better than a book in the mail? The A to Z Guide to Bible Signs and Symbols landed in my mailbox last Saturday, and I was immediately drawn by its glossy weight. Everything about the book, particularly its colorful images, said "quality." Opening to the introduction, I learned that a symbol's job is… Continue reading A Week of Signs and Symbols
Glory Hunger by JR Vassar: A Book Review A favorite scene from one of my favorite movies is the moment when Anne Shirley learns that she has won the Avery Scholarship. Her fellow students pick her up, carrying her on their shoulders, and they laud her accomplishment with cheers! There's something supremely satisfying about that kind… Continue reading An Invitation to Die
One of the drawbacks of starting a family in your thirties is that your children will likely have a distinct shortage of grandparents. However, not because we deserve it, but because God is gracious, our children are blessed to have a team of onlookers who have been, well . . . looking on for their whole lives, cheering… Continue reading Just One Thing: Onlookers
The Beauty of Grace by Dawn Camp, ed. -- A Book Review Lovely, fragrant, fresh, inviting: the adjectives that bubble into my mind for The Beauty of Grace are the same descriptive terms that I would use for the bouquet of flowers pictured on the cover. Dawn Camp has found a way to slow down the internet… Continue reading Because You Can’t Underline on the Internet
Living Our Days 