Gaining a heart of wisdom
C.S. Lewis described the human condition as a process of always becoming more of what we already are. These are cautionary words for me at this point in middle age, particularly as I consider the possibilities. In Lewis's The Great Divorce, the Teacher speaks regretfully of a seemingly harmless woman who has come to the end of… Continue reading Half Way to Entirely
Believe it or not, I’ve still got one pillowcase from my husband’s college dorm years. Its red, white, and blue stripes, warm out of the dryer, never fail to take me back to the 1970’s. Every imaginable consumer product from T-shirts and bed sheets to school supplies was available in a stars and stripes motif… Continue reading Patriotism, Pessimism, and the Church
Some mornings, crawling out of bed feels more like crawling out of a car wreck. Arthritic feet and ankles protest against the floor, and I straighten a stiff back mumbling, "I'm too young to feel this terrible." Two summers ago, when the gang landed here on Memorial Day I broke my toe playing kick ball.… Continue reading The Wonder Years: 40 and Even Better
In my senior year of college, I took an English elective on the writings of C.S.Lewis. The professor, Dr. Kaye, was ebullient, effervescent, and contagious in her love for the Oxford don who spun words into gold. Her instructions for the final exam were simple but ominous: simply bring a pen and plenty of paper.… Continue reading Lessons from C.S.Lewis: Becoming Fully Human
Some stories leave a reader short of breath, muscles stiffened, dreading to turn the page because of the unavoidable outcome of the narrative arc. Katherine Clark's story began on a routine Friday, volunteering at her son's school. However, when she rounded the playground equipment in a schoolyard game of tag, one of the children bounded… Continue reading Where Tragedy Intersects with Truth
Some of my happiest mothering memories are set in a blue mini-van on the open road as our family traveled cross country for five weeks back in the summer of 2010. With very few distractions, our time together was focused on the beauty around us and the many sights we all shared for the first… Continue reading Happy Mother’s Day!
Knocking twenty-two years’ worth of dust off a resume stretches the definition of “creative writing” to its limit. After giving my time away for two decades, could I convince even myself that my skills are marketable? Was I still capable of holding my own in the workforce? The questions hung in the air like a challenge. At… Continue reading Taming Anxiety Over the Unknown
In 1914, when Woodrow Wilson signed the proclamation designating the second Sunday in May as a national holiday to celebrate mothers, there's no way he could have predicted the century of retail hoopla and family angst that would ride on the coattails of his intention to simply honor mothers and their role in the family.… Continue reading A Collection of Books for a Grace-Filled Mother’s Day
I heard her footsteps on the stairs one night — jolted out of a sound sleep and into the familiar world of worry. Step, click, pause. The foot, the cane, the balance check. Exhaling in the dark, I realized . . . no. I had been dreaming. She’s not here anymore. She’s walking in safety… Continue reading Caregiving: Wisdom for the Sandwich Generation
When a committee of five gathered to draft the Declaration of Independence, it was Thomas Jefferson's pen that framed the colonies' complaints against England. Then, taking their own quills in hand, his colleagues made 43 changes to the document, and when it was presented to Congress, they made an additional forty-plus edits. Learning that Thomas… Continue reading Musings: April 2018
Living Our Days 