Gaining a heart of wisdom
Sunday Scripture Labor Day weekend signals a winding down of summer, and this will likely go down in my own personal history as "The Summer of the Empty Nest." This stay-at-home mum has had all she could do this summer to simply stay at home, and while I've struggled to keep up with all the… Continue reading Sing a Summer Song of Praise for the Miracle of Beauty
Sunday Scripture Crossing the bridge and climbing the hill toward home, I wish for the perfect camera and a photographer's skilled eye to capture well the expanse of blue filling my windshield. A beautiful world, accented with yellow forsythia in spring, in summer with rugosa roses, with maple leaves aflame in fall, and by sparkling… Continue reading What Difference Does it Make that We Live in a Beautiful World?
August overwhelms the senses with brilliant hues of color and light; the vibrant aroma of growing things alongside their fresh taste and crunch; bird song in early morning; the persistent peepers in the evening; and the haunting cry of a loon after dark. Maybe it's because of all this--or because we fill our summer daylight… Continue reading Sunday Scripture ~ Psalm 119:18
Our first summer living on this country hill, the budget was tight and luxuries were few. I had planted a garden that seemed huge to me at the time, and a friend, intending to surprise me, weeded the entire plot as a generous gift from the heart. How could she have known that those random… Continue reading An Invitation to the Generative Life
If it is true that, as we age, we become even more of whatever we have been all our lives, then Luci Shaw is becoming more and more difficult to “shelve.” A poet and essayist well into her eighties, she continues to tackle topics ranging from quantum mechanics and the incarnation to the haecceity** of… Continue reading Decoding the Beauty in the Universe
Our first summer living on this country hill, the budget was tight and luxuries were few. I had planted a garden that seemed huge to me at the time, and a friend, intending to surprise me, weeded the entire plot as a generous gift from the heart. How could she have known that those random… Continue reading Culture Care: Filling Up the Longing for Beauty
I'm a little tentative about the practice of assigning meaning to my dreams, but there's one that came to me when my children were tiny, and its message was clear. In the dream, I was making piecrust and realized, to my dismay, that I had forgotten to double the recipe. "No problem," I thought with… Continue reading Die Before You Die (Till We Have Faces Discussion Group — Conclusion)
I have invited the readers who visit Living Our Days to join me in reading C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces, and to return here each Thursday for a discussion. If you're just joining us, you can find the reading schedule here. Approaches to C.S. Lewis's brand of fiction vary widely, ranging from "This is a… Continue reading Till We Have Faces (2): Longing for the Grey Mountain
Movement outside my window is a continual distraction this time of year. Leaves floating down in vibrant shades of turmeric and cayenne pull my attention away from the pan on the stove, the recipe on the counter, the book I'm trying to read. The autumn foliage is breathtaking on this country hill, and I'm reminded… Continue reading October Musings — 2016
C.S. Lewis described our world as "the Kingdom of Noise," and he composed a psalm in the praise of noise from the pen of Senior Tempter, Screwtape, in his letter to a young apprentice. By contrast, artist Makoto Fujimura praises the beauty of silence particularly in the context of Japanese culture. "Perhaps in no other… Continue reading Silence and Beauty
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