Gaining a heart of wisdom
With an empty house, a clean kitchen, laundry on the line (and even a sleeping dog!), it was a perfect afternoon to study or write. Deadlines were looming. However . . . the sun was shining, bath towels flapped and danced on the clothesline outside, and suddenly, while there was plenty that needed doing, the… Continue reading Self-Discipline: A Matter of Grit and Grace
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
Loon call trills through the open window just as the rain begins to fall. I leave the sash thrown wide because, I ask you, who could close a window on a song like that? And as summer draws to a close, I am reluctant to close the window on a season that has been so… Continue reading Musings — August 2017
Dining on cubes of watermelon and calling it breakfast, the youngest son stands pajama-clad at the counter, his toothpick a dowser for the juiciest chunks. In just a few end-of-summer days from now he will be up to his fetlocks in geometry, and I will be preserving the summer sweetness of our red tomatoes with… Continue reading Sending Grace Downstream
Because I am married to an unreasonably patient man, we hardly ever argue – except for when it comes to the Ascension. His (perhaps quite reasonable) conclusion from Acts chapter one is this: Jesus went up. The disciples looked up. Therefore, heaven is up. My (perhaps quite unreasonable) argument is that on that day when… Continue reading Rising in Grace and Glory
For Martin Luther's fifty-seventh birthday, his wife designed, commissioned, and then presented to him a carved doorway for their home. It's elegance incorporated numerous features that demonstrated Katharina's knowledge of and devotion to her husband; however, there is no way that she could have realized how completely appropriate her gift would be. Michelle DeRusha's biography… Continue reading Together through the Doorway of Marriage
In my gratitude journal, you will not find the words "back pain" or "dead air conditioner in the mini-van." And even though I have read (and re-read) the Beatitudes, I am in a season of mourning deeply over the advancing dementia of a dear friend -- and I'm not feeling the least bit blessed by… Continue reading Ten Thousand Truths
Even though the class was a disaster, I still regret quitting high school physics. I wish that I had hung in there with my little TI-30 calculator and all the boys who wore theirs in "denim-look" vinyl cases hanging off their belts or bulging from their shirt pockets -- not because I suddenly care about… Continue reading Persevering – in Grace
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 Partners in Revelation: Bringing Beauty into View
The year is really no longer "new," and the image I've chosen for this study is -- thankfully and finally -- out-of-date (although we did have snow flurries on Sunday morning), and so today we conclude our study of Hebrews with the rich content of chapter thirteen. For weeks, I've been planning and pondering how… Continue reading Grace for Breakfast
Living Our Days 