Gaining a heart of wisdom
The distance around my elliptical driveway is one-tenth of a mile. I know this because I drove around it, watching the odometer—and then did it again just to be sure. Sometimes in the fall, I take a careful jog-trot around its leaf-strewn gravel, a compromise intended to jump-start a flagging metabolism without putting undue wear… Continue reading The Benefit of Keeping an Open Mind to the Possibility of Gratitude
Sunday Scripture I despise looking for things. As a mum, my least favorite words in the English language are, "Muu-uuum, where's my [fill in the missing item]?" I go to great lengths, personally, to avoid ever having to look for things: keys always in the same purse pocket, phone plugged in, glasses on my face… Continue reading How Do I Search for God with All My Heart?
In the dark, in the car, hands on the steering wheel, I sighed in frustration. “I can’t do this anymore,” I said out loud, startling myself with the fierceness of my tone over the sound of the car’s heater. On that frigid January night, I was brittle with fatigue and hollow with disappointment. I had… Continue reading What Is Your Reference Point for Success in Ministry?
When life sends a hard turn in a direction I am not expecting, all the cracks and flaws in my theology show up. The wheels come careening off my carefully constructed orthodoxy, leaving me in the ditch with all the prosperity gospel folks or the "Where was God?" finger pointers. When God does not “cooperate”… Continue reading When You’re Sitting in the Winter Room
When jets fly overhead, stitching up the airspace between Boston's Logan and somewhere-in-Europe, by the time they reach the sky over Mid-coast Maine they are barely visible, nothing but contrails. My roots are deep here on this country hill, thirty thousand feet below, so I'm no globetrotter, but over the years, visitors from around the… Continue reading Musings: October 2018
Sometimes it’s the very thing that makes you wild, the thing that feels as if it may be your undoing, which ultimately saves your life. For me right now, the pebble in my shoe is a 15-foot speed boat parked parallel to the north side of our house. The college-aged son is a project magnet… Continue reading Following the Trail Back to Hope
The sturdy wooden stakes that supported my tomato plants through their season of growing have been pulled and re-purposed. Now that the garden lies exhausted and well past fruition, those beat up stakes have been pressed into service holding burlap to protect our rhododendron bushes from the weight of snow and the whip of howling… Continue reading Musings — October 2017
Returning from a family vacation (and a blogging break!), it's great to be rested and to have stored up some delightful memories with my patient husband, our two youngest sons, and with dear friends who love us so much and so well that they even welcomed our big slobbery dog! On the Nightstand Not… Continue reading Musings — April 2017
Living Our Days 