Lent: A Love Story
I thought there was only one way to tell the story. I was sure there was only one way to begin. The beginning was the black page in my own little copy of the wordless book. The beginning was the black bead on the bracelet I made in Vacation Bible School. The beginning was the first bullet point in every gospel tract I’d ever seen. The...
Because We Have Not Yet Arrived at the End
“His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.” - James Joyce, “The Dead” *** *** I want to write spring stories. I want to write glorious endings. And why not? I am the storyteller. I am the one tap, tapping...
This Cruel Season of Promise
From my kitchen window I can see a blue plastic sled stranded at the top of a small hill. Last year, our first spring at Maplehurst, we edged the hill on one side with blueberry bushes. We shored up the other side with an asparagus patch. We planted a peach tree and a cold-hardy fig like two flags at the top, but the kids have carved a...
Seeking and Finding through Lent
Our dinner-table conversations with the kids seem to pivot between the ridiculous and the ultra serious. There is no in-between. Either, there are jokes about Thomas the Train crossing the road or there are existential complaints about prayer. Why do you say we should listen to God when I can’t hear him? even the four-year-old wants to know. I...
How Desire Led You Home
You were a child, and they wanted only the best for you. So they told you your heart was deceitful. They told you that every desire was only a misplaced desire for Him. They spoke the (partial) truth in love, and you took their words to heart. Those words kept you safe. They kept you on a narrow way, and you will always be grateful for that....
Remember This: There is Glory in the Dirt
Last week, it snowed here at Maplehurst. Even after ten years lived in Chicago, I don’t think I have ever seen so much snow fall all at once. Granted, I left Chicago for Florida the winter before the once-in-a-decade, cars-stranded-on-Lakeshore Drive monster storm. I remember that winter well. It was my first in Florida. Everyone I knew –...