Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
How’s that for a title? Did it draw you in? Turn you off? To be honest, I’m trying not to care whether or not His name is an effective lure for a blog post. I’m trying not to care because I’ve realized something important: it’s all about Him, but I make it about so many other things. I’ve tended to think that this is a problem for “those...
The Magician’s Son
Monday night witnessed our first visit from the Candy Fairy. For parents of highly allergic and/or cavity prone children (and I have one of each), she is a Very Good Thing. After the trick-or-treating, after the just-one-more-piece before bedtime binging, she empties the still-brimming candy buckets and drops a small toy into the plastic...
A Poem for Your Monday
I didn't discover the poetry of George Herbert until graduate school (my undergraduate education in literature had more than a few gaps, I'm afraid. This due, mostly, to my own indiosyncratic course selection criteria: what time is the class and who is the professor?). Thankfully, I did find Herbert, and I still remember my shock that we could...
On Living Without
I believe in stories more than advice. In other words, I believe that a light is shined on our way forward, not when we finally hear the exact, right piece of advice, but when someone shares their story with us. True stories contain all of the messy, untranslateable details of a life. Somehow, they also point us toward the maker of life. I...
Why Life Shared is Life Abundant
Our airplane tilts away over city rooftops, and I feel as if I am leaving home in order to return to a house. It is not an altogether blue feeling (it is a house inhabited by my favorite people, after all), but it is disorienting. An emotional confusion to match a physical one; as the plane banks, I can no longer tell if I am pointed toward...
A Poem (and a Memory) for Your Monday
For the past few days, I’ve been back in Chicago, remembering with my feet as I walk the familiar slate sidewalks. If poems had mailing addresses, this one would surely be marked Chicago, the Southside. Winter hasn’t yet arrived, even in Chicago, but I’ve been reliving one particular winter memory. It was my first winter here, and the heavy...