On Boredom (Or, What I Did on My Summer Vacation)
Our Summer List is nearly illegible. Most of the items are crossed through. I might have drawn a neat pencil line through each activity (trying to check it off but not erase it). My young daughter, who has not yet learned to grasp desperately at passing time, obliterated most of the list with a thick, black marker. On the record, I’d say...
Book of Quotations: Love Stoops
I keep a book of quotations. It looks exactly like any other journal, but it’s for a different kind of journaling. Journaling with the words of other writers, if you will. Here I scribble down quotations from all kinds of books: poetry, theology, memoir, literary theory, fiction, you name it. I write down anything I want to remember. ...
Why I Love the “Jesus of Prostitutes”
I’ve been listening to Mat Kearney’s new album. These words from the song "Hawthorne" keep running through my head: “the Jesus of prostitutes is chasing my soul.” Those words seem so wonderful and comforting, but it takes me a few days before I stop to consider why. Why does it feel right and good to sing about “the Jesus of prostitutes”? ...
On Weathering the Storms of Motherhood
My love for books is well known. However, books haven't always come through for me. They haven't always given me the answers I'm looking for. In my house, there is a particular shelf of books that have failed me utterly. I'm honored to be writing over at Lisa-Jo's place today. Won't you join me there for the rest of the...
The View from Mt. Pisgah
We recently returned from our week in the mountains. The luggage is still unopened, the mail stacked perilously high, and the backyard pool is green with neglect. At breakfast, the middle child sighed and said, “I miss the waterfalls.” We answered him with our own sighs. A great vacation is a rare and wonderful thing, but it exacts a high...
For One Who Mourns
We’ve been putting it off, but at dinner yesterday we finally told the kids that their dog is dead. We were able to put it off because Casey lived, not with us, but with faraway grandparents. Still, they had always considered him their dog. Because the miles are long, and we cross them so seldom, I imagined frowns. Concerned questions. I...