THE BIG PAUSE

I’m enjoying the big pause.  There is nothing going on, no places to be, not even church responsibilities to attend to. This is unprecedented in my lifetime. I have dreamed of creating this scenario-indeed, there was a year or two when I felt family life spiraling out of control, and I made proclamations about “no…

“Mommy, open your arms!”

I exit my car at the ballet school, gather my next hour distractions from the back seat, and absent-mindedly hit the lock button on the car door before I stride into the cross walk. There’s a mom and a daughter standing nearby at the bottom of a hill-nothing to notice really. And then I hear…

Summit

I just rode to the top of this mountain. On a mountain bike. By myself. And when I say by myself, I mean BY MYSELF. When I got to the saddle about a mile up, the other three riders on the trail went right and I went left. I never saw another soul until I…

Going Home

Today I leave Prince Edward Island after a six day adventure with my daughter, Leah. We came to see Anne-land and tromp where Lucy Maud Montgomery tromped. We walked through the Haunted Woods and Lovers Lane, took Matthew's carriage ride around The Lake of Shining Waters, stayed at the Kindred Spirits Inn, and sat under…

Stiff Mother

Miss Williams looked satisfied in her mean, pinched way.  “Well,” she said, “ta-ta.” (She always said “ta-ta” instead of “goodbye.” Chicken language, it sounded like.) As soon as Miss Williams was gone and my mother was sitting down again, I burst into tears.  Kneeling on the floor, I buried my head in her lap and…

What Katy Did

For you know we never do people good by lecturing; only by living their lives with them, and helping a little here and a little there to make them better. -What Katy Did, p. 141 If I took nothing else from this moralizing tale…let it be this…a lecture is no good.  I have given all…

Radical Integrity: The Story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Faith was no escape hatch from the power of evil men; true faith often placed one directly in the grip of evil.  Hadn’t Jesus Himself provided a demonstration of this truth? -Radical Integrity, p. 161 I really like biography.  I like to peek into someone else’s existence to see how they negotiated mortality.   It’s…

The Shack

  I just finished The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. This is one of those books that kept cropping up in different conversations over the course of a year.  I think I jotted it down here and there two or three times before I added it to my summer reading list and went to the library…

Reading Joy

I divide all readers into two classes; those who read to remember and those who read to forget. –William Lyon Phelps Hi there.  I love to read.  However, if you were to track my activities over the last decade, you would find plenty of evidence to convict me to the contrary.  It’s been awful!  I…