A Call To Rest for the Weary
Our rest lies in looking to the Lord, not to ourselves. Watchman Nee I have this tendency to cut through the crap of social superficiality pretty quickly. I make some uncomfortable, I know. I ask questions, based on my intuition in the moment. I don’t mean to make people uncomfortable. I mean to […]
How To Be “Best-Dressed” This Christmas
Fifty-four years ago, a little girl with reddish curls sat beside the Christmas tree. She wore a blue corduroy robe with white piping her grandmother had made. A poodle with hair curly as hers smiled for the camera. Then, ripping the wrapping off a certain package, her blue eyes grew wide. Inside, she found her […]
#MeToo And Then Some
Who would win Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”? Who would be revealed on last Wednesday’s cover. For the first time ever, I was curious. Turns out, the “winner” isn’t a person, per se. Turns out, the “winner” is . . . The #MeToo movement—a movement that has become a tsunami of women standing up […]
How to Consume Life-Giving Lamb
I ate the lamb shank—the lamb I ordered—Sunday night. For those of you who are vegetarians, I’ll try to be sensitive. Truth is, I found that shank extremely tender and tasty. Still, I wonder if I ought to partake of an animal that was “sacrificed” for my sake. Why can’t I even eat a tasty […]
What We All Need to Know About Respect and Servanthood
We rolled slowly along the street, meandering our way to what would soon be two new graves dug in Arlington National Cemetery—two of 400,000 already grassed green. Our vehicle stopped. Six men in crisp Army uniform stood in front of us, facing the awning where we would memorialize and pray for our friend’s father, Sgt. […]
Packs and The Lone Wolf—How to Deal with the Deadly, Including Ourselves
Electric races lightening fast through my nerves around 9:30 p.m. A pack of coyotes starts yipping and barking. They are close. Very close. Right on the edge of the densely wooded ravine next to our log home. My heart thumps hard in my chest. The eerie sounds of the pack grip me as I stand […]
On the Edge: How Now Shall We Live?
Here is the world. You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time, you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you. Frederick Buechner Our float plane’s […]
When You’re Scared and You Don’t Know What To Do
Since this weekend? Seems we’re consumed. In our nation . . . What he said. What he didn’t say. When he said it. Or didn’t say it. Why he took so long to say it. Is he fit? Is he unfit? Are we safe? Are we unsafe? Is the world safe? This opinion. That opinion. […]
Make Hay While The Sun Shines
They say, “Make hay while the sun shines” and this is true. Those of us around here with horses need hay cut at just the right time. We watch the weather, hoping for three, back-to-back sunny days for hay harvesting because horse hay must be dry. Otherwise, hay molds and can’t be fed to horses. […]
Abundance from Dependence
What do you do when your dreams aren’t coming true? What do you do when your heart breaks from the ache of wanting something so much and it looks like that one dream may never be yours? Like Hannah who wanted a child. Desperately. So what did Hannah do? Instead of lashing out at her […]
Fear Not—An Invitation to the Freedom of Dependence
The men in my life are laying out clothes, filling up containers, packing enough for five days of their ten away in two cities where terror has struck again—London and Paris. And they’ll be standing on the beaches where some other mother’s boys landed and turned the waters red at the same ages as our […]
Weathering the Storms
I stand on the balcony of our west-facing library and see the young pumpkin vines beginning to flower yellow. My eyes scan the rows of tender tomatoes and marigolds two weeks old, crying for relief from the oppressive heat and hard winds that can turn soil to dust and parch leaves crisp. Their vulnerable stems […]