“He thinks that because he doesn’t like it, it’s just bad.” So said my middle-school daughter asshe lamented her friend’s dismissal of a song he dislikes—but that she does, in fact, like verymuch. And I laughed (then hastily assured her that of course I wasn’t laughing at her), becauseI had just come from a conversation…
A few nights ago, I was on an airplane home from an incredible trip to Colorado Springs. My eyes were glued to the view outside the window as we were literally flying through a sea of clouds, enveloped in light and water, set afire by the sunset at our backs. The entire trip was encounter…
So I finally made my sowing schedule. 150 seeds; some indoor, some outdoor. The dates are staggered, dependent on soil temperature, or rainfall. I have the indoor peat pots on the way, and 8 lbs of organic dirt is nestled next to my backdoor, much to my husband’s befuddlement (why are we paying for dirt,…
Maybe it was a sharp word spoken in frustration, maybe it was the dozen times I had to remind myself to focus on the dinner conversation, or maybe it was the muscles in my legs crying out as I climbed the stairs. Maybe it was the combination of all those things, and the flurry of…
I recently finished Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, and it is already one of my favorite books of the year. In the style of a true Persian story teller, he cycles back and repeats himself often, giving refrains and themes to the patchwork of stories he weaves together. That’s what he calls it,…
Janet Izora was born in Paw Paw, West Virginia, in May of 1937, the younger daughter of Claude and Stella Jamison. During the autumn of her ninth year, she tagged along with her father for a day of hog butchering at the Kline place up on the hill. There she met Don. Donny was ten,…
My kids’ rock-climbing instructor gaped, incredulous. Just weeks earlier, my daughter had screamed with terror halfway up the kids’ bouldering wall. Now she clung with a single hand to the topmost hold of an autobelay route, grinning ear to ear. Along with her brother, she belted out a chant unknown to anyone else in the…
Just down the road from my house growing up was a cul-de-sac that had at the head an entrance into a huge forest of wooded trails. My friends and I would often roam around these woods that eventually opened up into a field filled with tall waving grass, snowy white Queen Ann’s Lace and all…
Children recite stories, create stories, act out stories, and rehearse stories. It is part of how they arrive to this earth, and if we are careful not to toy with them, it is how they will remain.
Want to know my little classroom secret? I love to teach children about idolatry. Not what you’re used to hearing from a Christian educator? Let me explain. This year, I’ve had the opportunity to build a homeschool co-op class from scratch. We’ve made toilet paper mummies, played Medusa freeze tag, staged gladiator fights on the…
I park my car and enter the familiarity of Sycamore Grove. My tangled thoughts are equally familiar. “This is why I need this walk,” I tell myself, “to sort out the tangles.” I put my earbuds in. Chris Renzema’s voice helps contain my thoughts. This day began with a quick chat with my cousin in…
Last fall I dropped by the church office to drop something off. After a few minutes of chatting with the staff, I picked up my keys to go home. One of our interns then asked me the question, “what would you say to someone who thinks it’s not valuable spiritually to read fiction?” I put…
