[I]magination has the property of magical expansion; the more it holds the more it will hold. ~ Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 1925 It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that imagination is like inspiration—that it just kind of happens. Not true. Imagination is just like a muscle—it will become weaker or stronger depending […]
On the Incarnational Nature of Parenting
My son, Coulter, is nine months old which means that he is discovering all kinds of miraculous little things. Just this week he has discovered that when he slams the cabinet doors against their frames they make a loud noise and that when he pulls mommy’s hair she makes a similarly loud noise. He has […]
Sacred Surprise
Two-year-old Silas stood awaiting his sentence. Someone had committed a crime against household harmony, and he had no alibi. In fact, the Judge had seen Silas do it. Whoever said “Justice is blind” was crazy, he thought. I think Justice has eyes in the back of her head. And she did. Things were not looking […]
The Gift of Grief
It is the business of a sinful world to turn our eyes away from Jesus – to the more pressing, familiar-seeming things around us: “a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters). Our work, entertainment, and hobbies act as anesthetics. And like anesthetics, they block pain […]
The Art of Days – Part One
My husband can tell that my annual bout of parenting fatigue has arrived when I lock myself in our bedroom with the laptop and a half-pint of Starbucks Java Chip ice cream. I’ll sit on the bed crying into a soft old t-shirt from college, rattle around YouTube, and occasionally whimper, “I can’t do this […]