This morning at 10:30, I began one of those mundane conversations with my two year old that ends up fascinating me with its significance. I was still in my pajama pants, staying home from church because of the toddler’s T-Rex cough and exploding nose. Despite his voice being both raspy and nasally, August had plenty of questions to ask about the bright colored deer on my Old Navy flannels. We went through every color on each deer’s cozy scarf. Then we got to the multi colored … [Read more...]
Read this, please.
August 12, 2010 By 3 Comments
So, it's 10 at night and my son didn't get in bed till 8:40 ish (more than an hour late) due to my poor choice of driving home from a friend's house at 5:20: Downtown at rush hour with a necessary stop at Whole Foods? Bad choice. 1 hour and 40 minutes later, I started dinner. Which we ate at 7:45. I will also add that I'm tired and my brain is failing you tonight. You deserve more than I can give you, dear reading friends. So I'll tell you this: I'm really loving the Burnside Writers … [Read more...]
Making Room for God
August 11, 2010 By 8 Comments
This afternoon during August’s nap time I read Psalm 10 while I curled up under a sweatshirt blanket feeling sorry for myself. I haven’t been feeling great lately. Today I was sick to my stomach and whiney, at least to myself. (August doesn’t really care if I’m whining, so I’ve given up on trying to get compassion from him.) I don’t know what Psalms the Benedicts were reading this afternoon in their noontime prayers, but as I lay on the couch under my blanket, I imagined their … [Read more...]
Thankful Tuesday Summer
August 10, 2010 By 7 Comments
It’s Thankful Tuesday. I spent last night participating in one of the great American summer pastimes. I joined my husband, my brother and my sister in law at a Giants/Cubs game. We ate hotdogs and garlic fries. We also drank hot chocolate. Aimee and I covered our legs with a blanket. We wore three layers of clothes, mittens, and I sported a lovely yellow winter hat. Yes, this is month of August in San Francisco. I’ve always been a summer girl. I love being hot. I love pools and air … [Read more...]
New poem! New poem!
August 8, 2010 By 2 Comments
There are some poets who will never be kindred spirits and whose poems are usually far beyond my aesthetic yum-sensors. William Butler Yeats is that way. I took a course on him in grad school, the fall of 2002. I learned that he was a genius. That he did remarkable things with form. And every so often, I read one of his poems that stunned me with its beauty. I never returned to Yeats after that class, despite my new appreciation for him. That's probably because though I respected him, he … [Read more...]
In Appreciation of “Staying Power”
August 5, 2010 By 1 Comment
Tomorrow I will post our new poem for the month of August. But before doing so, I feel it’s time to give “Staying Power,” our poem for June and July (it was a hard one to learn!) a proper send off. In our short time of memorizing poetry together, I’ve never had such a response to a poem in the sidebar. The day I posted it in June was one of my highest blog traffic days yet. It’s a poem that demands an emotional response and that’s what I love most about what “Staying Power” has … [Read more...]
The Hope of Evolution: A Review of Evolving in Monkey Town by Rachel Held Evans
August 4, 2010 By 5 Comments
Over the past couple of weeks, whenever I saw the cover of Rachel Held Evans' Evolving in Monkey Town lying around my house, my brain would immediately jump into a chorus of “Won’t you take me to / Funky Town!” Funky Town, Monkey Town…who knows the workings of the mind? Other than the disco background noise in my head, reading Evans’ book was an adventure in my own personally charted territory. In fact, while reading her book, I constantly felt like she and I shared the same … [Read more...]
Why I call myself a “Christian.”
August 2, 2010 By 20 Comments
Since Anne Rice’s declaration of her rejection of “Christianity” last week, the blogs I read can’t stop talking about it. (See proof here, here, and here.) It’s not that Anne Rice is (or was?) such a superstar Christian and that the believing world is devastated, it’s that she brought up what many in my generation have been struggling with for years. How many times have I heard someone say: “I follow Jesus but I can’t refer to myself as a Christian”? Or, to quote Ms. Rice, … [Read more...]
Because we need a poem about summer rain.
July 28, 2010 By 5 Comments
It's not raining here. But perhaps one of you somewhere is reading this in a warm town while rain falls romantically on your tin roof. And the air is warm enough that you could walk outside for a little splash in your flip flops. Perhaps I'm nostalgic because this is my first "summer" in San Francisco where it's constantly in the 60s and I keep forgetting it's July. But I just needed to read this poem today and be reminded of that metallic feeling of rain coming on a 90 degree day. So, … [Read more...]
Bedtime Thankful
July 26, 2010 By 1 Comment
Last month I complained about my son’s sleep issues. I can’t complain anymore. He’s happily floating on his metaphorical dream cloud as I type this. He no longer cries when it’s time for us to leave the room (thanks Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child!). Instead, in the middle of Chris’ prayer for him tonight, he said, “Bye, Mommy.” I said, “Do you just want Daddy to sing you a song tonight?” “Yep,” he said. Well, okay then. Chris was out of the room two minutes later. … [Read more...]
Follow Patheos
Family: