For Brooksie, on his 2nd birthday (A Thankful Tuesday post, of sorts)

March 19, 2013 By 5 Comments
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  Brooksie, when I got you out of bed on your second birthday, I whispered. It was 6:30 and your brother was asleep next door; the neighbors were asleep downstairs. I hate worrying about noise. I wanted to bust in with a guitar and serenade you. (If only I could play.) I wanted to shout to the world that once you weren’t here and now you are! Once you were a thought, a conversation between your dad and me. You were a secret inside God’s mind. I wanted to shout that two years ago you came … [Read more...]

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Beautiful: A reflection for the day after Ash Wednesday

February 14, 2013 By 2 Comments
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I wrote this post two years ago, when Brooksie was known only as T-Rexy. (These days he's still "T" most of the time at home.) It's a reflection that still feels relevant these two years later.   Wednesday night, as I entered the church nursery where August had been playing while I was in the Ash Wednesday service, my son looked up at me, first in joy (I love how the simplicity of my presence brings him happiness) and then in confusion. The ashes on my head were anything but subtle. … [Read more...]

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One Good Phrase: God loves you and so do I (Christine Gough)

February 13, 2013 By
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Christine Gough is a mom, a fellow resident of Northern California, and a kindred who is learning how to be, in her words, "one who comes alongside people to help them remember God’s love for them." I admire her wisdom and I will be enternally grateful that she shared six of her 365 free(!) loaves of bread from Boudin Sourdough Bakery with me. So happy to share her with you today. During my first few years of teaching, I happened upon a little book called Educating Esmé: Diary of a … [Read more...]

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My Chalkboard: Madeleine L’Engle

February 1, 2013 By 1 Comment
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From A Circle of Quiet, page 45 … [Read more...]

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One Good Phrase: No Matter What (Joy Bennett)

January 30, 2013 By 43 Comments
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I've recently gotten to know Joy Bennett in these internet parts and I'm constantly moved by her encouragement, honesty and vulnerability. It's a gift to have her here today.  I have four children, three living. My oldest fought for her life for eight years through hospital stays, surgeries, therapies, special education, medications, feeding tubes, wheelchairs, emergency rooms, breathing treatments, seizures, and sleepless nights (both hers and ours). She lost her fight in October of 2008. … [Read more...]

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One Word 2013: Enough

January 4, 2013 By 27 Comments
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I wish I were a mom with constant craft supplies. I wish I had every kind of glitter available and fresh scented play-dough always waiting for little fingers to mash. I wish I were a mom who filled hours with learning, a mom who sent thank-you notes on time. I wish I had real, practical goals in my mothering life. I wish I weren’t just standing at the kitchen sink while my son begs me to play cars with him again. I wish I weren’t begging him to stop asking so I can finally mop the floor … [Read more...]

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For Carey. And for her friend, Melynn.

December 19, 2012 By 15 Comments
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When I get the text from Melynn, it’s 8:30 on Saturday morning and we’ve just finished our cinnamon buns and read the story of St. Nicholas. We’re in the middle of a new family tradition, gathering the toys we’ll be giving away that day. The boys are on the carpet in the hallway vrooming cars: Chris and August and Brooksie, all on their bellies in their jammies. Melynn sends me a text to say Carey is gone. She died at 10:45 the night before. I am standing by the counter in the … [Read more...]

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These Sacred Everydays

December 12, 2012 By 8 Comments

Last week marked our very last in the series {This Sacred Everyday}. I have loved this series. I've loved hearing other writers consider what makes their simple lives holy. I've loved being challenged by how beautiful the common tasks of living can be. Thanks for being part of this with me. I kicked off this series in May when I had no idea that by the fall I would be living 1700 miles from our then home. I talked about walking by a flowering bush on my block in Austin that reminded me of the … [Read more...]

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Light Your Candles Quietly: Keeping Advent with Mary, Vol. 1

December 3, 2012 By 10 Comments
"Light your candles quietly, such candles as you possess, wherever you are" -Alfred Delp

Vol. 1 - An invitation to enter Advent attentive and aware   August and I sit outside the ice cream shop on Clement Street, licking chocolate from plastic spoons and watching the bustle of a city Sunday afternoon pass by. We’re having an afternoon together while Brooks sleeps and Chris builds some bookshelves. I’m still, sitting on a park bench beside my kid, quiet and satisfied. When it’s time for his haircut he’s happy with the old Peter Pan cartoon playing in the tiny … [Read more...]

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Thanksgiving in their words…

November 21, 2012 By 2 Comments
"Country Home" by suziebeezie (Pinterest via Andrea Duffy)

This is a repost from last Thanksgiving. But how can I not post it again?   "It is impossible to give thanks and simultaneously feel fear." -Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts   "[The] dinner party is a true proclamation of the abundance of being--a rebuke to the thrifty little idolatries by which we lose sight of the lavish hand that made us. It is precisely because no one needs soup, fish, meat, salad, cheese, and dessert at one meal that we so badly need to sit down to them from time … [Read more...]

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