How to be a hero for Mother’s Day: Prosperity Candle and Preemptive Love Coalition

May 2, 2011 By 2 Comments
© Heber Vega | www.prosperitycandle.com

Friends, this is not a regular type of Mama:Monk post and I try to keep posts here reflective rather than instructive. But I feel like what I'm sharing is in line with Mama:Monk's values, and I'm hoping you'll feel the same way. This is Parzheen. She's an Iraqi girl waiting for life saving heart surgery. How sweet is that face? Underneath there's a picture of Mohammed, who is also waiting. Today’s post is bit different than usual: Instead of talking about me and my kids, I want you to see … [Read more...]

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Treasure

March 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last night in a haze of fever (Sunday was a rough day), I lay on the couch reading August a story from the Jesus Storybook Bible. It was a retelling of Jesus' Parable of the Hidden Treasure. After Jesus compares God's Kingdom to a great treasure worth selling all you own to pursue, Sally Loyd-Jones reminds us that God also gave everything he had (his son) to pursue his treasure (us). I read those words to August and whispered, "You are God's treasure!" He ran from me to his dad across the … [Read more...]

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Beautiful

March 14, 2011 By 3 Comments

Last 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. I’d been toward the end of the line of a few hundred souls who’d been marked before me. Lots of forehead grease had given the ashes the distinction of looking more like ink than anything. The black … [Read more...]

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A Valentine’s Day Tribute

February 14, 2011 By 1 Comment
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Chris and I have never been much for Valentine smooches and the necessity of lover-gifts on February 14th (not that I don’t love V-Day…though I love it in the sense of wearing red and making homemade cards and heart cookies with pink sprinkles with my kid…not fancy dates and glitter balloons).  However, it is a day for love and, so, I feel the need to give my husband the honor he deserves on this Shiny-Red-Sweet-Day. In his honor, what almost seven years of marriage to Christopher … [Read more...]

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Preparing for T-Rexy

January 3, 2011 By 6 Comments

Happy New Year! I’ve missed you people. I have to say first that I’m a failure and had all along intended to keep the blog updated last week, but I was having way too much fun with friends and family in Philly and decided that I was not going to feel guilty. And I didn’t. So, here I am on the last leg of my four-week odyssey across the country from Boyetts to Hohorsts and back to the west coast. I’m writing this from my father in law’s house in Connecticut and have to tell you that … [Read more...]

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On Mary: Faith and Doubt

December 20, 2010 By 11 Comments

Whenever I spend time reading the biblical story of Mary, the mother of Christ, I imagine her to be like me, a sincere believer who can still find a way to doubt, to say yes, then run. This Advent season, I haven’t been able to get past Mary’s doubt. It’s not that I can ever know she was a doubter, it’s just that I sort of hope she was. The more I know Jesus the more I grasp my need for what John chapter one calls “grace and truth,” a spiritual rescuing of those of us (all of us) who … [Read more...]

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Pregnant Sad vs Thankful

November 15, 2010 By 9 Comments

I spent this past Saturday feeling a little blue. Saturdays tend to be days that make me sad. I always have really high expectations for a day of freedom and time with my husband, but the freedom usually makes for anxiety in my mind. Usually, there’s a list of unreasonable accomplishments that I think I’m going to make happen. At the same time, there’s the hope that we’re going to do something FUN(!). By the time noon rolls around and the day if half over and I still have ten tasks to do … [Read more...]

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New Poem for Christmas

November 8, 2010 By 2 Comments

No, it’s not the Christmas season yet, but a girl can dream, right? I’ve been doing my best not to pull the Christmas music out, to wait a few more weeks for the end of Thanksgiving, but I LOVE Christmas. I love Advent. I love the idea waiting and contemplating and making room for Christ in the same way Mary did during her pregnancy. And I love twinkle lights and evergreen and spiced cider and Mariah Carey in a Santa suit. I can’t help myself… So, since I have proven lately that it … [Read more...]

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Stones Splitting

October 25, 2010 By 12 Comments

When I sat in front of my spiritual director last Friday, trying to relay to her how I’m overwhelmed with the sudden busyness in my life—part time job, poetry writing gig, the emotional alterations of moving, the exhaustion of pregnancy, August’s latest nap antics—I wanted to be given an answer. I always want an answer to how to live more simply, more peacefully: If I were more organized! If I could just live with less sleep! If I only had more discipline in my life! Instead, Debby … [Read more...]

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A Moving Out Mix

October 4, 2010 By 4 Comments

Friday, after a morning of movers (having movers will be on my Thankful Tuesday list, by the way), I took my smelly rubber gloves and (by myself!) spent three and a half hours cleaning our old place. I was feeling emotional. Yes, we only lived there a year but it was the year when my baby turned into a boy. I’ve now moved eight times since I graduated from college nine years ago. And each place has looked just as lonely and just as brokenhearted each time I've left. I’ve always had a … [Read more...]

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