Having a body that defies cultural norms as mine does (it is crooked, uneven, lumpy, and limpy) can be alienating. The regular absence of anyone who looks like me in my daily routine creates a space that can fill with either negative feelings (shame, frustration, grief) or positive (pride in the scars that testify to my survival through pain). But even when I’m in a good frame of mind, a sense of loneliness—of being an “other”—persists. This is why I... Read more
As many of you know, I fell on the ice a couple of weeks ago, and ended up with broken ribs and a few other injuries. So instead of spending the first weeks of December baking, shopping, and decorating while keeping up with my usual housekeeping and writing work, I’ve been spending many hours parked on my couch. While I’m not thrilled with the reason behind my lazy days, I’ve had lots of time to read. In this post, I’ll... Read more
It has been a year since I gathered with other parents in my children’s elementary school cafeteria, shocked, stricken, and aware that nothing would ever be the same again, after 20 first graders and several women were murdered by a troubled boy with a gun. My own youngest child was a first grader too. I don’t know how those parents feel. I don’t. But I can imagine. Below I am reposting a meditation on grace and what happens when grace appears... Read more
So, this arrived on my doorstep about two weeks ago. I agreed to read and write on The Bonhoeffer Reader for the Patheos Book Club because I’ve always wanted to know more about Bonhoeffer and his theology. But I didn’t know the book would be so big. (The photo doesn’t quite convey its heft. It’s really, really big.) I knew I wouldn’t be able to read the whole book in the short time I had before the Patheos deadline for book club entries,... Read more
This past weekend, my church parish hall resonated with the voices of young actors and singers presenting a children’s theater production of a short musical, “The Castaways.” My son Benjamin played one of the castaways—a group of kids living on the streets of New York City at the turn of the century who are eventually adopted by midwestern families. We were so proud of Benjamin’s performance, marked by his engaging smile and bright (in tune!) singing voice. But we were... Read more
Last week, writing for Everyday Feminism, Erin Tatum offered a terrific list of 10 Ways to Avoid Everyday Ableism. My favorite item is #9: Stop Calling Us Inspirational (which implies that the lives of people with disabilities must be so horrible that the mere fact that we get out of bed in the morning is laudable). But a group of friends, all of whom have significant experience with living with disabilities that affect us or those we love, had some disagreement about #2:... Read more
In honor of National Adoption Month, I’m featuring below an excerpt from Love You More: The Divine Surprise of Adopting My Daughter by Jennifer Grant. Love You More tells the story of how Jen and her husband David adopted their fourth child, Mia, from Guatemala. The book also does an excellent job of addressing questions, concerns, and myths about adoption. I was especially impressed with Jen’s discussion of some of adoption’s ethical quandaries, such as the fact that grinding poverty, not lack of... Read more
There was a mass shooting last week that went uncovered by the national news. It took place in a barber shop in Detroit, where a group of men gambling in a back room were targeted by a gunman with a high-powered rifle. Three men died, all of them from a single family. As writers on the Huffington Post and Think Progress have speculated, the lack of national interest in this case probably stems from it happening in a struggling inner... Read more
In my online group of women writers, we’ve been discussing Kat Stoeffel’s article on New York Magazine’s “The Cut” blog about women and online self-promotion. Aptly titled “Here’s This Thing I Wrote About Women and Self-Promotion,” Stoeffel’s piece outlines the tension between women needing to promote our work in a freelance, online economy and our discomfort with bold, almost aggressive promotional language that we’ve been taught is unfeminine and unappealing. So we are likely to say, “Here’s this little thing I wrote,”... Read more
It was a trick of the light, I knew. But oh, what a trick. Driving home on a November evening as a cold front swept in, clearing away the day’s heavy, damp air, I saw on my right the western sky blazing, glowing, turning even the dull brown oak leaves flaming gold. On my left, a rainbow, brilliant and bright, visible end to end. I kept expecting the spectacle to vanish, to wash away into a regular early evening sky.... Read more
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