Of all the chores, I loathe grocery shopping the most. There are just so many steps involved—making a list (which involves a check of the fridge, the cabinets, and the calendar), pushing a heavy cart up and down aisles (and inevitably, all the way back to the produce section from the freezer aisle when I realize I forgot onions), then coming home and putting everything away (including washing the grapes and taking various snack foods out of their boxes to... Read more
It has become a cultural cliché, how our children are bombarded with efforts to raise their self-esteem by, for example, giving every kid on the team a trophy. The problem, of course, is that not every kid is a great tee-ball or basketball or whatever player (I can attest to this from experience as a parent on many a sideline). Not everyone deserves a trophy for being great at whatever, because not every kid is great. Giving every kid a... Read more
I have a cover article in the current issue of the Christian Century that summarizes the story I tell in my book and outlines my take on how narrative, or story-based ethical reflection can help us learn humility as well as avoid making people’s complicated stories into morality tales. It begins: In the wee hours of a late August morning, I sat exhausted but wide awake beside the bed of my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter. A pink fiberglass cast stretched... Read more
We live in a heavily wooded neighborhood with an unfortunate preponderance of oak trees. Oaks are one of the last trees to lose their leaves, which generally turn brown rather than the spectacular golds and reds of other species. This means that we often end up with piles of brown leaves buried under the winter’s first snowfall. The oaks also pelt our yard, driveway, and occasionally our heads with acorns. There is a down side to living on Oak Ridge... Read more
This is an updated version of a piece originally published as an op ed in the Hartford Courant in October 2008. As the voices clamoring for the annual theft of Halloween candy from kids grow louder and more self-righteous, I decided to dust this off and run it again. I was emboldened by the New York Times’s ethicist, who responded last week to a reader’s question about whether it is ethical for dentists to collect Halloween candy and then donate... Read more
At my Episcopal church’s Sunday service a few weeks ago, we read Psalm 137 aloud. This psalm is a lament about God’s people being exiled in Babylon, forced to sing for their captors. The opening line is familiar to many of us: “By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.” It goes downhill from there, ending with an earnest plea for God to vindicate God’s people and allow them to dash the heads of... Read more
This is a photo of nothing more than the blue sky over my daughter’s middle school. I took the photo as I sat waiting to pick her up yesterday. Just before I took it, I looked up to see a huge hawk drifting on the currents right smack in the middle of that patch of blue. I watched the hawk for a few minutes, mesmerized and calmed by its smooth flight, before thinking of snapping a picture. And of course,... Read more
A little more than a year ago, I wrote that I believe the prevalent notion of the “overscheduled child” to be a myth. It’s not that children aren’t overscheduled; many of them are (at least in suburban and wealthier urban communities where children have many extracurricular opportunities and parents can afford them). The myth, I argued, is that children’s schedules are packed to the limit by anxious parents who want our children to get into the best colleges and be... Read more
Two fellow bloggers on the Patheos Progressive Christian Channel held a polite but pointed discussion last week on whether the bodily, physical resurrection of Jesus really happened. Here are the basics of the argument; click through to read the blog posts in their entirety: Tony Jones is a Minneapolis-area theologian known for his leadership within and contributions to the so-called “emerging church” tradition. Marcus Borg is a retired theologian and member of the 1990s “Jesus Seminar”—a group of theologians who used a... Read more
I am taking the week off from producing any new writing. Instead, I am doing a top-to-bottom clean up and clean out of our house. As we move into the season of colder weather and lots and lots of celebrations (all three kids have birthdays between now and January), I’m pining for a little more space, a little less clutter. In honor of my week of dealing with the stuff that comes along with living with three non-adults, I am... Read more
Ellen Painter Dollar
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