Tim and I are fixing up a 33-year-old rocking chair. My mother gave it to us when our son was born. We are gifting it to our daughter for the birth of her son. But first, we have to restore it. We started with a good power-washing. We’ll sand it to a fine finish and then I’ll paint it and outfit it with plush pillows. We live in culture that has little respect for restoration. A whiplash culture that is... Read more
He sat silent throughout the presentation and the dozens of hard questions that followed. Then leaning over his knees and rubbing his hands together, he said, All you people listen up. You can’t change anything. This book it don’t matter. People have been this way thousands of years and will be this way thousands of years to come. The best you can do is mind your own affairs. You can’t change people. You could lock them up You could kill... Read more
I’ve published two books with mainstream publishers, one with an academic press, and two with a Christian publisher. I like to think I know my way around this business by now. The basic differences between the publishers had little to do with anything other than money. Some committed more money to marketing. Some paid bigger advances. Some were simply overwhelmed by tremendous internal upheavals — job firings and the such. But every single publisher I’ve ever worked with has treated... Read more
(Editor’s note) My friend Bert Montgomery (now a blogger for the HuffPo) has been urging me to check out Pam Hogeweide’s blog. Pam and I tried to meet up this past Feb. at the Justice Conference in Portland but somehow missed each other. Pam wrote a terrific post this week about her Failed Christian Marriage. Pam’s post was sparked by Rachel Held Evans, who is blogging this week about Mutuality. Pam’s post prompted the following: What I remember best about the... Read more
He looked like Woody Allen with longer hair, albeit still balding on top. He wore all black, which seems to be the go-to color for Satanists of any era. The better to hide in the shadows with, my dear. He was handing out business cards at the bookstore in Olympia on Saturday. I sent Tim to the car to retrieve mine this morning. “Honey, there’s a black business card on the passenger seat could you run go get it... Read more
Can we talk? I mean about something so personal you probably haven’t divulged the truth to your very best friend. I’m not talking about sex. Heck most of us know more about our friends’ sex lives than we ever needed or wanted to know. I’m talking about that thing that we often aren’t even honest about with our spouses — I’m talking about the very verboten matter of money. No, I do not want to know all the details of your... Read more
It seems like everyone in my life drinks their breakfast. My daughters do it. My nephews do it. My editors even do it. They swear that their drinking habit is one of the healthiest things they’ve ever done. lifted from Andy Meisenheimer’s Facebook page Juicing they call it. When I told my daughter Konnie I couldn’t wait to get home from book tour, couldn’t wait to get back to a regular schedule and start eating the bounty of the garden... Read more
This weekend marks the anniversary of the murder of Karly Sheehan. Had she not been killed by her mother’s boyfriend, Karly Sheehan would be celebrating the end of yet another year of elementary school. It’s easy to imagine Karly lugging around a backpack, chatting with classmates about her summer plans, which surely would include yet another trip to Ireland to visit with her Grandpa and Grandma Sheehan. The thought of going to school thrilled Karly. She was a curious child,... Read more
On clear days, like yesterday, Taylor sees Mt. Rainier on her afternoon drive home. My niece works here. It’s a two-room school. One of the few such schools remaining in Washington State. The students at Evaline treat each other like family. No matter how old they get, they always feel like part of the Evaline family. As the family at Evaline, they work together & independently, the way a healthy family should. Respecting one another’s... Read more
Ann Voskamp wrote a thoughtful piece about perspective. In it she states “God is only up to good work.” That statement has the power to transform our lives, and this world, if only we believed it. But we don’t. Too often, too many of us most often expect that God’s up to no-good That he’s out to get us Pay us back for all our failures Such mentality is the result of sin. For all our sophistication we’ve never... Read more
Karen Spears Zacharias
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