Every year on Father’s Day I am reminded of that wretched bygone statistic of a child’s chances of being Christian in his adult years. It was something depressing. If the mother takes the child to church–hauling him up out of bed, feeding him breakfast, shoving him in the car, and wrangling him in the pew–she has something like only fifty percent chance of any of it sticking. (I’m making up the numbers because I can’t at all remember what study... Read more
Need to be up and flying along. So much to do. So much to pack and clean. So many lists. Here’s the podcast. A bad week of news–the Orlando shooting, gun control, and women in the draft. Here is something good by Mollie Hemingway. And something encouraging. And something theological. And this sobbingly difficult workout I’ve been doing all week. And the delicious pho we cooked this week. Have a nice day, if you like that sort of thing. Read more
[Obligatory Picture at the Alamo] One We can officially call this whole holiday a success, having made pilgrimage to the Alamo and bought some useful items in the gift shop. Until that critical moment, whatever else we undertake to experience, we can’t really say we’ve been on vacation. I’m not sure why this is, especially since this year we walked through in about ten minutes, and then spent fifteen minutes in deciding between the pocket knife, the leather coin purse,... Read more
Still, just to pick up in the middle of yesterday’s thought, I don’t love the term ‘self care’. We’ve all fallen, me included, into this modern pathology speak that makes everything a health issue. I say this after having read about three dozen articles about whether or not cholesterol is good, how much vitamin D I should be getting, the proper amounts of salt for a human person to consume, and what terrible things happen to you if you don’t... Read more
I’m not ready to start thinking about work again, being only, strangely enough, in the middle of this very extended holiday. But I am about to turn in all my school reports. And I have made a detailed book list for the fall. And two friends were chatting away about bullet journaling (which turns out not to be at all what I imagined). And then Bearing Blog wrote about how she divvies up her time and keeps her mental health... Read more
Recently a friend, who I admire very much, posted that she is letting a streak of her glorious hair go gray. It’s not that she’s against dye, or anything like that, but that she is undertaking to accept where she is now. Then she asked the question, ‘how are you practicing self acceptance?’ It was a general question for all of her friends, not me, I imagine, in particular, but I nevertheless screamed in my own quiet mind, ‘Are you... Read more
My holiday bubble is being threatened by reality despite the great pains I have taken to preserve it. While the Internet was roiling itself into a frenzy, I got to sit in church and be flayed open by the word of God. And while the Internet began to frantically devour itself, I sat around a big round table with all my kiddos tasting the delights of the sea. Much later in the evening, after I had hidden massive portions of... Read more
Facebook, as I struggled out of sleep this morning, informed me that today is Children’s Day and commanded me to rejoice. “Post something about children’s day,” they said, with a party hat and a balloon. “But every day is children’s day,” I muttered, and switched on my online audio bible. I am nearing the end of Joshua. It’s slow going, mostly because I haven’t been listening because of being on #holiday. Any kind of change in routine utterly wrecks my... Read more
Here I am waking up from a late morning stupor. We’ve done a podcast, listened to the children fight with each other, and are now ready to do something exciting, whatever that may be. First, up, here’s the podcast. This week we answer comments I didn’t put up because, well, never mind why. There’s a skip in the middle where a child began beating on the door and shouting. Also, I cut Matt off in the middle of an answer... Read more
One I kind of feel like I should never have to write again, having reached the pinnacle of human existence. I was about to cut into a large and succulent shrimp when I got a little ding on my phone informing me that I had an email. Thank goodness I have my phone with me always, even when I’m spending an entire day alone with my husband, or I would not have had any idea until the evening. Just to... Read more
Preventing Grace
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