There are lots of dragonflies here. I didn’t like them as a child but think they’re sweet now. One of them hitched a ride on the back of a friend while we hiked this morning. This one is enjoying the stained glass reflected on the wall of the chapel.

1. I’m leaving for a weeklong writing retreat in 11 hours. The weather report is high of 81, low of 61… all week.
And the schedule consists of:
Breakfast
Lunch
Dinner
Optional Evening Activity
As I noted on Facebook, it seems almost sinful. But I intend to sin boldly that grace may abound.
2. We had a picnic dinner at the pool […]

For you, for me, for the 21st century church, for a fast-paced, interconnected world:

From The Art of Non-Conformity, a blog I really like

“Stupid eh? Yeah, I’m stupid. Stupid like a fox!”

Two of my favorite bloggers have started blogging a little more in recent days. One of them was reflecting on her recent Facebook- and Twitter-sized thoughts, and feeling the need for some longer-form pondering. I definitely feel that shift in myself. I’m FBing much less than I […]

A few years back, C wrote and illustrated a story called “How Mommy and Daddy Got Their Cats.” I’ll try to scan the pages sometime, it’s cute. From the time R and I got married, we wanted a couple of cats, but the place we lived in didn’t allow them. The landlord relented the following […]

A family is an emotional system.
Anxiety reverberates all over it. Nobody is protected from it.
That’s the beauty and the challenge of the thing.
It’s been hard, having R operating in a lower gear this week. I’ve said many times here and elsewhere that we don’t have much of a buffer in our lives. Our life, with […]

1. We thought it was a weird bite from his hike earlier in the week, and the fact that it kept getting worse had us very concerned. Shingles is a welcome (?) alternative to the deadly venom of a mysterious spider, say, or to flesh-eating bacteria.
2. It happened between jobs, and it looks like he’ll […]

So I’m doing this sermon series at Tiny Church in which we’re looking at those great “Sunday School” stories we learned as kids—or didn’t learn—and (hopefully) finding something fresh and deep in them. I should have called the series “Beyond Worksheets and Coloring Pages,” but anyway… I had people submit their favorites, so we’re doing […]

I’ve written before about the happiness project, and this month my intentions are mainly focused on writing. I’m trying to carve out a little time each day to write (something—anything), to work on my blogs (new one coming soon!), to read more poetry and fiction, and so forth. This is all in anticipation of going […]

A dear friend of mine is blogging her way through Nurture Shock, which I read a few months ago and liked a lot. I got it from the library and since it’s so new, with a long list of holds, I had to read it quickly, so I’m glad that she’s going through the book […]

From most recent to least…
The bandaid floating in the pool is fail.
SC state senator Knotts, commenting on a candidate for governor who was raised Sikh: “We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.” Stay Classy, South Carolina!
C: “AW MAN! All this lightning means I can’t […]

Some friends of mine are creating fantasy to-do lists. I’ve decided to limit mine to summer—I have a Life List but it’s too unwieldy to distill down into an actual post.
I also snuck in some things I will actually do this summer, and some things I have a good chance of doing, along with stuff […]