So there’s been some discussion on my FB page about this article by Alfie Kohn, whose stuff I love, about the conventional wisdom that kids today are arrogant/entitled/overly coddled/rude/what have you. People have been complaining about this since time immemorial, and as he puts it in the article, “every generation is Generation Me when it’s […]

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 […]

I recently finished reading The Happiness Project, which I heartily recommend to people who like that sort of thing. (And you know if you do, right?) I’m pretty good about reading self-help books and then never getting around to doing anything they recommend. Am I lazy, or are most self-help books utter crap? You decide.
But […]

Last night I asked a question on Facebook that I’ve been pondering since preacher camp, but Facebook doesn’t lend itself to discussion so I am re-asking it here:
I’m still formulating the wording, but it has to do with potential. Does a person have some kind of social obligation to work to his or her fullest […]

R read my description of Christmas and said, “It all sounds so idyllic.”
That’s not my intention. I write down what I remember… or is it that I write down what I want to remember? And what is the difference?
I know what he means though. There’s a lot of little irritations and inconveniences in the […]

So I said the other day that a friend linked to this blog under my real name, even though this is an intentionally pseudonymous space.
All along I have been much more concerned about the real name –> blog scenario than the blog –> real name one. Readers of this blog could find out my […]

“Ambition is a morally neutral principle.”

Discuss.

C came down with the poopy pukey crud today. Ran a fever of 101. Now recent signs (ahem) suggest that M will be getting it soon.
Will J be next? Hope not, but he’s teething with a vengeance. Woke up every 2 hours last night.
R was able to take off half a day and be with […]

I went to hear Ann Patchett at the National Cathedral on Tuesday. She was speaking on creativity, her process of writing, and how the experience of writing fiction intersects with “real life.”
A few things that stuck out (quotes are approximate, it’s just easier to write in first person):
She didn’t know a thing about opera before […]

I had lunch with Laidback Clergypal today. We meet in little ‘burg between our two cities a few times a year. He has been at his church four years and is having some conversations with other congregations. One is a 1,000 member church in search of a head of staff. Ay caramba!
He is a great […]

You know that “pondering” is one of my favorite words.
One of my Writing Revs shared a piece about a recent vision quest experience she had, and how people would ask her about it by saying, “So didja have a great time?” How do you answer such a question? About a vision quest?
As ChaplainMom will attest […]

Back at work, back at preschool, back at daycare, and I’m not preaching until the 20th/21st. Life is good.
I’m having lunch with Listing Straight on Friday! Woohoo!
Had a nice birthday. R sent some gorgeous flowers to the church. We also had ice cream cake, though I’ve been craving pineapple upside-down cake for some reason, so […]

Because PPB did it and she’s a rock star.
The first line from the first post of each month this year:

I have to work hard to calculate what day it is according to the calendar; all I know is that the divine Miss M is five days old.
Yesterday was one of those freak-out days.
Excuse me, states […]

This started as a comment to the comments on the previous post but it just got too long. Proving that if blogging is good for anything, it’s good for driving a discussion firmly into the ground.
Point the First
Apropos of Songbird’s and Keith’s comments, it seems that real life lies on that great continuum between “perfect” […]

Some of you may have read or are familiar with the Five Love Languages books. In essence, each person has particular ways they prefer to give love and receive love: gifts, acts of service, physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation. These fall on some sort of continuum for each person. The trick is […]

Remember last week when I asked “why have I been spared” the illnesses? I know the world doesn’t work that way, but what was I thinking putting that in writing? [Cough, sniff]
The divine miss m is also sick–still, or again? R thinks it’s again–she appears to have what I have, which is not the same […]

So little she-who-is refused to say the pledge of allegiance in preschool today.
She’d been having a very off morning, and the teacher, a very gentle and sweet person, apparently “told her that I [the teacher] might need to talk to her mother [me] about it and she decided to cooperate.”
My thoughts, in approximate chronological order:

Whoa, […]

When you think about “what comes next” in your life’s work or career, and you picture yourself doing whatever usually “comes next” for people on your particular career trajectory, and that next thing feels interesting to you but you also feel a real No, or Not Now, about it, how do you assess whether that […]

Today
I had back-to-back meetings downtown today (WritingRevs, then Presbytery Uber-Committee) which allowed me to take the Metro, which I so vastly prefer to driving. It went without a hitch, except, in my unthinking haste to catch a train whose doors were closing, I stuck my arm and leg out to stop it and remembered too […]

Peeking in again…
Update: I finished the article and eagerly await the 80 smackers coming to me.
Now I am working on my sermon. In the text God says to Solomon, “Ask for what I should give you.”
Solmon asks for “an understanding mind.” My question for all of you out on the internets, whether you believe in […]