The girls are getting dressed:
Me: Ooh, who’s going to get dressed first? M has her pajama pants off, but C has already put her socks on.
C: I don’t want this to be a race, because when I don’t win I freak out.
M: That’s OK C, I’ll go really really slow.

And that’s pretty much everything you […]

Autumn
Rainer Maria Rilke
The leaves fall, fall as if from far away,
like withered things from gardens deep in sky;
they fall with gestures of renunciation.
And through the night the heavy earth falls too,
down from the stars, into the loneliness.
And we all fall. This hand must fall.
Look everywhere: it is the lot of all.
Yet there is one who […]

To become fully human means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive into some concrete common good. It means growing gentler toward human weakness. It means practicing forgiveness of my and everyone else’s hourly failure to live up to divine standards. It means learning to forget myself on a regular basis in order to […]

I had a friend who had an unnatural talent for finding four-leaf clovers. She’d just look down and there they’d be.
C seems to have that talent too. She’s found four six in the last two weeks. Now they don’t all jump out at her—she will often crouch for a few minutes at a time, […]

Since this is my kid memory book, I am taking a break from my break to post these:
1. Had a milestone moment yesterday: J bonked his head on something, and when I got up to comfort him, I saw C get to him first, giving him a big hug and speaking soothingly to him. For […]

I love the show Speaking of Faith. My friend who knows Krista Tippett says she works like mad and that I really don’t want to be here, and yet… I still want to be her.
I’m listening to a podcast about the Exodus story, with Rabbi Avivah Zornberg talking about the story of Moses and the […]

This is her first unassisted writing.
And… some recent conversations:
Me: C, what do you do when people make fun of you? Does that ever happen?
C: I just ignore them.
Me: How do you do that? I think that’s hard to do.
C: I can hear their voices, I just don’t answer them.
Me: Why do you think people do […]

This blog might have more than its share of warmed-up leftovers and Stouffer’s frozen lasagna this month, as I tend to the deadlines I mentioned in the my previous post.
I am also leading worship for the women’s conferences at God’s Retreat Center in the Texas Hill Country, and am told that the liturgy needs to […]

On the way home last night after seeing “The Dark Night” in IMAX:
R: It’s harder to watch movies like that now, because I have this visceral reaction at seeing children threatened or in danger.
RM: Good.

The time will come when with elation
you will greet yourself at your own arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, the stranger who has […]

Quoted in a letter to the editor in the latest Christian Century:
Things are set up as contraries that are not even in the same category… The opposite of radical is superficial; the opposite of liberal is stingy; the opposite of conservative is destructive. Thus I will describe myself as a radical conservative liberal.
…Beware of […]

I am doing my Getting Things Done weekly review that I do maybe once a month (so why do I still call it a weekly review?), and this was in my inbox. I have no idea how it got there. I think the man I now share my office with put it there.
——
This is not […]

First, I recommend Gene Weingarten’s article about his experiment of reading and watching pundits for 24 hours straight. (Registration may be required)
Second, I share the following, which I did not write:
NEWSCASTER BOB: Good evening, and welcome to the news. A disturbing revelation tonight, as reports indicate the abusive treatment of prisoners in United States custody […]

You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, “Are you Martin Luther King?” And I was looking down writing, and I said, “Yes.” And […]

In the car after dinner, playing hide and seek with the moon*
covering eyes
mun,
doo,
dee,
[skips four and five]
siss,
mennen,
eight,
nie,
ten,
nennen
tel
duh-dee
fuh-dee
fee!
[uncovers eyes, looks out window]
Deh is!
*Yes, I am serious. She brings the Cute.

I am on maternity leave! Woo-hoo!
——————
But there is a smattering of stuff I agreed to close the loop on, unless the baby comes sooner than that. So I’m not really done. But I am no longer going in to work.
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We have lots of Thanksgiving goodness in our fridge, none of which was cooked by us. […]