Thanksgiving has tipped over into Advent, but nonetheless, I’m thankful for the following:
Wild rice salad, mashed potatoes with blue cheese and port caramelized onions, homemade rolls, pumpkin pecan pie (a double-decker delicacy)… and leftovers.
C’s grandparents who visited over the weekend. She warmed to “Pa” considerably, but was never quite sure about him. Might have been […]

I’m sure that gets the grandmothers’ attention!
Many of our friends with kids C’s age are either pregnant again, or have already had the second child. Let’s see if I can map out my mental journeying in relation to this.
Stage One. Good for them. Another child to love, a sibling for their first one, how […]

It’s been a long silence. As I told my sister-in-law recently, I haven’t felt much like writing. There’s almost too much to write about. Julia Cameron recommends writing stream of consciousness “morning pages” each day. I don’t live that kind of life right now, but I wish I did. I do feel the need from […]

The Peace of Wild Things
-Wendell Berry
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the […]

In our house the season of festivities begins in August: we have my husband’s birthday, then our wedding anniversary, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, my birthday, and now our daughter’s birthday in February. By mid-February there are no more celebrations and I get depressed because the holiday half of the year is over, until […]

1st Paper
2nd Cotton
3rd Leather
4th Flowers
5th Wood
6th Iron
7th Copper
8th Bronze
9th Pottery
10th Aluminum.
aluminum: a metal,
glimmering, malleable—
(malleable: able to be shaped—
shaped: fashioned and turned,)
sturdy in form, carefully filed down,
smoothed for days upon days:
on late-night couches,
along crashing waves,
beneath gilded aspens,
on a bluebonnet carpet,
amid blue-green […]

Spent Friday evening and Saturday all day at the church (helped lead the new member’s class, then preached at Saturday night service), then all Sunday morning of course. Witnessed some luminous moments. A couple in the new members’ class talked about giving birth to a child who was missing part of his brain. He was […]

<Gen X Rant…>
Several weeks ago the Diane Rehm Show was dealing with the new regulations in medical schools that limit the number of hours a medical resident can work each week to 80. That is not a typo. 80 hours a week is the limit, and that is an improvement over the past system, which […]

[You have probably discovered by now that titles are the bane of my existence.]
It’s Columbus Day, and the schools are off, which means that day care is closed as well. My daughter and I are home, and she is watching Sesame Street. How much blogging can I get done between now (Global Grover) and the […]

Most people agree that it’s inappropriate for parents to put extreme pressure on their kids to achieve, and it’s really inappropriate to try to live vicariously through them. You grownups had your chance to be a prima ballerina or an astronaut, the thinking goes, but your moment is over, and it’s fine to encourage your […]

Went to presbytery meeting today. Presbytery is the local governing body of the church, covering a geographic area that’s larger than a city, smaller than a state. The ministers and elders get together periodically because the Presbyterian Church is a connectional church–we’re beholden to one another, rather than being little autonomous congregations out there on […]

I received an e-mail recently from the president of the seminary I attended that one of my professors is dying. He was diagnosed with cancer recently and began chemo, but is now in hospice care.
Most of the people I have known who have died have died suddenly. I wonder what it is like to […]

You know what’s great about the church?
[Everybody hear that? It sounds a little like cricket song. It’s actually the sound of many people clicking quickly away from this page, because there’s no way there’s anything great about the church, and even if there were, they’re not interested in hearing it. Hey, it’s cool. Stop in […]

because today big bird told me to:
sing… sing a song…
sing out loud… sing out strong…
sing of good things…
(spice cookies and milk)
(the flowers on our kitchen table)
(shelter)
(Netflix)
not bad…
(faraway family)
(that no matter who wins the election, the other half of the country is spittin’ mad for four years)
(machiavellian reality tv)
(25-foot walls)
(hurricane debris)
(pettiness)
sing out happy…
(a decade of […]

I’m working on a sermon for this weekend, which if you’ve read anything about my writing process you know that ideas need to simmer in the Crock Pot for a while, and the process cannot be rushed. So in the spirit of mindless diversion while the stew comes together…
Who would play you in the […]

I wrote this a long time ago, but it became pertinent a couple of times today. I might post another time the reasons why, but in the meantime…
Do you know the daughters of Zelophehad?
If not, you should. These women have some serious chutzpah.
We meet then in the middle of the book of Numbers. Moses has […]

adornments
my daughter has a flair
for accessorizing
me;
a clean cotton sweatshirt?
a dressy dress?
“no! no! no! no!”
says the toddler designer
fussily.
i am a fashion disaster until
she leaves her mark.
first it was breastmilk
and spitup,
then formula,
applesauce,
cracker crumbs,
birthday cake.
then came phase II of her
evolving style:
stickers,
pencilmarks,
dirtprints,
a snagged thread,
a plastic firefighter’s hat.
i miss walking around in the world,
tidy. and yet,
it’s the look i’ve always […]

Yesterday was a great rev day. We had a day-long retreat/workshop at the church that went really well. There was a great energy to the place. It was also an intense 12-hour day for me, so I came home feeling good and tired.
I missed little she-who-is though. Last night I dreamed that I was at […]

Spent yesterday with two dear girlfriends, both of whom became moms in the last few months. What do new moms want to do while the dads are watching the kids? Go to a movie, and browse a bookstore. I suppose we missed the boat by neglecting to schedule a spa appointment, but an hour and […]

every woman my girl sees is
“mommy”:
i am in the club, of course,
but so are
airbrushed magazine heads,
grainy tabloid freaks,
taut TV anchors;
the Olympian on the podium,
the model selling coffee and leisure,
the anorexic child actor,
the American Idol,
mommy,
mommy,
mommy.
this is confusion, of course,
or developmental progress,
but she is increasingly convincing.
how does she know
they will teach her how to dress
and be a […]