All of these works I find true and beautiful. Each inspire me in different ways. Some resonate with my deepest longings or sooth my deepest wounds. Others seem to pull me out of myself, while others warm my soul with memory.
Fragments on Memory-Ours and God’s (or “God Sees. God Hears.”)
I've needed so much hope, and honestly as someone who has struggled with depression for years and then the health issues of the past few months, it's been quite hard. Some of my biggest fears are being forgotten or not believed, of having no voice or significance, of being disposable. That may be rather self-absorbed, but God knows we are dust, and His promises assure us of His faithfulness. The past few months, years really, but especially the past few months have been filled with reminders of Who He Is, that He is the only God, His name is Jealous, and there is no other Savior. He will fight for me (though not always in the way I want). It is as if anything that is not Him, even good things, is being stripped away.
On Love for Country, Love for Neighbor
We need an appropriate ordering to our souls as well as our loves.
22 Books for the Spiritual Life
Over the past fifteen years the devotional and literary aspects of my spiritual life have taken different forms...
Books I’m Currently Reading and Need to Finish
I remember being in about fifth or sixth grade when I first realized that I was reading multiple books at once (and thinking that maybe it wasn't such a good idea.)
When You Haven’t Been Writing Much Lately
A few weeks before Christmas, I thanked a friend for posting a blog interview featuring a writer who was also a busy wife and mother. (You can actually access the article here.) The article was truly encouraging, and my friend’s response was meant to be: he asked if I would be interested in being interviewed myself. There was one problem: me. Once more, I was going to have to confess to someone far more successful that I hadn’t been writing lately and therefore wouldn’t be much of an inspiration. As I clicked send, I hoped my brevity wouldn’t reveal the grumpiness and defeat the offer had unwittingly triggered.
A Mad Tea Party (Part One)
One of my favorite stories has become Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I first met Alice a few summers ago when I learned I would be reading Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There with my eighth graders. Naturally, I thought Alice and I might need to become better acquainted. Sixth months later, I adapted both novels for the stage (with a greater emphasis on Wonderland and a few beloved scenes and characters from Looking-Glass), using Martin Gardner’s annotated version.
The Daily Battle, Death, and Resurrection
Regret can stem from a couple of sources: you can say or do or believe something wrong or stupid, someone else can say or do something wrong or stupid, or it can be a bit of both.
When God Makes You Small: The Beauty of Being Insignificant
Often, those things we love most, have to be destroyed.
When God Makes You Small: The Beauty of Being Insignificant (Introduction)
As with auditions for a play, we don't always get the part in life we think we want. Flute begged his director to not make him play a woman, while Bottom desired to play all the parts at once. Jo March wanted to be a boy. Lucy Pevensie wanted to be her older, beautiful sister Susan. Mark Studdock craved inclusion in the inner circles of his work, and his wife Jane despised any ideas of roles in their marriage. Moses begged God to send someone else, and then that someone else, Aaron, turned around years later and asked Moses why he had to be the one in charge. Peter asked Jesus what he planned to do with John. James and John wanted to have the right-hand position in God's kingdom.
I want to be Gandalf.
Votary of the Blue Flower 