You got to leave a tender moment alone. ~Billy Joel ‘Mom, let me see your phone.’ My middle unhooked her arm from around my waist to square up her fingers like a frame around an enormous patch of flowers in every color there is. I know what she’s doing. She’s my artist and her eye can’t not see beauty whether sitting right on the surface or by…
They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Acts 2:42, The Message ‘Why do we have to go?’ ‘Because they’re family that’s why.’ They’re weird, there’s always lima beans, and I would rather stay home. I only say this in my head about the family reunion because it’s rude as a child to say…
I can’t remember for sure but it feels like my first introduction to Jesus was probably to his clear set of rules. In my world of chaos, the thought of some sort of blueprint was appealing even if I thought early on most of the consequences for rule-breaking would be hell. As the years and I both grew, I read about how Jesus wept, how much he liked…
This is a wonderful day. I’ve never seen this one before. ~Maya Angelou I’m not sure if it was because of Erma Bombeck or the Kings of Leon begging me from the radio to Waste a Moment, but yesterday evening found me and my youngest pulled over on the side of the road mooing at the new spring calves. They watched us with their curious moon eyes…
The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong in the broken places. ~Ernest Hemingway ‘I hope you are sitting down. Because I need to tell you my story.’ This, the first line of an email from a woman whose soul I recognized as my sister even before I hugged her for the first time in the year before. Life in different time zones hadn’t so far afforded us…
Just a few little things that… lighten my load make me laugh stir my heart make me think bring me joy…. I think you might like them, too. Good Pictures Bad Pictures: Porn-Proofing Today’s Young Kids Kristen A. Jensen, MA and Gail Poyner, PhD Porn. Go ahead. Roll it around in your mouth like a poo sandwich. Make the face that goes along with that and come…
Hey Mama, As ever any morning and not excepting this one, my pilot was set to auto in the stop-go-stop-please-just-for-all-the-holy-go school traffic. Running two fingers around a twist of hair much the way my mind rounded the day’s tasks, my eyes skipped in light fashion along every different-same face in every same-different car caught up in the mechanics…
Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words. ~Saint Francis of Assisi Occasionally as parents, we begin to see the sweet buds of good fruit of long years of the hard labor you sometimes wonder is worth it. While my offspring are still a pack of wild talking jackals when it comes to eating, they are starting to nail proper restroom courtesy. Upon exit of the central…
‘Things are worse than they’ve ever been.’ Determined to drink in the sights and sounds of the same moment and long line I occupied, these words rode the good waves of strong coffee in the air and fixed themselves inside my ear. Whether curious or nosey I prefer not to say and I pretended a casual peek back to locate the I-guessed-elder owner of the gravelly omen…