8/5/10: Who are your favorite novelists? A couple of mine are Susan Howatch and Wendell Berry. Howatch writes wonderful, thick novels in which the characters wrestle with their personal besetting sins and temptations. I am continually amazed at the way she enters into the thought processes and motivations of a whole variety of characters, making each [...]
Favorite Authors
August 6, 2010
Perfection
August 6, 2010
8/5/10: In my Lectio Divina group today, we read Hebrews 10:14 – “By virtue of that one single offering, He has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom He is sanctifying.” Eternal perfection. My response was an incredulous, “Even me?” After all these years, knowing my continuing imperfection, I still struggle to believe – really [...]
Memories
August 6, 2010
8/2/10: We went the other day to look at our old house. It was a place where we made delightful memories, but now it is greatly changed. Other people have been there, and made their own memories, not so good, and the place seems dark and despondent. But here and there evidence of us remains [...]
Love
July 5, 2010
I have an assignment to write a short story themed on “love.” What a huge topic! How can I say anything new about it? How can I come up with a story that is not smarmy and trite? The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that everything is love – [...]
Solitude
June 4, 2010
Loneliness is part of the human condition. There is an intense loneliness that we all feel at times, and that, counter-intuitively, can only be remedied by solitude. It seems we can become so attuned to external stimuli that we lose contact with our own selves, and it is our own self for whom we are [...]
Puzzle Pieces
June 4, 2010
It is to me a marvel, the way seemingly disparate sources give us puzzle pieces that fit together into a unified whole. I seem to be developing a whole cosmology (or is the Spirit teaching me?) out of bits of various readings. Awhile back, in N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian and Surprised by Hope, I found [...]
Skunks and Such
May 12, 2010
Driving over to church today, we passed a dead skunk by the side of the road. It occurred to me that skunks are really quite pretty animals, with their shiny black fur and crisp white stripes. Then, of course, I thought of their smell. As far as I know, there is no creature that likes, [...]
Living With(out) Technology
April 2, 2010
I used to spend time just sitting and thinking. Did you? I’d get a cup of tea, and lounge on the sofa, and stare out the window. All kinds of thoughts would flow through my mind. Soon, I would notice something beautiful – the way light bounced around among leaves blown by a breeze; or [...]
Men
April 2, 2010
I’ve been thinking about men. No, not THAT way! Just wondering – in our day and age, how do boys learn to be men? How do we all understand what it means to be a man? The last few decades have brought us considerable angst about women, and what is valuable in women, and what [...]
Life in Prison
February 21, 2010
I talked today with a young man I know who is in prison for life. Whenever I see him or hear from him, I am struck anew by the tragedy of a man’s whole life lived literally in a small cage, without opportunity to work, learn, create, produce – except as he can scrape together [...]
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