October 2011
23 posts
Food Heaven
I spent today cooking. All day cooking. For thirty minutes I took a break, put my feet on a couch cushion and watched the Gators lose to Georgia. Then, back at the cooking.
Justin and I had asked a friend, an ex-chef and food guy extraordinaire, to walk us through some techniques (making sauces, de-boning chicken, trussing) and, to our delight, he created an all-day cooking menu. We chopped...
“The truth will set you free but first it will make you miserable.”
The Tragedy of Being Too Cool
So, this Friday I skipped down to San Antonio with my new totally delightful friend Karen to check out the Women of Faith conference, a conference just about every woman on earth has attended at some point in the last twenty years.
It’s weird that I go to so many conferences because I am not what you’d call a conference person. Primarily, I don’t socialize with strangers....
“I wanted to be a speaker but I didn’t have anything to speak about.”
– Andy Andrews
I wrote this very sentence (replace “speaker with “writer” and put it in the present tense) in my journal three weeks before my brother died.
I remember talking to Justin about the difficulty of being a Christian writer because, I said, for the Christian,...
God is Little (and Big)
My daughter Eve prayed last night, “God, You are little and big.”
It’s my favorite thing she says to Him, a statement of praise she believes from the top of her white haired head to the bottom of her pudgy toes.
God who smiles in flowers and puppies and children is little, little like Eve.
God, shaper of canyons, painter of skies, protector of the little, is big, big like a...
“An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, “If I...”
– -Timothy Keller
This week I’m writing about the possibility of worshiping our clothes. No, not necessarily our clothes, perhaps clothes in general, or maybe a brand of clothes. “Brand worship,” after all, springs from the common vernacular beside phrases like “on the altar...
A few months ago we visited a nearby church on a Wednesday night. After class, we picked up the girls who simply could not contain their excitement/fascination/fear after hearing the story of the fall in Genesis 3.
Eve said repeatedly, “That’s a baaaaaad snake.”
In the car on the way home we heard London whispering. Justin leaned back and heard this:
I’m sorry God.
I...
Found this thought about communion scribbled in an old journal:
Communion is a place where we imbibe life, a fill-up.
I often wish we could eat until we were full—it’s tough to find satisfaction in a corner of cracker and a half sip of juice. Why not eat and eat and eat; drink to the cup’s bottom and refill? Why not feel in our bellies what we feel in our hearts? Full.
I Cannot Wear This
I am twelve years old standing in front of my grandfather’s bureau, a messy, change-cluttered wooden dresser topped with a three way mirror. Completely still, I assess myself from the farthest corners of my eyes. Perplexed, angry, and resolute, I tell my mother, “I am not wearing this.”
This is a navy blue sailor dress peppered with tiny gold anchors, its oversized white lapels...
My Papa, Storyteller
I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandfather lately as he’s slowly becoming less and less tightly tethered to this world. I am missing him already.
Last night I remembered writing something on my most recent visit to his house. After a few hours of searching, I found it:
Papa tells London a Banner story as she sits in his lap holding her horses, lamp light washing across their...
A Love Blessing
Every three months my church family gathers together at a house or park to celebrate our newest members, men and women who’ve recently been baptized. We pray for them, offer blessings over them, and sing their favorite songs (we eat too). It’s one of my absolute favorite things.
We call it a Plus 1 and usually well over a hundred people show up.
Today I ran across a blessing I...
Book Review: Sky Jethani's WITH
Let me start out by saying, I LOVED Skye Jethani’s book The Divine Commodity. I thought it was smart, elegant, practical, important—everything a book should be. With, his follow-up effort, is not as good. But it’s good. Very good.
With focuses on five potential ways of relating to God. Jethani suggests that most church people are living FOR, FROM, OVER, or UNDER God instead of...
“In… Out… In… Out…” I chant like a warm, motherly boot camp instructor.
“Eve, move your legs.”
“You can’t stop, London. In… Out… In…”
They look at me with blank faces. Eve kicks her feet out giddily but forgets to pull them in. When she does, it’s too late, and the sudden movement jerks her out of...
Good Work →
I do not work. But I work. Because my work is slightly unconventional and a little hodge podgey I’ve always struggled to see it as truly valuable.
Yes, raising my kids is a God-glorifying thing. But what about the other stuff I spend most of my day doing, stuff like sweeping and laundry and errand running? What about the hours I spend alone at my computer typing words into a box? Words...
Why I Love Costumes (And Hate Disguise)
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” (Matthew 7:15)
Disguises are not positively portrayed in the Bible. First there’s the Gibeonites, deceiving Israel with old clothes and worn out shoes. Next, Tamar taking off her mourning clothes and putting on a prostitute’s veil to trick her father-in-law....
“I can’t be the superhero God wants me to be if all I think about is...”
– Wise words from Larry Boy in the VeggieTales audio drama Bad Apple
What I've Learned from New Christians (Spoiler: A...
I love new Christians. I love that they’ve chosen the life they’re living.
Bill Greer, Matt Cross, Kathy Hernandez, Neil Grupp, Bill and Becky Duplain—In every case, seeing these people come to know Christ and then witnessing the transformation of their hearts has transformed me.
New Christians teach me to read the Bible with my eyes open, to ask questions, and see truth. They...
I love that Jesus calls Himself the bread of life. I love it, because unlike light and water and the word, bread is something men made. It’s ours. Sure, God gave us all the puzzle pieces, but in a stroke of brilliance, we put them together. Perfectly. Bread is one of our finest inventions—better, I think, than the wheel or the eyed needle.
When God says, “I’m the...
I held a baby last night before he’d even turned half a day old. I rubbed his peach hair head and cooed a lullaby into little red ears. His hands were hidden in the tight swaddle, so no fist bump.
Babies.
Crazy, right?
Yesterday that little boy lived inside a woman. A small woman. He ate through a tube connected to his belly button. He swam in goo. And tonight he’s squinting his...
What My Eight-Year-Old Self Taught Me About...
A few nights back I started writing about Halloween costumes, that’s what I had in mind, but almost immediately my hand and the pencil I held wandered away, telling me a story I hadn’t heard in years.
I wrote about being eight and being nine. About my grandmother dying. About attending her funeral on Christmas Eve. I wrote about sitting in my grandfather’s lap a year later,...
Why I Hate the Middle of Practically Everything
Quitting is easy.
I read one of those inspirational quotes the other day, the variety that says if you can find the courage to start you can find the courage to finish, something like that. I think that might possibly be hamster poop wrapped in baloney.
I’m a starter. Not a finisher. I can muster all the courage I’d ever need to launch a thousand ships, but when it comes time to see...
