Family
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moreGone Fishing
On Saturday, June 09 th, 2007You should go, too … (or: How to not waste a Saturday. Or a life).HT: Dear Debi Lord, tomorrow is Saturday. The smudges on the windows and the weeds in the garden will wait today. You’ve given me more important things to do.
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moreAncient Limbs
On Tuesday, May 29 th, 2007Old beams span the heights of God’s limitless house and rain softly falls through the arch of cathedral’s ancient limbs. Sunday morning, after the peals of the bells of country church just a mile to the west rang across the fields and through the woods, we too answer the call to come. Our pew finds us on the hills beside the cemetery, where the sheep graze ...
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moreOne Piece Life
On Friday, May 25 th, 2007Tonight, my Mama and I make our annual trek to the quilts of the MMC Relief Auction . Thus, a reposting from the archives of The Sacred Everyday: The last weekend of every May finds me among the colors and Mennonites of New Hamburg. Donning white gloves, I finger, stroke, trace. Rows of fabrics cut and sewn, countless seams and angles quilted and stitched, hang ...
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moreOf Dispensers and Thermostats
On Thursday, May 24 th, 2007Elizabeth Elliot: “Each Christian is a dispenser… All that I have is meant to contribute to the needs of others, and what I need will be supplied through God’s dispensers. Thus He unifies and harmonizes the whole church, which is his body, making each dispenser indispensable, for each dispenses a grace which is peculiarly his.” ...
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moreLittle Stuff
On Wednesday, May 23 rd, 2007The kitchen filled with sobs and accusations. I comforted, then quietly sought the alleged perpetrator out in the orchard, admonishing myself as I walked to hold my tongue, to talk less and listen more. Under the blossoming apple, I spun: defenses, cross examinations, and dizzying oratorical circles. I took a deep breath, offered up a prayer for providential gu...
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moreFamily
On Thursday, May 03 rd, 2007Yesterday was a milestone day. From my tractor seat, I looked out across the field. Three tractors moved together across the northeast corner: my husband and our two eldest sons, a few days shy of 12 and 10. While I cultivated in long sweeping swaths with the International Maxxum and the 30 foot wide cultivator, our third son beside me, the older boys and their...
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morePeace is a Person
On Monday, April 30 th, 2007Peace isn’t a place we live in. The house—and me—spins: laundry, school lessons, library books, basketball games, bills, phone calls, meals, dishes, women’s Bible Studies, diapers. Too often, I am dizzy: Anyone know how to get off? In the whirl of it all I crave retreat, sanctuary, monastery. In the milestone of my thirtieth birthday, my sister-in-la...
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moreMaking a Peace Place: Godly Anger Management for Children
On Saturday, April 21 st, 2007During this week of Spring Organizing, Ordering and Ora et Labora, we created a “Peace Place,” a place for one feeling agitated and angry to seek peace and pursue it. How to create a Peace Place: Godly Anger Management for Children … 1. An out-of-the way, quiet place with comfortable seating (we used an antique desk) 2. Mount Doorpost’s...
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Raising Lovers: Only Work that Matters
On Thursday, April 19 th, 2007Beuchner: “There is no neutral corner in your human encounters…You either make people feel a little better or leave them a little worse. You define your faith and moral posture in the ordinary stuff of your daily routine. The Kingdom belongs to those, as artless as children, who love others simply and directly, without thinking about anything but them. The inheritor...
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moreDay’s Evaluation
On Tuesday, April 03 rd, 2007“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.” ~R.L.Stevenson
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moreEyes to See
On Friday, March 23 rd, 2007I wash potatoes at the sink, scrubbing away earth. Out the window, the front porch flag wrap itself in the spring breeze, the cheer, “Count Your Blessings” faded, the edges frayed and tattered after a long winter. I am still trying to see, trying to count them, anyways. Perched on stools on the other side of the island, like a string of chirping sparrows, t...
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This is Your Life
On Wednesday, February 14 th, 2007“I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse.So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God,by obeying His voice,and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life… “ ~Deu. 30:20
