A True Story from Home The church sanctuary hummed, moms herding their kids in from nursery, guys in khakis talking deer hunting, and a blonde boy who got away, darting between folks’ legs with a Sunday school paper in hand. Anna stood at the front row, looking across the aisle to where her friends were … Continue reading Walking on Water
A True Story from Home I remember Frank as an old man, always kneeling in some corner to measure or drill, always doing it quietly with trembly hands. I remember staring at the nub where I’d heard he’d lost a finger to a chop saw, and wondering if it was still lying in his shop … Continue reading The Man Who Built the Lord’s House
It happens every eight seconds, they say, but it’s no less weird and wonderful. I’ve never seen a baby be born, but my big sister has— twelve of them, actually. She earned her birth assistant’s certificate because she’d grown up the oldest sister, the babysitter, the Meg March of the family. As a kid, she … Continue reading Winter In Her Womb
I was out for a walk yesterday, brown leaves hurrying across the street, when I met my neighbor Mrs. Brenda. Before she asked it, I knew her question: "How's your book?" she called over the whir of a leaf blower. She's an author herself, and when I told her I was breaking ground on a … Continue reading Upon A Year Inside the Conservatory
It’s Sunday morning and our pastor is there early, drinking his coffee, straightening the chairs in the sanctuary, and, I think, praying over them. The heater makes the ceiling creak as Jason and Courtney hold hands to pray before he’ll lead worship in a voice that sounds like Mark Hall’s from Casting Crowns, and she’ll … Continue reading Sunday Morning
FOR SALE--- White desk with scrolled drawers and just right for a little girl to grow up into— preferably someone who’ll write stories into its wood and not mind the dinks and bruises. I wrote my first novel on it, which also happened to be my last. I wrote my first few articles, then hundreds … Continue reading FOR SALE: Desk In Need of a Writer
This winter, I’ve been reading God’s Word when I sit in my house, and when I walk by the way, and when I lie down, and when I rise (Deut. 6:7). I decided in January to take up the whole Story of Scripture and try reading from Creation to the last "Amen" in just two … Continue reading Sourdough and the Psalms
The winds have turned cold, and I've been itching to get out in them, so I walked down to the greenhouse last week where I found a surprise among the wreckage (summer storms tore the tarps from the frames, leaving the house half-naked and pooled with rainwater): A beautiful bouquet of kale grew right where … Continue reading Kale Soup and the Sea
If I could find the stamina, I’d like to pick up Metaxas’s big biography and sit down with Dietrich Bonhoeffer for the rest of the summer, reading his words, his wisdom, his sermons, his German heritage, his spy work against Hitler, his imprisonment, his love story, his death. History is one of the things I … Continue reading Two Legs on God’s Earth
I'm thankful for books. Here are the ones on 2020's shelf--- all forty of them, and each was good and glory-reflective in its unique way. (I've linked to Goodreads, where you can thumb through each book a little more.) Cheating Death by Larry Kaniut The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis The Return of the … Continue reading 40 Books on My Shelf
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