This week, our tree transitioned from pieces in a cardboard box into a twinkling memorial to holy days. Some were ecstatic to decorate. Some wished they were doing something else. The parents were tired and only started because they knew it wouldn’t get easier with delay. We needed the lavishness of white lights and [...]
We each have a unique way of seeing the world, on this side of eternity. This week a friend’s glasses broke. And while he waited for his replacements to come in, he had to navigate a few days without his glasses. I have a light prescription that helps when I’m reading up close. I [...]
Coffee cup perched on the arm of the chair, I enjoy a morning on the back porch before the day heats up and August rages in with full heat. Yesterday our family went out with my brother, sister, and their respective families to celebrate a birthday. Sometimes the conversation rollicked around the table, with [...]
Making small talk in the kitchen at church one Sunday, a young man told me he had camped out the night before. We commiserated about how the unexpected cold had surprised him and how he wrapped every layer he brought around him—jeans, a flannel, and a hammock—leaving him wishing for at least one more layer [...]
With alarms set to go off at 5 am, I laid awake in bed, too excited to go back to sleep. Eclipse day! I'd read the books. I'd watched the documentaries. I'd refreshed the NASA website pages. But I'd never seen a Total Solar Eclipse. This was the day! My husband Peter and three [...]
After the last ornaments were packed up mostly with care for another eleven months in the attic, after the snowflake plates were packaged and foisted up the ladder, only one thing remained to call Christmas cleanup "done." The porcelain nativity, one of my most precious Christmas possessions, would be placed in Styrofoam molds and [...]
Like the rest of the world, we're in the middle of Christmas over at the Presently Engaged Podcast! Each short and friendly episode is just right for your walk around the block in the middle of a busy week or the drive to your family get-together. Here are three episodes I think you'll enjoy: #42: Somebody [...]
You've heard the story: The shepherds were in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, terrifying each brave shepherd. The angel declared good news of great joy given to all people in all of time—including you and me: "Fear not, for behold, I bring [...]
Remember inspecting the packages underneath the tree? You may not have been old enough to read, but you could recognize your own name. There it was: mixed in with other presents, was one wrapped just for you. And there was your name. You knew that on Christmas morning, you would open that present, and [...]
On a trip through the mountains, aspen trees quake in glorious splendor, ablaze in orange and red and gold. Rarely will you find a lone aspen—they grow in stands or groves. Why? Because aspen trees grow together, not separately. The visible part of a tree is not the entire part. Below the surface, roots [...]
