Five Minute Friday: morning

The sleuths were on the job before seven this morning, trampling up and down the house in safety glasses and sun hats, peering through magnifying glasses for clues, and waiting beneath the attic door for robbers to emerge. They were not quiet. The other morning it was music: drums, shakers, tambourines, and an untrained pianist.…

Five Minute Friday: lift

He holds up his dimpled hands, and I bend to hoist him over the bump that is his brother. Sometimes recently, with post-COVID fatigue and an irritated pregnant hip, it’s a struggle to lift myself, let alone a thirty pound toddler. But he buries his face in my shoulder and squeezes his arms right around…

particular rain

The rain is falling all around, It falls on field and tree. It rains on the umbrellas here And on the ships at sea. —Robert Lewis Stevenson Children watching rain. I hear them in my van’s back seat wondering at how the drops travel up the windshield but down their windows, and I remember the…

The law of the world

A counter-psalm The law of the world is imperfect, wearying the soul to death; the testimony of the world is false,establishing fools in their folly;the precepts of the world are wrong,grieving the heart;the commandments of the world are impure,blinding the eyes;the fear of the world is filthy,swiftly passing away;the rules of the world are altogether untrue and…

broken bowls

It had already been a long day when I stretched up on tiptoe to shelve a bowl from the dishwasher. Somehow its glass lid slipped down, ricocheted off a stack of other dishes waiting to be shelved, and landed, shattered, on my usually forgiving linoleum tiles. I didn't cry, but my disappointment must have been…

Unboxing God: Who are We?

The phrase “know thyself” is an incredibly important statement. We must first know ourselves if we are ever to understand how we should relate to others, our surroundings, and ultimately God. We have already answered how we can know these things, but I think it bears repeating. We are tempted to think that we are…