For some light(!) summer reading, I picked up a copy of psychologist Curt Thompson’s book The Soul of Shame and blew threw it about a week or so ago. Thompson’s book is a remarkable look into the overlap of brain structure, psychology, and Christian spirituality. He outlines how shame functions in the structures of the […]
Another Week Ends: No Good Choices, Fitness Prohibition, The Weight of Gold, Acceptable Prayers, Failing at Hygge, and How Not to Incentive Your Spouse
1. On The Mockingcast this week, our intrepid trio open the show by swapping their school plans for their kiddos. Sarah Condon shared that, even with a whole history of pot-stirring social media posts, she’s extremely hesitant to post her kids’ back-to-school photos. Claire Cain McMiller in the New York Times says Sarah is right […]
Another Week Ends: Christ the Physician, Lincoln’s Grace, Music for Hope, Personal Annihilation, and Night of the Living Karens
Alleluia! Christ being raised from the dead will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death that he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. So goes the Pascha Nostrum, an old hymn that Christians have sung for centuries. The liturgical […]
Another Week Ends: Behavior Modifications, a Developed Buffer, Performance Parenting, and a Marriage at the End of the World
“Man, I sure pity whoever has to do the weekender today,” I thought to myself earlier this week, only to check my calendar and see it was me! If we’re connecting the Christian message to everyday life, for just about everyone, everyday life has, er, gone viral. Here’s our roundup of the best of the […]
Mr. Archie and Waiting in Advent
Every month, we pay a certain sum of money for music lessons. In theory, this is so that our children will learn how to read music, perform in front of a crowd, and take direction. In reality, they learn so much more than that, and that music tuition is worth every penny. Our youngest, Ben, […]
From Mary’s Womb
My son was being showered with attention and shouts of “Happy Birthday!” when another mom leaned over to me and quietly said, “Happy Giving-Birth-Day to you!” And I thought, “Yeah! Why is he getting all of the attention? I’m the one who went through childbirth!” Soon of course that attitude passed, and I continued celebrating […]
Middle School, Santa Claus, and the Love that Surpasses Understanding
I’ve written a fair amount about Christmas, and how our family celebrates Christmas. We honor Santa with a nod to the big guy, but we don’t go all-out with lumps of coal and threats of surveillance. Santa was one of those things about parenthood that I put entirely too much thought into at the beginning, […]
The Quiet Dances and Grace in Jojo Rabbit
Loud and rambunctious: a couple words that might describe the trailer for Taika Waititi’s satirical new film Jojo Rabbit. We might also add to those: crass, audacious, daring. After the release of Joker a couple weeks prior, the world needed a film that would be a little more light-hearted and encouraging. This is where I […]
Classic Jazz, Pinot Noir, and Law/Gospel Couplets
He had ice water, I had the remnants of a large bottle of pinot noir. We clinked cup and bottle in a toast. He had been invited into the fellowship of the fellas — my exclusive man-cave or rather man-dungeon (I’m poor after all). It had been a long weekend filled with parental demands and […]
Lie Down and Die: The History of Miserable Motherhood (and an Unmapped Plug)
“I declare if I tho’t I was to be thus occupied for the rest of my life, I would — I was going to say — lie down & die.” So wrote a new nursing mother Laura Wirt Randall in 1828, as quoted in the book Scarlett’s Sisters by historian Anya Jabour. To which we reply, […]
