cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
Tracy Johnson asked me to support her new endeavor, Red Tent Living. I know how difficult it has been for me to ask for support for mission trips or the founding of a new graduate school. It is humbling, for me, to ask for anything. I did not want Tracy to have an awkward pause…
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I have had an ambivalent relationship with practice. The word alone conjures up many feelings. First, my eleven years of piano lessons were wrought with more pain than pleasure. Many hours my body yearned to have been running, bicycling, or playing sports, but I was living in an era when piano lessons were more common…
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Amanda, our second born, cut the thick rye bread on a cutting board across from the sink. The remnants of the bread scattered over the counter onto the floor. I bent down to sweep up the debris, and she said, “I have always felt the weight of your perfectionism.” Annie, our firstborn, and I were…
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The last time I said to Dan, “I am just telling you the truth,” I was fed up with what he was doing. There is, of course, a place for anger, but in this case, I was not concerned about him. I wanted him to stop his annoying remarks. The problem with “telling the truth”…
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Their departure is imminent. After a stay of seven weeks, my daughter and our two granddaughters are about to depart. Jeff began driving their car to California the day before. Amanda and the girls will fly home so that Grace can begin second grade on the first day of school. The pending ferry ride to Seattle weighs…
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The afternoon air is sweltering as I do a cannonball and make a volcanic splash in the diving pool. I can feel the goosebumps on my arms expand like cones on an evergreen as I sink down into the frigid, dark, ominous water. I am taking my Junior Life Saver test, and I need to…
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Our dear sailing friend Len died several weeks ago. He was sixty years young. At his memorial service, my husband said Len was the most beautifully complex contradiction of a human he had ever known. More insecure, more bold, more obstinate, more open, more brilliant, more foolish, more connected to death, and more alive to the resurrection…
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What is a lifetime? If one averages a human life to 75 years, that is 27,375 days, or 657,000 hours, or 39,420,000 seconds. Those who served in the infantry during a war often say their time is 95% boredom punctuated by 5% terror. For most of us, our days are daily, ordinary, tick-tock time punctuated by occasional moments…
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It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words. As accurate as this aphorism is, the frame often says more than the picture. The picture captures our attention, but without the frame, our eyes would wander over the painting without focus and intentionality. This became exceedingly clear as I looked through an old…
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The playground was filled with big third graders. I missed being on the first-grade playground where I felt safe. Second graders had been moved to the main Tremont School campus and recess was now an uncertain time where older third graders roamed. I ran to the swing set and Sally yelled at me to “wait…
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