cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
With a plastered-on smile, I faced a rowdy class of Chinese preschoolers and reached down to the tips of my toes to muster up my maximum volume: “If you’re happy and you know it…” I clapped my hands. I stomped my feet. And I turned myself around. “That’s what it’s all about, hey?” But those…
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I sat, four rows back on the right, just behind the grandparents of the beautiful little girls being baptized. My Christian faith tradition practices the baptism of babies and children, and that day a young family was presenting their 3-year old COVID baby and her infant sister for this ancient sacrament. In our practice, baptism…
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Most of the good things in my life have felt like they didn’t come on time. My friends praised God when they got the text that I came out of anaphylactic shock in the ER as a nurse gave me a shot of epinephrine for an allergy I suddenly discovered I had in my thirties.…
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Flying away on a wing and a prayer, who could it be? Believe it or not it’s just me! The Greatest American Hero, an early 1980’s sitcom, endeared us to a very unlikely superhero—an ordinary guy in possession of a special suit. Wearing the suit activated superpowers, including flight. Unfortunately, he lost the instruction book…
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Believing the lies today. Know the truth. Doesn’t matter. Believing the lies anyway. They are swirling all around me in a feeding frenzy. Feeding on each other and growing stronger and darker and louder. Yet they aren’t shouting. That would be wasted energy. They whisper. Inept. Incapable. Inadequate. Incompetent. Inferior. And the whispers echo everywhere.…
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We do not play Christmas music until the day after Thanksgiving, when we begin decorating our house. Any talk of decorating early for Christmas has been met with strong opposition and simply hasn’t been done. The theme music from Dr. Seuss’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas (the original cartoon) and A Charlie Brown Christmas are a must while decorating the tree,…
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Some days are hard, and I long for them to end. I just want tomorrow to come and start over. It’s a fact of life. Some days are easy, and I hope they last. I want tomorrow to never come and today to stay. It’s a fact of life.
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Just as we sit down to dinner, her screams pierce our ears. Our daughter is not happy. She has been fed, diapered, and laid down to rest. This is not okay in her mind, and she is making that clearly known. Her cries seem to translate into “Where did you go? Someone come get me!”…
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Whenever I approach the story of baby Jesus’ arrival on earth, I see something new. This year, it’s been the role of angels; the Christmas story is full of angelic visitations and the first thing they always say is, “Fear not!” The angel Gabriel comes to Mary in Luke 1:30, the angel of the Lord appears to Joseph in a…
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Lao Tzu said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. In this case, it is a journey of 9,356 miles. I am traveling to Australia to participate in a Captivating Retreat, a time for women to come together and experience the heart of God and deep community.
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