Depression’s helpfulness

I’ve hesitated for many months writing this post, because I know that my experience is not the only one out there, and I know that talking about depression as a helpful thing might seem like I am making light of many other people’s horrific experiences with depression. 
But still, I have my experience, and I’ve [...]

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Meanwhile…

…the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning.
(from “The Weight of Glory”, a sermon by C.S. Lewis, 1941)

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Carried

Last week, David Ker wrote a CyberPsalm in the form of a prayer for a friend and coworker, Ada, who is battling cancer. I also know Ada, though it has been years since I’ve seen her. Several mutual friends have written me recently, asking me to join them in praying for her.
During this same time, [...]

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Prayer for a hurting young man

…with a little help from Van Gogh (thanks, Wikipedia) to paint a picture of how a friend’s friend has been feeling lately:

And the prayer, prayed on behalf of this young man, borrowed from Viktor Frankl (quoted in his biography, When Life Calls Out to Us):
God, you have stricken me with mind;
So help me now to [...]

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Super Mom vs. God’s Designs

For a variety of reasons, I’ve been thinking a lot lately on all the ways I’m falling short as a Mom. Sometimes I feel like I’m just making do with broken pieces all around. My own limitations and brokenness. The fallout and brokenness in my kids’ lives from the realities of abuse, divorce, learning disabilities, [...]

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And Are We Yet Alive?

This is the title of a hymn (sung to the same tune as “Bind Us Together”) by Charles Wesley, which I discovered in our Methodist hymnal. I am familiar with benediction songs, but don’t think I had ever heard a regathering song.
I love how this song brings into focus something that we often take for [...]

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For the Love of (What?) Does a Bird Sing?

This book is not the proper medium in which to set forth evolutionary theories of birdsong, but I must emphatically say that the bird sings first for love of music, and second for love of a lady. I put the lady second, for, if he did not love music first he would not have sung [...]

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To Gild a Lily

I don’t recall having heard this phrase before this week. It appears to be a mix-up of a phrase from a Shakespeare play. But the verse it comes from has moved me all week.

It’s so easy to want to try to change people. But, quite often, when we try to do that, I think we [...]

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A New Poet

(to me, at least)
I am reading a book called The Body Remembers, which is helping me understand a bit more about how my memory works–both why I apparently (so they tell me) remember things so well, and why I have such a propensity to post-traumatic stress. Fascinating stuff, and I am enjoying the book and [...]

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Catching Your Eye, Globally

Symbols and brands–why do they work? What makes one work and another not? I am enjoying studying this chart from the cascades, and thinking about these kinds of things.
I also enjoyed looking at these symbols and wondering which country I would want to visit, if the only thing I had to go on were the [...]

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