Live Out Light

 I had just planned my senior son's last week of school.  Wrote that last 180th day at the top of Friday's lesson plan.  Last last day.  He has graduation at his co op on Saturday.  We have been working on a table we get to set up to honor him after graduation. Looking back through so many first and last day photos. Memories from public school and teachers and memories of homeschool and co op. Reading through old compositions. Seeing the progression from childhood to young man. The pieces of humor and sweetness that transcend the growing up.  The parts of them that forever change as your child becomes a young adult. It is such an unfolding.  I kept thinking of a scene from the Harry Potter book about the Golden Snitch. Harry puzzles over the meaning of the words engraved upon it: "I open at the close." He finally understands the clue, he must breathe his last dying breath in order to open the snitch. And inside is the resurrection stone that will raise him back to lif

"Thunder rumbling Castles crumbling I am trying to hold on. God knows that I tried  Seeing the bright side I'm not blind anymore. I'm wide awake." -Wide Awake by Katy Perry      Sometimes a song brings forth one set of emotions for a time, but after a life experience it hits you in a completely raw, new way. This past Sunday, our minister at church spoke about the difficulties of living in liberation. The sermon had a fantastic title: "Craving Freedom, But Longing for Egypt." It was excellent. The sermon struck me in a different way, and I thought immediately about my own struggle against walking right into a new Egypt.      I don't think enough is said these days about the loneliness that comes from walking away from an old identity. Whether it be an abusive relationship, an addiction, or an ideology, there is a death to grieve. There are feelings to untangle, belief systems, motivations and patterns to address. Sifting through all of that isn't fun

    This lent, I gave up social media. Ash Wednesday was on Valentine's Day this year, so I was attending the JVC luncheon the first day of my fast. It was interesting to immediately be tempted by a desire to share pictures that first day. I have quit and re-started social media MANY times. I do, actually, hate it in almost every way.  There are probably more than two previous posts about my disdain for it on this blog.  AND YET... I keep circling back hoping to find it might have changed [like some toxic ex-boyfriend] only to find it is quite the same. An ad for ozempic next to my friend's post about her grief at the loss of her father.     I wish we lived in a world where people still wanted to call each other, to have the back and forth, the ummm hmmm and sighs and ohhhs of real conversation in real time.  We say we don't have time, but is that really true? The best most of us give and get these days are texts, marco polo videos, snaps, voxer recordings, or apple voice m

  I’m no bible scholar, but it seems to me the people Jesus called out the most (when he wasn’t otherwise occupied with healing, serving, or teaching) were those who already thought they were holy. Today, I read in John 8 about when the Pharisees and the scribes brought a woman who had been caught in adultery into the temple. They did this because Jesus was teaching there and they wanted to test him, hoping his response would allow them to bring a charge against him. His penchant for grace was a threat to the law they so loved.  The first thing that struck me about this passage was that the Pharisees dragged the woman into the TEMPLE, into the house of God. Why? To accuse her, to attempt a stoning, and to bring charges against Jesus. It seems so horrible. The house of the Lord should have been a place of healing, grace, humility, repentance. A place to encounter God. Instead we see a sinful, prideful mob looking for blood and to raise their own elevated egos.   If you read the re

  I am thrilled to have finished another fabulous book this month! Life Worth Living (by Volf, Croasmun, and McNally-Linz) was a perfect follow-up to Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death .  Let's dig into what really resonated for me.   This book was based on a very popular course offered at Yale. Its aim is to take the reader on an excavation of sorts. Uncovering what exactly it is to YOU that makes a life worth living.  First, I want to share this cautionary tale from the opening of the book. A man named Albert Speer was an impossibly talented architect.  He fancied himself an architect to his very core.  His ultimate dream was the chance to build the unimaginable.  Unfortunately, Hitler made him an offer he decided he couldn't refuse.  He would build the New Reich Chancellery. Hitler's foreign headquarters which included a marble gallery, along with many other massive, groundbreaking structures. See them here .  His work was funded by Hitler and his buildings were b

  I love this cross stitch, it was made by my Great Aunt Margaret and it hung in my Mema’s house. That is actually HER farmhouse in the picture. When they moved her the house had no plumbing or electricity. There was an outhouse and a well on the property. A great big pecan tree. I grew up on the property right behind her home and barns. Wow, this sounds about as southern as you can get.   Anyway, it hangs in my home now, and I don’t know if you can read it, but it says “Let me live in the house by the side of the road and be a friend to man” This was basically Mema's rule of life, not that she would have called it that.   She was a friend to everyone she met.  She never had an Instagram account or a Facebook feed.  I have no idea how social media would have shaped her for better or worse. Her life was lived out in those flesh-and-bone days that we seem to be stepping away from. My memories of her are all wrapped up in my senses. I remember the feel of the skin on her arms wrapp