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