The year has flown. It seems just a month ago I was posting my 2014 reading list. All the major milestones of life, the three great celebrations as Thomas Lynch puts it, have occurred this past year: a wedding of a daughter, the birth of a grandchild, and death of a sister. Life has brought great moments, merrymaking, and… Read More My Year in Books
So many of our earliest childhood memories involve Christmas time. Every element of the holiday enchants them, the focus of attention on a child in a manger delights them. I remember enacting the Bethlehem story in Sunday school pageants, donning the cardboard angel wings and trying to sing like an angel. The atmosphere was almost… Read More When Children Sing Gloria
The celebration of Christmas with music is an ancient practice, and that this tradition continues is especially remarkable in our time when tolerance of anything old is disdained and eagerness for the new is an obsession. Yet, the traditional Advent song of O Come, O Come Emmanuel has been passed down to us for at least 1,200 years, is heard… Read More O Come, O Come
Last winter, I had the privilege of attending a concert directed by Alice Parker, 90-year-old composer and choral director and arranger, and it was a moving experience. She explained her desire to preserve songs from cultures around the world and her passion to keep singing alive in a culture that has slid into spectator mode, rather than active participation in… Read More The Gift of Song
During the Advent season, we focus on our favorite part of the Story of God, the entry into the world of our hero in the flesh, the birth awaited by all throughout the ages until that night in Bethlehem. Though we know the story well, and how it turns out, we revel all over again in the thrill… Read More Long Expected
I thought of the idea of homeschooling one bleak day in November 34 years ago, then dismissed it as a silly dream. Who ever heard of such a thing, except perhaps pioneers or missionaries too remote to attend a school? Two years later I was startled to learn that my idea was not unique. After that, I began purposefully… Read More Nothing New Under the Sun?
Mothering is an enormously demanding job with innumerable challenges. It is the work that is critical to the way the world goes and the Gospel is spread. Do you get overwhelmed, discouraged, think this mothering and teaching work is difficult–even impossible? Liz recently spoke at the opening session of the Grace to Build Retreat in… Read More New Audio Download Available!
Children act out what they read. When I was in elementary school, my friends and I played “Helen Keller.” Since I was littlest in my class I took her part, rambunctiously relishing the opportunity to unleash all self-restraint to mimic the wild and willful tantrums of young, untrained Helen. We had all read The Silent Storm by Marion Marsh… Read More The Silent Storm
From the comments I received on last week’s blog, I appear to have hit a nerve. This encourages me to add a few further remarks. My observation was that it is easier to form a habit of not reading than not eating, but that both are detrimental to our well-being, one to our physical health, the other to… Read More Our Daily Bread
Skipping meals is not my habit. I love to eat too much for that. Yet, there I was last Friday evening listening to my daughter’s piano professor’s performance of Bach’s Golberg variations, the audience rapt and silent, when my stomach noisily protested its neglected condition. Was it possible I had been so busy I’d forgotten to eat supper? It’s a… Read More Skipping Meals