In which I will probably sound a lot like Lauren Dubinsky, who is usually right about this stuff. The credits were rolling on the Disney princess movie. I was in a swoony-moony eight-year-old’s post-Disney euphoria, soaking up the soundtrack swelling as I leaned back on my elbows on the living room carpet. I don’t remember…
I’ve been busy elsewhere! I was really honored to have Rachel Held Evans ask me to guest post for her on SGM a couple months ago, and she was patient with me as I kept pushing it off to recover from crazy life stuff. I finally got her a draft, she pared it down from…
I don’t know where to start. A few weeks ago, I was at dinner with a friend in DC, and tried to make a list of all the crazy things that have happened since …I guess since I last posted. It’s been dizzying, and not all good. I feel like I want to go hide…
Dear readers. You’ve been following Jennifer’s story, here and here. You’ve rallied with gifts and notes and advice on the best tools for this budding graphic concept artist. I thought we’d be doing really well if we raised $300 for her. Today the count totalled just over $10,000. Most of that was donations of $5-15–individuals…
Two weeks ago, I was walking along the water in Hallandale Beach, FL, talking with my childhood best friend, Jori. We were comparing notes on our childhoods — an uncanny thing if you’re like me and negative memories get locked up in the subconscious. Both of our families were large, creative, unruly homeschoolers, loving to…
A couple weeks back, it was 7:45 am and I was grumpy. My good friend Mark was arguing with me in the car on our way to the metro. We’ve been carpooling every day since Christmas, and he’s a morning person. And he likes to argue. Mark is one of my favorite people, but I’m not…
There’s a poem that’s stuck with me, become part of me, since I first read it as a junior in college. It’s a sonnet from the novel Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers (just read it. Lord Peter is fantastic.), and after some frustration over not having my copy with me, I found it online. Here you…
So, there’s this lawsuit against the denomination (or in their lingo, the “movement” or “family of churches”) that founded the cult-like church I grew up in, where the leaders are being accused of deliberately obstructing justice and preventing sexual abusers of children to live without consequences while making the children “reconcile” with their abusers. I…
I’ve avoided saying these words to myself for a long time, but it’s really the most accurate description: When I was 12, my family moved from California to the east coast to join a cult. I haven’t felt at home anywhere since. *** There were other factors, of course. Economy, family ideals for finding a…
Advent and Christmas have slipped past. The liturgical calendar is now in the season of Epiphany — the bright time of God with us, heralded as king by the magi. My slow internal panic, brought on by shortening days, is dissipating as days begin to grow a little longer, and as I see more sunrises and sunsets…