I wasn’t feeling particularly older until my son shouted to me today, while he was starting to pack for our two-day journey out to his new campus, “Mom, what did you take to college?” Well, let’s see….a typewriter, definitely a bunch of records and a turntable, turtlenecks for the long winter, somebody’s old wooden skis, and a yellow Schwinn bicycle. Naaah, it wasn’t that long ago. But here we are: my third child is about to be on his own, … Read More
Ever feel like you’re out of synch with mainstream culture? That you’re marching to the beat of a different drummer but — here’s the clincher—you’re also not sure you want to be in this Thoreauvian (a real word) situation? “Twas I, just a few evenings ago, on the 4th of July. OK, so this is a social, boisterous holiday. Parades, picnics, fireworks: people get together all over the country, holding paper plates of burgers and hot dogs and potato salad; … Read More
The past week has demonstrated for me, as if I didn’t already know, that life can be all about natural flow, heading downriver freely and perhaps in tune with a larger power; or it can be about getting through a bunch of sometimes momentarily jarring locks on a canal that will, you hope, take you where you want to go: open water. Sure, it’s possible to imagine life without waterways at all – being firmly planted without any forward movement … Read More
It’s definitely not just another ho-hum weekend, because the amazing discovery of the Trappist-1 cluster — a bunch of new planets circling a kind of sun, out there just a hop, skip and a jump away from us– means we are now on alert for possible news of life elsewhere in the universe. This is big, possibly mind-blowing. Depending on how the story unfolds, we could have some major adjusting to do about our human identity, our various belief systems, … Read More
Since I don’t happen to work for any local, state or national government but am just a lowly blogger, do you think I’ll be in hot water with any official ethics organization if I choose to use this space to promote a family member’s creative work? And it’s pretty far from being a line of clothing, too. Since Valentine’s Day is all about expressing our love, and I’m due to make a new post, it makes pretty good sense for … Read More
My husband, lucky duck, got to go to this place a few days ago. Due to an overwhelming feeling of Pride and Joy, not to mention a connection across several states states with My Guy, I’m writing an unorthodox blog this week.Wait, have I ever been orthodox? Rob is out in Detroit with the House of Bishops for a whole week. You can read the detailed daily briefings here. My own topic, commencing shortly, will be something else entirely. I’m straying … Read More
“What brought y’all down to Alabama?” the coffee seller on a Montgomery street corner asked, as friendly as she could be. We paused. It wasn’t so easy to explain to a welcoming Southerner that we were a group from New Hampshire travelling through their state to commemorate the murder 50 years ago of a civil rights activist from our state– Jonathan Daniels. But she didn’t flinch and, in fact, said something like, “Oh, that’s SO interesting!” Then she went on … Read More
Just when you think, after about 25 years in the marriage pond, you might be getting the hang of it, you realize there might be a whole other way of swimming than the one you learned—the one you’re still learning, actually. That’s kind of how it feels when you have a burgeoning anthropologist in the family who is studying how polygamy has worked, over generations, in peaceful communities on a distant continent. In this country, we’ve been widening our definitions … Read More
Over the course of the past Holy Week, my husband was preparing for services culminating with Easter today — the pinnacle of the Christian calendar. Meanwhile, I was, for the first time, teaching a unit on ancient India to high school juniors. In my mind’s eye, I saw temples with elaborate carvings and women in colorful saris as I made the daily drive up and down a fairly bland stretch of highway. It made for a kind of interesting mash-up … Read More
Not long after I started this blog three and a half years ago, some people questioned the title. They said, “Why identify yourself as a ‘pastor’s wife’ when you’re obviously more than that? It’s so limiting.” This is true to an extent. In a way, I guess, I was poking some fun—right from the beginning—at the label. Show me a stereotype, almost any kind, and I’ll try hard to show the exception. In this case, I didn’t have to try … Read More