Letters, Quotes, Memory,
& Recipes.
This season of Advent can start to feel pressurized until I remember that Jesus didn't make a grand entrance. He was content with small places, and I can be too.
I don't have to make big plans or buy big gifts or cook big meals. I don't have to do a nightly Advent devotional with the kids or make homemade anything.
She lived eighty-six years and eight months longer than any one expected. My grandmother, Mary, was born premature, so tiny that she fit in the hand of the black woman who was part nurse, part house-help to the family. The way my grandmother told it, the only reason she did live was that this kind woman kept her warm and helped nurse her to health.
I was at my friend Becky's house on Saturday morning and she told a story that I can't get out of my head. In the context of a conversation on what we mothers do, Becky mentioned that a kid was at her house recently and noticed the colorful baby quilt belonging to Becky's baby son Arthur. The boy asked whose blanket it was, and Becky told him it was Arthur's magic blanket. Becky then asked the little boy if he had a magic blanket, and he said "No, but my mom is magic."
My philosophy of life generally matches this bumper sticker. Part of it stems from thinking the rules don't apply to me, and part of it stems from eternal optimism that my efficiency can win the day.
It's not a bad philosophy, except when one of the kids gets sick or a friend's dad gets a brain tumor or TJ's flight gets delayed or Aldi is out of avocados or I have to slug through another homeschool Friday.
The brilliant Nicholas Carr didn't have to go all Robert Frost on me to make me like his writing even more. I just finished Carr's book The Glass Cage, which I read shortly after reading his earlier book The Shallows. Both of the books opened my eyes to technology's influence on the working world and on our souls.
