Several years ago, when my family moved up the river from Bath, one surprise that came with our new home was a tenacious apple tree. Despite the tall grass and thistles that threatened to choke it and a deluge of water that had loosened its roots, causing its trunk to grow sideways, it continued to […]

If you’ve caught me wandering around town on one of my infrequent escapes from work or home, you might notice that dark crescents shadow my eyes and I haven’t had time to wash my hair. For most of the past year, I’ve been dragging myself out of bed before dawn to sit at my laptop […]

One year ago in February I was so sick that for two weeks I could do little more than sleep. For most of that time I lay on the couch with a fever that topped 103 degrees, coughing so violently that I lost my ability to talk. Anything I managed to eat tasted like sulfur. […]

Years ago, the leader of a parent’s support group I was in led a guided meditation. “Close your eyes,” she encouraged us. I closed my eyes. “Now imagine whatever it is that you desire coming to you,” she said, or some such thing. “Receive it from the universe.” I opened my eyes. The universe? Embarrassed, […]

When you are just that tired. When all you want is to curl up with a book by the fire and wait for all of the other fires in the world to go out. When day turns into night, which turns into day and the dishes demand to be put away, the laundry washed, the […]

In a year rife with moral failures by Christian leaders, I read with grim curiosity last week’s New York Times article describing the firing of Carl Lentz, the celebrity pastor of Hillsong’s East Coast church, who recently acknowledged that he’d had an affair. However, the affair was the least of what surprised me. That Lentz […]