As Mike and I prepped a menu for this year’s Thanksgiving feast, we wanted to take our traditional dishes and shake them up a bit. Instead of the typical corn casserole, we’re making a chipotle-cheddar variant; sweet potato souffle will be traded in for twice baked sweet potatoes; green bean…
For some time now I’ve been working on a writing project about a condition I call comfort addiction. We are all prone to it, for deep within, we all face an ache—whether we can name it or not. Our soul-aches push us to seek soothing. We sample ointments of success…
It’s Day 2 of the 21-Day Momentum Challenge—an e-newsletter challenge I’ve joined as a commitment to pushing my Comfort Detox Project forward. The homework for Day 2 is to write a manifesto for your project. And . . . cue the hives. Although I am merely typing the words, I…
For a woman who keeps her head in the clouds, I sure have a hard time keeping my eyes fixed on my dreams. I could blame the clouds that obstruct my view or the thin air that impairs my thinking—that’s poetic and all, but metaphors like these only describe the…
During the sermon at my church yesterday, my pastor was giving a great illustration that reminded me of that six degrees of separation game. It’s the idea that any two people are separated by six acquaintances or less. The Hollywood version purports that actors are linked to Kevin Bacon in…
If you were writing a story of victory, how would it go? Would you have a hero and a villain? Would you highlight noble character shining through impossible circumstances? Would you include a fight for what’s good and right? Would you give it a good ending? We long for stories…
Winter’s descent upon the trees in my yard has stripped them clean. No more leaves or seed remain. Their gray woody branches poke bravely upward to the sky. Here we are, they say. I look at these trees and know that their nakedness is seasonal, not permanent. Encoded within each…
It is often assumed that faith is the opposite of doubt, as if these are diametrically opposed. Instead, I see them working in conjunction, like two sides of the same coin. This partnering of faith and doubt ushers us to the conclusion of Karen Swallow Prior’s Booked: Literature in the…
Life is a long process of discovery—who we are, what we are made to be and do, and what the world is all about. In this week’s reading of Karen Swallow Prior’s Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me for The High Calling book club, I’m appreciating how Prior associates…
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