I have spent the day preparing for tomorrow. Two years ago it struck me that March fourteenth—3/14—was as good an excuse as any for an all pie dinner, so we had our inaugural Pi(e) Day. Now pie holds an important place in our home, particularly at Thanksgiving, or—as we like to call it—Pie-a-palooza. Some years…
Shame. Since the first day I asked for suggestions for my Lenten Lexicon, I have stopped at this one and wondered what to say. Shame. As a noun, its something we feel: humiliation, dishonor. As a verb, it can be something we inflict on someone else: we shame them. Maybe that’s why the word came…
To say my father was a sports fan is like saying I like to cook. The man would pull over and watch five year olds play football just because it was a game. He became the Sports Chaplain at Baylor because he loved going to the games. I’ve thought a great deal about him today…
Coming and going from work today I heard stories about the SAE chapter—or, I should say, former SAE chapter—at OU being disbanded because of a video that surfaced showing the members chanting a song that used the n-word and talked about lynching. I have chosen not to watch the video and take the word of…
I had some time to read on my lunch hour today, so bell hooks was once again my companion. The essays in her book, belonging: a culture of place, have been challenging, encouraging, and disquieting because she is not willing to be comfortable or individualistic. Today’s essay centered on the distinction between traveling and journeying….
Perseverance: steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. I woke up this morning thinking about the anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery that took place fifty years ago today. As I imagined what it must have been like to be there that day, and I contemplated once more the…
Plight. I woke up with the word on my mind this morning. It was one of the early submissions when I asked people to give me words for my Lenten journal and it has pulled at me all along the way. I know the word primarily as a noun, as in “we should do something…
This week has been a grey one for me—one in which I have brushed up against my depression. Some of it is weather related, but that’s too easy an attribution. Some of it is grief. Monday marked what would have been my parents’ fifty-ninth wedding anniversary; Tuesday marked nineteen months since Dad died. Some of…
Last week I was supposed to drive up to Raleigh, as Andy and Barney used to say, to speak to the Presbyterian Campus Ministries group at North Carolina State University. I was deterred by freezing precipitation, so I went this week instead. The group meets for a meal and a meeting each Wednesday in the…
One of the things I love about my job as a trainer at the computer store is I get to know people. Mine is the one position in the store that sees repeat customers because they have purchased a one-year membership that allows them to come in as often as they can make appointments. Getting…