When Life is Not Fine, and Finding Beauty Difficult.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “I’m fine,” I replied. But, I wasn’t fine, and afterward, I realized I was simply giving a standard answer. After all, as Shauna Niequist said, “I’ve been training all my life to pretend I’m fine.” In hindsight, I should have said, “Actually, I’m fine, but only if being fine…

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Summer Planning, an Invitation to Remember How to Play.

While we have only now fully emerged into spring, I am already finding myself preparing for summer activities and making decisions about our schedules for fall. I’m not sure how we got here so quickly. When the boys were little, I loved planning for summers. I would make summer binders with printed calendars and space…

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How Positive Changes Can Easily Take Hold in Negative ways.

The cultural pendulum swings hard in one direction and then quickly reverses, changing everyone’s course. One minute we are to chase our dreams believing we can do anything, and the next, we are encouraged to slow down, to rest. In the shift from one direction to another, we can label certain types of success or…

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