life Archive

  • Santa and I

    Posted on December 22, 2011 | 7 Comments
    The year I turned four or five, we drove to my grandparents in central Wisconsin for Christmas.   Actually, we did this for most years of my early childhood- until I was 8 or so and we moved to Florida.   Making the 1100 mile […]

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  • Moral Issues

    Posted on October 13, 2011 | 2 Comments
    Today on our local NPR affiliate, a local Stake Presidency member was interviewed about the roll-out of the "I'm a Mormon" PR campaign in our metro area.

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  • Favorites: Business Lunch

    Posted on October 6, 2011 | No Comments
    I asked a group with an empty chair if I could sit with them. A young man's smile put me at ease and I settled in for lunch. I wasn't sure what to say, but I needn't have worried.

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  • Finding Peace

    Finding Peace

    Posted on September 22, 2011 | 4 Comments
    Forgiveness.   As babies and young children, we can’t help but forgive those that wrong us.   We have no choice…. we are too dependent.   But somehow along the path to adulthood (and independence) we lose that.   Maybe rightly so- I think there […]

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  • The Wish Tree

    Posted on September 15, 2011 | 1 Comment
    I had my five year old daughter with me and I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get her very interested in the bronzes. Then we turned the corner and beheld the Wish Tree.

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  • Book Lover

    Posted on September 6, 2011 | 7 Comments
    I’m not afraid to admit it. I have a problem. I’m addicted to books. I thought I had kept it hidden for many years, but when my wife finally catches me looking at the most recent Library of America catalogue with lust in my eyes, […]

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  • Crash Test

    Posted on September 1, 2011 | 2 Comments
    The thought of any inexperienced driver in charge of a 4,000 pound machine makes me very nervous, but anticipating my own flesh-and-blood inexperienced driver sends me almost into a panic.

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  • 08 A Mormon in the Cheap Seats: Painting by the Numbers

    Posted on August 21, 2011 | 24 Comments
    It's about the process, not the outcome. Painting by the numbers, regardless of how carefully, isn't the same as painting our own picture-and learning to paint on our own, I suspect, will be what will matter the most in the end.

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  • Window to Utopia

    Posted on August 11, 2011 | 6 Comments
    What would heaven be like, for a teenager?

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  • The Nursery Window

    Posted on August 4, 2011 | 2 Comments
    "Long ago," he said, "I thought like you that my mother would always keep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my bed."

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  • We Are Pioneers

    Posted on July 28, 2011 | 4 Comments
    As I was telling my Kindergartner earlier this month that we're all pioneers in some way. Whenever we stand up for what we believe in or do something because we know inside it's a good thing to do, we are pioneers.

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  • No Soup For You!

    Posted on June 16, 2011 | 1 Comment
    I recently read this article in the Orlando Sentinel reporting on a third round of arrests of activists arrested for violating an ordinance prohibiting the sharing of food with large groups in a city park more than twice a year.   The group Food Not […]

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  • You Can Recognize Them by Their Hand-Carved Daggers…

    Posted on May 19, 2011 | 36 Comments
    I love memoirs.   And I love Tina Fey.   So I was just salivating as my friends and co-bloggers raved about Bossypants when it came out.   Finally, on Mother’s Day,   I stuffed myself silly on waffles, settled back in my bed, and […]

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  • Find Your Tribe

    Posted on April 14, 2011 | 4 Comments
    Over a decade ago I read this article in Mothering Magazine about a woman who is far from family and friends and meets up with another woman to share household projects and childcare over the course of a day several times a week, alternating households. […]

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  • Kids and Calamities

    Posted on March 31, 2011 | 12 Comments
    I watched the Twin Towers fall on TV, my oldest child safely ensconced in her kindergarten class.   My toddler was playing with blocks nearby…. building towers and knocking them down.   “Mommy, why does your face look like this?”   she asked, mimicking my […]

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  • Parallel Journeys

    Posted on March 24, 2011 | 20 Comments
    By Claudia On my personal blog, I am known as “The Faithful Dissident.” For the past three years, I’ve been hiding behind that alias. Afraid of what, I’m not exactly sure, but some of my experiences during the past yearhave made me realize that I’m […]

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  • “Do you want to end up living under a bridge?”

    Posted on March 17, 2011 | 10 Comments
    This is, reportedly, what my daughter’s second grade teacher asked her class during a fit of frustration over their less-than-enthusiastic preparation for the looming standardized testing.   Several other parents and I were concerned, but felt trapped in the status quo and didn’t really see […]

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  • Talents: Addition and Multiplication

    Posted on March 10, 2011 | 9 Comments
    This is a guest post from a favorite reader and commenter, Corktree. It may sound simplistic (or just serving of my purpose), but I’ve always read the parable of the talents to mean actual talents.   It’s just easy to see how one might be […]

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  • Celebrating the Man As Well As His Cause

    Posted on March 3, 2011 | 13 Comments
    A guest post from a reader, Debra. Names matter. They do. My life experience has taught me this. Names are important as they are references — signs – that direct us to meaning, and often to a particular point in time – in history. In […]

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  • Leaving

    Posted on February 12, 2011 | 33 Comments
    I'm in the process of choosing to leave. I'm almost there. There's only a consideration of the cost.

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  • Bearing a Burden

    Posted on February 10, 2011 | 6 Comments
    It sounds corny, but by carrying around her belongings (two pairs of sturdy shoes, a box of office supplies, a blanket, and a black garbage bag full of what I assume was clothing) I felt like I was literally bearing her burden, whoever she was.

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  • Reflected Sphere

    Mirror

    Posted on February 5, 2011 | 9 Comments
    When the Universe ends-or re-begins?-how will we know? Who will write the history of it? And what is the basis of any hope that anyone would care to read it?

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  • The Power and the Glory of Quirky Observation

    Posted on January 22, 2011 | 11 Comments
    I've recently been reminded of how some, more quirky observations can easily lead to delightful moments of wonder and a spine-tingling connectedness with the whole bad-ass universe. We might fail for words ... except perhaps an astonished, I know!

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  • London Calling York

    London Calling

    Posted on January 1, 2011 | 18 Comments
    [UPDATED] I took a call from London at four this morning -- that's 11 AM London time. It was my fifteen year-old daughter in tears at having discovered that she and her roommate had slept through their alarm, gone unnoticed by chaperones and ultimately missed the coach ...

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  • Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Seven Deadly Sins or the Seven Vices - Avarice

    Penelope’s List

    Posted on December 4, 2010 | 12 Comments
    Is the desire to be happy a human universal? Or is it just another one of those preferences that arise from the murky depths of some personalities? On its face this question seems to have an obvious answer. I mean, who doesn’t want to be […]

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  • Partake so that we might live ...

    Blessed Eve, Mother of All Living

    Posted on November 13, 2010 | 8 Comments
    The opposite of life is not death, rather never knowing. Yet knowledge has been called a forbidden fruit and a poison … the root of all evil … a bitter token of death. And Eve, she who was tempted to partake, has been made to […]

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