Category Insipration
Old Words for the New Year
These authors and their poems have been a comfort and a source of hope to me, a reminder that when we have no words of our own, our favorite authors can speak for us. We are the beneficiaries of an inherited imagination that stretches backwards and forwards, uniting our experiences as humans across time and giving us words to use when our own fail. I hope that you can find comfort in their words, too.
A Good Story Well Told: Thoughts for the Class of 2020
The tougher the season, the sweeter the celebration. Here’s what I said to my seniors at their baccalaureate ceremony.
More Ways to Wait
After months of prayer and seeking out an answer, months of trying to be patient and wait well, my answer arrived, and I began looking forward to a season of rest and celebration. I thought I knew what the future held, and more than anything, I thought this particular season of waiting was over. Funny how a global pandemic didn’t figure into my plans at all!
Ten Years Later
All this discussion of college essays made me think about what I had written my own college essay about…Thanks to my packrat tendencies, I was able to scrounge around and find an old binder labeled “High School Writing.” The very last essay in the binder was the essay I wrote for my application to Vanderbilt…
A 2019 Reading Challenge
Another year has come and (almost) gone, and in about two hours we’ll be celebrating the arrival of 2019. Whether you’re a fan of New Year’s Eve or not, the time for goals and resolutions is upon us.
Back to Basics: How to Read Shakespeare
Today is Shakespeare’s birthday, so to celebrate I thought I’d share another post in my Back to Basics series. Last time our focus was on reading and understanding poetry, and today we’re taking things one step farther by focusing on the man, the myth, the legend: William Shakespeare. Today’s post starts with some overall tips […]
The Consolation of Doubt
Can I tell you a story? It involves a bit of jumping around in time and place, but I think it’s worth telling. Last month I read a book by Frederick Buechner called The Remarkable Ordinary. It wasn’t the first of his books I’ve read–a few years back I read his book Telling the Truth, and I […]
Back to Basics: Making Connections
Today we’ve come to the third installment of a new series I’m calling “Back to Basics.” The first post was all about making and/or finding time to read, the second focused on how to make sure you’re making sense of what you read, and today’s post is all about making connections with what you read. […]
Three Reasons to Reread
Recently I reread two books. The very act of rereading these books got me thinking about what it means to really reread something, and why that might be a beneficial exercise.
Hope Heals by Katherine and Jay Wolf
Happy Sunday, and happy first weekend of football season! I’m using this long weekend to get caught up on graduate work and blog posts–it’s been far too long since I’ve shared a book review with you. I like to read lots of different genres, and I know that not everyone likes the different types of […]
Book Fifty 