Monthly Archives: December 2014
by Leah Sienkowski | Dec 31, 2014
I am astounded by those who can internalize the length of a road, noting landmarks and intersections. My roads are more like fishing lines; I don’t find out what’s at the end until I’ve reeled myself in.
by Justin Majetich | Dec 30, 2014
Said acquaintance makes a skittish joke. You choke up an overcompensating laugh and wince your eyes shut. When they re-open, the house is an inferno.
by Bekah (Williamson) Medendorp | Dec 28, 2014
I asked my brother Sam, father of three, why kids hate going potty. His son Judah had, moments before, flat out denied need of the potty despite wobbling through the house with crossed legs.
by Brad Zwiers | Dec 27, 2014
So if a thesis has to be mined from The Weakerthans’ incredible corpus, it must at least mention strength, the loss of it, and its recapture.
by Griffin Jackson | Dec 26, 2014
I’m all for having a Mint account to track budgets, and I’m certainly a proponent of keeping journals and calendars, but we’re coming to live in an age that is frighteningly invasive in its observation.
by Greg Kim | Dec 25, 2014
In my most profound experience of joy at the Savior’s arrival, perhaps there rang on heaven’s side a blow of sadness and pain wrought from the reality of impending suffering, separation, and death.
by Lauren (Boersma) Harris | Dec 24, 2014
It’s okay that you hate Christmas! You’re not the grinch and I’m not Cindy-Lou-Who (first of all, I could never pull off that hairdo). You’re not the villain; I’m not the hero.
by Michael Kelly | Dec 23, 2014
I wouldn’t say that I dislike traditions; it’s amazing to see how long they can last, connecting people of the present, past, and potentially future. However, for me, most traditions quickly lose their appeal.
by Robert Zandstra | Dec 22, 2014
We should be sorry for these things. But we certainly don’t act or even feel sorry. We need more words for negotiating guilt and grief and the multiplicity of affects that accompany them.
by Andrew Orlebeke | Dec 21, 2014
Lost in all of those stories, though, are some ongoing topics which are just as important and get one percent of the airtime. Without further ado, a few issues which received short shrift in 2014.
by Gabe Gunnink | Dec 20, 2014
Growing up, I never developed my own music taste. There wasn’t any need for me to. The upper level of my house was consistently filled with my parents’ eclectic blend.
by Mary Margaret Healy | Dec 19, 2014
I use words like “tacky” unironically. I’ve gone to wedding showers. I’ve gone to baby showers. Without my mother. I eat breakfast because it jumpstarts my metabolism.
by Matt & Laura Hubers | Dec 18, 2014
So. With some overlap with Will’s list (see especially 9 and 7, corresponding to 4 and 10 on his list, plus a couple honorable mentions), here is my Definitive List of the Worst Ten Christmas Songs of All TIme.
by Geneva Langeland | Dec 17, 2014
As worshippers trickle into the little sanctuary, we smile and nod our good-mornings. Our collective sleepiness encourages contemplative silence. The low lights glow gold off the bare wood floor.
by Andrew Knot | Dec 16, 2014
It’s December, month of retrospectives and best-ofs and year-in-reviews. My contribution to the conversation is a look back at the unbroken spines and not-yet-dog-eared pages of my 2014 reading list.
by Cassie Westrate | Dec 15, 2014
And yet, when we fail to be our best to those we love and those we hardly know, I find it difficult to believe that it’s how we hurt people or how we’ve been hurt that defines us.
by Will Montei | Dec 14, 2014
The title is self-explanatory. You may feel the need to argue with my list. That’s fine, but this is the final word. And the final word does not include the Pentatonix.
by Catherine Kramer | Dec 13, 2014
Much like Ron Swanson, I believed that birthdays were invented by Hallmark to sell cards. And if Hallmark sells it, I’m probably not interested. But this year was different.
by Abby Zwart | Dec 12, 2014
Sometimes there’s just no better word than “discern” or “redeem” or “vocation,” and it slips out. Maybe you embrace it, or maybe, like me, you cringe.
by Elaine Schnabel | Dec 11, 2014
O Dear Sweet Christmas Tree of the many pine needles, whom we all ignored eleven and a half months of the year but for whom we have so much love that we have to chop down and murder.
by Katie Van Zanen | Dec 10, 2014
I’m not confident you can earn crowns in heaven—but I’ll petition God that Rosie get them, mostly for her other deeds of righteousness, but also for taking good care of the clueless, quirky American.
by Bart Tocci | Dec 9, 2014
I don’t have to dress up to go to work! HA! You rat-racers. You penguin-suited pieces of—what?! You don’t have to dress up either? Wait, you work and talk with real humans?
by Paul Menn | Dec 8, 2014
Sometimes I wonder what happened to all of those kids. To little Mamu and Japuca. And I’m sad that they didn’t grow up with all the love and happiness that my niece has.
by Caroline (Higgins) Nyczak | Dec 7, 2014
home is where the Times is./pieces of yesterday, scattered sections of weeks ago–/a slice of October still sits in the living room./seasoned with eraser crumbs (crossword abandoned.)
by Josh deLacy | Dec 6, 2014
You don’t talk to people on the Metro. You don’t talk to coworkers, you don’t talk to friends, and you especially don’t talk to strangers. Talking is the mark of the tourist.
by Alissa Anderson | Dec 5, 2014
So what do I have? I have my ancestors. I can’t visit them, anyway—most are long dead—so distance doesn’t matter. Still, though, this litany of names acts as a sort of symbolic rootedness.
by Ben Rietema | Dec 4, 2014
And yes I’ve been reading a terrible lot of The Lord of the Rings, so you’re going to be dealing with lots of long winded nature imagery and intensive moon stage analyses.
by Sabrina Lee | Dec 3, 2014
We—that glorious, plural pronoun. At the end of the service, we sang “Oseh Shalom,” a Jewish blessing, but the chorus was John Lennon’s “Imagine,” a song we dreamers all knew.
by Jacob Schepers | Dec 2, 2014
Our car—our little-sedan-that-could—broke down last month. Yes, it seems our green Chevy Impala finally uttered those three fateful words: “I can’t even.” Requiscat in pace.
by Amy (Allen) Frieson | Dec 1, 2014
It’s easy to make a choice to leave something that’s hard. But it’s difficult to actually start over—because the problems you tried to leave behind are not necessarily gone. They might be inside you.
