Our Earth’s Magnetic Fields and Stars
Birds feel the pull of the compass, and they also cast their eyes upward for a map.
Katerina Parsons (’15) lives in Washington D.C., where she works in advocacy at Mennonite Central Committee’s Washington office and studies international development at American University’s School of International Service. She spends a lot of time thinking about US policy towards Central America and North Korea, writing, singing, and searching for the city’s best pupusas (suggestions welcome).
This Year According to the Notes App on my Phone
Here, lightly edited, are a year of the mundane and serious and baffling things I felt the need to save.
Place-starved and Home-lonely
I am from this place as much as I am from anywhere, and it’s this recognition that helps me know that I can feel this way again.
The Ten Cheesiest Lines from My Teenage Morality Poetry
I managed to stretch this weak joke (reach for the stars but, like, “the actual stars”) for far too many lines—all rhyming, of course.
The World in Pieces, We Are Planting Trees
I feel caught up in a collective urge to tend things.
One Day We’ll Tell the Story
But one day we started to tell the story, and as we heard it coming from our mouths we knew it meant the story was behind us, and we had lived through it.
Prone to Wander, Lord, I Feel It
A robin pulls a fat worm from the ground in the middle of a traffic circle and life suddenly feels too grand, too expansive, too beautiful to possibly come to an end.
A Case for the Color Red
How much do we love red? We crush rocks for it. We smash bugs for it.
A Thrill of Hope, the Weary World: Meditations on Advent
Hope does not exist in a moment; we must create hope.
The Four Most Important Things I Know
What I mean is that we must be skeptical of solutions that simply throw money at complex issues.
The Joy of Good Enough
Satisficing doesn’t mean you lack standards. It just means you’re realistic about those standards.
Prepare for Re-entry
The third time in a short conversation that I heard myself saying, “Well, in Honduras…” I stopped myself. I didn’t mean to be a bore; I simply didn’t have other experiences to draw from.
A is for After
After I have been
Back in the United States for a few weeks, I find myself
Crying at the strangest things.
Quarter-life Confessions
21. Sometimes my life seems to spark like a live wire, and I feel intoxicated by its opportunity and potential.
A Good Enough Reason to Leave
This may be the last post I’ll write from Honduras.
If You Visit Tegucigalpa
If you visit Tegucigalpa, you’ll find more than you expect.
If Talk Is Cheap, Are Opinions Mostly Worthless?
How many “insightful” comments about politics or social issues have I made that are really just regurgitations of something I forgot I read somewhere else?
15 (Realistic) Vegetarian Meals
If you’re interested in cutting out meat, or at least eating less of it, here are five days of meat-free meals like the ones I eat—no fancy tools or Whole Foods necessary!
Fake News Family
What works in changing people’s minds? Not facts.
Down with New Year’s Resolutions
Our lives simply don’t work as a checklist.
What I Read in 2018: Three-Sentence Book Reviews
Marilynne Robinson’s debut book is lyrical, atmospheric, and completely absorbing, the “literary equivalent of a Sigur Ros song” as I tried to describe it to a friend.
Questions and Answers about the Migrant Caravan
It is not a partisan statement to say that the U.S. immigration system is broken.
Who’s Entitled to Blueberry Muffins?
Let’s start in a coffee shop where a middle aged woman has just been told that there are no more blueberry muffins. She reacts badly.
Internal Dialogue
“I was always going to do the thing. You didn’t have to hound me like that.”
“Sure.”
“Little Venice” is Sinking
Neighboring governments are refusing to accept these hungry, oppressed citizens, just for lacking a simple pamphlet made of dead trees and bureaucracy.
Not Another Bite
When I first moved to Honduras three years ago, I ate everything my host family ate: beans, eggs, cream, tortillas. Heavy, simple plates—bland, but satisfying. But then suddenly one day, months in, I just couldn’t do it anymore.
What Would Just Immigration Policy Look Like?
The solution to undocumented labor is not the deportation of laborers—it is their documentation.
Virginity: An Education
Chapter 8: Religious Studies II
“There is no such thing as a condom for the heart. Once you have had sex, you are never quite the same.”
-“Pure Again,” Focus on the Family
The Billion-Dollar Business of Donated Clothes
I have a sinking suspicion that most issues work this way—they deeper we go, the more tangled we find ourselves, looking in vain for an exit.
Reading World News without Losing your Mind
Reading the news well and responding to it is not everything, but it is something—and so I won’t refuse.
