Current Events
The stories from history seem recycled: different characters, sometimes different conflicts, but always the same plot. And I know that writing these words doesn’t go far enough.
Love Like Grief
I think in each of us there’s a deep well with love like water at the bottom, but if only the crawl down wasn’t so dark and our hands could carry more.
The Kids Are Alright
The clever phrasings, the lilting harmonies, the bone-soaking sadness, the hard-earned joy—it fills me up with the subtle satisfaction of uncertainty.
Faking It
Faking it, I would argue, is actually the only way we’ll make it anywhere. So few of us are born with natural, shining pearls of talent that don’t need refinement.
Nonessential Issues
It is for this reason a man can be saved by faith through works. It is a great mystery. It is a still greater mystery to me why a pastor’s theology is ever given priority over its people.
Stroopwaffel Pride and Prejudice
I’ve been consuming an odd sort of patriotism along with my stroop waffels and hagel. Maybe it’s just that the Netherlands makes sense to me in the way that Egypt does not.
Quitting
Quitting, when other people are involved, is extremely difficult for me because I like to make people happy. Quitting invariably means that I’m not making someone happy.
Making Sense of the Senseless
Hearing about a shooting that took place ten minutes from where I grew up. Learning sketchy details as they came in. Worrying if I knew anyone involved.
My Children
In September, I assigned a five-page fictional short story and Elinor took it upon herself to write a twenty-five-page story about a teenage girl named Sky who owns a mall.
Lucky
One day of climbing and two nights of camping and an eternity of driving down this endless, evening road when I rounded a turn and my headlights found a hitchhiker.
It looked like a woman.
