Harmony only works if it includes both consonance and dissonance
I do pretty well picking out harmony in my work at church: reading scripture, playing flute with the Worship Team, singing alto with the choir, and serving on the Women’s Ministry team. Believe me, I am honored to be able to produce...
Link-ups delayed—postponed, waiting, tested, slowed—no longer
Last Friday, we Five-Minute Friday participants received a note from founder Kate Motaung saying that due to tech issues, the link-up would be delayed. She wrote, “I'll send another email when it's live (but it might be a day or two or three) 🙂 Sorry to...
A story about polite asking, complaints, and answering
I discovered this week that it’s extra important to be polite when I really, really want something to happen and it’s not happening as planned. In other words, polite when I’m being tested: my will or God’s? For the past few years, I’ve been dealing with...
Paideia: to nurture discipline, education, and instruction
Back in the day when I was called to nurture adolescent girls in my classrooms at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, I used the Paideia approach: didactic instruction, coaching, and Socratic seminars. Popularized by Mortimer Adler in the 1980s, Paideia nurturing of the...
There you shall bury me: burying our parents, buried in Christ
This week’s prompt was “bury,” and indeed, that word has been on my mind, as Mother’s death was last week. For six years ago, we buried her. From my February 17, 2020 post: “My two sisters and I will bury our mother next to our father in the New...
Benediction, the utterance or bestowing of a blessing, a prayer
The Benediction will come, I assured myself as I read another excerpt of a recent essay at the SWAG Open Mic last Thursday evening. Benediction, the point of my essay, “Memento Mori,” about my father and the physical remembrances of him that I keep. Memento...