by Carole Duff | Mar 2, 2026 | Faith, Family, Writing and Reading |
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 mind...
by Carole Duff | Feb 16, 2026 | Faith, Family, Writing and Reading |
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 Mori:...
by Carole Duff | Feb 9, 2026 | Faith, Nature, Writing and Reading |
The word for the day on Saturday was the Welsh word hiraeth, meaning a deep longing for something, especially one’s home. How deep our longings can be for comfort, peace, and hope. Perhaps because it’s winter, those longings seem...
by Carole Duff | Jan 26, 2026 | Faith, Family, Nature, Writing and Reading |
It’s unusual to celebrate Christmas a month after the original date. But our son Alex had to work in December and is with us now, just in time for Winter Storm Fern, another somewhat unusual occurrence. With our usual precautions—a whole-house backup generator and...
by Carole Duff | Jan 19, 2026 | Faith, Nature, Writing and Reading |
Over the years, I’ve posted many photographs of the mountains on our horizon here at Vanaprastha. Beautiful, indeed, but sometimes I struggle to find something good on the metaphorical horizon, especially during last week’s cloudy, flat, blah days of winter....
by Carole Duff | Jan 5, 2026 | Faith, Writing and Reading |
“Everyday kindness can be the greatest sort of heroism.” Karen Swallow Prior, On Reading Well This past week, I spoke with our contractor neighbor about little acts of kindness, an on-going and troubling neighbor situation, and a time...
