Goals

In a recent blog post, Patrick Ross mentioned his enthusiasm for setting goals rather than making New Years Resolutions, which none of us seem to keep. He started with a vision statement – what he enjoys doing and where he’d like to be in five years, which Ross soon...

Life Expectancies

“I wish I’d been born in the 19th century,” I told my father one day in my far-past adolescence. “It is my favorite time in history.” In my teenaged mind, the 19th century in the United States elicited thoughts of romance and realism, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and...

An American Childhood

A couple of Saturdays ago, I attended the Women’s Book Club at Bethany Lutheran Church in Waynesboro, Virginia. Only a foursome, but discussion was lively in part because of the book, Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood. I had read Dillard’s essay “Total Eclipse”...

The line in the sand

People want their lives and history to be predictable and controllable, and the best way to do that is to try to control and even manipulate the gods. – Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture As Spirituality A week ago Sunday, I suffered an anxiety attack. Not the...