My Wandering Pen. Blog Thoughts.
"Not all those who wander are lost."– J.R.R. Tolkein
The Beauty of a Name | Our Father…
In our Sunday School class, we are telling Beauty’s story through a deep line-by-line dive into the Lord’s Prayer. If you look carefully at the prayer Jesus taught his followers to pray, you might see it arcing into narrative form. There is character and setting, a...
A Meditation on Psalm 27
This week, I've been sharing how the medieval monastic culture approached reading and 'memorializing' Scripture. I've been practicing what I've learned from the medievals (or at least my understanding of it) and applying it to my own Scripture reading time. Because I...
Going Medieval for Beauty’s Sake | Part Two
In Wednesday’s post, I shared with you the process medieval monastics used to read and remember the Scriptures. Discovering and studying the way of the medieval has been deeply satisfying, a gift and practice of delight in this particular season of living. You can go...
Going Medieval for Beauty’s Sake | Part One
I mentioned in my last post that 2021 is going to be about delight. A big part of this includes resurrecting this blog for the purpose and practice of delight. I’m serious about this. So serious, in fact, I’ve decided to dedicate the next thirteen weeks of the blog’s...
Resurrecting the Blog in 2021
Happy 2021! Finally. And yet, not much has changed on the outside. Something is stirring however. I sense it. I sense it as magnificently as I feel the down-to-my-bones chill in the air when I run. As potent and home-spun as the smell of cow pasture on my way to the...
Consider the Cicada
image from npr.org It is the season of the cicadas here in my Southwest Virginia mountain town. I’d never heard of cicadas until moving out East. It is one more thing I love about this part of the country. My first introduction to cicadas was in 2004—our first full...
On C.S. Lewis, receiving the spring, & this Holy Week
Never before have I been more comforted by the proof of spring’s coming outside my window. I know I’ve written about it adnoseum. I guess it’s because I am always surprised by its transforming on the landscape where I now live. On the prairie there were trees—one here...
Tree Roots, Birth-pangs, & Mothering Sunday: A COVID-19 Post
March 22, 2020 So…here we are. Outside my window, the fruit trees are in full, cotton pink bloom. The oak in my front yard is cast in hazy rust-colored buds. My grass is turning patchy green. It will need tending soon. The sun is finally pushing through days of cloud...
My favorite photo of 2019
Happy 2020! I'm sure you've heard it, or read it or thought it a hundred times already this year, but here it is again: Time really is flying by. I remember ushering in the year 2000--a young 20-something, dewy new mama--thinking, "Gosh, imagine how old I'll be twenty...
Coming Home to Children’s Literature
I am enrolled this fall in a children’s literature course at Hollins. I’ve been slowly picking my way through classes in Hollins MALS program: Masters of Arts and Liberal Studies. My focus is—shocking—all things literature. Immersing myself if children’s literature...
On writing books, trips overseas, launching another child, and the blessing of Afterwards
So, why the long internet silence? What has been happening these past months of shuttered web-windows? Well, all the things I mentioned above. Also, hitting pause so I recognize the blessing of Afterwards... The most obvious reason for my long blogging silence was the...
A New Website…On making old endeavors new again.
A new website. Wow. I hope I do well with it. For the past nine months (maybe more?) I’ve been working with a professional website designer (Thanks, Christian!) to create a new, “more official” website home where I can be visited online. I won’t lie. The whole process...
Learning to Play and 'Consider the Lilies'
I am about three months from the deadline of my first book-length manuscript. What never felt like an expanse of time, but at least seemed “down the road a-ways,” is now three steps from a wall I’m walking into....
Traveling in Spring
One of the things I love about traveling to other parts of the country in fall and spring is seeing the way the seasons roll across the land east to west—like the sun, only slower. A few weekends ago I...
Participating. A Good Friday Meditation
“It. Is. Finished.” The final set of lights in the sanctuary went black. The Book slammed shut. The congregation filed out of the sanctuary and left the church in complete silence. This is how my childhood church participated in Good Friday. I’m sure this is how they...
Signs of Life in the Dust
I can see it. For the past couple weeks, I’ve noticed the pointed shoots of green poking through last year’s decayed flowers, that littering my garden beds and back porch pots. I look out my windows and see the beginnings of rusty purple gauze lacing the bare branches...
How does a Place Become More than a Place? (or, Happy 89th, Texas Tavern!)
This week (Wednesday, the 13th to be exact) marks the 89th birthday of a very special place in my community: The Texas Tavern. The Texas Tavern is a matchbox-sized, shotgun-style diner situated in the heart of downtown Roanoke (depending on where you consider...
Winds, a New Year, & Right-mindedness
Today the landscape out my front window is still and an icy shade of blue. The light coating of snow on the mountains has finally gone by the way (though, clearly not when I took the above picture, last week). According to my local news station's weather app, by...
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