Something to Believe: How Advent Can Lead the Way
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Something to Believe: How Advent Can Lead the Way

I was a little mystified when, in mid-November, I got an email ad announcing 25% off the price of Christmas decorations. The great day of feasting was not yet upon us, the calendar promised one more month of fall and yet, when I went to check out the sale, I couldn’t find autumnal decor items…

Caring a Hair for the Birds of the Air
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Caring a Hair for the Birds of the Air

Since I began homeschooling my children last year, I’ve felt compelled to raise them as amateur naturalists.  We take walks together as a family. I casually acknowledge the lifeforms we pass if I happen to know their names, trying not to intrude too much on our experience by making it sound like a lesson.  “Hello…

Making good trouble and the trouble with goodness
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Making good trouble and the trouble with goodness

It’s Sunday and four-year-old P’s turn to pick the movie. The eight-week ban on “Frozen 2” has expired and so, to her older brother’s chagrin, that is what we are watching, again. I admit that, aside from the film’s flaws and how tiresome it is to watch it for the hundredth time, it is a…

‘A bad guy was killing people’: A parent’s response to the nightmare of gun violence
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‘A bad guy was killing people’: A parent’s response to the nightmare of gun violence

It’s 3 a.m. and the moon is glowing softly through the wide bedroom window. Why am I awake? I look to the side and see that our six-month-old is sleeping soundly. A repetition of the sound that woke me, “Mama!!”, comes from the room across the hall. It’s our three-year-old who, despite a strong, independent…

Parent in training: a review of “Bless This Mess”
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Parent in training: a review of “Bless This Mess”

My five-month-old just fell asleep. Now I have anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours to “get something done.” This phenomenon of sporadic, indefinite hands-free time is something that’s hard for folks who are not immersed in parenting young children to understand. Even those of us who’ve been through it often develop a gauzy memory…

Be perfect
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Be perfect

Hypocrisy. According to Google, it’s “The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.” It’s a dirty word; the worst of insults in religious circles. Why, then, do those who consider themselves clean of heart, hand and tongue seem to so relish the taste of…