My Lovely Dwelling Place

Merry Christmas The Christmas season is a sentimental time. It lends itself to memories and attempts at memory making - family get-togethers and all the dysfunction that may or may not go along with that. We sing about romantic ideas like chestnuts roasting on an open fire somewhere, of sleigh bells and silver bells, of mamas kissing  Santa, and grandma getting run over by reindeer…okay, maybe we’re not always thinking romantically about Christmas. There is the housecleaning and decorating and cooking and shopping and gift wrapping and event coordinating that goes along with the high expectations we have for this particular holiday. For some of us, it may only feel like a whole lot of work. Some of us might struggle with disappointments, broken relationships, or unpleasant memories that return with the season. So much gets added to Christmas, sometimes we can forget why we celebrate. When I was a little girl, I would sit under the Christmas tree listening to my mom’s

A Meditation on Psalm 23 The trouble with getting up in the morning is that one has to do it every day. As my wonderful co-workers have been apt to say, “Same ___ different day.” I’m thinking this sentiment is probably the number one reason some folks lament “adulting.” The tiresomeness of the same job, same problems, same relationships, same sins…We know what to expect, so why get out of bed? Life gets old, and we get disappointed. As Robert Service laments in his poem The Quitter, life isn’t always a bowl of cherries…*** When you're lost in the Wild, and you're scared as a child, And Death looks you bang in the eye, And you're sore as a boil, it's according to Hoyle To cock your revolver and . . . die. But the Code of a Man says: "Fight all you can," And self-dissolution is barred. In hunger and woe, oh, it's easy to blow . . . It's the hell-served-for-breakfast that's hard. "You're sick of the game!&qu

Parenting with Perspective I read recently in a lovely book about faithful parenting that when a child tries to manipulate us in various vexing ways, we should respond with calmness, grace, and wisdom. After all, we don’t want to “answer a fool according to his folly, or we will be like him…. (Proverbs 26:4)”, right? The book went on to give various examples of teen manipulation and proper parenting response. I confess I laughed out loud at a few of them – not that they were untrue statements, but that I’d be able to say them in the mist  of dealing with the miscommunication that seems to inevitably result whenever I attempt to talk, direct, teach, discipline, train, or even sneeze in the general direction of my offspring. For example, the other day I asked one of my children to get something from the laundry room - His response? – “That laundry room?”  Selah. Now, I am an average middle class woman with an average middle class home – there has only ever been one l

Truth      What is truth?      A question that’s asked by everyone sooner or later in life’s journey – maybe not rhetorically, like cynical Pilate, but asked honestly with a desire to know.      According to Webster, truth is the body of real things, events and facts – having to do with reality. Capitalized, it is a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality. To be true, is to have sincerity in action, character and utterance. Some synonyms for truth are veracity, verity, candor, honesty, accuracy, correctness, validity, authenticity, reality, actuality, and fact.      I remember during the destruction of my first marriage, when the proverbial chickens came home to roost, how relieved I was to finally know the truth – ugly as it was at the time. It was more welcome to me than the lies I had been told for so long.      Truth can be hard, cold, and difficult – but it is always better to know exactly what we’re dealing with than to presume on falsehoods to our own