History, Real Life and Faith
I did not grow up in a home that read the Bible, over even encouraged it. Indeed, the only Bible we owned was a decaying, brown-paged Gideon’s Bible my father swiped from a hotel room. It anchored the bookshelf on the far right, pushed back and half hidden by the more important family books: a dog-eared, spine-broken atlas and a…
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Stereotype: A fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing. As a writer, I sometimes work in shorthand, to keep my characters set in my mind while I do other things with them. I can label them as “this” or “that” and more easily predict what they will do. Stereotypes can be very helpful in…
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Since childhood, I’ve cherished the scene in Frances Hodgson’s The Secret Garden, where the three children stand outside the door in the wall they’ve uncovered. The rusty key goes into the ancient lock and they push into an overgrown garden, full of surprises, birds, animals and thick with promise. Life is good–I had the same experience as an adult, though we knew the garden…
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Letting the force be with you in a foreign language. Here’s the set up: I was invited once to a family wedding in Cali, Columbia. All I knew about Cali was its reputation as the center of world narco-terrorism. I’m a coward. But my brother dared me. Fortunately, my husband is a good sport and he agreed to come, along with our teenage daughter. Besides, the family promised…
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Letting the force be with you in a foreign language. Here’s the set up: I was invited once to a family wedding in Cali, Columbia. All I knew about Cali was its reputation as the center of world narco-terrorism. I’m a coward. But my brother dared me. Fortunately, my husband is a good sport and he agreed to come, along with our teenage daughter. Besides, the family promised…
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I’ve long been interested in the concept of generational sin. It’s a problem, usually like alcoholism or anger, that begins when one person makes a choice and the ripples from that poor choice reverberate all through the lives of family members. Studies have demonstrated time and again the value of making moral choices not only for your own sake, but also…
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