COURAGE – from the Latin word cor (heart), via French to Middle English – originally meant “what is in one’s mind and heart” but also came to mean bravery, pride, confidence, free will amongst other like ideas. Words for “heart” in the Middle Ages were often metaphors for inner strength. Sorry, the word nut in […]
Tag: hope
You just make sense to me
On one Sunday last month in the tiny church in my little swath of the Midwest, a trio of performers sang a couple of songs. But these performers were different than what was expected for a church worship service. These three were members of LGBTQIA+ continuum. They sang beautifully, but more importantly, they sang in […]
Every ordinary day
It’s that time of winter where the holiday season is over. The lights are coming down. The Christmas tree and all of its ornaments have been packed away in boxes in the basement. The Nativity, the scene of so much politicizing this year, is tucked away, forgotten once more. The nights, once full of light […]
Glad Tidings once more
There is a giant mess in my front room currently. Several boxes are on the floor, their contents in disarray. My writing desk sits askew on one of the boxes, waiting for me to pull it once more onto my lap. Discarded papers from stamps and sticker sheets probably line the floor in between the […]
Christmas time is here again
It’s the 4th of December. My little swath of the Midwest is dealing with some wintry wonderland weather. We had a snowstorm that dumped more than a half foot of snow on us this past weekend and today the wind chill is below zero degrees Fahrenheit. It looks like Christmas outside. Inside, the tree is […]
Change is inevitable
I often tell people I’m not a fan of changes. Routines work best for me, even as I do plan a bit of flexibility into them as needed. Plans are made in advance and sometimes even have built-in excuses if I have to bail on them. And when changes occur, I’m often left feeling like […]
Noise drowns out love?
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” ~1 Corinthians 13:1 (NIV version) The world today is a noisy place. Everywhere we look, there are words of hate and rhetoric being thrown about. People are being marginalized and […]
Two steps forward and one step back
Yesterday the other half and I got news that kind of stunned us and changes the course of some of our major plans. Without going into much detail, changes to our lives have been made yet again. But that’s just part of life. Like John Lennon penned, “Life is what happens while you are busy […]
You belong
Today marks a year since my first serial novel, The Magician, debuted in paperback format. But more importantly, today marks a year since the tiny church that my other half and I attend in my little swath of the Midwest voted almost unanimously to become the first open and affirming church in the city. Those […]
Hope does not disappoint
I often talk about how my favorite word is the word HOPE. There are multiple posts here on this blog about that discuss hope…. From Hope to discussing that Hope has two daughters, to the fact that Generations upon hopeful generations use traditions, to even discovering What sound does hope make when it dies. But […]