Jared and I were talking to a dad from our church recently, and he was telling us about how he reads to his kids before bed most nights. On the way home, I told Jared about the books my dad would read to us at bedtime, and how we’d all sprawl across the living room … Continue reading Where the Green Train Goes
Here is something I didn't expect when I began coaching writers--- I never thought I'd travel so far. It's a cliche to say that reading lets you travel the world, but when you rally a group of writers around a table, you're really in for an expedition. Writers write stories, and stories need people inside … Continue reading Circumnavigators
FOR SALE--- White desk with scrolled drawers and just right for a little girl to grow up into— preferably someone who’ll write stories into its wood and not mind the dinks and bruises. I wrote my first novel on it, which also happened to be my last. I wrote my first few articles, then hundreds … Continue reading FOR SALE: Desk In Need of a Writer
I came down the drive tonight just before the rainstorm, and the lamp was on, and the fan moving thick air through the front room, and you weren't home. You'd taken a train to the sea, then a steamship across, and were walking Berlin in 1943, and the bikes were ringing under the bombers (and … Continue reading Girl on the Train
When I looked in your eyes I didn't see fear or questions about the war--- But of course! I saw the tree above us reflected and growing toward the sky.
Someone gave me a composition notebook for my fourteenth birthday and told me to write blessings in it, to number them. I think the goal was 10,000, but I lost count after awhile, and the “thanksgivings” turned into little observations of the world around me: The house is quiet this morning. Elsie learned to roll … Continue reading The Things I’ve Seen
The Tokyo Games begin, and I remember how I’d hoped to be an Olympian. I didn’t have any one sport in mind. I’d watch the women’s 100-meter free swim and try it out in Mr. Frank’s pool, sending water over the sides. We used to have the A-frame to an old, peeling swing set, and … Continue reading Quieter Dreams
I turned twenty last week. People say it’s a change, a milestone, so it’s good to remember Jesus turned twenty once. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness” (Heb. 4:15). But Jesus is also “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Years can’t weigh on … Continue reading A Little Older
In C. S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian, Lucy Pevensie shakes awake her siblings to announce she’s seen the lion, Aslan. “I can’t see anything,” said Peter after he had stared his eyes sore. “Can you, Susan?” “No, of course I can’t,” snapped Susan. “Because there isn’t anything to see. She’s been dreaming.”[i] But Susan later admits … Continue reading A Pevensie, a Pharisee, and the Imagination to See Reality
January 19 If you don’t think the world is magical or that God doesn’t spin whimsy things, try buttoning your coat and traipsing out into heel-deep snow when somewhere behind stacks of clouds the sun is almost gone. Make sure the sky is spilling flakes. Forget gloves, forget a cap. If you stomp around … Continue reading How to be Awed by a Magical World
