Longing. Webster’s defines it as “a strong persistent yearning or desire, especially one that cannot be fulfilled.” As an MK, I would define it as “the warm taste of the past lingering on my tongue, the sweet sounds of yester-place ringing in my ear, the soft homeness of a lost universe whispering in my heart.” […]
… [Written the day after Mari Ellen passed away on Easter Sunday, 2012] I don’t know how to begin. I wish there were a word to describe the shift of a universe at the exit of a kindred soul. I just went diving into my paper-recycle bag, frantic to find the card I received […]
May I introduce you to a friend of mine? Eva is a beautiful young woman who grew up in Kyrgyzstan. When she was 9, her family moved to Germany, then made a major (and permanent) move to the States a year later. Today, Eva is a bright and vivacious 6th grader with a keen mind […]
I was having a lightning-fast lunch on the grass of Wheaton College’s quad last week when a friend reminded me about gratitude. It was a timely knock upside the head, as I’ve allowed the decisions I’m having to make these days to rob me of both serenity and sleep, and the gratitude that has so […]
There’s a French expression that doesn’t quite translate into English: “like a hair on soup.” You’re having coffee in Starbucks and enjoying the alone-time when someone you vaguely know intrudes on your peace and quiet…like a hair on soup. That’s the gist of it. One week ago, while on a short trip to visit […]
(See the end of the post for news on Brian’s disappearance.) I’ve been home-shopping. Not apartment-shopping. Home-shopping. As in “I own this place.” After 19 years throwing money out the window every month by renting an apartment in Germany, I figure now is as good a time as any to convert my lifelong savings (gulp) […]
[Don’t worry–this isn’t a Whitney Houston tribute…] It was 1988. I was house-sitting with my college roommate somewhere in Wheaton. She’d gone off to class, and I was eating cereal with an eye on the television. MTV was fairly new, in those days, and videos still held a fascination to me. This many years later, […]
I’m a student again. When I finished my course work at Wheaton back in 1989, I swore (SWORE!) that I would never enter a classroom again. Imagine my surprise, last month, to find myself preparing for my first class in over 20 years. I walked with feigned confidence into the classroom holding 30 or […]
Have you ever sat in church listening to that traditional Opening Illustration and wondered how the pastor ever found a story to support an obscure theological point? I think there must be a website somewhere in which Shepherds of the Flock can enter “Sports metaphor that illustrates transubstantiation” and poof! Up come fifteen stories about […]
Given some of the vitriolic responses I’ve had to previous articles, you’d think my chief New Year’s Resolution for 2012 would be to write on less controversial topics. One reader responded to Holy Hypocrisy by essentially calling me a cynical and bitter parent-hater intent on demonizing missions and missionaries. I choked on my croissant and […]