Archives for September 2014

Great — WRONG — Expectations

Expectations – we all have them, but sometimes, they’re wrong. When I visited Portland for the first time, I was still living in North Carolina. I was a thirty-something pastor’s daughter (and niece, great-niece, and granddaughter), who had a degree from a church college, and had worked for six years for a conservative church denomination. […]

An End to Sackcloth and Ashes

This past weekend was a pretty insightful one for me. Surprisingly so, because my weekends are often just as busy as my weekdays. The grocery shopping has to be done. The laundry. Meal preparation for the week. And, of course, ever since my things arrived from North Carolina, there has been a mad flurry of […]

Thoughts From the Pillow Nest

Masks. We hide behind them. But the analogy I’m more familiar with is walls. Same thing. We hide behind them. And this week, as we talk more about The Cure, I’m going to go back to my analogy of walls. But first, let’s start with that hopeful bit of text that caught my eye this […]

When We Confuse Masks For Armor

One of the things I am most certain of in this crazy world is that there is a battle going on around me. I see it in small ways—like the road rage I see (and sometimes experience) on the commute to and from work each day. And I see it in large ways—like groups of […]

Tears, Dustbunnies & Sticky Blue Popsicles

Lucie was four years old and had one major goal in life: to be Wonder Woman. (In the late 80s/early 90s, what little girl didn’t have that aspiration?) Meanwhile, her five year old brother, Charlie, had quite a different goal in life: to torture Lucie. Even though they were a year apart in age, the […]