Coming back to our condo in San Diego after three months spent on my husband’s family farm in Michigan was jarring. For a few days, I could only see all the ways in which our house wasn’t measuring up to my ideals. No yard. Shared walls. Very little natural light in the main living area. […]
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Every time I see the mosaic sculptures at Waterfront Park in downtown San Diego, I’m impressed. By no means are they the most awe-inspiring examples of this ancient art form, but I love the intricate pop of color they provide, set against the gray buildings of downtown. Mosaic art dates back to centuries before Christ […]
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The first time I confronted my own racism was at the dollar store. I was in the checkout line, emptying the contents of my basket on the conveyor belt. Standing in front of me was a black mom, a little younger than me, holding her toddler. In the checkout line right next to mine, a […]
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“Do you mean to tell me that your parents came to every single one of your baseball games?” My then-boyfriend looked at me like I had two heads. “Of course,” he said. I was still trying to wrap my brain around what Max was telling me. His childhood in rural Michigan was so different than […]
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My six year old burst through the door one morning recently to say “Guess what day it is!?” I smiled at the twinkle in his eye. I knew what he was gettting at. “It’s Friday!” I watched him jump up an down with excitement. “It’s PIZZA NIGHT!” he shouted. He and his older brother had […]
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I feel a pang of sadness every night as I crawl under the covers. The last thing I do before going to bed is record the day’s events in my Five Year Journal. It’s a “one line a day” journal with space for just a few sentences, so I can see at a glance what […]
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We typically think of an apocalypse as a final catastrophe, but when we look at its Greek etymology, it also means a “revelation, an unveiling or unfolding of things not previously known and which could not be known apart from the unveiling.” (source) It is in this way that I think of the Coronavirus pandemic. […]
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I’ve heard Christians talk about this time of self-quarantine as a Sabbath, and though I believe this sentiment is well-intentioned, there are many reasons to make it impossible to think of it as such. The Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments: Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor […]
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In the spring of 2000, I sat with fifteen of my classmates in our twelfth grade Church History class, listening to Mr. Jones talk about early Christian monks. As we learned more about the monastic traditions of our desert fathers and mothers, he mentioned offhandedly how interesting it might be to try and live as […]
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When we first took our cat to the vet, he told us to keep her nails clipped. Mowgli, our half-feral kitten who had come galloping out of a patchy swamp in the country woods, was affectionate but not cooperative. Call it her independent streak or chalk it up to her wild roots, but anytime we […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 