“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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It was my turn to teach the sixth graders at youth group last Monday night. To prepare, I braced myself and read over the lesson on the love of God. When it came time to pull the four students aside, I found myself facing a squirrelly bunch. We opened our Bibles to the right passage. […]
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My seven-year-old looked adorable in his basketball jersey. It hung down way past his waist, but he didn’t care. He was too excited for his first day of the basketball program through our YMCA: skills assessment day. He was one of the most enthusiastic participants on the gym floor, and we cheered him on from […]
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A quick internet search will give you lots of tips and tricks for more efficient morning and evening routines. We are all busy, and we all want to make time for what matters to us, or at least automate those daily tasks that need to be accomplished so that we are free to do other […]
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Sarah K. Butterfield 