Category: Life
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Come to the Stable
Growing up, my Oma (grandmother) would invite her grandkids over to help set up the Nativity scene at her house. She would get out her shoebox filled with the chipped porcelain figurines, all wrapped in old newspapers. We would scramble to unwrap them quickly, grouping them together on the coffee table: shepherds and their sheep,…
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Life Lesson 2: Read a Book for at Least Fifty Pages
There’s a saying that everything we need to know in life, we learned in kindergarten. I definitely learned a few handy things after kindergarten, but there are lots of life lessons to be gleaned from childhood. Over the course of this sporadic series, I’ll share some of those life lessons. You can read the first…
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Leveling Up
Yesterday, May 31, we celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus’ followers and gave them the ability to speak in other languages (Acts 2:1-12). This wasn’t the first time that Jesus sent out his followers to preach in his name (Mt 10:5-15; Lk 9:1-6; Lk 10:1-12). What makes this time…
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Life Lesson 1: Try Everything (within reason) Once
There’s a saying that everything we need to know for life, we learned in kindergarten. I definitely learned a few handy things after kindergarten, but there are lots of life lessons to be gleaned from childhood. Over the course of this sporadic series, I’ll share some of those life lessons. * When I was nine-years-old,…
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What I learned during Camp NaNoWriMo (April 2020)
Camp NaNoWriMo, April 2020 edition, wrapped up last week. It’s similar to regular NaNo in November, except during Camp, you set your own writing goal. I set mine low at 30,000 words (compared to the 50,000-word goal during NaNo) because April was supposed to be crazy busy with ministry and life things. But I planned…
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Quarantined Creative
There’s a lot going on these days: Spring is clearly on its way (at least in my little corner of the world); I am in the middle of demolishing my Camp NaNaNoWri (National Novel Writing Month) goal; liturgically, we are in the Easter season; and the Covid-19 Pandemic continues, drastically changing how people live and…
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The Three Month Mark
At the beginning of October, about six months before my thirtieth birthday, I started a six month focus on four goals: Mental/spiritual health Physical health Finances Writing Ultimately, the purpose was two-fold. First, these are practical things to help start my thirties off on the right foot. These benefits are already manifesting in many ways:…
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The Best Laid Plan: Gratitude
Someone recently commented that this fall has been ‘spicy’, and I couldn’t agree more. I came into it thinking I was prepared. And I was, in the best way I could: lots of food in the freezer for busy weeks, running task lists, and thoughtful plans with flexibility. And not a single thing has turned…
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Letting Go Beautifully
There’s a great quote making the social media rounds that says: The trees are about to show us how beautiful it is to let things go. Unknown The leaves are just starting to turn here, and when they start, they go fast. But the beauty isn’t just in the leaves changing colours, there is beauty…
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The Next Six Months
Have you ever had something – a quote, an idea, a song, anything – pop into your life, and then you can’t shake it? Just when you think it’s gone, it comes back. It’s been happening somewhat regularly lately. Usually it means I’m avoiding something Most recently, it’s been happening with this quote: Six months…
Lauren van Vliet, author 