Sincere Faith and the Great Pumpkin
It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! is not about the sacred in opposition to the secular but a striving to find the sacred within the secular.
The Kiddy Pool: Censoring and Editing Children’s Books
My husband and I do censor books, but as people of faith, we parents have to trust that we’ve done the best we can to prepare our children to cope in a broken world on their own.
Back-to-School as Secular Liturgy
As a parent, I move in time with the liturgy of school and parenthood that allocates a season for all things.
The Kiddy Pool: Presidential Daughters
We want to believe that our presidential choice shares our values when it comes to future generations, however unlikely that is in reality.
The Kiddy Pool: Summertime, and the Livin’ Ain’t Easy
Reflecting on summer vacation prompts me to consider just how ordinary poverty is for so many of my neighbors, literal and figurative.
The Kiddy Pool: The Problem with Promises in Marriage Vows
Marriage vows hold us to a standard impossible to attain without the grace and forgiveness of Christ and each other.
The Kiddy Pool: Waiting for Dory
And Finding Dory is a film that celebrates Dory as the arrow who flies just as much as it celebrates her parents as the stable bow.
The Kiddy Pool: Beauty and Brokenness at the Beach
I can’t impose the order I long for on the world or even a child’s seashell collection.
The Kiddy Pool: The Gap Year and the Sabbath
I love the idea of a bridge year for all students, but it finds its precedent in the older and wiser commandment that we’re called to follow: that Sabbath shouldn’t be only for the privileged few.
The Next Page: There Is Life after College and Character Formation
The fruits of the spirit that guide Christian character formation differ from the “human capital” Jeffrey Selingo discusses in his book There Is Life after College.
The Next Page: ‘The Importance of Being Little’, or Let the Little Children Come
Trusting children and young adults to be creative and thoughtful, and getting out of the way so they can actualize their visions, is a messy and uncomfortable process.
The Next Page: A Tribute and a Hope in ‘The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder’
At the heart of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s stories is an urge to preserve her family’s lore and legacy.
The Next Page: ‘Better Living through Criticism’ and Thinking about Christian Art
We mustn’t offer a knee-jerk dismissal of criticism of so-called Christian media, because sometimes it’s bad art. And bad art, even with the marketing label Christian, does not glorify the ultimate Creator.
The Next Page: Annoying People and Pope Francis’s ‘The Name of God Is Mercy’
Our faith should change the way that we operate in the world.
The Never-ending Redemption Run
Looking back and looking ahead through the eyes of a runner.
The Next Page: Mr. Lemoncello’s Library and Agreeing on Essentials
My loyalty is not to indoctrinating others with my narrow vision of good books but to reading.
