"How's the campaign going?"
It's the question I get most often. It's also the question I'm never quite sure how to answer.
Good? ... Great! ... Your guess is as good as mine. ... We'll see May 17th!
The truth - I suppose - all depends on what you're measuring.
This weekend we hosted a Winter ONE-derland party in honor of Felix's first birthday. Considering this child was born during a snow, it seemed like an appropriate theme. Well, the weather had other plans and it was 70 and sunny! I could have hosted the dang party outside!
For my 30th birthday, I created a list of 30 things I wanted to do. One was to write a historical fiction short story. This is the story and as Ruby keeps calling to me here lately. I thought I'd share it here.
One of Nicholas's New Year's resolutions was to try freezer meals. He'd prepped meals for the week on and off through 2015 and wanted to see how it would work to prepare an entire month's worth. Then, we could just pull a meal from the deep freeze, throw it in the crockpot, and on a busy day dinner would be waiting for us.
It happens every time I fill out a new medical form for one of my boys. Can your child do this? Can your child do that? I go down the list of questions checking one “yes” box after another. I leave the lines to describe any developmental delays or physical issues blank.
As I looked over the form, my eyes welled up with tears and I start to cry. I feel incredible gratitude, but I also feel such sadness. Sadness because I know it was a moment Annie has never gotten to have
Last year, my family experienced a tragedy. At 20 weeks pregnant, I found out the baby I was carrying was no longer alive. It was an incredibly difficult time made easier by family and friends - and even strangers - who reached out and said they understood or they couldn’t understand but that they loved us and were there for us just for the same.
This post is not about those people.
This post is about the people who wanted to seem thoughtful or sympathetic or supportive but who were actually there for themselves - not me or my family.
I call those people tragedy trolls.
This is the sermon delivered by The Rev. Richard Paxton on April 26, 2015, the date of Felix's baptism at Grace Episcopal Church.
Whenever I begin to formulate a sermon, I often start by consulting Bible commentaries. I like to see what biblical scholars are saying as I ponder their meaning myself.
In the case of today’s readings on this Good Shepherd Sunday, I consulted a few commentaries, and a recurrent theme kept cropping up—in fact, a recurrent adjective: “superfluous.”
I love Louis C.K. He is considered one of the greatest comedians of his generation but I think he is so much more. Great comedy comes from wisdom and intelligence and - most of all perhaps - vulnerability. Louis C.K. possesses all these things and while his standup is hilarious, I found his recent interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air more than just funny. I found it smart and insightful. I HIGHLY recommend the whole interview but had to share some of what he had to say here.
