by Ann Marie Bausch I must confess: just the idea of writing about discomfort made me, well, uncomfortable. We live in a frightening world. Many of us walk our days carrying the traumas of the past and our fears for the future just under our skin, and the platitudes offered up for how to deal … Continue reading Make it New: Discomfort Zones
by Susannah Brister Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” I have always hated New Year’s resolutions. Every year I faced January 1st full of stolid determination, ready to jog more miles, go to bed earlier, be more generous, eat less sugar. My list of “shoulds” and … Continue reading Make It New: Unresolved
by Karen Bjork Kubin The fact is, the jeans found you. Or, technically, your husband brought them home in a pile of thrift store denim and one pair fit—but not just fit, they fit well: slim in the right places, forgiving in the right places, not too short or too long. They turned out somehow … Continue reading Make it New: Mending
by Julie Riddle During my annual eye exam last November, I asked my optometrist if she was ready for the “2020” jokes she’s sure to hear from patients in the New Year. She looked at me blankly. Then she smiled and chirped, “Ha! I hadn’t thought of that!” I was instantly troubled by why I … Continue reading Make it New: Letting Go of 20/20 in 2020
Being a parent is hard. We never have it all figured out, even when we’ve done it well in the past.
So when I learned the Lord’s Prayer, it was one of the most liberating moments of my early religious development. The roteness and authority of it were exactly what I needed to get through meal- and bed-time rituals.
We are stripping our house layer by layer, occasionally stopping to wonder out loud if it feels like we’re trying to erase her and purify this space. Our mother is in every facet of the house; she picked the colors, sewed the curtains herself (one handed, no less), and embroidered half of the wall decorations.
I find myself renewing old vows: to care for myself better so I can better care for others. To stand tall, both physically and emotionally. And to adopt and live out a new word for something I have been working at for several years, now.
Harry Potter had given me back the way I’d read in childhood—for no other reason than to be swept away by a great story. It was about the smell of the paper, the swish and crackle of a turning page, zooming through paragraph after paragraph to find out what happens next.
What haunts my waking dreams is the library; a sacred space, richly textured with human spines and book spines, crinkly papers, and dusty tomes. How do I make these perennial objects of desire—those recorded and those we wish to find—new to those who do not see the library as I see it?
