MUSINGS

My sixteen year old son asked me a troubling question.  “Mom, what sort of person am I?” Huh?  Well that was totally unexpected. As a parent, I take very seriously my responsibility to affirm the uniqueness and God-given talents in each of my children. I knew my son wasn’t asking me about his gifts. He was asking about his core. When it is all peeled away, who is he? The teen years are so fraught with self-doubt and uncertainty, that it is often hard to navigate the discordant and competing voices that speak to a child’s heart. We had a[...]

photo courtesy of Wikipedia I stopped watching television some time ago. Before I get labeled a fanatic, please understand that I don’t mean the device is itself offensive. In fact, my Saturday evenings are usually spent watching period drama pieces on DVD. What I mean is I gave up watching shows on TV because I find much of the content objectionable. This is where my friends-including Christian friends-roll their eyes and accuse me of not being real. My jocular response is usually, "I assure you, I am not a work of fiction." But in all seriousness, their ar[...]

My children love audio books. The dramatized versions of classic literature would keep them quiet for miles. We listened to Les Miserables, The Back of the North Wind, In Freedom’s Cause and one of our favorites- The Chronicles of Narnia. A compelling (if flawed) set of stories about a mythical land ruled by a majestic lion, Aslan. When Mr. Tumnus reminds Lucy that Aslan is “not a tame lion” I often think about the way we treat the Lord. I know a few people who seem to think that God is always talking. They claim He talks to them about shopping at Walmart,[...]

Full disclosure: I follow popular culture (to a degree) because I am the mom of teenage boys. I also work with teenagers. I actively discourage them from getting their values or understanding of themselves from entertainers or the art ( I use that term liberally) these entertainers produce. I remember being a teenager in the early nineties, aka-the age of the illicit love affair. The airwaves were awash with singers crooning about a secret romance that was so wrong but felt right. The songs were hauntingly compelling, like sirens luring an entire generation into[...]

It’s a Friday night. After the stress of a long week, I take a long bath, prepare a pot of tea and get my kindle. There’s just one problem. I’ve got nothing to read. I don’t mean to say I can’t decide which scrumptious story I should read. I mean I have been searching without much success to find a Goldilocks romance. That just right story that doesn’t rely on pages and pages of pen porn to carry the plot; or a starched, sermonizing treatise where romance is an afterthought and passion is a sin. I do find some success; but it is marginal.[...]