Margaret Philbrick spent many summers playing tag in the cherry and apple orchards of northern Wisconsin. Her friend Julie grew up on one of those orchards and her life experiences of harvest and loss inspired this story. ******* Like most things it started with one....
Entrapped by cold concrete, beauty unnoticed between back-to-school walkers, dog sniffers, after dinner strollers. Protected by a crack, fending off frost, courageous late bloomer. Could we be like you? Shining our summer colors when least expected? Hiding our seeds...
God’s timing is perfect and that is certainly true for Sheila Wise Rowe’s book on Healing Racial Trauma. In the midst of a pandemic year, which may well be the worst imaginable year to launch a book, God has allowed our present circumstances to usher in a deep need...
“If you’re offended when you look on your Facebook page, and you see someone call Hillary Clinton or Maxine Waters the b-word or the c-word, you should be equally offended when you see someone call Ivanka Trump or Ann Coulter those words” – Dr. Brene Brown speaking at...
“Someone needs to take out the trash. I can smell it from here.” Our daughter, the prima donna, diva ballerina shouted from the stairs as she rounded the corner to grab her bagel breakfast before heading off to high school. Claiming an extremely sensitive sense of...
“Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.” The whispered phrase, repeated like a Gregorian chant as John leaned back against the bathroom wall submitting to my husband’s lifting of one foot, then the other. The immediate goal, get him into a clean pair of...
We’ve heard about her, sewing late into the night by a lamp that does not go out, gorgeous toned arms planting a vineyard, a prominent husband, self-designed purple clothing, and children that get up in the morning and praise her. All of that sounds like an...
She lost all her memory in drops of misplaced keys forgotten bills a disconnected phone. Her makeup grew heavy. Pristine eyeliner, now charcoal cakes stacked on summer tan base, claret jacket, mauve sweater out of season. “You’ll need to wrap your neck now that it’s...
White Pine, Red Cedar Evergreen decked in strands of web separated by wind ushering in winter. Once summer's home to spider's fare of fly and flea now flown and barren blown down, a single hair of hoarfrost catching crystals. Sparkle, twinkle single thread newly...
A reflection on taking our first son to college Indiana University Orientation A hot weekend in roasted granite wandering the ivory tower of Southern Indiana red. Hoosier Red. Red faces with beads of sweat streaming down alongside sideburns still coming in. Red cheeks...
