medial // caesura

a wall of books--not in an office at work, but at home where I can scan the spines and relive the places I've been in my mind and heart.  I don't have a Kindle, a Nook, or an iPad. . .I'm sure I will one day, but for now I like the heavy boxes, the musty smell, the cumbersome collection of physical books. In college, I used $20 bills as bookmarks occasionally; so near the end of the month, I may leaf through some books from college on the shelves in my bedroom, just in case.  The other night, my husband was looking for a classic to read, so we got out a few of my boxes of books from my teaching days.  It was fun to leaf through those. . .D's certificate of baptism, my Auburn diploma, pictures of a best friend and me from high school showchoir, a thank you note from a group of ESL students written in seven different languages, a photograph of my godson as an infant (I just saw a homecoming pic of him on Facebook yesterday!), a picture of me when I was three and my you...

"Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere," writes the Psalmist (Psalm 84:10). One day better than one thousand? That's something to think about. . . and that's what this blogging experience is going to be about. . .all those things I want to think about someday. . . one day . . .when I have the time. One thousand brings to mind a book I was introduced to last night by a friend's exuberant Facebook statuses. Her gratitude was contagious and so I had to check out for myself one thousand gifts -- a book by poet/mystic/homeschooling mother/pig farmer's wife, Ann Voskamp. I've only read the first chapter, but what a fascinating, provocative challenge, a dare really, to live a life of gratitude. Voskamp's take on "original sin" is not that it's a misogynist slam against knowledge-seeking, but that really what it was all about was that our first parents were not content . They knew everything, saw everything, h...