Posts Tagged ‘life’
The Last Day of July
I am surrounded by gremlins with good hearts and under-developed brains. This is what I tell myself as I collapse into our big yellow armchair (IKEA STRADMON) and survey the wreckage of an ordinary summer day in a house with four children. It’s early evening and the house is quiet for the first time in…
Read Moreday 17: anatomy of not writing
On the surface, things feel mundane. There’s work, a lot of work, and work is good and I’m grateful for that. There’s reading the news every day and watching that godawful election burn down in slow motion and I feel distant from that but it seems like the only public conversation left these days.
Read MoreA Love Letter to Bloggers
I’m grateful for a place to put my words — barely edited and a little bit undercooked. And I’m so very grateful that you’re doing the same thing.
Read MoreDay 22: Having an Ordinary Day
My liturgical friends have a stretch of the church calendar they call “ordinary time”. I don’t know very much about it, but I think it has something to do with the rhythms of life, and the way that the high points and holidays are scattered across stretches of the year that are simply ordinary. Today…
Read MoreDay 18: Being Present
I’m growing to believe that being present is one of the greatest gifts we can give, to ourselves and to our fellow humans. It’s not easy, though. There are a thousand things distracting us from being present all the time — the voices spinning circles inside our heads, to-do lists begging for attention, electronic devices,…
Read MoreDay 04: Figuring My Life Out
I had an existential crisis before I got out of bed this morning. This isn’t particularly unusual, although the source was slightly unexpected: Mindy Kaling. I was reading Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? (as you do on Sunday mornings) and I came to this essay about men and boys: Until I was 30, I…
Read MoreDay 03: Accomplishing Nothing
I accomplished literally nothing today. Outside my windows, shades of dusk are telling me that Saturday evening is here and that I have nothing to show for it. I haven’t bought a couch, built a website, or written anything good. I haven’t even made my bed, cleaned my kitchen, or paid my rent. Sometime after…
Read MoreDay 01: Becoming Human
A few days ago my friend Mikayla asked how I’m doing. “Ya know, it is what it is,” I replied. Because apparently I am a curmedgeonly old man from Kansas, in an angsty low-budget film. But then I elaborated: “Grief is a long road. Healing is a slow process. Fall is beautiful. Winter is scary.…
Read MoreTurning the Page
People often ask me where the name “Redemption Pictures” came from. It started when I was in college, making short films and dreaming big dreams about big screens and Hollywood. “Redemption Pictures” was the name I gave to those little movies. When I started the blog without much thought a few years ago, I went ahead…
Read MoreGoodbye Charlotte
“We’re living a good story.” That’s what I told Sarah in August a year ago, as we threw things into a suitcase for a reckless overnight road trip to Charlotte. And in a sense, that was true. Good stories and good memories are made from the brave, impulsive moments that we still laugh about a…
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