Posts Tagged ‘well-read mom’
Time to Read
As I spread a pile of books on the table at The Roadside Cafe, the waitress was curious, “What kind of work do you do?” She was surprised when I told her I run a national book club for women.
Read MoreMarilla Cuthbert and the Journey of Unconventional Motherhood
What does it mean to live out the generative capacity that all women are called to when you have borne no children? All women possess the calling to be fruitful, but each of us must ask what that means for us in particular. Some of us will continue working out the answer to this question for our entire lives, whether because of singleness, infertility, or a commitment to the religious life. A darling, fuzzy-headed toddler sleeps peacefully in the next room as I write this. Still, it took over a decade of marriage and a beautiful yet heartbreaking adoption journey for me to become a mother.
Read MoreIn Praise of Useless Reading
In An Experiment in Criticism, C.S. Lewis asserts that there aren’t two types of books (good and bad), but instead, there are two types of readers: the “many” and the “few”. I feel confident that everyone reading this blog post falls into the second category.
Read MoreThis Ordinary Life
Even in Christian culture we have a tendency to magnify the extraordinary and minimize the ordinary. It’s laughable, really, because Christ Himself lived a beautiful ordinary life.
Read MoreStarting a Book Club on Too Little Sleep
It seems like a questionable decision brought on by too few hours of consecutive sleep (not unlike when I put the ketchup bottle in the dishwasher or when I machine washed and dried my favorite wool sweater). According to lots of people who know me (and everyone who doesn’t know me but sees me at Costco), my hands are full. I don’t have time to start a book club. Maybe, just maybe, I could join a book club that someone else started (probably not, though, because I wouldn’t have time to keep up with the reading). That’s why I love Well-Read Mom.
Read MoreAnne of Green Gables and the Glorious Sanctity of Life
When I was a child, sprawled out across my bed, delighting in Anne for the first time, her quaint sense of melodrama (to which I completely related) and her yearning for beauty and love spoke to my very soul. As a teenager, I sought to emulate Anne’s sense of conviction, righteousness, and ambition, desiring to aspire to her lofty ideals of character and empathizing with her very human struggles. Now, as an adult, though I certainly revel in those aspects of the story, I find myself increasingly pondering Matthew and Marilla’s role in this poignant tale.
Read MoreReading for Virtue
What is it that enables literature to have such an influential sway over our very souls? What causes the youngest of children to relish fairytales, repeated countless times? What prompts a person to pick up the same well-worn novel and lovingly caress its binding before diving in once again? Picturesque visions of other worlds, the artistry of an author’s words, and the intricacies of plot all have the capacity to entertain. But why do the very best of books beckon to our souls, leaving them utterly transformed?
Read MoreA Greater Awareness
When we read, we witness a drama being played out between the characters and their circumstances. This drama provokes questions in us – serious questions about the human experience – and we then realize that our life, too, is a drama. Great writers stir up questions that can be painful for us to face.
Read MoreA Horse in the Sand
The mission of St. Frances and St. Jane was as attractive then, in the 1500s, as it is now, “that God loves us and wants to meet us in the ordinary circumstances of our lives – where we live, work, play and pray.” That everything matters. And I believe maybe He was trying to prove that to me by sending me a small horse in the sand.
Read MoreHome: Bearing with One Another Through Love
The tidiness and aesthetic appeal of a dwelling does not instantaneously transform it into an authentic home. Though it’s hardly surprising that pleasure, beauty, calm, and happiness are incredibly alluring and, subsequently, tend to eclipse our focus on matters of eternal import, it is so vital that we, as Christians, recapture the significance of enduring through the trials and crosses of life for the sake of love.
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