Running Together

For four kilometers I’m alone, just the way I like it. There are many senses in which I’m not at all alone, actually. There are hundreds running this ten-kilometer stretch of the 2013 Basel Marathon with me today. Among these hundreds are fifteen coworkers and friends, with whom I drove down here this morning from…

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The Flags of Where We’re From

It’s the first day of school, and there’s already a crowd of students gathered when I arrive. I told the seniors to arrive at the Student Center by 8:30 AM, so that we, their class sponsors, could organize the flag carrying procession for Opening Ceremonies. Punctuality has never been the strong suit of this group,…

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Faithful To The Fields

…What we owe the future    is not a new start, for we can only begin    with what has happened. We owe the future    the past, the long knowledge that is the potency of time to come. That makes of a man’s grave a rich furrow. The community of knowing in common is the seed    of…

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Edelweiss

…Because teachers also have teachers. One of my favorite teachers, Hans Peter Royer of Tauernhof Bible School in Austria, lost his life last weekend in a paragliding accident. Remembering this great man and leader, the following memory from Upward Bound 2011 comes first to mind as I thank God for his life and ministry. “I…

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More Beautiful Than It Has To Be

The air was cool and fresh. Ten thousand brilliant stars arched across the sky. But what transfixed us was the phosphorescence. Every little wave rolling into the cove was crested with cold fire. The anchor rode was a line of fire going down into the depths, and fish moving about left trails of fire. The…

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Of Wedding Plans, Pinterest and Parameters

Pinterest, that cyber-hybrid of down-home wisdom and commercial temptation,  has garnered passionate disciples among the expatriate missionaries of Black Forest Academy. I’m more a reluctant convert, drawn in almost a year ago because I suspected I’d be planning a wedding in the near future. A real one. My own. According to my scientific research (i.e….

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Summer Places

  We’ve barely dropped our bags when he starts heading down the hill, away from the well-marked buildings of Mount Hermon Christian Camp and Conference Center, into a maze of boxy cabins balanced on a steep and shady hillside. After just a few minutes of following, my mother, cousins and I stop behind my father,…

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Brother and Sister

One of the best gifts of these summers in Seattle are times that I get to spend with my siblings, Noah and Holly Dahlstrom. Below are two unconnected, but still brilliant, examples of their greatness. I feel blessed to share some of the summer with them, and even more grateful to be the sister of…

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Holden

“What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I’ve left schools and places I didn’t even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don’t care if it’s a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like…

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Airports

Starbucks vanilla lattes taste the same, everywhere and always. With one sip of sweet, hot, vaguely coffee-flavored milk, I could be fourteen and trying coffee for the first time, or twenty and drinking my first latte of my shift at 5:30 AM as the sun rises. It doesn’t matter that ten years have passed, or…

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