“There is much beauty here, because there is much beauty everywhere…” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet There’s a moment in the first installment of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, when Sam pauses at the edge of a field full of sunflowers, a few steps behind his hobbit companion, Frodo. “If I take…
Tag: community
The Love We Share: M-Trip Sunday
We’re on the sixth slideshow when my roommate, Emily, leads her team to the front of the auditorium. The mostly-female team are all wearing the shapeless, colorful dresses that they wore for their week in a Central Asian village. This, along with covering their hair and serving the three men who accompanied them, was their…
A New Square Inch
Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15 I’m sitting near the back of the auditorium on Friday afternoon, again looking over the tops of my students’ heads as the Chapel speaker weaves to the front of the room, carrying a microphone. After a few words of introduction he begins…
Now I Know in Part
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” I Corinthians 13:12 From the back of the gym, I look over a sea of heads to the stage, where our speaker for…
On Basketball
“Y’all ready for this?” asks the sound system on Friday night, the classic 90s warm-up playing just underneath the percussive arrhythmia of bouncing rubber balls and squealing rubber shoes, all three sounds telling us one thing: the Game is about to start. When the pre-game clock runs down to zero, most of the students in…
Life Together
Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father. Colossians 3:17 The sun still hangs over the horizon when I reach the summit of Hochblauen on Sunday afternoon. Our local mountain, Hochblauen is truly a hill with a hotel at the…
An Account of Blessings: 27th Birthday Edition
Taco Salad Surprise Lunch: 1 Rousing renditions of “Happy Birthday”: 5 Birthday Cakes: 3 Icabod Crane Piñata: 1 Times Watching Disney’s 1949 “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (narrated by Bing Crosby!) With Eleventh Graders: 2 Long Walk Through Golden Forest: 1 Notes of love and greeting from friends, family and students: Countless Thanks to all, near…
The Bells
Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it swells! How it dwells On the Future! How it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, Of the bells, bells, bells,bells, Bells, bells, bells- To the rhyming and the chiming…
The Long Run
There’s only one seat left when I get on the track bus. Well, two seats really, but the one in the front technically belongs to a baby, and she should probably stick with her mom, Distance Coach, for now. That leaves one seat, way in the back. It’s been ages since I was a “back…
The Way Home 