About Me
Introduction
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Rescuing Good Memories of People Who Hurt Us Takes Time
Hurting people hurt people. It occurs to me as I sit on a worn sofa looking out the picture window that frames the mountain beyond the towering Ponderosa pines, it is impossible for me to see the mountain where I am sitting now. I can see the mountain across the road, but not the mountain our cabin is built on. The Cuchara Valley is hemmed in by smaller mountains at the base of the Spanish Peaks––two majestic mountains that break the monotony of the plains of southeastern Colorado. In the same way that I cannot see the mountain where I find myself located at the moment––elevation 8450’––it takes time and…
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“Carefully Caught Regrets” Linger While Also Bringing Hope
On December 12, 1992, a date that would have marked my sister Renée’s thirty-eighth birthday had she lived more than a few days beyond her seventh birthday, Mom wrote me a letter commenting on copies of black-and-white pictures I had sent to her. “You said it is good to remember. I don’t know. I try not to remember. I saw those pictures again, I remembered I kept saying, ‘Come back, Little Blue Legs’—after she died. Hadn’t thought of that in many years. We used to play a game: I would say something about your red legs or black legs, whichever. And Renée would say, ‘Say something about my blue legs.’…
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Nelle Harper Lee’s Writing Continues to Bring the South to Life and Life to Readers
“All I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama,” Harper Lee said in an interview. Why Harper Lee wrote is as important as what she wrote. “As you know, the South is still made up of thousands of tiny towns. There is a very definite social pattern in these towns that fascinates me. I think it is a rich social pattern. I would simply like to put down all I know about this because I believe there is something universal in this little world, something decent to be said for it, and something to lament in its passing.” Harper Lee, quoted in Mockingbird, by Charles J. Shields…
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Is America Sinking Under the Weight of Its Own Hubris?
“It’s good for a ship to be in the sea, but it is bad when the sea gets in the ship.” Billy Graham Last week, I heard a man being interviewed on a news program defend his right to reopen his business. “We’re all in the same storm,” he said, “but we are not all in the same boat.” Like me, he said he had observed the lockdown through April 30, but instead of the nation opening up, as promised when the 30 days were added to the previous 14+ days in March, the restrictions in some places have gotten tighter while the penalties mandated worsen. hubris––excessive pride or self-confidence;…
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My Mother, the Pioneer-Prepper, Offered Survival Advice in an Age of Anxiety
My mother made preparation for disaster, first during the Cold War (1947–1991), which encompassed my childhood. Responding to philosophies expounded by Ayn Rand, her fears multiplied and underscored her anxiety about the future. Mom was certain that America faced national destruction, collapse from within, or defeat from foreign enemies. She must have pictured an apocalypse with an aftermath something like Planet of the Apes. On and on she fretted. The Nevada Test Site was located 65 miles north of Las Vegas, where she and I lived for much of my childhood. Many of my mom’s fears stemmed from actual threats to our safety. Today, I remember her hyper-vigilance and seriousness. Her…
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What’s Good about Good Friday 2020?
Electricity. Clean, running water. Grocery stores that have food. Pharmacies that have medicine. Drive-thru pick up for meals. City parks. Fresh air. Chalk drawings on driveways and sidewalks. Birds singing. Trees budding. Flowers insisting they show their faces. The sun also rises. The moon maintains its cycle. Easter occurs each year, the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring equinox. And Good Friday, the darkest day in human history, when the Bible says that Jesus Christ was crucified, precedes Easter. Easter is Resurrection Sunday. Pitch Black Because my husband is a die-hard fan of science fiction, I have to watch his movies and he agrees to watch…
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Why Is Easter a Good Time to Think about the Jews?
Jesus is who Easter is about. Not rabbits, chicks, and eggs. Jesus was a Jew. And Easter is when Christians think about Jesus even more than they remember him at Christmas. Jesus is who Passover is about, but you have to read both the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Bible to know why. The nation of Jews, the race and the religious people known as Israel, whose heritage traced back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, rejected Jesus as their Messiah (Savior) during the time when Jesus came in person to offer himself as atonement for the entire world’s sin. Which incidentally, was during Passover. To this day,…