To Get the Best Start, Start Writing the End
“Write the ending.” That was the point I took away from a blog post I read recently, by a writer whose work I greatly admire. And it’s the type of advice I especially love – simple to understand, easy to do, and it helps me not only in my writing but in other work I’m doing, and in my life in general. In this particular post, the writer said she had just written the ending of the novel she’s been [...]
Seeing a sign is not the same as understanding it
Have you ever felt confused or ambivalent about something you were working on, and asked God for a sign? Something that would show you what you were supposed to do, or at least let you know that you were on the right track. I know several people who are very prayerful and who occasionally – or regularly – ask God for such a sign. And they usually get one. I’m not in the habit of asking God for signs. It’s [...]
Warm thoughts come from a cold encounter
“I can see I’m at the right house,” the man said when I answered the doorbell wearing a winter jacket and scarf. Our furnace went out last week, on the day the temperature was expected to get down to fifteen below zero. The good news is that a repairman was able to come over fairly quickly, and he spotted the problem immediately. The bad news is that fixing it required a part he didn’t have, and couldn’t locate anywhere in [...]
Gifts are everywhere when we take time to notice them
It’s a gift. I think I’m going to adopt that saying as my mantra from now on. Sometimes it will be in a joking way, as when I’m talking about being directionally impaired and getting lost or turned around very easily. But mostly I will be serious, and it will be a reminder – to myself as well as to others – that we do indeed have many gifts in our lives. And when we take the time to realize [...]
Putting an End to Disasters and Diseases
It’s kind of ironic. We’re finally past all the end-of-the-world predictions and fears that had to do with the Mayan calendar, and now we’re hit with this flu epidemic. I haven’t heard any predictions that the flu is going to wipe out civilization as we know it, but I’ve read enough novels and watched enough disaster movies – where a medical research project goes awry, or a virulent strain of something-or-other gets out into the general public – that I’ve [...]
Love and loss were intertwined this Christmas
My brother-in-law passed away on December 23. He had been very sick for quite a while, and as Christmas approached, we learned that he wasn’t expected to live much longer. That doesn’t make it any easier to accept or to live with when it happens, especially when it’s around the holidays. “I was hoping so much that he’d be able to hang on till Christmas,” my sister sobbed when she called us from the hospital. We were prepared to drop [...]