A few evenings ago I stepped out onto the porch just as the sun began to settle behind the trees in the western sky. And suddenly I heard it...

Cicadas.

Not one or two or ten, but thousands of them! Their steady reeee-aah, reeee-aah, reeee-aah chorus filled the woods around our farmhouse.

But the funny thing was, they hadn’t suddenly started singing. They’d probably been singing for days — maybe a week, maybe longer.

I was the one who came late to the party and finally started listening. Now at night, of course, I can’t not hear them. As soon as I step outside each evening to water the garden, they’re there—the unmistakable soundtrack to a Missouri summer.

Cicada song makes me wonder how many beautiful things in our lives don’t disappear...we simply stop noticing them.

The Background Music of Life

Just like there are soundtracks in movies, our lives have their own soundtracks. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and the louder more annoying hum of the refrigerator in the garage.

The tap-tap-tap of the woodpeckers pounding their heads against a tree, and the wind moving through the leaves of that same tree. The distant whistle of freight trains, and the soft clink of porch swing chains.

And most days, I don’t consciously hear any of it because my brain has quietly moved it into the background.

It turns out that ignoring things is one of the remarkable things our minds are designed to do. Noticing every sound with equal intensity all the time quickly becomes overwhelming, so our brains helpfully sort the familiar into the background.

It’s a wonderful gift.

Until it isn’t.

What Have I Tuned Out?

The sound of cicadas has me wondering whether I do the same thing with more than sounds.

Do we also tune out goodness? Do we focus so much on all we have to do when we get where we’re going, that we just don’t see the beauty of the country road we’re actually driving on? Do the bags of groceries that need to be put away blind us to the comfort of once again returning safely home.

I’ve often said that the opposite of love isn’t hate…it’s indifference. Perhaps a similar thing is true of gratitude. What if the opposite of gratitude isn’t complaining but simply no longer noticing all the wonderfulness that quietly surrounds us?

The beautiful gift of another ordinary Tuesday simply fades into the background until we hardly notice all we’ve been given.

Listening for Thin Silence

One of my favorite stories in Scripture (and one I relate to oh so well) is Elijah standing on the mountain waiting for God.

First a great wind blows through, but God isn’t in the wind. Then there’s an earthquake, but God’s not in in the earthquake. Next up is fire, but God’s not there either.

Finally comes what many of Bibles translate as “a still small voice.” But I’ve always loved another translation of the Hebrew: “the sound of thin silence.” — 1 Kings 19:12

What a remarkable phrase!

The sound...of silence, and not just any silence but “thin silence” — it almost feels like a contradiction, yet the meaning is completely clear: God isn’t always found in the spectacular. Sometimes Presence arrives so quietly that we almost miss it.

Which, if I’m being honest, is especially comforting to someone like me who also carries around a bit of tinnitus. There is already plenty of ringing in my ears!

Maybe what God asks of isn’t to hear more noise but to become attentive to the quiet.

And here during Ordinary Time, I’ve been discovering the joy that comes with recovering our ability to notice what has become familiar.

A cup of coffee in the morning. An evening breeze…and the sound of cicadas. The people who faithfully share our ordinary days.

The invitation of Ordinary Time is simply to hear them again, see them again, receive them again.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What has become background music in your life? What good gift has become so familiar that you’ve stopped noticing it?

An Invitation: This week, step outside for ten quiet minutes. Leave your phone inside. Don’t try to accomplish anything. Simply listen.

Listen long enough for the familiar sounds —the birds, the wind, the distant traffic, and your own brood of cicadas — to become new again. Listen for the sound of thin silence between the sounds.

You may discover that the world has been singing to you all along.

And perhaps gratitude begins not by finding something new...but by hearing once again what has always been there.

With you in the growing,

Join Me at the Kitchen Table

Thank you for spending part of your week here…reading.

If you’d like to support this work and receive a few extra reflections from the farmhouse along the way, I’d be grateful. A paid “Kitchen Table” subscription allows me to spend more mornings writing and sharing these reflections, so becoming a paid subscriber is a wonderful way to help these essays continue to grow.

Either way, I’m so glad you’re here.

Join Me at the Kitchen Table

Some of my most favorite vacation memories in might be a bit surprising to most. Those memories do not involve beaches, not mountains, not bustling cities. They had nothing to do with cruise ships or flights to the other side of the world. No special occasion or impressive holidays.

No, those very best memories involve visiting Rich’s grandparents at their home in Bloomfield, Nebraska.

It was always about the drive.

Rich’s grandparents had farmed their entire working lives before they retired to town. But retirement hadn’t diminished their love of the countryside. Every time we visited, it seemed we’d end up climbing into the car to “go see what there is to see.”

We’d drive the gravel section roads — checking the corn and soybeans, admiring the windbreaks, seeing somebody’s new irrigation system, watching the seasons unfold one field at a time.

He knew those roads better than anyone. But every so often, he’d grin, point toward an unfamiliar gravel road disappearing over a hill, and say, “I don’t think I’ve ever driven this road before.” Then, with all the excitement of a little boy setting off on an grand adventure, he’d add, “Let’s see where it goes!”

I loved that.

Here was a man who had spent his entire life in northeast Nebraska. He knew the land, the weather, and the rhythm of planting and harvest.

And yet he alwas found joy in discovering one more road.

Knee-High by the Fourth of July

Farm country has its own calendar, and one of the old sayings of summer was “knee-high by the Fourth of July.”

It wasn’t a guarantee. It wasn’t even a rule.

Rather, it was simply a hopeful way of measuring growth.

Planted in faith and cultivated with care. Watch the weather. And then...wait…and pray.

No amount of wishing or worry hurries the corn or beans because growth happens on its own timetable.

One ordinary day after another.

The Potential of Tiny Things

Jesus once pointed to something much smaller than a stalk of corn: he held up a mustard seed.

Not because it was impressive, because it certainly isn’t. Mustard seeds are tiny and easy to overlook. Yet that’s what he compared the kingdom of heaven to: a mustard seed.

“Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants.” ~ Matthew 13

What a spectacular image! But must mustard seeds don’t promise prolific growth overnight. Instead, mustard seeds reminds us that nearly everything worthwhile begins with something small and quiet.

A friendship.

A marriage.

A habit.

A prayer.

A quilt.

A life.

The beginnings are rarely dramatic, and the most important thing they require is time enough to grow.

Becoming Beginners Again

The older I get, the more I see there are two ways to age. One is to become increasingly certain that we’ve seen it all before. The other is to become increasingly curious.

Grandpa chose curiosity! The fact he hadn’t driven a particular road was what made it fun. “Let’s see where it goes!”

It’s so easy to settle into familiar routines, drive the same roads, read the same authors, watch the same movies. And then we assume we’ve already seen everything worth seeing.

But perhaps one of the gifts of Ordinary Time is that it quietly invites us to become beginners again.

To admit there are still roads we’ve never traveled. Still people we don’t fully know. Still ideas worth exploring. Still beauty just waiting to be discovered around the next bend.

Maybe growing older isn’t about knowing more roads, but about having the curiosity to wonder where they lead.

And that’s one of the quiet miracles of a well-lived life — not accumulating certainty, but cultivating curiosity!

The world has enough experts. What it needs are more people who still delight in discovery. People willing to roll down the windows, turn onto an unfamiliar road, and simply see what unfolds.

Ordinary Time

Ordinary Time isn’t simply the season of steady growth, it’s also the season of steady curiosity. Growth and curiosity belong together.

Seeds stop growing when they has nowhere left to reach, and people stop growing when there’s nowhere left they’re willing to wonder or wander.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus pointed to seeds so often? To remind us that life always stretching toward something we cannot yet see.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: When was the last time you allowed yourself to be a beginner? To admit you didn’t know? To explore for no other reason than because you were curious?

An Invitation: This week, take a road you’ve never driven before. Walk down an aisle at the big box store where you’ve never been. It doesn’t have to lead anywhere important.

Read an unfamiliar author. Grab some seeds on clearance and plant something you’ve never grown. Strike up a conversation with someone whose story you don’t yet know.

Most of all delight in the surprise of not already having all the answers. Because perhaps the most beautiful thing about growing older (at whatever age you may happen to be) isn’t how much we know — is that there’s still another road waiting to be explored.

With you in the growing,

For the past several years I’ve been working on a patriotic quilt for the America 250th celebration. Festive red, white, and blue — with blocks alternating between eight-pointed stars and split rail fences.

Most of the quilts I make are hand pieced. I enjoy the rhythm of it—the needle, the thread, the quiet accumulation of small stitches.

But when I started this quilt, I decided to be practical. Machine piecing would be faster, I told myself. More efficient and less time-consuming. At least that was my theory.

Several years later, as I’m finally finishing the hand quilting, I have to laugh a little because this quilt took just as long as many of my hand-pieced quilts. And quite possibly longer.

And it wasn’t because the sewing machine was slower…it’s because I was. Because I discovered something I’ve spent much of my life learning over and over again: the fastest way isn’t always the way that gets me there.

Why does She Quilt?

The funny thing is, I wasn’t making the quilt because I needed a quilt.

Honestly? I already have plenty of quilts, and I know the world isn’t suffering from a shortage of blankets. So, I wasn’t quilting to solve a problem.

I was quilting because I enjoy quilting. I love everything about the process (well, except sandwiching the three layers together — that’s a necessary evil). But otherwise, I enjoy choosing fabrics — the white on white stars and the red on red poppies — then watching patterns emerge. Stitching pieces together and seeing something larger take shape. The delicious sound of thread dragging through fabric.

The making itself is part of the reward! But somewhere along the way, though, I temporarily forgot that. And that’s how I ended up choosing a method that was theoretically faster but, for me, was considerably less delightful.

A Practicality Problem

Practicality and efficiency have their place. Sewing machines are wonderful things, and I love my vintage Bernina. The sewing machine wasn’t the problem — and machine piecing truly is faster.

For someone who enjoys machine piecing.

The problem was assuming my own delight didn’t matter.

I suspect many of us do that more often than we realize. GPS routes us along the quickest route. It’s efficient, optimized, and sensible.

And then we’re surprised when something feels missing.

Not because we’ve done anything wrong, but because we’ve quietly convinced ourselves that enjoyment in our ordinary daily lives is…optional.

That somehow delight is frivolous.

Or that if something brings us joy, it must somehow be less important than the practical alternative.

Ordinary Time — the ordinary accumulation of moments that eventually become a life— gives us the time to absorb a different type of lesson.

Martha’s Checklist

There’s a story in Scripture about Martha and Mary that I’ve been thinking about lately.

Martha is busy, productive, responsible, and getting things done. Meanwhile, Mary is simply sitting and listening.

I have such a soft spot for Martha because, frankly, I understand her. In very real ways, I am her. Certainly there’s always something in need of doing — laundry, gardens, meals, shopping for groceries to make the meals, emails, projects, and on and on.

And the world tends to reward people who accomplish things.

But in thinking about that story, I kinda wonder if Martha’s real struggle wasn’t busyness. Maybe it was forgetting why she was doing the work in the first place.

You know the feeling — that somewhere between purpose and productivity, delight gets lost.

The Things We Do for No Reason at All

One of the most beautiful and awe inspiring things about being human is that we do certain things for no practical reason whatsoever.

We plant flowers and paint pictures. We write poems and make music. We bake pies. We quilt. We take lazy meandering walks down a country road. We sit on a porch swing and listen to the tree frogs while it rains.

Because creating beauty is part of what makes us alive.

Delight is not a distraction from life — delight is what sustains life.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: Where in your life have you convinced yourself that delight doesn’t matter? What have you been rushing through simply because it seemed more practical?

An Invitation: This week, choose one thing you genuinely enjoy and give yourself permission to enjoy it. Not because it is productive or efficient. Not because it will help you get somewhere faster. But simply because it brings you delight.

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things” — Luke 10:41-42

Remember, you don’t have to earn every good thing.

With you in the growing,

This week Rich and I were driving down one of the two-lane blacktop roads near our house when I noticed the daylilies.

They were growing wild in the ditch among the chicory, Queen Anne’s lace, and every other sort of roadside weed that appears this time of year.

Bright orange blooms against the green of summer.

What struck me wasn’t that they were beautiful — rather, it was that those daylilies have probably been beautiful for several weeks, and I was only now noticing them.

We’ve driven this road countless times — in sunshine and rain — while running errands and making the ordinary trips that make up ordinary life.

And somewhere along the way, the flowers had become part of the background.

Not because they weren’t lovely.

But because they were familiar.

Vacation Eyes

It occurred to me that if I had encountered this exact same stretch of road while on vacation, we probably would have reacted very differently.

I might have said, “Hey, pull over! This is beautiful!” I certainly would have pointed the flowers out to Rich, and we might have stopped to take pictures.

The daylilies themselves wouldn’t have changed.

The road wouldn’t have changed, neither would the weather.

The only thing different would have been me — or more specifically, my attention.

When we’re on vacation, we expect to discover. We look for all that’s new. We slow down, become curious, notice details. We pay attention to the curve and flow of landscapes, architecture, flowers, meals, and sunsets we would likely ignore if they are part of our everyday routine.

You know what we did? We stopped in the middle of the road, then I got out and took pictures!

Some People Live All Year for Two Weeks

I know people who spend fifty weeks of the year waiting for two . Two weeks of vacation. Two weeks at the lake, at the beach, or in the mountains.

Please don’t misunderstand me—I’m not morally opposed to vacations and travel. There’s something wonderful about stepping away from routine and seeing new places.

But I’ve begun to wonder if the biggest part of the appeal of vacation isn’t the destination at all. Maybe it’s that vacations give us permission to notice…linger…pay attention.

The trouble comes when we assume that careful attention happens only during vacations, and then we spend most of our lives rushing through the very days that make up the most of our lives.

The Command Hidden in the Flowers

There’s a passage in the Sermon on the Mount that came to mind as we drove past those daylilies.

Jesus says:

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow...” (Matthew 6:28)

One thing I remember from my Koine Greek classes in college is the verb we translate “consider” isn’t a suggestion, or a casual invitation — grammatically it’s an imperative. A command.

Jesus isn’t saying: “Hey, folks if you have a moment and it’s not too much trouble, you might enjoy looking at some flowers.”

He’s saying: Pay attention! Look closely! Learn from these lilies!

The flowers aren’t just decorative — they’re teachers. Noticing them isn’t optional. It’s part of being fully alive.

The Magic of Ordinary Time

As you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about Ordinary Time lately. Not just the liturgical season, but the ordinary stretches of life itself.

The Tuesdays. The grocery runs. The familiar roads. The dishes. Mowing the grass. The laundry. The routines we perform so often we hardly think about them.

It’s easy to assume the magic lives elsewhere…like vacations, special events, and milestone moments. But what if we’ve got it all backwards? What if Ordinary Time is actually the most magical of seasons? Not because extraordinary things happen every day, but because ordinary things happen long enough and consistently enough to become extraordinary!

Gardens grow. Children grow. Friendships deepen. Skills develop. Books get written. Quilts get stitched. Lives take shape. All of it happening quietly, in the middle of ordinary days.

And perhaps that’s one of the great invitations of Ordinary Time.

Are you ready to become curious again? Are you willing to look at familiar places with fresh eyes? To drive the roads we’ve already traveled as though we were seeing them for the first time?

What if we stop postponing wonder until vacation? What if we stop postponing life until some future season? What if we notice what’s already blooming beside the road.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What beauty in your ordinary life have you stopped seeing simply because it has become familiar?

An Invitation: This week, drive a little slower. Take the long way home. Notice the flowers in the ditch. Appreciate the familiar face across the dinner table.

You don’t need pay for a plane ticket to pay attention.

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow...” — Matthew 6:28

Indeed, I shall.

With you in the growing,

My grandma Frieda — the one whose house I live in — was an amazing baker.

She was the kind of country kitchen baker who didn’t bother with measuring cups, but made majestically towering meringue pies nestled atop impossibly flaky pie crusts.

As a child, there was no better place to spend the day than in her kitchen watching her work her magic. I loved everything about it — the sugar, the fruit or cream fillings of pies made from scratch. I especially loved sneaking little tastes whenever I could.

Thinking back, I remember being puzzled by the salt. Why put salt into something that was supposed to be sweet?

How goofy! If the goal was pie, why not just add more of the good stuff?

But Grandma understood something I didn’t. The recipe isn’t judged by a single ingredient, but by how the pie turns out.

More Than One Ingredient

Lives are a lot like recipes, and one of the great temptations of being human is believing our worst moments tell the whole truth about us.

The stupid mistake. The avoidable failure. The season of grief or the days of despair. The chapters we’d rather not revisit, but that show up all too often in the form of recrimination and second guesses.

We taste that one bitter ingredient and leap to the conclusion that we know the flavor of the entire pie. But lives, like recipes, are more complicated than that.

No baker worth her salt would judge a pie just by a spoonful of…well…salt! And yet, how many of us judge ourselves by a single difficult day?

The Salty and the Sweet

When I look back across the years, I can see both.

The sweet moments are easy (and lots more fun!) to identify: friendships, successes, and celebrations. The memories that still make me smile years later.

But there have been salty moments, too. Broken promises, losses, and all the mistakes. Dreams that didn’t unfold the way I imagined, and the seasons when everything seemed a jumbled mess.

I wouldn’t have chosen those ingredients, and given the opportunity, I know for a fact, I probably would have left most of them out.

But life doesn’t work that way. The recipe comes with both sweet and salty.

And somehow, over time, those ingredients become part of a larger story.

That’s is one of the reasons I appreciate Ordinary Time. Because Ordinary Time gives us enough days to become more than any one single moment. Enough days to find the proper proportions for sweet and salty.

Those dramatic moments in life matter! Christmas and Easter. Birthdays and anniversaries and life milestones matter.

But growth rarely happens during the event itself.

Growth happens in the days leading up and in the days afterward — in the ordinary days. The repetition. The showing up. The small, deliberate choices made over and over again.

Looking at the Whole Pie

A pie doesn’t become a pie because I’ve got the ingredients on the shelves in my pantry.

Instead, the ingredients get thrown together in bowls. Fruit gets cut up, diced, and smooshed. Milk and eggs are heated almost to the point of boiling. Butter, salt, and flour get pulverized, sprinkled with water, and rolled thin.

And so do we.

Maybe that’s why perspective becomes such a gift as we grow older?

We have that Ordinary Time to see more of the recipe. To resist evaluating ourselves based on a single bad day. To stop rest on the laurels of one exciting triumph. We learn one disappointment doesn’t tell the whole story, but neither does one success.

Truth be told, none of us are one ingredient pies. We are the whole recipe, all of it mixed together into something larger than any one ingredient could ever become on its own.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What ingredient are you allowing to define your story right now? A regret? A fear? A mistake? The grind that seems endless? Or the lightening you’re once again trying to catch in a bottle?

An Invitation: This week, step back and look at the whole pie, and pay special attention to those ordinary days. Let the fact that they don’t stand out be the thing that really makes them stand out!

Remember that no recipe is judged only by a dash of salt and no life should be defined by a single difficult season.

The truth of who we are is found not in any single ingredient, but in the whole recipe.

With you in the growing,

Extry!

Read All About It!

Guess what’s happening three months from today — September 8th?

Want a hint?

Have you guessed yet?

Yes, indeed! The fourth book in my Holly’s Choice series will be released by Boys Town Press on September 8th!

I’m so excited about this new book launch because it centers around the simple yet powerful message – let peace begin with me.

What happens when Holly, Clara, and… (heaven help them!) CLARENCE, discover they each want to dress the same way for their school’s American History Day celebration?

It’s a costume crisis!

Holly hatches a sneaky plan to make everything groovy again, but Clara and Clarence aren’t in the mood to change their minds … or their costume choices!

It’s Mom to the rescue as she helps Holly realize that finding peace doesn’t mean always getting her way. Instead, peace can be found within – and with others – through empathy, kindness, and understanding.

PreOrder Peace! @ Amazon

The first three titles in my award-winning Holly’s Choice series are available for sale at Boys Town Press and Amazon. If you’d like to order signed copies, please reach out to me here at Substack!

Wishing you Joy! Hope! Love! and Peace!!

Pentecost always falls on a Sunday, which means Ordinary Time always begins on a Monday morning.

Isn’t that that strangely fitting? Maybe a bit ironic?

There’s no fancy procession and no dramatic liturgy. No poinsettias, no lilies, no candles, trumpets broadcasting the announcing the arrival of a new season.

It’s just Monday.

The hot water still needs to boil for the pour-over coffee. The pile of laundry is growing, the car needs to be filled up, and nobody knows what we’re making for supper tonight.

And somehow that feels exactly right.

The Season Nobody Notices

The calendar is full of seasons that capture our attention. Advent arrives with anticipation, Christmas with celebration. Ash Wednesday and Lent bring reflection, followed by Easter’s arrival with resurrection. A flurry of wind and fire announce Pentecost.

But Ordinary Time?

Ordinary Time slips in quietly while we’re loading the dishwasher. In fact, most people don’t even notice when ordinary time begins.

Which is oddly appropriate, because most of our lives are often composed of days we barely notice while we’re living them.

We remember vacations, weddings, funerals, graduations, holidays, and milestone birthdays.

But life itself?

Life tends to happen in the spaces between those events. On ordinary Tuesday mornings when the sunrise is breathtaking and rainy Thursday afternoons when the grass needs to be mowed. On Friday nights spent watching a movie while we’re folding towels and matching socks.

The Fancy Dress and the Comfy Clothes

I recently ordered a pair of wide-legged floaty pants — lightweight for summer, but nothing super-special — just ordinary clothes for ordinary days. Buying clothes for ordinary days has me thinking about we dress for special occasions.

Christmas has its ugly sweaters, and Easter has dresses and bonnets. Graduations feature gowns and mortarboard caps. Weddings are all about gowns of a different sort. But the common theme is that celebrations all seem to have costumes of one kind or another.

But as excited as we are to dress up, we’re equally excited at the end of the day to come home and change into our comfortable clothes — the clothes we actually live in. The old favorites we love and wear and wear and wear.

Maybe that’s what Ordinary Time is? The comfy-clothes season of the church year.

Ordinary time doesn’t matter less than feasts and festivals. In fact, to the contrary, maybe it matters more because ordinary time is where we settle in and stop posing for the camera. It’s when we stop preparing for big events and find the real magic moments where we simply live.

Where Growth Happens

And that’s the funny thing about growth. It rarely happens during the dramatic moments, but in the aftermath.

I’m rethinking the flower beds in the front yard, so I planted two yellow knockout rose bushes and two puffer fish hydrangeas. They don’t grow just because I planted them. They’re growing because of what’s happened afterward. A slow soaking rain followed by the sun breaking through the clouds. The waiting as the bushes begin to establish their roots.

The unnoticed accumulation of small things.

The same is true for quilts. And gardens. And marriages. And friendships. And faith.

The dramatic moments may point us in a direction, but growth requires time.

The Magic We Miss

I wonder if one of the reasons we struggle with Ordinary Time is because we keep waiting for something special —the extraordinary — to happen.

We imagine that meaning quality living require BIG moments. The lavish vacation. The over-the-top holidays. The milestones and their celebrations.

Meanwhile, life quietly unfolds all around us.

Seeds sprout.

Children grow up.

Friendships deepen.

Healing happens.

Wisdom grows.

Skills develop.

Books get written.

Quilts get stitched.

Gardens bloom.

Not overnight, not dramatically, but steadily. Ordinary Time isn’t the season between meaningful moments. It’s where meaningful moments are made. Ordinary Time makes the meaningful moments possible.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: What ordinary part of your life are you tempted to overlook because it doesn’t seem exciting enough?

An Invitation: This week, pay attention to something ordinary — the morning coffee, getting the mail, a bee on a bloom in the garden, getting the groceries, waiting at a stoplight, the laundry, or a conversation you’ve had a hundred times before.

You don’t have to push to turn ordinary into extraordinary — just notice it! Because the truth is, most of life happens here in plain old ordinary (but really magical) time.

With you in the growing,

Modern homes are built differently, of course. Tight seams. Energy efficiency. Carefully insulated and sealed against drafts.

And honestly, I understand the appeal.

There’s something comforting about controlled environments. Predictable temperatures. Filtered air. Doors that stay open like good little soldiers. Everything contained exactly where it belongs.

But old houses don’t really work that way, and honestly, maybe people don’t either.

Filling The House

And that’s where Pentecost comes in. This story is so unexpected it never fails to capture my imagination. Especially when you consider the action at the end of Acts 2:1.

There they were — the disciples, Mary, and other followers of Jesus — all together in one place, perhaps still wondering what they were supposed to do next.

When all of a sudden…

“A sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2:2)

Filled. The. Whole. House.

Not just one room. Not just a polished corner. Not just the tidy parts that are ship-shape and guest-ready.

The whole house!

The more I think about it, the more remarkable that feels.

In the midst of uncertainty and struggling to figure things out. Full of questions, fear, and grief.

The house fills anyway.

Imagine that!?

Not Perfectly Constructed

I think it’s easy to imagine our spiritual growth as becoming more and more perfect. Like if we just work hard enough, we can weather-strip all our vulnerable spots and patch all our cracks.

But Pentecost tells a different story. The mighty wind doesn’t wait for the followers of Jesus to become perfectly constructed little people. The Spirit arrives while — and because — they are still unfinished, uneven, unsteady, uncertain, and completely human.

That feels important to me, and leads me to wonder…what if we’re all just a bunch of drafty old farmhouses?

Our floors are uneven. Our windows rattle. Our walls lean. We’re all just ordinary imperfect people, learning how to live with grace moving through unfinished rooms.

And there comes Pentecost, breezing in!

To Fill. The. Whole. House.

A house that doesn’t have to be perfect before it can be filled.

A Question and an Invitation

A Question: Where in your life have you been working hardest to seal every crack?

An Invitation: What if this week, you resist the urge to tighten every seam. You don’t have to become perfectly constructed before life can move through you. You do not have to become flawless before grace arrives.

Maybe growth isn’t about becoming more and more perfect, but becoming more comfortable with just how broken and imperfect we really are?

Maybe that’s the good news we’re looking for?

One of thing I learned spending those long summer days visiting Grandma’s house, the house we now call home, is that not all open windows are created equal.

It’s possible to throw open every window in the house and still feel…nothing. The air sits. The curtains hang still. Everything remains exactly as it was, just with more heat and light coming in.

But …

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I love this time of spring!

At night here on the farm when the windows are open, we’re treated to a nighttime choir of spring peepers letting us know how much they enjoyed a rainfall. I listen intently, hoping to catch the call of the first whippoorwill of the season, and just the other night my patience was rewarded.

But a few nights ago we had another …

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Living in a mid-century farmhouse means lots of natural light streaming in the windows found on every side of the house. It’s a design made for drawing cross-breezes in the days before air conditioning. Ventilation wasn’t a luxury; it was how to survive a hot, muggy Missouri summer.

And so, every spring, almost without conscious thought, I start opening …

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A few weeks ago our washing machine finally gave up.

It had been acting wonky for a while, with the sensors periodically filling and draining at the same time. We wondered how much longer it would keep going — until one day it was done.

No amount of unplugging, hitting cancel, or restarting made the slightest difference. A call to the repairman quickly co…

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There are things in my life I cannot fix.

Earlier this week I pulled one of my favorite shirts out of the dryer and —Dag Nabbit! — discovered an unexpected stain on the sleeve.

Then I remembered splooshing coffee on the sleeve of my black cardigan sweater. I was busy zooming around and didn’t think about it soaking through to the light colored shirt I …

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Working through this Lint-y season and arriving here at the last Wednesday before the beginning of Holy Week, I’m reminded that there are some things that don’t go in the regular wash.

They’re marked clearly: Hand wash only. Do not wring. Do not twist.

Because they require different handling, we slow down, fill the basin and add a little soap. It’s a gent…

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After spending the last couple of weeks writing about my adventure behind my dryer (do I live an exciting life or what?), I’ve been thinking about cleaning, especially since the season is officially turning to spring.

When I know someone is coming over, I clean differently. Who cares about lint and a stuffed dryer vent?! Company means it’s time keep up…

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Spelunking for that lost sock wasn’t as simple as reaching down and picking it up. It was also about noticing what was hidden behind the dryer. But no biggie, right? Just grab the vacuum and suck it all up! Presto!

Well….maybe not so much.

In my eagerness to get things cleared away in the laundry room, I banged the crevice tool into the dryer vent line a…

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A couple of weeks ago, I dropped a sock behind the dryer.

No big thing — just one of those ordinary mishaps — the kind that happens when you’re switching loads too quickly and trying to do three things at once.

But there it was. A single dark khaki sock, sucked into the black hole between the machine and the wall. One half of my only pair of dark khaki d…

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Not long ago, we bought new towels. The thick, fluffy kind that feel like a small upgrade in life. I washed them before using them, of course, and when I opened the dryer afterward, the lint trap was packed!

I cleaned it out, ran the towels through the wash again, and still — even more lint! Crazy clouds of feathery fuzz filled the trap each time, but th…

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At the beginning of this Lenten season, I’m beginning a small series of reflections about emotional resilience, ordinary life, and the strange wisdom that can be found in the most mundane places — even the laundry room.

Over the next several weeks, we’ll follow the thread of lint, laundry, and the quiet work of clearing what accumulates in our lives. Alo…

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Each year, around the first of February, we watch the movie Groundhog Day.

My husband and I saw it years ago when it first came out. I remember thinking it was cute and funny — a clever romantic comedy with a fantasy twist.

After years and years away from the film, we thought our son (who happens to love groundhog) w…

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