Ordinary Life

I recently let my friends at Patheos know I was turning " The Pretty Good Report " out to pasture.   To quote my teenage daughter's favorite anti-hero: " It's me, hi! I'm the problem, it's me. "  I first encountered Patheos as a young-ish blogger, many years ago, at a time when I was also making my faith and life my own.  I explored a lot of new ideas by the authors-of-then.  I met with fresh perspectives and thought-provoking challenges; it was a season of growth and growing up.   As a result, I held Patheos with kind regard and the chance to join their ranks seemed like a good reason - perhaps even motivation- to write.  But the opportunity to write for them arrived in a different, more rooted season.  It is curious to look back and see how tall we've changed, how thick our bark.  " Further up, further in " as the Unicorn was heard to say.  I realized along the way that this whole journey is a continual forward motion until we rea...

::: all hyperlinks contain secret messages :::  PEW, PEW, PEW The * old wooden pews in the Nazarene church I grew up in required a sort of sidewinding to maneuver one’s way out. But it wasn't just Nazarene pews that demanded this certain sort of leg-bumping-hymnal-rack-dodging-side-shuffle to reach the aisles. The pews in other churches worked much the same way - regardless of padding or denominational affiliation. This led many of us children to slide-scoot on our bottoms, down the pew towards the ornate end pieces that led to wide-stanced freedom. Sometimes, when long-winded adults stood like talking roadblocks in our way, one might high-step a hasty trot down the pew seats themselves, clearing stacks of hard-back hymnals and leather bound pages of the Good Book like so many hurdles in a race.  Joyful or no - it was a bad idea to make the horsey sounds out loud.  Other times,  we could escape by army-crawling  under the length of pews until we reached ** Wh...

SINGLE  FILE LINES Welcome to my new sub-feature,  Single File Lines (by Kelly)  That’s me.  A Christian divorcee’ and single (again) mom to four fantastic children and a wonderful bonus son.  I’ve added this  "file"  to my regular  column,   “ The Pretty Good Report ” @ Patheos to share my SWF (single, with family) adventure.  When I married, over two decades ago,  I never pictured someday I’d be learning the ropes of modern  dating alongside my own children, and yet, here we all are,  mo’ awkward than a mohawk, monitoring each other's behavior online.  The truth is, I wasn’t single for any significant stretch of time the first go round. Fresh out of high school, working as a K4 teacher in the same small Christian school I had just graduated from, I married the father of a student in the neighboring K3  class. All before a year from graduation had passed.  Think back with me for just ...

All Hallow: Everything Belongs To Him / Article and Photo by Kelly Brewer[/caption] Sugar Rush Weekend  For a little over a decade now, I’ve referred to the days surrounding Halloween as “Sugar Rush Weekend” not only for the inevitable  * plastic pumpkins overflowing with fun-sized cand y, but also for the two regulation birthday cakes due after the last car trunk or house has been visited. Today is Halloween. All Saints Eve Twenty-one years ago, my son was born on All Saints Day . (Tomorrow) Thirteen years ago, my daughter was born on All Souls’ Day . (Two days from now)  This holiday season has long been on our family radar for more than costume parties and pumpkins. I named my children with purpose and the significance of the days they were born are of special  interest to me, too.  Somewhere along the line, I had a fuzzy misconception that All Saints and All Souls days, as well as  Dia de los Muertos  must serve primarily for ancestor worship....

    New Vision  In Part 1 , " Was Blind: The Gift of Cataracts "  I had just been handed an application for financing double cataract surgery. Rather than pretending to build up suspense (because most of my readers are related to me and already know what happened) I’ll skip directly to the end: I was approved for the financing. I had both surgeries. And they worked!  I can see clearly now .  Almost too clearly.  Let me explain.  After surgery, everything was brand new . I was suddenly more aware of how bad my vision had become. Or, maybe, now that the threat was behind me, I could allow myself to admit I had been going blind.   Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between suppressing what we fear is true and waiting for more evidence to surface. More often,  they’re comorbid conditions requiring both patience and courage.  After the first surgery, a large, shamrock-shaped cataract was removed from my left eye. :: ...

  Doctor, My Eyes…   “ You are only a few numbers from losing your driver’s license  ”  My ophthalmologist was addressing my concerns about having  surgery.  “ I’m worried I’ll have this surgery but find cataracts aren’t the cause. I’ll be making a lifelong choice for glasses. ”  I explained.  He gently took the reins of the conversation. His answer, both figurative and literal, was resolved: “Oh, it is the cataracts. We’ll take them out and you’ll see .  “ I respect your expertise… “ I meant it “I just don’t understand why the cataract specialist didn’t operate at the beginning of all this .”  “ Because you’re young and there’s a bigger chance of retinal detachment when you’re young. But, it’s still a very small likelihood” he was completely convinced  “you’ll need readers, yes, but how are you seeing without using glasses now? “   His smile elicited a mental touche’ from my place in the oversized exam chair.  I s...

What God Hates   God hates divorce , not divorced people.  God loves people. Let's pause right here because that is the entirety of what I have to say, but my word count is supposed to be a bit higher. As words multiply, truth grows muffled. So please, if I may, I’d just like to remind you today:  God hates divorce , not divorced people. God loves people. Statements like this tend to provoke argumentative replies from certain camps.  To follow  “God hates  - name any sin-  . ”   with a declaration of His love provokes a panic as if we’ve just turkey-dropped permission slips with God’s forged signature to all humanity.  Scenarios of affairs and abandoned families spring to the virile imaginations of many a worried mind. There’s real concern we’re gonna make God mad.  Imaginary scenarios are… imaginar y.  If someone is looking for validation to do or be a thing, that thing is, in all reality, already an inevitability. Sought aff...