May 18, 2012
Tags:
Clarksville, Tennessee, cemetery, history, photos, "Be Unto Thy Name", LeAnne Hardy
In a grove at the bottom of the hill at the end of the subdivision where my daughter lives, there is a cemetery. I don’t know how many people even know it’s there. The way is overgrown with weeds (and full of ticks.) My daughter’s neighbor discovered it when her dog got away from her
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May 11, 2012
Tags:
Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing, Beatitudes, book reviews, Carole Boston Weatherford, Tim Ladwig, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, James Varick, Martin Luther King, LeAnne Hardy
A natural extension of my Africa picture book collection has been picture books that show African-American culture, especial religious life. (This passion has no doubt been encouraged by our relationships with brothers and sisters at
Solid Word Bible Church in Indianapolis.) Besides picking up
Under the Baobab Tree at
Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing last month, I bought
The Beatitutdes by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Tim Ladwig.
I first met Tim Ladwig at
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May 4, 2012
Tags:
Africa, Mozambique, baobab, trees, picture books, book reviews, Under the Baobab Tree, Julie Stiegemeyer, E. B. Lewis, LeAnne Hardy
I brought home several new books from
Calvin College’s Festival of Faith and Writing a couple weeks ago. I have collected beautiful picture books since I worked in a Logos Bookstore children’s department when I was first married, long before my own kids. My children remember the antique glass cupboard with books that we
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April 27, 2012
Tags:
Calvin College, Festival of Faith and Writing, reading, writing, conferences, books, faith, Chimamanda Adichie, Leila Aboulela, David Diaz, Natalie Miller, Kim Childress, LeAnne Hardy
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| Calvin Seminary Chapel on a spring morning |
When I told told you I was going to Calvin College’s
Festival of Faith and Writing, I had no pictures. Now I have lots. It's a readers conference rather than a writers conference although there are lots of writers there. I participated in a workshop on short-story writing and got a good start thinking through a new project. But the emphasis is less
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April 20, 2012
Tags:
Boston Marathon, running, Erika, Dan, goals, commitment, LeAnne Hardy
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| A double amputee runner |
The Boston Marathon is the Holy Grail of runners. Anyone can sign up to run a 26.2-mile race in Indianapolis or Beaver Island, Michigan, but you have to qualify for Boston.
My son-in-law told me, “The easiest way to qualify is to get old.” That’s because the qualifying time goes up with age.
Dan didn’t wait to get old. He did the distance in less than three hours at Beaver Island earlier this year and promptly went on to do
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April 13, 2012
Tags:
Malachi, Inter Varsity Press, Bible Gateway, devotions, sin, LeAnne Hardy
Technology has its down side (witness all the ads for Viagra and body-part enlargers that show up in my spam box) but it really has some great stuff too. Recently I have been enjoying Inter-Varsity Press’s
Quiet Time Study page. It works its way through the Bible over a couple years with questions
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April 8, 2012
Tags:
hymn, Thine be the Glory, Edmund Louis Budry, George Fredrick Handel, Easter, Emmaus, LeAnne Hardy
 |
This lane is on the campus of Nairobi
Evangelical Graduate School
of Theology in Kenya, but I
can easily imagine my disciples
walking down it, oblivious to
the beauty until Jesus joins them. |
Rejoice for He is risen! I will not leave you this week in the darkness of Friday afternoon. After #18 ("Beneath the Cross of Jesus" in InterVarsity's
Hymns) comes #19! Thine Be the Glory, Risen, Conquering Son!
I have been working on a short story about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus on that long ago Easter afternoon, immersing myself in their grief, trying to imagine its transformation into joy as they recognized Jesus. For that reason verse two of this hymn struck me especially. Verse three makes me think of Thomas. Maybe I need to write another story.
(My taste in music
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April 6, 2012
Tags:
hymn, Beneath the Cross of Jesus, Elizabeth C. Clephane, Good Friday, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, LeAnne Hardy
 |
A good place for trysting in
Kirstenbosch Gardens, Cape Town |
When I wrote a couple weeks ago about one of my favorite hymns,
For All the Saints, several of you wrote back with your own favorites or sharing your love for mine. (For some reason readers of this blog seem to prefer to comment in personal e-mails or on Facebook rather than on the blog itself. I guess they are shy. Or maybe FB feels more personal. Who knows? I’m just glad when you tell me what you think!)
My sister mentioned #3 and #7 in InterVarsity's
Hymns , which we used in family worship growing up. She didn’t bother to
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March 30, 2012
Tags:
Hunger Games, Susanne Collins, reality TV, movie, book review, Joseph Kony, child abuse, teen fiction, LeAnne Hardy
I started crying in the reaping scene, and nearly lost it in the riots. I think I got my cardio-vascular workout from the pounding of my heart through the whole thing. My husband doesn’t want to see the rest of the series when it comes out; it made him too angry—angry at injustice, angry at frivolous disregard for another person’s pain, angry at sin.
I’m talking about
The Hunger Games. Don’t let the lines of teenagers
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March 23, 2012
Tags:
hymn, For all the saints, William How, Ralph Vaughn Williams, heaven, encouragement, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Cedar Campus, LeAnne Hardy
I woke this morning with this hymn going through my head. It’s an old favorite going back to the summer at Cedar Campus in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when I met my husband. Cedar Campus is an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship training camp and mostly we sang from the organization’s
Hymns, a collection I knew so well from
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