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Travel in a Time of Covid-19

3/25/2020

My husband has been going stir crazy ever since the drought of TV sports began, eager to go somewhere. Anywhere! We cancelled last week's trip to Baltimore to see our daughter and family. In April we intended to return to where we used to live in Brazil for a wedding. We won’t be going. We hadn’t planned a road trip to Montana, but that’s where we went.

In February my mother-in-law flew out to see her daughter’s family an hour south of Seattle for a birthday and a couple concerts. (Hey! This is a musical family. We’re very supportive of one another’s performances.)

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Thoughts in a time of Covid 19

3/13/2020

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I was supposed to fly to Baltimore today to visit my daughter and family for her birthday. We had tickets to go to Brazil in April for the wedding of our foster daughter’s son on a beach east of Rio de Janeiro. All that has changed. At our age it doesn’t seem responsible to travel for fun in the midst of a fast developing situation. Our isolated house in the Northwoods seems much the best place to stay.

When I tried to call the airline Wednesday evening after cases of Covid 19 were reported in our daughter’s county and she knew someone with symptoms, the wait to talk to a person was 4+ hours. I’m an early riser so I figured calling at 6 AM would beat the crowd. Wait time only 2+ hours. But at least I would be awake 2+ hours later, and they have a system where you can leave your number and they call you back. In the end they forgave our non-refundable tickets without question. I’m grateful to Delta Airlines who is no doubt taking a huge hit this week.

So how do we pray in the midst of a situation like this?

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Praying together for the Elections

2/29/2020

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We are in the midst of this election season, and I am concerned as I suspect you are. The angry rhetoric on TV raises my blood pressure; the name calling and accusations on both sides break my heart. I’m conflicted by brothers and sisters in the faith who see things differently from how I see them. Consequently, I am making a list of things we all (Democrats, Republicans and independents) can pray for at this time.

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Hearing my Native American Neighbors

2/12/2020

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I live in the Northwoods where my mailing address is a tiny Native American town dominated by a large casino. In my desire to better understand my Ojibwe neighbors, I read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and a book of local history. Friends recommended several other titles, one being the autobiographical novel April Raintree (reviewed here) and another the shockingly titled Custer Died for Your Sins by Vine Deloria, an Oglala Sioux and executive director of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), 1964-67.

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April Raintree--in search of a native Identity

1/22/2020

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Recently I have been trying to educate myself about the Native Americans in my community. When I posted a review of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee on Facebook, several friends made suggestions of further reading. The semi-autobiographical April Raintree by Beatrice Culleton/Mosionier was one of these.

In this powerful exploration of what it means to be native in modern Canada, we follow the lives of two Metis (mixed blood) sisters who take different paths in response to their heritage. The girls are taken away from their alcoholic parents as young children and placed in different foster homes. Some of these are very supportive situations, but not all, and school is full of bullies. Mrs. Semple, April’s social worker, chooses to believe the abusive foster mom instead of the girls

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When Mountains Sing

8/7/2019

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I met Stacy Monson through our local chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers. In fact, Stacy helped start Minnesota N.I.C.E. and I’m glad she did. The monthly meetings in St. Paul and the writers who come together there have been a big encouragement to me. Award-winning author of The Chain of Lakes series and Open Circle, Stacy has become a critique partner and friend. She describes her stories as “an extraordinary God at work in ordinary life.” Unlike the typical Christian romance, Stacy’s books are always about something so much more significant than boy meets girl.

Her newest book, When Mountains Sing, releases today, August 7!

When the truth cost her everything, she thought there was nothing left to lose.

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To the Class of 2019

5/18/2019

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I’ve been teaching Sunday school to fourth through sixth graders for seven years now. The first kids I taught are graduating from high school this spring. Perhaps they won’t be thrust out into the world this week as they leave the auditorium, but by fall they will be more or less “on their own.”

It’s a pretty scary world between #MeToo and

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When Research Hits Home

4/3/2019

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My current WIP (work in progress) is about anger with God from the standpoint of a Bethlehem woman who loses her child in Herod’s massacre of the innocents. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about first-century Palestine, and having fun tracking down connections and the impact of the historical context on my characters. I am also on the lookout for books that deal with my theme. The first one I turned to was Philip Yancy’s Disappointment with God.

It’s a book worth multiple readings.

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What if "Racism" Doesn't Equal "Bad"?

3/16/2019

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I just finished reading a book called White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. It’s about how hard it is to talk about race in our society, but if we don’t talk about it, we can never overcome the divisions that keep us apart. DiAngelo is white and addresses us whites to tell us that “colorblind” is not good enough, because it makes us blind to the challenges that our neighbors of color face. If we are blind to the problem, we have no hope of fixing it. The truth is that the white viewpoint is not the authoritative definition of reality even though in our society dominated by whites, it may seem so.

DiAngelo takes issue with the idea that we have clung to since the 1960s that racism=bad and non-racism=good. That concept keeps me

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A Literary Kick in the Gut

5/14/2018

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From time to time I have the opportunity to participate in the creation of quality Christian literature by being a beta reader for a colleague or editing for a client. One such book was Cradle Snatchers, the latest in British author Henry Brooks’ Will Houston mystery series and definitely his best so far. Brooks is an enthusiastic young father with seemingly boundless energy and creativity. He has a sharp mind and is eager to use story to communicate ideas he feels very passionate about. I’m usually pretty impatient with agenda-driven fiction even when I agree with the agenda, but in Cradle Snatchers Brooks has given us fast-paced action and laugh-out-loud characters that slam home his human-life agenda with gut-punching force.

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Times and
Places

Travel in a Time of Covid-19

Thoughts in a time of Covid 19

Praying together for the Elections

Hearing my Native American Neighbors

April Raintree--in search of a native Identity

When Mountains Sing

To the Class of 2019

When Research Hits Home

What if "Racism" Doesn't Equal "Bad"?

A Literary Kick in the Gut

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