When my husband and I were newlyweds, we moved to Portland, Oregon. Those first few weeks in Portland were unsettling — we slept on a stranger’s hardwood floor, caring for her ailing kitten, while adjusting to college. Oregon (not “Or-e-gone” as I quickly learned) was both magnificent and disorienting. As dazzled as I was by [...]

There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and his masters called him Scrubb. I cannot tell you how his friends spoke to him for he had none. So begins one of the most delightful books in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage [...]

A few months ago I published “Hope and Healing Among the Amish” about the tragic schoolhouse shootings in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Now that some time has passed I’ve had a chance dig a little deeper and expand my earlier thoughts. After the shootings, the Amish demolished the schoolhouse where so many suffered and died. I [...]

A church sign near our home reads, “What’s missing from Ch_ _ch? U R !” That sign reminds me of the millions of people across the country who skip church, and I wonder what drives people away or makes them reluctant to come in the first place. For many, I suspect that the idea of [...]

Last summer, when I was round with my second child, perpetually devouring ice cubes as Natalie somersaulted in my womb, a friend came to visit. I had heard that she’d recently had a miscarriage, but she hadn’t yet told me herself. And I was afraid — in the way that everyone seems to be — [...]