In the rolling hills of the Palouse countryside near my town, a small white church sits tucked behind a row of evergreen trees. To the side of the church is a tidy little graveyard, much like the one in this image. My husband and I have walked through that graveyard on more than one occasion, reading names and dates on the headstones, reflecting on life. I suspect these folks who died over a century ago lived simply. They probably didn’t travel far. They likely had only a small circle of people who knew them. By today’s standards, we might think of their lives as wasted—but Continue Reading

When we lived in the same town with them, “Bret” and “Lindsey” had been married for nearly two decades. Early on in their marriage, they’d gone through a major crisis. The way they handled it became, in their view, a powerful testimony which they were compelled to share with others. Bret and Lindsey concluded that the answer to marital strife was for the wife to submit every decision, no matter how small, to the husband. She was to serve him twenty-four seven with sacrificial devotion. He, in turn, would provide for the household, manage the finances, bring ultimate discipline Continue Reading

I had never experienced it before. No pet of mine has had to wear one—the cone of shame, that is—until recently. I'd noticed a scab under my cat's foreleg, so I took him to the vet. They found another cut on the other side of his chest. The two cuts required stitches; thus a cone was needed to keep him from chewing on the stitches. As a human being, I comprehend why a cone is needed for a couple of weeks. But my cat most definitely does not understand. He hates the cone. He can’t use his whiskers to calculate distances, so he crashes into things. He tries to groom but ends Continue Reading