Category: Life’s Challenges
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One of My Best Failures
For those of you who have followed my blog for a long time (I started blogging in April of 2011), you may remember that for several years I chose one word each year to be my special word to think about throughout the whole year. In 2014, I chose the word JOY as my special […]
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52 Years ago…
About this time of year in 1970, I was a senior at Wheaton College, just about ready to graduate, and I was thinking about what I should do next. Should I find a job as an English teacher? Should I take off with a friend on a traveling adventure? What else could I do? I […]
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The Accidental Reincarnation of My Blog
It’s gone. I destroyed it by mistake. I tried to be so careful, but the technology has changed so much in ten years. According to WordPress, the format of my blog is too old fashioned to be continued. “Bouquet” – the theme I used for the design of my blog has been retired. I can […]
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Guest Post by Mim Jacobson
Today is June 24, 2021. It is two weeks ago today that I had the second of my two surgeries within one week. The first was Sunday, June 6, an emergency appendectomy that began with a slight fever about 3:00 a.m. I took Tylenol and set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. to make asparagus strata […]
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“Now Thank We All Our God”
I’m almost done writing the first draft of my next book. My first two books in this series about the stories behind hymns were focused on hymns on a particular theme. My first book was a small book about the stories of 31 hymns that were based on the Psalms. My second book had 51 […]
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“This Little Light of Mine” and a Home Town Protest
Well, it happened again. I turned up too much information, and I need to share it somewhere. It’s too much for the book I’m writing, so I guess it needs to go into another blog post, just like the last time this happened, when I wrote about “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” This time […]
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“It Came upon the Midnight Clear”
I’m having the time of my life during this “Safer at Home” interlude in our lives. I average about eight hours a day on writing my newest book, Talking with God through Music: Seasonal Hymns. I’ve written a dozen reflections on Advent carols, and thirteen reflections on Christmas carols, with eight more to go. Then […]
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Is Mim Going to Jail?
As usual, I was sitting at my computer, working on my next book. Floey walked over to me, sat down right beside me, and looked up. She waited for me to finish the sentence I was typing. “What’s up, Floey?” I asked. “I’m worried, Mom.” “Are you worried about the Corona Virus, Floey? I don’t […]
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The Message of a Kaleidoscope
As soon as I got home from playing at the Presbyterian Church in Cambridge on Sunday, Mim, Floey, and I hopped into the car and drove to Chicago for a late lunch at the Buffalo Ice Cream Parlor. This was a special weekend. Forty-seven years ago I accepted a new job as an editorial researcher […]
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A Word for the New Year
Almost every day for at least the last ten years, I’ve started my morning in the comfortable sitting area of my downstairs office. I light the seasonal arrangement of candles on the coffee table, and settle into my Lazy Boy recliner. I spend from ten minutes to an hour quietly beginning the day. Before I […]
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