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Amazing
By Allison Hull “You look AMAZING in that dress!” “Wow, I can’t believe how beautiful you are in that outfit!” “You got a haircut — it suits you so well!” Gushing about other people in their clothes comes easy to me. I can say those things as an outsider looking at them. I can see how the right type of clothes just puts them at ease and makes them glow. I see how a new haircut or color can give them an extra bounce in their step. And I see that when I comment on it they seem to transform and really own their look. They truly do look amazing…
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Good Friends For The Day
By Debra-Lynn Swearingen Words between sobs are difficult to understand. Substitute teaching for elementary children gives me practice. On a regular basis, a little girl comes to me crying over the way her friend is treating her. In order to mediate I point to an overall desire for kindness and inclusion. And like most teachers dealing with childhood drama, I attempt to force reconciliation so the class can move forward. Sometimes it’s successful, sometimes not. Either way, I remain convinced that growing up female is fraught with friendship woe. You don’t have to look far beyond the school playground to find that women hold an idealized view of friendship. In fact, we…
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Graduation and Life Long Vocation
By Elisabeth Urtel The unsolicited question to college graduates, to which there is no single correct response: “What do you see yourself doing in the future? Where do you plan on going with that?” On frequent occasions – encounters with old friends, family reunions, meeting new members at church – I find myself struggling to answer that question gracefully, and with Christian love. I hold a B.A. in music and am working toward receiving a master’s degree in church music plus a master’s in theology – at the same time. Growing up in some unconventional church situations, including my family worshipping in our living room with cassette tapes, I…
