Identity

Our Daughters: Corner Pillars or Shapely Wildflowers?

by Shawn May 12, 2012
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My daughter Lucy pulls herself up into the top bunk in the hallway of the bus and pulls the shade. Later, I peek my face in and ask her what she’s up to. But at first she doesn’t hear me – her face is intent on her next drawing. In the corner of her bunk [...]

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The Redwoods Asked Me, “What If Your ‘Today’ Must Die?”

by Shawn May 9, 2012
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The Redwood trees stood massive and solemn, some close to 300 feet tall, some over 500 years old. I felt small and insignificant under their kind shadows. Like an ant. Or a long-forgotten worry. They once stood silently while the first Europeans docked their ships and slid small boats up on to the sand of [...]

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The Life of Faith: Less Sense, Added Meaning

by Shawn May 4, 2012
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I have made some very expensive transactions on this trip. Nearly everywhere we’ve gone, I’ve gained something, and I’ve left something behind. In Virginia, we gained a kind friend who treated my kids like they were his grandchildren. He built a small fire under that southern night sky for marshmallow roasting. And I left a [...]

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Change the Course of a Life: Be an Encourager

by Shawn May 3, 2012

There are plenty of completely legitimate reasons not to encourage someone. Encouragement could lead them to some kind of disastrous failure, the kind from which people do not easily recover. Then I would feel responsible and guilty. And I’m not a big fan of feeling responsible for someone else’s downfall. I enjoy feeling guilty even [...]

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Do Something Irresponsible

by Shawn April 16, 2012

I sat quietly in a mall somewhere in Nashville a few weeks ago and looked at my ringing cell phone. The call I had been waiting for. “Hello?” The guy’s name was Kevin – I had never spoken to him before, but a shared friend had connected us, thought we should talk. And as I [...]

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In Which I Admit to Being (Gulp) Wrong

by Shawn March 29, 2012

Maile and I have been taking turns sleeping with Abra at night. The high pollen count here in the outskirts of Nashville have been keeping her up at night, coughing and itching, so one of us sleeps with her in a separate room where she won’t wake everyone up, and the other gets a good [...]

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The Man Who Kept the World at Bay

by Shawn March 23, 2012
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The small boy (me) stretches out on a worn sofa next to the man (my dad). He is watching television. The man wraps his arm around the skinny boy, protecting him from the world. In response, the boy asks the man a lot of questions, drowning out the evening news, but the man never shushes [...]

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