Nov 2

Nov 2 Our Gathering Song

However we hit it, we’re usually all happy by the time we finish the Doxology. No matter how we started, we end in gladness. Singing that poem of praise with these people has lifted my fog or funk or fatigue. We may yet find snark during our meal. One or more of the boys may yet complain or provoke or chew with his mouth open and get a rebuke. The preschooler may yet take my coveted last piece of bread for himself. The baby will undoubtedly throw something gleefully on the floor. But we’ve begun with thanksgiving, which is the least we can do.

Mar 24
Mar 24 Spreadsheets and Signposts

Jennifer Strange

Hospitality, Place

To assess the secrets we now possessed, my sister and I dismantled every carefully hoarded collection of Cool Whip containers, Styrofoam meat dishes, “brand new” household appliances, and unworn lace. The things no one could use alongside the things someone might want to use. And then there were the things only she loved, the things that told her who she was and what kind of life she had cherished. Things that tell the story of who she thought she was.

Oct 23
Oct 23 The Accidental Habit of Hospitality

Jennifer Strange

Hospitality, Truth

Hospitality begins with homemaking, and proper homemaking is always connected to hospitality. The slow roll of daily tasks, like scrubbing the toilets and sweeping the floors. The seasonal study of vegetables and how they might come together for a meal. The predictable safety of steady care among housemates. And then you want others — non-residents, the stranger the better — to enjoy what you enjoy. You want to extend to others whatever provisions and comforts belong to your household. Even introverts may find that it feels natural to make home in this way. Hospitality is the art of homemaking for people who don’t belong to your home.

Dec 19
Dec 19 Fruitcake Evangelism

Jennifer Strange

Feast, Hospitality

Fruitcake lovers tend to be quiet whereas fruitcake haters tend to be loud, but most fruitcake haters I know have never had good fruitcake (and some have never had any fruitcake at all). So it seems that makers of fruitcake either must either hide their wares under a bushel (no!) or share them with evangelical fervor. Thus, I have decided to become an evangelist for fruitcake. Because everyone (especially my brother-in-law who requires more prayer, for he has yet to refrain from making disparaging remarks while the rest of us groan and ask for more) needs to know how wonderful it is.

Nov 29
Nov 29 If Children, Then Heirs

Jennifer Strange

Place, Truth

I study the stuff of my inheritance accidentally in every mirror and in every setting of the table, but I call them heirlooms because I inherit them from women I know and love. I cannot help but bear the silver hair of my grandmother, and by some indiscernible mix of nature and nurture, I love the game of bridge. Most likely, even in an open adoption, my non-biological children will not so easily see themselves growing into the people whose genetics made them. Spliced into us, they will stand to inherit much more — both the biological nature of their first family and the adopted nurture of their forever family — but through a sharp loss.

Jun 28
Jun 28 Notions About Sewing

Jennifer Strange

Crafty

Nostalgia is not the new fad. Making things from scratch is not the new cool. Using your own elbow grease to scrub your baseboards the old-fashioned way is not just hip. It’s about living in a way that makes homes into places that care for the stranger and also the nearby friend. If in the process we rediscover the way they did things back then, it’s because no technology can ever replace what the time and trouble achieved. We will not stop hungering and thirsting for authenticity and presence.

Apr 12
Apr 12 Pride and Play

Jennifer Strange

Music

I hate that I don’t play the violin regularly anymore, but I know I will pick it up again. Sooner rather than later if our son will start his scratching at the same age when I started mine. But my joy in the listening has increased during my sabbatical. At some point, without my noticing a shift, patronizing the local symphony orchestra became a privilege rather than a presumption, much to my glad surprise.

Nov 10
Nov 10 Tell Me a Story

Jennifer Strange

Bookish, Creation Care, Truth

We learned after a few days how to keep moving and enjoy the scene at the same time, how to discern which pictures we needed to take and which we could do without, and how to tell stories from home while enjoying alien country. But why did we feel the need amid all that natural beauty to request personal anecdotes or stories about family members back home? Were we merely searching for distraction from blisters, muscle aches, and wheezing lungs?

Dec 2
Dec 2 Five Poems

Jennifer Strange

Bookish

So you dressed in linen on the threshing floor
and made that man’s feet an altar:

bare for the pleading, the head-covered prayer
of a woman coming to beauty.

Who are you, he says, you
like a merchant ship bringing wine?