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Until I moved to the city, I always enjoyed (expected) personal delivery of my mail into my mailbox at the end of our extensive driveway in New Mexico.  I have fond memories of that mailbox ranging from reactions about the things received, good wishes with the packages sent, and, of course, the special delivery the day before the box was installed when two of my sons locked their youngest brother inside “to see how much the box would hold.” Since living in Austin, we receive our mail via one in a cluster of mailboxes. (By the way, it costs $353… 

Every time I drive Capital of Texas Highway 360, I think about the things that I notice and why. Do you find a pattern? Do the same objects tend to catch your eye over and over? (The tacky signs with purposefully misspelled words). Reciprocally, do you miss the same things each time? (The mom and pop pizza place that’s closing because everyone else missed seeing it, too)? How can we do that? How do we miss a sign just as colorful, just as evident over and again? Even the definition of noticing is the investment of singular attention. By virtue of… 

I can remember when the term blog was not one that everyone recognized. (Does that “label me” un-cool?)  To date, I find myself wondering if it has ever been defined accurately, so I looked it up on that accurate and exact authority—the Web.  Here’s what I found: A regularly updated web page, typically run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.                                                   .. A website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites. It seems to me that some bloggers have few parameters where the subject of their blog is concerned. Maybe they don’t need a definition, but my… 

COURAGE, THE BEST “EN”—PUT Hearts wither, almost from the onset. I’ve always liked to think of them as innately strong and resilient. If nurtured properly, if vested in right thinking and conviction, IF rooted in the soil of faith-based enablement, then yes. They are strong. But, left to the devices of human nature and gravity, hearts are prone to the weakest and easiest course—doubt, fear and hesitation. This is not to say that I am cynical about people. I believe in the valiant and irrepressible courage of the human heart. I love a line from that beautiful WWII novel, Rose… 

I am a bible-studying, praying Christian of many years. I have an inexplicable assurance that God is real as is the Son He sent and the Spirit He gifts to every human who professes Him and believes. What I feel and know about God is the very definition of faith. I have been a student of science even longer than the bible because my father was a science teacher and, by the time I was four, he had this little girl perched on a stool to dissect a mushroom, recite dinosaur species and identify stratification in cutaway rocks on the… 

Tonight I went to the last event I will ever attend (at least within the scope of imagination) that will end in the Bulldog fight song. I stood in the oppressive heat of a high school auditorium whose air conditioner has never been adequate and invited a headache by fighting tears. I don’t know why I fought them.  Before I started, I knew they would win. It was not my alma mater or my song. I did not even have a blood-related child on the stage, but it is my youngest son’s senior year. I have watched him and his…