“Inspiration”

I have learned so much from grieving people and I continue to be amazed at the creative, meaningful, and symbolic rituals they take on in the journey of missing their loved one. Recently, I came across a story deeply grabbed my heart and that I am so thankful I listened to. From the podcast, This American Life, I listened to Episode #597, "One Last Thing Before I Go." To paraphrase the story for you, in Japan a man's cousin died. Desiring an outlet for his grief, he found an old phone booth and installed it in his yard. The phone was old, [...]

I recently finished a podcast called S-Town that featured the true & tragic story John B. McLemore, an astoundingly brilliant horologist - that is, someone who has studied time. The narrator and John begin to discuss sundials together and I learned that most sundials feature a latin inscription about time. Some of them stole my breath, Hora fugit, ne tardes. The hour flees, don't be late. Festina lente. Make haste, but slowly. Lente hora, celeriter anni. An hour passes slowly, but the years go by quickly. Sic vita fluit, dum stare videtur. Life flows away as it seems to stay the same. Ultima latet [...]

Ok, so I am going to get slightly religious in this post - it's a necessity in this case and it's no big deal. I try to remain neutral in my writing but I feel this topic calls for a bit of background and religious context. Here goes ... I am fluent in "Christian-ese". After 25 years of growing up in a church with an evangelical background I can tell you with fair confidence that Christians are like everyone else when it comes to control - they need it. One of the crazier things I hear said about death (particularly the deaths that make [...]