Elizabeth Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year, for her loosely related short story collection called Olive Kitteridge. The book is one of the best I’ve read for character study. Each story either brushes up against Olive–the wife of a loving husband, a mother of a stubborn boy, and seventh-grade teacher in town–or […]
Good and Evil
Question for today. If you believe in God, do you believe He sends us good and evil? We often credit Him with giving us good things–health, wealth, and love. But we hesitate, it seems to me, to say He sends us bad things. Why is that? While you’re thinking, here’s a verse to ruminate on. […]
Seasons
As I mentioned before, I’ve been sequestered away up north for 10 days, putting the final touches on a first draft of the second novel. Driving home on Friday was lovely. Where I was, the tree leaves were just poking their tiny brown-budded heads out. As I traveled south, the growth on the sides of […]
Holding Up a Mirror to Ourselves
Can I just say that Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games deals with so much more than a futuristic nation’s sadistic starvation game in which 24 youths are chosen from twelve districts (one girl, one boy) to compete in the Capitol–until death…on TV? Sounds gruesome, doesn’t it? It is. But, sadly, it’s an excellent portrayal of […]
Is It Ever Right To Lie?
Years ago, when I was still teaching high schoolers, the movie Life is Beautiful came out, and it was the topic of much discussion as my students entered and exited my room during passing periods. “Go see it, Elliott,” they’d say. [They always knocked off the “Mrs.” I think it was their way of including […]