I got this from The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman: A witch was tootling around in the air one day when she encountered a group of angels. The witch knew that they were older, wiser, and more powerful than she was, and she was not too keen on that. So she commanded the angels toContinue reading “Knowing Your Why”
Author Archives: vanaltman
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse
I have been young, and now I am old; old enough to tell my story, old enough to have a story to tell.
Similarities ~ Differences
“Difference is not the problem; it is the privilege and oppression that is based on difference. The trouble is produced by a world organized in ways that encourage people to use difference to include or exclude, reward or punish, credit or discredit, elevate or oppress, value or devalue, leave alone or harass.” Allan G. JohnsonContinue reading “Similarities ~ Differences”
Hobbies
“What is a hobby anyway? Where is the line of demarcation between hobbies and ordinary normal pursuits? At first blush I am tempted to conclude that a satisfactory hobby must be in large degree useless, inefficient, laborious, or irrelevant. Perhaps we have here the real inwardness of our question: A hobby is a defiance ofContinue reading “Hobbies”
Mountain Ascent
To the untrained eye ego-climbing and selfless climbing may appear identical. The ego-climber is like an instrument that’s out of adjustment. He puts his foot down an instant too soon or too late. He’s likely to miss a beautiful patch of sunlight through the trees. He looks up the trail trying to see what’s aheadContinue reading “Mountain Ascent”
Hope
As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is a mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all. Like all virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. G. K. Chesterton ~ Heretics
A Patch of Sunlight
Once there was a girl named Amalia who dreamed about a bluebell. In her dream, she saw a bluebell flower blooming in a patch of sunlight. The little flower rejoiced in the warmth of the sun and lifted its petals in celebration of the light. Amalia rejoiced as well, for how often does one encounterContinue reading “A Patch of Sunlight”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Finding Our No
All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It’s my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset, I’ve won or lost. At sunrise, I’m out again, giving it the old try. And no one can help me. Not even you. Ray Bradbury ~ Fahrenheit 451: CodaContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Finding Our No”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Entertaining the Troupe
Most of the sorrows of man, I incline to think, are caused by…repining for another world. Alone among the animals, he is dowered with the capacity to invent imaginary worlds, and he is always making himself unhappy by trying to move into them…The world, I am convinced, could be materially improved, but even as itContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Entertaining the Troupe”
How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Retrieving the Lost
No teacher should strive to make others think as he thinks, but to lead them to the living Truth, to the Master himself, of whom alone they can learn anything, who will make them in themselves know what is true by the very seeing of it. George MacDonald ~ Unspoken Sermons, Third Series A HairContinue reading “How to Crochet During the Apocalypse: Retrieving the Lost”
