I tucked the empty seed bags under my arm and leaned over to pick a daffodil. It was the oldest signal of hope I had ever known. My grandmother, Mimi, had loved her “daffies” so much, she’d painted her kitchen—and…
Field Note: Dawn on the Ridge
You’re looking at the Ordovician slant. This is the view that pulled at me forty-two years ago, when I stood on a terrace, the silence gathering full as a bell. Look at how the ridges drop away into the Nashville…
His Mercies, Morning by Morning
This morning, I opened Lamentations and found the ancient sentence waiting: “His mercies never end. They are new every morning.” Outside in the wild blackberry thickets, my peonies look as if they’d been unfurled by a botanist, her hands peeling back each…
The Official Travel Guide to Joy
Have you ever questioned the definition of joy? The word is used as a synonym for happiness and contentment, but are these ideas interchangeable? And what about other nouns that are stirred in–hope, grace, mercy, and gratitude? Are they just words? All…
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A 60-Second Joy Lesson
What if joy was a rare event, occurring only once a year? Not only would we look forward to that day, we would also worry that something might steal it. Oh, Lord, what if we got food poisoning? What if…
Do Thoughts Shape Our Destiny?
I once knew a lady who hunted disappointments the way a squirrel searches for acorns. As the woman repeated a litany of daily insults and horrors, her black mood seeped into me. When I finally stopped listening to the emotional…
An Introduction to Joy Lessons
Joy Lessons is all about cultivating stillness in a chaotic world. My introduction to simple pleasures began nearly seventy years ago in my grandmother’s Mississippi garden. It was 1958. I was six-years-old, a scruffy girl with an abiding love for…
How to Rewire Your Brain
What if joy was a rare event, occurring only once a year? Not only would we look forward to that day, we would also worry that something might steal it. What if a catastrophe ruined our special day? What if…
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Unexpected Joy
During my search for a slower, sweeter lifestyle, I kept track of daily speed bumps–a whole cluster came from social media. I just couldn’t believe it. After all, I am a Facebook Failure and a Terrible Tweeter. I prefer Instagram,…
My travel essentials
Baggage
At some point in your life, you may have put on your favorite striped outfit and asked a quintessential question: “Does this dress make me look fat?” The question beneath the question is, “Do I look ugly, self-indulgent, or weak?…
A Field Guide to Imps
A few times a week, the neighborhood cat, Gladys, puts dead birds and moles on the doormat. These unwelcome gifts made my chest tighten, so I bought her a collar, one with bells. But she was a born killer, and…
The Trouble with Perfection
“And they lived happily ever after. . . .” A storybook life only happens to fictional characters. In real life, the prince turned out to be a compulsive philanderer, gambler, drug abuser, or garden variety pest. Real-life women know the…
