Lots of people right now are looking for ways to serve. Here’s a great one: blankets for refugees! But it comes with an expiration date: they must have the blankets in Virginia by Nov. 30. We all have been given lots of baby blankets, right? And most of them saw very little use and are still…
Read MoreAll articles filed in year of mercy
Ten Simple Ways To Model Mercy For Your Kids
Modeling #mercy doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Here are ten simple ways to teach your children to live #mercy.
Read MoreCarrying The Future
I know I’m not saying anything revolutionary here, but the world is really screwed up. I’m also aware that this is nothing unique to this particular era, this particular election cycle. The world has always been a screwed up place. Maybe this is maturity—spiritual or otherwise—finally allowing me to reserve a piece of my…
Read MoreThe Incredible Sick
Every superhero movie these days involves a mind-blowing escalation of the final battle. You know. The Avengers are fighting creepy mechanical creatures that fly around knocking New York City to pieces. You think it can’t get any worse, and then it does: there’s a lull in the action, a low-pitched roar, and my kids start…
Read MoreDouble Standards
At the sound of a crash on wood, Christian and I both turned around, gearing up for a Parental Scowl at the offending child. By the time we saw the toy tractor, which had been dropped into our pew by the non-Basi boy in the row behind, I realized it was far too sharp a…
Read MoreTwo Pieces of Candy
I must have been six or seven, not yet old enough to be fully aware of the vague sense of financial worry caused by growing up on a farm in the 1980s. But plenty old enough to know better. I stole a couple pieces of candy from the open Brach’s bin at the IGA. I…
Read MoreHow Building A Boat Can Be A Work Of Mercy
Sometimes I take things too seriously. Shocking, I know. No one would ever have guessed that from reading this blog. (Ahem.) For five months I’ve been focused on how hard mercy is to live out. And it is a challenge, each and every day. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a drudgery. Alex and…
Read MoreIn Which A Conversation With A Homeless Man Shapes My Future Self
The light at the top of the exit ramp was red when I pulled up to it. There was a man there. Grizzled. Curly beard. I recognized him. I’ve given him protein bars before. I pulled one out of the box between the seats and rolled down my window. “Here you go,” I said. “Oh,…
Read MoreSeeking the Best (instead of expecting the worst)
I was on the hunt for little boy dress shoes when I discovered the tight bundle of clothes wadded up and shoved behind a storage bin in the boys’ closet. In that bundle I found a pair of khakis and a school uniform fleece that I had given to Nicholas less than twenty-four hours before…
Read MoreMy World As Lent Begins
Causing me pain today: My shoulders and back. After twenty years, I am accustomed to joint/muscle/back issues and I know a lot of stretches and most of the release points for the usual suspects, but this one is different, causing an aching pain that radiates down my left tricep (triceps?). Thank God, my massage therapist…
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Kathleen M. Basi 