Ann Frailey's Blog – January 2015 Archive (5)

I used to be a “neat freak” – maybe not on the level of antiseptic obsession – but I’ve always I liked order over chaos.  As time and kids have molded me – I have learned to accept a certain level of untidiness. But garbage still bothers me. Garbage is that stuff that is completely unusable – even by the slugs and ants of the world.  When nature’s cleaners can’t handle the mess we’ve made – we’re in trouble.

We live in the countryside so we have a few alternatives that city…

I recently read an excerpt from a famous person’s blog which stated that she had never been comfortable with her body and had resorted to plastic surgery to make herself more attractive.  I don’t name the celebrity simply because the story is all to familiar.  I know of countless individuals who aren’t famous and feel the need to “change” something to make themselves more attractive. Is that a problem?  The cosmetic industry might not think so. Nor any industry built around our insecurities…

What stirs the imagination often directs the soul.  When you look at the fiction available to young people today – to all people really – it doesn’t take a great leap of logic to wonder if there is a correlation between what grief people read and what grief people inflict.

I often read historical biographies, and I find them fascinating because there does seem to be a strong connection between the way a person grows up and the way they use power as an adult. Not everyone grows up to…

Epiphany used to conjure up images of the three Wise-Men who came from the east to honor the infant Christ as Lord and King. Later, as men and traditions waxed and waned, it came to simply mean a highlight – a sudden and profound understanding. The divine intervention aspect was shrouded by a modern dedication to purely human experiences.

For me, there are no purely…

As a child growing up I had a tendency to get things mixed up.  For a while, I actually thought that “The pursuit of happiness” was one of the Ten Commandments.  It was a revelation to realize that I was not commanded to pursue happiness.  In fact, as I got older and began to read and re-read scripture, I discovered a rather contrary expectation – that God wants us to offer ourselves to Him freely, as He offers Himself freely to us.

I can’t think of a better model for this approach to…