On the fumes of the night, I found a blog. And on the first hit, I was hooked. Sentences swung back and forth like a hypnotist’s watch. Time faded. And a blog I did devour. It was heaven, and I remembered something about good writing. A good writer makes me want to write. Her art is in letters, in making them into story. A good writer is not afraid to look bad to her audience. She doesn’t take herself too seriously. And she writes her life, however sad or comic or seemingly insignificant, through a lens of redemption and grace.

As I reflect on my favorite writers, the ones I most admire, the ones who most inspire me, I realize something else. The writer writes to fail just as much as to succeed. It is the risk she absorbs every time she sits to write. In writing she merges her pain with her bliss and welcomes her reader to a momentary world where he can make sense of his own. Oh, and we love her, love her so much we steal from her. We’ll take her thoughts and re-word them into the sentence of our own life until they become ours as much as they were ever hers. Read the rest of this entry »

“I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us.” That’s how the film Platoon, a commentary on U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, ends in the words of protagonist Chris Taylor (played by Charlie Sheen). The words seem appropriate today as I read that little Wang Yue, the two-year-old injured in two horrible hit-and-runs in China has died. Read the rest of this entry »

Procrastination. Enter it in the little window adorned with a “g” at the top of your browser, and find, among other things, the following reasons why we procrastinate: Read the rest of this entry »

Though a devastating flood in Pakistan has, as of the time of my writing, taken nearly 300 lives, it got barely a few lines of coverage in today’s news outlets. A thwarted attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul got a few more lines so far, but I had to search to find news of a bus and train collision in Argentina. Instead, most of what has been deemed newsworthy for American media outlets so far today is financial in nature. Bank of America has announced it will eliminate 30,000 jobs over the next few years. Stocks continue to decline, and the loss of U.S. jobs prompts discussion over regulation review. On the heels of reports come interviews with banking experts and financial pundits. If you are one to agonize over uncertainty or fret over your finances, current news reporting would be great exposure therapy, that psychological technique of helping the fearful overcome their fears by exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

On this tenth anniversary of 9-11, we relive the day that the towers of the World Trade Center buckled and collapsed, the day the Pentagon smoked and airplanes crashed. Televisions across the country re-broadcast pictures of flames pouring out of the jagged chasm in the North Tower. September 11 would be the day our national self image was forever altered, and its images are a flood of memories. We remember. We struggle to explain the event to children who didn’t yet exist when it all happened. Emotions are once again fresh and sore. And as we revisit the terrorist attack, I am amazed at how grief is an attack of its own, often unsuspected until it is upon us. Read the rest of this entry »

My 13-year-old has been obsessed with weather since the day she was wobbly legged, teetering from one foot to the other in a toddler rain dance. She could tell me about the towering cumulonimbus with its anvil head and tornado spawning downdrafts by the time she was 5. I remember the hours I spent with her in “exposure therapy,” walking her outside under the porch roof in the middle of a thunderstorm, asking her to rate her fear on a scale of 1-10, then making her stay in the middle of her terror until the 10 backed down to 9, then 8, then 7 before heading back inside. The face-your-fear style of therapy mitigated her storm-related anxieties, but the intrigue of a good storm has continued to captivate her as she’s grown. Read the rest of this entry »

Untethered, my life drifts loose, away from a familiar horizon. Since saying yes to names on a piece of paper, names listed in print under the letters B-u-y-e-r, our family home has hung suspended in a legal state called “under contract.” It’s still ours, but new names are beginning the process of calling it. Inside it still, we are disconnected and restless. The ropes that bound have given way, and we begin the gradual drift away. Read the rest of this entry »

The window frames a spring sky, its blue background set behind the delicious green of new leaf, a green so bright that it seems as though the sun is dancing atop every shoot, setting each aglow. A light, warm breeze plays at the open window. The songs of birds make a four-dimensional show of daylight. With spring well established and everything lush and glowing, it’s hard not to feel a sense of hopeful contentment. But as I write, a soul full with spring and the quiet of a morning with kids out of the house, my desktop displays the morning emails and Facebook posts. One is a journal chronicling the story of a 13-year-old boy who has traveled to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida for cancer treatment. My husband and I used to work with the boy’s dad, and the news of this cancer was a shock (isn’t it always when it’s more than a name but someone you know?).  A Facebook status by my old college roommate provides an update on her struggle with lupus that has proven “treatment resistant” and kept her on a steady course of steroids, chemotherapy and gammaglobulin injections. Another friend has flown to Texas for a stem cell transplant in the hopes of curing his leukemia. Another college roommate of mine has been posting updates on Facebook about her 4-year-old niece who is undergoing treatment for cancer. And amidst the chirping of birds, I am struck with the juxtaposition of children with cancer and spring leafing through my open windows, a juxtaposition that gives me considerable pause. Read the rest of this entry »

Worth the 2-minute read: An Interview with Bono.

New York World-Telegram and The Sun (staff photographer). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

“In the final analysis the church has a purpose,” said the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and then went on to share from Isaiah 61:1-2 before the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. It was June 5, 1966. The sermon he gave, titled “Guidelines for a Constructive Church,” is a beautiful call to Christ’s church to remember its purpose and call in this world. If you have time on this holiday, I hope you’ll take time to submit yourself to the message of Dr. King. May we be the church God has set us apart to be.

Guidelines for a Constructive Church