The Sophia Project

Some days, it’s just so easy to go off the rails.  As a writer, my world consists of two distinct dimensions: first, the heart-felt, soul-based, dig-deep-into-the-dirt storytelling that lights me up and gives my life purpose. Second, the pragmatic, techie details of the InterWebs that are fun, interesting, and pretty necessary but aren’t the true [...]

Practice your art.  Practice your art in any way that makes sense to you. Maybe it’s obvious art like painting or writing. Maybe it’s less obvious, like doodling or daydreaming. Maybe it’s utterly hidden, even to yourself, the vivid dreams that fill your sleep and gently tug at you, even in the gray cubicle where [...]

Be Yourself. I grew up in the 1970′s, that blissful decade when the expansive thinking of the late 1960s melded gorgeously with the pragmatic sensibility of the 1940s and 50s. Tie-dye tee-shirts and Bob Hope Christmas specials. Shaun Cassidy and the Fonz. And in parenting, the crisp edges of old-school discipline paired with upbeat encouragement [...]

A weird thing happened to me today while Christmas shopping at Target. Before I get to the weird thing, you need to know two things about me: I hate shopping. I hate Christmas shopping even more. It’s not that I’m a Grinchy “I hate Christmas” sort of person. I really love Christmas. The smell of [...]

Riding through the countryside of North Carolina in my man-friend’s pickup truck this past weekend, I read this on a church sign: Thank you, God, for the unknown blessings that are already on their way.  Isn’t it a comfort to think about all those blessings out there, floating like mist over the surface of a [...]

Autumn is approaching. The morning light slants through my front window and lies on the carpet at a different angle than it did a month ago. The sky is bluer and the air clearer, shedding the humidity and haze of summer. The cicadas and locusts are dying off, going underground. Yesterday I smelled woodsmoke on [...]

Last spring, I fell ill. The symptoms were mysterious: lethargy, fatigue, chronic sighing and moodiness. Angst. Melancholy. A big, fat case of the blahs. Regular consumption of late night donuts. It took me a few weeks to determine the cause. Turns out I had a classic case of Live-the-Life-of-Your-Dreams-itis, a common but often undiscussed condition [...]