by MarianBeaman | Jan 6, 2016 | blog, Gratitude, Literature, Mennonite Lore, popular culture, Purple Passage, Quotations, Uncategorized
Have you started a diet? Renewed your gym membership or decided to walk more? Maybe you have resolved to cut down on Facebook time this year . . . Along with such New Year’s resolutions, some of my friends each year choose a guide word to help navigate the unknown...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 30, 2015 | blog, Christmas, Cliff Beaman artist, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Travel, Uncategorized
On Christmas Day 2015 in Jacksonville, Florida, the temperature stood at 85, at least twenty degrees above the normal daytime thermometer reading for this time of year. Over most of the USA, Christmas day was warmer than usual, the forecasters predicting a near...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 23, 2015 | blog, Education, Family / Nostalgia, Gratitude, Nostalgia, Recipes, Travel, Uncategorized
“I have always relied on the kindness of strangers,” admits Blanche DuBois, an aging belle in Tennessee Williams’ classic play A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche has had the props knocked from under her and has nowhere to turn except to her sister Stella, also living...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 16, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
Mother’s house on Anchor Road has been sold. We sold it last fall, just a year ago. After more than seventy years, the Longeneckers do not own this house. But that doesn’t mean there are no memories or longings for home. The Welsh have a word for such a feeling,...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 9, 2015 | Award, blog, Conflict, Education, Mennonite History, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
Kitsa and Lydia were among the very few women in my graduating class at Eastern Mennonite College who did not wear a prayer veiling atop their heads. Why? Because they were not Mennonite. Lydia Mattar from Jerusalem, Jordan and Kitsa Adamidou from Salonika, Greece...
by MarianBeaman | Dec 2, 2015 | blog, Conflict, Education, meditation, Mennonite History, Reflection, Uncategorized
My Pilates instructor is a spring chicken, and my writing coach is young too, just thirty-nine years old, younger than either of our children. Still, They are teaching me. Since childhood, we have been conditioned to think of our teachers as older than we are. Such a...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 25, 2015 | blog, Family / Nostalgia, Gratitude, meditation, Nostalgia, Quotations, Uncategorized
Are you a thankful person? Do you ever think about what your life would be like without certain blessings? Robert Emmons, touted as one of the world’s leading experts on the science of gratitude, says that “one effective way of stimulating gratitude” is to reflect on...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 18, 2015 | blog, Memory, Travel, Uncategorized
It’s true! St. Marys, Georgia is idyllic. Only a 40-minute drive north of Jacksonville, Florida . . . . . . historic St. Marys has a storybook setting on the St. Marys River – white picket fences, charming Victorian inns, and majestic magnolia trees and live...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 14, 2015 | blog, Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Travel, Uncategorized
Every week, The New Yorker magazine features a Cartoon Caption Contest, inviting readers to submit a caption for consideration. After three finalists are chosen, readers vote for the winning caption. Recently, in my cache of Kodak carousels I found a slide from the...
by MarianBeaman | Nov 11, 2015 | blog, Cliff Beaman artist, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
My brother Mark was my first baby. He was born when I was 12, and I soon became a mother to him. I even have a picture to prove it, a blurry movie still from one of Aunt Ruthie’s 16 millimeter camera shoots. I most certainly bottle fed him and changed his...
