by MarianBeaman | Jun 7, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized
Moment of Exasperation One of the mysteries of life is how things happen at our house. Specifically, how did the leg on this piano bench break? We still haven’t figured out the answer for sure though we have speculated on some possible explanations. How did this...
by MarianBeaman | Jun 4, 2014 | Coming of Age, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
“In the Good Old Summer Time” shares nostalgic space with another old, familiar tune of the season: “Summer time and the livin’ is easy.” Summertime for the Longenecker family may not have been easy in the 1950s what with tomato field...
by MarianBeaman | May 31, 2014 | Gratitude, Literature, meditation, Memory, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized
e EGG Reader, in your hand you hold A silver case, a box of gold. I have no door, however small, Unless you pierce my tender wall, And there’s no skill in healing then Shall ever make me whole again. Show pity, Reader, for my plight: Let be, or else consume me...
by MarianBeaman | May 28, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
“Mare – yun,” my mother calls (yells, actually), “It’s time to lick the green stamps again. The books are on top of the kitchen table.” Mom likes to interrupt my reading. To me time with my books is serious business but to her it’s play. Not working. Wasting...
by MarianBeaman | May 24, 2014 | book review, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Uncategorized
This July, my friend and author Kathy Pooler will be celebrating Independence Day in a big way launching her memoir in early July. The book’s title Ever Faithful to His Lead: My Journey Away from Emotional Abuse hints at the road Kathy has traveled from victim...
by MarianBeaman | May 21, 2014 | Education, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Tips, Uncategorized
Here is my mother’s family of four brothers and one sister in a farm meadow in the 1940s. They are children of Abram Hernley Metzler and Sadie Landis Metzler, a Mennonite family of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Standing in birth order are her brothers Landis,...
by MarianBeaman | May 17, 2014 | book review, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Literature, Uncategorized
I am happy to introduce a new writer to these pages, Mary Gottschalk. Actually you have already visited Mary’s website if you read my recent post on her blog Flying the Coop: Leaving Mennonite Land. But though she is new to my blog, Mary is certainly not a new...
by MarianBeaman | May 14, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, meditation, Mennonite Lore, Purple Passage, Quotations, Uncategorized
Miracles & Problems Uncertainty & Faith The opposite of doubt is not faith. It’s certainty. Faith based on certainty is no faith at all. Anne Lamott Embrace the present. Uncertainty is no excuse for paralysis. Do not wait for good to happen...
by MarianBeaman | May 10, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
This is the family I grew up in: my parents Ray and Ruth with my two sisters and one brother. But after I left home and eventually married, my parents had more children. No, my mother was not a modern-day Sarah. She didn’t have babies in old age. But in their early...
by MarianBeaman | May 7, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Purple Passage, Uncategorized
It’s spring concert time and I’m making my fingers fly fast over the strings of my violin pizzicato style, trying to keep up with the syncopated rhythms of The Typewriter Song. Noah Klauss, the director of our Elizabethtown High School Orchestra, is a fan of Leroy...
