by MarianBeaman | Apr 26, 2014 | Coming of Age, Conflict, Education, Literature, Mennonite History, Quotations, Uncategorized
Is a family graduation on your calendar this year? As a faculty member at Florida State College at Jacksonville (then Florida Community College), I attended graduation every year in full regalia with hundreds of ecstatic grads, joyful families, and proud faculty and...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 23, 2014 | Education, Family / Nostalgia, Literature, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Quotations, Uncategorized
News Flash! To mark Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, “the Royal Shakespeare Company is spearheading a three year Jubilee, between 2014 and 2016, that will involve theatre performances, events and live streaming cinema around the world.” * * * * * It’s April 23 in my...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 12, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Literature, meditation, Memory, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
LILACS April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots and spring rain. T. S. Eliot The Waste-Land When Lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in...
by MarianBeaman | Apr 5, 2014 | Family / Nostalgia, Literature, Memory, Mennonite Lore, Nostalgia, Uncategorized
* Poem for Easter – British poet George Herbert loved to explore the soul’s inner architecture. He often wrote poems with shapes representing a theme, the resurrection in this case. The poetic lines, “increasing and decreasing to imitate...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 22, 2014 | Education, Gratitude, Literature, meditation, Memory, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
Purple Passages with a Fish & a Kiss, March 2014 Edition Winter Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. Willa Cather, My Antonia If winter comes, can spring be far behind? Percy Bysshe Shelley “Ode to...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 19, 2014 | Amish, book review, Coming of Age, Conflict, Education, Literature, Uncategorized
This evening my alma mater, Eastern Mennonite University, is hosting author Rachel Held Evans, one of the foremost thinkers and writers in evangelical circles today who has appeared on Oprah and The View and spotlighted by NPR, the BBC and The Washington Post. Her...
