Children and pornography
Some of you might appreciate my latest essay for Good Letters. Others of you may not like it at all. Maybe it’s proof that I’m
The prodigal and I
I passed through Wichita today, which was no small thing for me, because on every corner is loss. That is the place we took our
The world we show them
“Which world do you want to live in?” My oldest son, just days from his 14th birthday, glares back at me. Behind him in the car
Past where legs can carry
The day after an amazingly talented actor pushed heroin into his vein and died, I saw yet another study purporting to show that we live
The Casserole Dish Manifesto
Well, I’d intended for any manifestos I write to be published well after my death, if not to spare my children the embarrassment, then to
The ministering parent
Do you ever look on your children, and wish they had better than you? Back when we were shopping my embarrassingly confessional first book, my
On the virtue of not being special
“I have a sense,” I once told a counselor, “that I’m supposed to do something great.” He sat back in his chair and smiled. “Oh
The Cost of Calling: The Answer
I come now to the question in my heart when I began: what can my sons say to a deceived and soul-sickened world? You might
The Cost of Calling: Compromises
What is the cost of a calling? You can be called to be a parent; you can be called to be a plumber. But having
The Cost of Calling
Many parents carry within our hearts—sometimes in a cramped and even despairing corner—a vision of what we hope our children will become. This vision lives deeper
The Cave of the Heart
Here’s an excerpt from my Christmas Eve post over at Good Letters: When I read about the boy hiding under his bed, first inviting the
The professor in the home
Every month, money flies from my checking account to the education savings accounts of my children, because I don’t want them to become hobos. This
