This essay was originally published on The Rabbit Room last summer, and is adapted from my plenary session, “Notebooks and Number 2 Pencils,” at the From Death Unto Life conference in Franklin, Tennessee last March. I know what it means to soar. When I was twelve years old, I got called out by my algebra teacher…
While it’s undeniably true that a dedicated artist is marked by a willingness to work anywhere, and under any conditions, the appeal of Virginia Woolf’s “room of her own” persists. Even though it’s not always possible, a dedicated space is certainly ideal when it comes to artistic endeavors. One of the units in my Oxford…
G.K. Chesterton called him “one of the three or four greatest men of the 19th century.” Madeleine L’Engle said he was the “grandfather of us all—all of us who struggle to come to terms with truth through imagination.” “George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble,” she wrote elsewhere, “times when I have…
This time last year, my world was filled with uncertainty, fear, and a suffocating amount of sadness–and into all that chaos God whispered my word for 2015: Joy. I wrote this piece for The Rabbit Room back in February, but I wanted to share it again in all the starched and pressed possibility of a…
It’s hard to believe that the anticipation of Advent, the bright sheen of Christmastide, the piercing light of Epiphany have all come and gone. But in spite of all our glad Christmas-keeping, January 7th just will not be gainsaid. We took our tree down last night, and today my rooms are heartlessly bare. “How could…
I’ve been looking forward to this day all year long. After a blessed week of merrymaking with my loved ones, of comings and goings, of a constantly running dishwasher and overflowing rooms, of precious family and friends-like-family under my roof and gathered around my table(s), of busy hands and an overflowing heart, today has been…
I am so sick of death. It’s been a year of bereavement. Even before Daddy died we were mourning the cruel progress of disease, hearts fainting before the horrors of each new stage. There were bright moments of sweetness and light, to be sure, little triumphs of love and glimpses of a glory beyond our…
It is my great pleasure to announce that the winner of “The Art of Tasha Tudor” giveaway is none other than… Elyce Westby! Congratulations, Elyce! If you will send me your mailing address via the Contact Form on the web journal or the bookshop, or a private message on the Lanier’s Books Facebook page, I…
I have such happy news today: after weeks of work (mostly on my husband’s part), the Bookshop has received a massive update and overhaul! I am so excited to introduce all the changes we’ve made. One request I’ve consistently heard over the five years since I launched my shop was for the introduction of a…
I appropriated Daddy’s old hunting jacket for my barn coat. It still smells like him; every time I put it on it’s like he’s putting his arms around me. Some days, this fills me with a warm, gentle joy; others, it makes me want to pound my fists and rail against death. I don’t want…
I composed this sonnet for my poetry writing class at Oxford last fall. Something about all the yellow leaves swirling outside my window this October morning made me think of it again… Lift, lift up, your molten-maple gladness, trees, Your ambered arms and age-wracked fingers ringed With yellow gold! Cerulean sky, your firstborn sapphire sing!—…
My father died two months ago. Apart from a few stilted sentences on Facebook, I haven’t known how to frame those words in this space. I haven’t known how to frame any words, really. My journal swells with a stream-of-consciousness torrent—explosions of anguish, swirling eddies of joy. I’ve stitched together a ragged story of things…
I’m sorry to have been so silent, friends. For the first three months of this year, it was a silence born of utter extremity. I wanted to write, but there simply wasn’t time. Between the rigors of an intensely challenging class load, and the demands, the exhaustion, the decisions, the red tape and the long…
I cried a lot this Christmas. This Christmas—like this year—has been beautiful in so many ways. But it’s also been hard. Hard as iron, at times. Hard in a way no one can prepare you for. Back in the fall, my little book club re-read an old favorite, Anne’s House of Dreams. I love all…
When I was about nineteen, I went tent camping with my family in the Smoky Mountains. It was summertime, the mountains were a cool, hushed oasis of mystery and shadow, and everyone else had a grand time—but I’m going to go ahead and confess that I could hardly wait to get back to civilization. I…
The other night after dinner, Philip and I took to our bikes for a starlit ride along the beach. The island here has so little light pollution, and as there was no moon, I was obliged to use the flashlight on my iPhone to see—much less navigate—the twisting path between palms and salt cedars that…
Sunday before last, I stood on the airstrip of this little island of ours and watched a single-engine prop plane take off and disappear into the clouds, feeling very much like a heroine in an old black-and-white movie—and suddenly very alone. For Philip was on that plane, a kind pilot friend having offered to spirit…
“The present state of the world, the whole of life, is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I would reply, “Create silence! Bring men to silence. The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. Create silence.” ~Soren Kierkegaard My husband and my Lord, in…
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