Author: Margaret Babcock
-
Wondering about Anger and Action
At the beginning of this month, I wrote a meditation on John 8:25-32 for St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, AZ. The lines that caught my attention were: ““If you stick with this, living out what I tell you, you are my disciples for sure. Then you will experience for yourselves the truth, and the…
-
Wondering about a Caricature of Christianity
I recently read The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell. He’s the author of Cloud Atlas (2004), and if you’ve seen that 2012 movie with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, you know he’s a master at weaving together intricate story lines through great spans of time. This novel covers only 1984-2043, but like its predecessor, the…
-
Wondering about Curiosity
I read an article recently about keeping our minds sharp as we age. Instead of recommending walking and blueberries, this one had five easy ‘micro-habits’ to keep the brain healthy. None of these were hard, and I have done most of them often, if not consistently. You can read the article here: https://superage.com/the-5-microhabits-that-rewire-your-brain-for-longevity/ The micro-habit…
-
Wondering about Thinking the Thoughts of God
Have you ever wondered who wrote the first science fiction novel? I recently happened on the name Johannes Kepler who authored The Dream, a book about a man who traveled to the moon, written in 1609 and began wondering a lot about him. I found an interesting blog about him in the Marginalian (https://www.themarginalian.org/2019/12/26/katharina-kepler-witchcraft-dream/) and,…
-
Wondering about the word ‘Believe’
This is a meditation which I wrote for the February 8th edition of St. Philip’s Daily Bread (a meditation blog you can sign up for here https://stphilipstucson.org/community/daily-bread/.) As I wondered about the word ‘believe’, I recalled someone who reacted to a popular science fiction novel by saying incredulously, “This could never happen! I can’t believe…
-
Wondering About White-Outs
When we lived in Idaho and Wyoming, I had jobs which required a lot driving as I visited far-flung congregations. Traveling in good weather was a joy, as these states have some of the most beautiful scenery in our country. However, in the winter months, I often found myself in snowstorms, sometimes at night, praying…
-
Wondering About the Color of Emotions
I’ve been thinking about the story of the tower of Babel. It’s a short tale in the Bible (Genesis 11:1-9) which tells of a time when all humanity spoke one language. In the story, it doesn’t end well. The people came together to build a city and a tower which would reach to heaven, but…
-
Wondering about the Power of Stories
I reread Gareth Higgins’ and Brian McLaren’s little book, The Seventh Story: Us, Them and the End of Violence this week. In it, the authors lay out a theory that people use basic story lines, made up of experiences in all aspects of our lives, to make sense of the world. These stories we tell…
-
Wondering about Ageism in Science Fiction
I read Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon this month. WOW! If you haven’t found this author yet, check her out. This novel ticked all the boxes of things I love in a sci-fi novel: deep believable characters, aliens who are complex and surprising, and conflict that mirrors some of my own struggles. I don’t know…
-
Wondering about Recovery VS Resurrection
I’m writing a short story in which the setting is a future where our planet is struggling to recover from a catastrophic event after seventy-five years. The descendants of the people who in my first novel, Eden.2, escaped as Earth grappled with a terrible plague, return. The history stored in these refugees’ computers fails to…