I did not go back to the Asheville Quilt show yesterday, so I was so happy this morning that a quilting friend of mine made a Facebook post that included this picture of the quilt that captured my imagination, but I neglected to get a picture. photo by Theresa Blaylock Durden She also took a picture of the quilter's explanation that tells that the quilt contains ribbons and other ephemera from 4…
Yesterday I drove home from teaching, changed clothes, and went to the Asheville Quilt Show with one of my best retreat friends. I wasn't sure what to expect. I've gone to many quilt shows, and each one is different in subtle ways. Yesterday's show was very navigable, with wide spaces in front of each quilt, so I didn't feel too crowded. People who wanted to linger wouldn't be in the way. People…
It's an interesting moment in time to be teaching first year students. I mean that in a broad sense, but I also mean it in a "teaching the first week of classes during this particular week in August of 2026." Let me unpack that statement a bit: --Tuesday March 11 was our first day of classes. It was also my first day as an Associate Professor on the tenure track at Spartanburg Methodist College,…
Today we celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary--38 years! It feels like just a blip. Here is one of my favorite pictures of us, a picture taken at the March 2026 wedding of our nephew, who was born in 1993: This morning in 1988, we'd have been in Greenwood, South Carolina. I'd have slept in the house that used to be a parsonage where my grandfather served a congregation for many years. Thirty…
Yesterday was a good first day of class at Spartanburg Methodist College, and not just for me. Everyone I talked to yesterday mentioned the good energy on campus. Of course, the first day of a semester is usually wonderful--and fall semester is best. Yesterday was no exception. My heavy duty teaching days are Mondays and Wednesdays, so today will be a bit more structured. Yesterday I went to my…
On my first day of class every year, I'm always tempted to post a picture, the way that parents post pictures of their kids as they head off to school. This year, the temptation is especially strong, as today begins a slightly different direction in my teaching life. Today is the first day that I am teaching as an Associate Professor on a tenure track. In some ways, not much will change. I'm at…
We had a really good day at church yesterday at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee. I say this with some sense of wonder because I arrived in a grumpy mood: we left ten minutes later than I had requested, which meant I felt frazzled. I prayed for my grumpy frazzled mood to lift as I waited for my spouse to come downstairs and open the door, and happily it did with the first hymn. My sermon went…
I am always intrigued by how we can see seasons shifting, long before the calendar would tell us to expect these changes. We have to learn to see with new eyes, eyes that focus on what's there, not what we're expecting to see. It's more of a shift of imagination than with our literal eyes, our literal sense: It's similar to how we can see God at work in the world--but it might mean we need to…
Yesterday was much easier than Thursday--but that's not a surprise. Yesterday we only had one meeting, so my committed time was only one hour. Thursday was very scheduled, from 8 a.m. until 3. Let me capture yesterday: --Here's the one cool thing that stands out. We had our Humanities division meeting, and we entered the classroom door that had colored pieces of 8 x 11 paper posted around the door…
Yesterday was a good day overall, but also a bit overwhelming in understanding ways. I went from summer days when I'm around one or two people a day to a day full of humans. I went from the unstructuredness of summer days to a day of a rigid schedule. Happily, I was surrounded by other humans, my colleagues, who are delightful. I went from the free floating thinking of summer to focusing on…
Yesterday was a delightful day. Today will be delightful too, although it's a full day on campus, so it will be a different kind of delightful. And I've been awake since 2, so I do worry about how tired I'll be by late afternoon. My brain started churning at 2, churning with all sorts of worries and plans. I need to sit down with a calendar and old syllabi and make some loose plans--or maybe…
In many ways, today is my last day of summer 2026. A year ago, I'd have been going to CPE early and then driving to Williamsburg to help my parents recover from my mom's near death pneumonia hospitalization--I am so grateful that this summer's end is more mundane. Our transition to the school year is a gentle one. Tomorrow we have a very full day of teacher training and meetings. On Friday and…
This picture captures certain elements of the last half of summer: I'm thrilled that so many people are so engaged with The Odyssey . I won't go to the movie, probably, for many reasons, but I'm glad people are going. Maybe in a future year, we can get the story of Penelope or maybe Mary Magdalene, women left behind. We haven't had that many days of low humidity and lower heat, so this picture…
For one brief moment yesterday morning, I thought about doing the Sealey Challenge: reading 1 volume of poetry each day in August. I've only done it once in the past, so yesterday morning, I went back and read the blog posts that I wrote in 2020; this post talks about the overall experience, and this one talks about photos I used when making my Facebook posts. Some people have posted their daily…
Early August is a hinge point in the calendar. In some ways, it's not as obvious a hinge as the autumnal equinox or the summer solstice; in fact, it's the time directly between those two hinges--we're as far away from the start of summer as we are from the start of autumn. But in some ways, it's just as significant a point of seasonal shift. If we lived in medieval England, we would be celebrating…
A week from now, I'll be beginning the next chapter of my teaching life. In some ways, it won't be that different from what I've already done. It's not the drastic change that I experienced going from teaching to administration. A week from now, I'm back on campus as an Associate Professor on the tenure track, not as an adjunct, not as a year-to-year lecturer. My teaching load will be lighter: 4…
I began the day, the outside of the house part of the day, at the dentist's office yesterday morning for an 8 a.m. appointment. I brought a book, Francine Prose's Five Weeks in the Country . By the end of the visit, after 29 pages, I decided that I was already dreading having to finish the book--the grown up characters in the book are SO odious. I reminded myself--you don't have to read any…
I was keeping an eye on the weather yesterday--but then again, I'm often keeping an eye on the weather. In the late afternoon, the sky got dark, sunset dark, but we were far away from sunset. The thunderstorm watch was upgraded to a warning, and the wind picked up. I plugged in my phone; I wanted to have a full charged phone, just in case we might be about to lose power for while. I saw the…
Yesterday was one of those days when maintenance tasks went more smoothly than anticipated. It's almost August, the time for car safety inspections so that the annual car registration can be paid--in time to do the payments by mail, because the in-person process is a nightmare, only superseded by getting an NC driver's license. I try to do the safety inspections early because both cars are older…
This week is my last full week of summer. Of course, it's not exactly summer in its no-working glory, the way that some might assume. I'm still teaching 2 online classes for Broward College; a week ago, I'd be turning in grades for the 2 online classes I taught at Spartanburg Methodist College. I'm still a part-time minister at Faith Lutheran in Bristol, Tennessee. I've had academic work to do as…
Today we celebrate the life of James, one of the 12 disciples, the first to be martyred (Acts 12:1 tells us by Herod's sword). He's known as James the Greater (to distinguish him from James the Lesser, James the son of Alphaeus). He's the brother of John. He was one of the first to join Jesus, and Jesus chose him to go up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration. He is the patron saint of…
Yesterday I spent much of the day shopping and getting ready for our South Florida church friend's arrival for dinner--which is odd since I wasn't buying food for dinner. But it was that time of year when it was time to restock on basic pantry staples and over the counter meds and such. I spent far too much time trying to think about what would be best for dinner. In some ways, I was lucky: my…
Two weeks from today, I'll be getting ready to drive down to Spartanburg for a day of meetings, faculty workshops, and not just one but two meals. Those of you who have never worked in a place with a day of meetings and faculty "development," but no food or coffee provided may not understand why I am so happy and grateful to be in a place where we get food along with our trainings and meetings.…
Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene. If you came here hoping for a historical and theological and feminist type blog post, I wrote that type of blog post for my theology blog, which you can read here . This morning, I'm thinking of Mary Magdalene and the way she has appeared in poetry. My favorite is Marie Howe's Magdalene is my favorite, both the book and the individual poem, "Magdalene--The…
Three weeks from today, my onground classes start at Spartanburg Methodist College; it will be both similar and different for me. It will be my 3rd year of full-time work at the college, after 1 year of adjunct work, but the beginning of the tenure track for me. I'll write more about that in a few weeks. I wish I could say that our plans to be in our fixer-upper house in Spartanburg are on…