Rachel Marie Stone's Blog, page 5
February 11, 2014
Not Laughing at #SochiProblems: Some People Have to Live There, You Know
from my most recent post at Religion News Service… Look, I get it: people don’t go to the Olympics expecting to endure what seems to them like developing-world problems. There are serious concerns and controversies about the winter Olympics at Sochi, and it’s hard not to see the ridiculous mishaps as a humorous end to […]
Grace for the tired out parent
Our first child opened his eyes on this world for the first time at the beginning of October in Northern California. I was on my feet minutes after his delivery, and out walking with him in the sunshine two days after that. Although I had been ambivalent on learning of my pregnancy – we’d been […]
February 6, 2014
Meet Me At Religion News Service!
I’m excited to share that I’ll now be blogging at Religion News Service starting TODAY! I’ll still use this space for other things, including linking to my RNS posts. I hope you’ll join me there! {click here}
January 31, 2014
Weirdest Search Terms of The Past Quarter.
It’s been a long time since I posted–or even looked at–some of the search terms that landed people on this site, and, as always, it is a bizarrely fun little experience. Below are some favorites, with my responses. “How do I reply if someone say happy guy fawkes day?” You could always go with a […]
January 29, 2014
Can School (and Work) Be Like Play?
In a recent article, Boston College psychology professor Peter Gray argues that children today are “suffering from a severe deficit of play” that corresponds to their general loss of freedom. This stems from a variety of reasons: children increasingly attend school—or something structured a lot like school—at earlier ages and for longer hours. Adult-led activities […]
January 22, 2014
Parasites, People, Pain; Anger, Frustration, Futility. And Hope. Eventually.
I haven’t been writing much, especially not here, in a while. At the risk of oversharing–and to put it in sweet, verbose evangelicalese–I have been blessed with the opportunity to graciously host a variety of God’s precious microscopic creatures in my home and body, and in the bodies of several of my family members. So […]
January 15, 2014
Bursting With Signifiers of Hipster Cool: A Cranky, Slightly Hilarious Review of the ‘Kinfolk Table’ Cookbook
Beware the book reviewer who reads and writes while suffering from a cold and an intestinal parasite in one of the ten poorest countries on the planet… In the new Kinfolk Table cookbook–an offshoot of the hip indie ‘lifestyle’ magazine Kinfolk, recipe contributors (based mainly in Brooklyn, Portland, Copenhagen, and the English countryside) are a mostly […]
January 13, 2014
PSA: If You’re a Writer (or want to be) Read This Book.
Seriously. Do yourself a favor and get it. Read it. I’ll be writing more about it later.
January 8, 2014
This Year, Don’t Diet: Eat with Joy
I love food. I enjoy thinking about new recipes, planning menus for dinner parties, cooking, and, of course, eating: everything from fresh baguettes, cheeses of all kinds, chocolate, and, especially, the New York pizza I grew up with; the kind that turns the paper plate transparent because it’s so greasy. Fewer than ten years ago, […]
January 6, 2014
Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand “Positive Thinking”
Happiness sells. So do books promising a way to help you be happier—especially when they carry the designation “Christian.” In her 2009 book Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America, social critic Barbara Ehrenreich traces the genealogy of positive thinking ideology back to religious Americans: for example, Norman Vincent Peale, author of the 1952 best […]
