Family Archives - Soft In Hard Places

What Do You Know?

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 17 May 2022 00:00:25 +0000

I held some strong convictions when I was young. I just knew what I knew was true because, well, “when you know, you know,” right? But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. For most of us, we often miss … Continue reading →

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Evanescent

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 16 Jul 2021 04:46:05 +0000

When I was growing up we moved a lot, big moves crisscrossing the country. Perpetually the new kid, I never stayed long enough to feel like I fit in. Then, I married a man whose childhood was the opposite of … Continue reading →

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Not So Long Ago and Not So Far Away

LisaPullenKent — Sun, 17 Jan 2021 00:11:08 +0000

Contemplative by nature, the isolation of this COVID year has forced constant and not always welcome introspection. Magnetically drawn to the tales of Storybooke, the fictional town inhabited by intersecting Continue reading →

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Antidote to Disillusionment*

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 02:39:23 +0000

*Reading given at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbia, online, August 9, 2020 “Always have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” Maya Angelou In what do I place my trust? This profound, existential … Continue reading →

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Cancer in a COVID World

LisaPullenKent — Fri, 08 May 2020 20:29:55 +0000

Lately, my emotions are scrubbed up raw. Tender, like new skin. My nerve endings fire all the time. I feel everything without a buffer, as if there are no more desensitizing layers laid down with busy, distracted, numbing activity. Continue reading →

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View From A Quarantine

LisaPullenKent — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 00:06:38 +0000

”Is this our new normal?” we find ourselves wondering, though we know it can't go on forever. For now, though, we have nowhere to be except right where we are and that has never happened. I recognize it for the miracle that it is. But on Day eleventy-seven of our release from the confines of routine, I'm starting to feel a little adrift. Continue reading →

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Resurgent Hope

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 31 Mar 2020 21:28:16 +0000

I read once that Canadian geese are monogamous, that most couples stay together all their lives. Considering the brutality of life in this wild world, I find that to be an inspiring example of devotion, applicable to the human condition, particularly in our postmodern reality. Continue reading →

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The Way Home

LisaPullenKent — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 04:38:53 +0000

I went to church this morning—on my couch. A dutiful daughter, I spent the first half of my life in religious prostration, and then I left. But detachment from dogma meant disconnect from community and I wandered, people-less into my … Continue reading →

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Rockin’ The Socks for World Down Syndrome Day

LisaPullenKent — Sat, 21 Mar 2020 17:00:36 +0000

This simple, profound truth alights on me continuously in her presence: "What's really important is right in front of you. Stop rushing past and see it. Stop running on adrenaline and feel it. Stop drowning it out and listen." Continue reading →

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Just Breathe

LisaPullenKent — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 19:47:33 +0000

Re-posted from March 6, 2014 “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart.I am, I am, I am.” Sylvia Plath There’s a stillness that descends on the hospital late at night, softening the harshness … Continue reading →

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