Skip to main content
All Posts By

Debra Rienstra

cultural commentarypop culture

Little Obsessions

I have endured some condescending eyerolling this week, aimed my way because I showed moderate interest in the birth of the royal baby. The two men with whom I live (one husband, one teenage son) took the line “Babies are born every day. Big deal.”…
mm
July 27, 2013
college lifespirituality

Engage Your Core

I don’t think I am very good at engaging my core. I guess it kind of means pulling in your stomach muscles (“navel to spine”), but when I’m balancing and folding and twisting I have other things to think about, especially at 6:52 in the…
mm
July 12, 2013
memoir

“Danger: You Could Die Here in Paradise”

I know that important things have been happening in the news this week, but I don’t care because: I’m in Hawaii. Been here for almost two weeks with my wonderful partner, Ron, celebrating 25 years of marriage. We are giving ourselves a much-needed and extravagant…
mm
June 29, 2013
Pious Petunia

Pious Petunia Celebrates Summer

Dear Miss Petunia: My husband and I bicker every summer about his preference for golf over worship services on sunny Sunday mornings. “I worship God so much better on the golf course!” he claims. I think he’s just being lazy about the spiritual life. Either…
mm
June 1, 2013
memoirspirituality

Unfinished Business

I suppose I have simply gotten used to unfinished business. As more academic years slide past and pile up behind me, I have less a sense of closure in May than a sense of constant motion. Even this year, when two of my own children…
mm
May 18, 2013
cultural commentary

Quintessence of Dust

Last night, thanks to the cleverness and curiosity of internet geeks, my husband and I were able to listen for about three hours to Boston police scanners—live-streamed over the internet—during the operation that captured the Boston bombing suspect. We knew, before it was broadcast on…
mm
April 20, 2013