memoir Archives - Debra Rienstra

The Remnants of Their Lives: An Ancestry Adventure

Strange how quickly people’s lives fade into oblivion. These people lived their lives, then died. And their stories? What happens to their stories? Maybe a few facts or memories get preserved, but what of all the sorrows and thoughts and day-to-day experiences?

Debra RienstraMay 18, 2024

cultural commentary memoir

Chronological Loneliness

Distant from my parents’ and their parents’ worlds, scrambling to understand my children’s world, I feel a kind of chronological loneliness. That’s the term I came up with to describe this feeling of floating between.

Debra RienstraSeptember 16, 2023

cultural commentary memoir

A Passel of Idiolectical Delights

We’re not talking about a language, or a dialect, or even current slang, but rather those little ways of speaking that are idiosyncratic to a particular person or family unit. In other words, the weird little turns of phrase that only you and maybe your…

Debra RienstraSeptember 2, 2023

Calvin events cultural commentary memoir politics

Truth Listening in the American South

I’ll be processing this experience for a long time, but for now I'll share just a few key words that focused my thoughts during and after the trip.

Debra RienstraMarch 18, 2023

memoir

Threshold

It never occurred to him to see me, exhausted and falling to pieces, alone in that room with my mother as she labored on threshold of death.

Debra RienstraFebruary 4, 2023

memoir

At What Point Do I Get Rid of This?

I did not realize that carpet replacement would be a spiritual experience, but it turned out to be a massive exercise in crap management.

Debra RienstraAugust 6, 2022

memoir nature

Tomatoes: A Bagatelle*

So now my four tomato plants are producing like mad, and I’m faced with the problem of what to do with all these tomatoes.

Debra RienstraJuly 31, 2021

memoir spirituality theology Uncategorized

The Long Light

For UK Christian leaders, the challenges are fraught and puzzling: how to steward property, how to do church in a changing cultural context. The heavy questions of how many will remain faithful, and what faithfulness now means.

Debra RienstraJune 4, 2021

liturgical year memoir pop culture

Adventures in TikTok and Teacher Brain

About a month ago—I’m not saying it was on Ash Wednesday, but it might have been—I downloaded the TikTok app on my phone.

Debra RienstraMarch 13, 2021

memoir

Pandemic Check-up

Let’s test your reflexes, shall we? Oh. Oh my. Are you feeling numbness or tingling in your extremities? Um. I guess I’m kind of feeling numbness everywhere.

Debra RienstraFebruary 13, 2021

memoir

The Remnants of Their Lives: An Ancestry Adventure

Chronological Loneliness

A Passel of Idiolectical Delights

Truth Listening in the American South

Threshold

At What Point Do I Get Rid of This?

Tomatoes: A Bagatelle*

The Long Light

Adventures in TikTok and Teacher Brain

Pandemic Check-up

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