Author: Mom

The Mom Weekly Volume 139: April 7, 2026 

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here. https://themomweekly.com/

Notes: 

Happy Easter! I hope we are all celebrating, not just the multiple birthdays and half -birthdays this week, but also the Easter Octave and getting to enjoy the beginning of Easter season.

I had fun writing this week. The title is one of my favorite family lines. It is a gift and a blessing that we have humorous things and sayings in common in our family. Despite being annoyed with each other from time to time, we do get along and have some great shared memories. Never forget that!

Remember how much I love you (whether you are serving as my chauffeur or not),

Mom

Mom, What You Need is a Chardonnay

I thought about titling this, “Kids say the darnedest things,” but the finalist  seems more apropos.

Parents around the world love to remember the funny ways that kids say things when they are younger, whether it’s saying, “wylo” instead of “water”, “lellow” instead of “yellow,” etc.

I remember my Mom telling me how much she enjoyed when I, as a young child, said, “Pasketti” instead of “Spaghetti.” And I wish I could still say “Pasketti,” but once you know how to say something the right way, you can’t really go back.

[Digression: “The kid word” is different than mispronouncing things, which to me is a sign of intelligence and being well-read, because you often don’t know how a thing is pronounced. But it can also be funny. I can still recall my oldest sister laughing almost so she couldn’t catch her breath when I, as a COLLEGE STUDENT, said, “deb-a-clee” for “debacle.” I do really laugh along because, what was I thinking? I was thinking I read a lot and didn’t really hear things pronounced aloud.]

But children also say the wrong word or phrases for things, like little junior Mrs. Maloprops, and that can be absolutely wonderful way to have a family funny saying.

One of the best ones we have? “Mom, What you need is a chardonnay.” 

Before you kids could drive (and reliably drive all of us around), I used to say, “You kids have it made, because someone drives you around and you can read as much as you want. I can’t wait until you can drive so you can drive me around and I can sit and read.” 

Little did I know that it would be years after you actually could drive that I would be comfortable enough reading or not gripping onto the door and periodically saying, “Slow down!” etc.,  like my Mom did when anyone drove her around. I inherited that unfortunate proclivity, and I’ve worked hard to not be that vocal of a passenger. Also, you kids all drive well “now”, so I don’t mind being a passenger, and I truly enjoy getting to read in the car when road conditions permit. 

Anyway, the punchline to this is: One time, as we were getting into the car for yet another drive, I was saying my “you kids ….” speech, when my wonderful youngest child said, “Mom, what you need is a chardonnay.” And I said, “You know what? You’re right! I need a chardonnay.”

Obviously, said child meant to say I could benefit from a chauffeur, I need a chauffeur. I would dearly love a chauffeur, way more than a chardonnay, because I don’t drink much white wine, and I’d probably rather have a chocolate bar than a glass of wine.

Interesting/Notable:

A Dublin Pub Crawl, but Hold the Booze—(NY Times Gift Link)

This is appropriate for our Ireland travelers this week!

The Mom Weekly Volume 138: March 31, 2026 

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes: 

Here is the third and final installment of the notes of my 2016 talk. I’ve enjoyed getting to revisit it.

I also wanted to share randomly that Dad & I watched on YouTube a modern production of “The Importance of Being Earnest.” We didn’t love everything about the production, but the play itself is very sparkling and has a lot of funny lines. “No cucumbers at the market today … not even for ready money.”

You really have to read or watch it. The 2002 movie with Colin Firth is available to stream for free on Pluto TV . And the play itself (subtitled “A Trivial Comedy  for Serious People” is on Project Gutenberg.

Here’s a great quote from Lady Bracknell, one of the formidable characters. It is timely for us! 🙂

“To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each other’s character before marriage, which I think is never advisable.”

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights, Part 3 (From the Vault, 2016)

[Much of the remainder of this is quotes from “Eleazar’s Commonplace Book” of quotes to inspire reflection.]

MAKE SPACE FOR PRAYER

I’m going to quote for you from the not-very-well-known Mistmantle series. The author, MI McAllister, writes on her website, “I think, if you like Narnia, you’ll like Mistmantle.” Truer words never spoken. At first I wrote in a review that it was a noble and worthy successor to Redwall, but I think it is far better.

Mistmantle is similar and different from Narnia in a lot of ways—there are talking animals, but no people. But it’s suffused with Christian spirituality and nobility that just makes you feel better for having read it.

From book 2, Urchin and the Heartstone:

Alone all day, Juniper would remember the animals and places he loved, and hold them in his own heart before the great Heart that made them. He was learning to find quietness inside himself. He was learning to pray.

QUESTION: As moms, we can spend a lot of time alone, even among small children. How have you made time for learning to pray?

PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR PERSONALITY

The next book I’m going to share is one of my (and my family’s) all-time favorites, and one I thoroughly enjoyed reading aloud to my kids when they were little. Most of us have read it multiple times, and the audiobook is unparalleled.  It’s free on Kindle since it’s in the public domain, so I encourage you to download and read.

Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher.

The answer to that question is that she didn’t do it because Cousin Ann was Cousin Ann. And there’s more in that than you think! In fact, there is a mystery in it that nobody has ever solved, not even the greatest scientists and philosophers, although, like all scientists and philosophers, they think they have gone a long way toward explaining something they don’t understand by calling it a long name. The long name is “personality,” and what it means nobody knows, but it is perhaps the very most important thing in the world for all that. And yet we know only one or two things about it. We know that anybody’s personality is made up of the sum total of all the actions and thoughts and desires of his life. And we know that though there aren’t any words or any figures in any language to set down that sum total accurately, still it is one of the first things that everybody knows about anybody else. And that is really all we know! 

So I can’t tell you why Elizabeth Ann did not go back and cry and sob and say she couldn’t and she wouldn’t and she couldn’t, as she would certainly have done at Aunt Harriet’s. You remember that I could not even tell you why it was that, as the little fatherless and motherless girl lay in bed looking at Aunt Abigail’s old face, she should feel so comforted and protected that she must needs break out crying. No, all I can say is that it was because Aunt Abigail was Aunt Abigail. But perhaps it may occur to you that it’s rather a good idea to keep a sharp eye on your “personality,” whatever that is! It might be very handy, you know, to have a personality like Cousin Ann’s which sent Elizabeth Ann’s feet down the path; or perhaps you would prefer one like Aunt Abigail’s. Well, take your choice.

QUESTION: What DO you want your personality to be?  How are you working on that?

MUSTER YOUR WITS

Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace

Depression settled down upon her, and although she tried to brush it away it thickened like a fog. “Why, the kids will be home for Thanksgiving! That will be here in no time. I mustn’t get this way,” she thought. But she felt lonely and deserted and futile. “A mood like this has to be fought. It’s like an enemy with a gun,” she told herself. But she couldn’t seem to find a gun with which to fight.

Later, Emily learns to “muster her wits” and she starts a reading group, and goes out to dances, and back to her high school.

She discovers this quote in Shakespeare

“Muster your wits: stand in your own defense.” She had no idea in what sense he had used it, but it seemed to be a message aimed directly at her.  Muster your wits: stand in your own defense,” she kept repeating to herself on the long walk home. After dinner she sat down in her rocker, looked out at the snow and proceeded to muster her wits. “I’m going to fill my winter and I’m going to fill it with something worth while,” she resolved.

QUESTION:  How Can you Muster Your Wits?  What are your Resources for Doing that?

—friends,faith, outside help, social church

EMBRACE YOUR GOOFY HOBBIES

This quote from C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters illustrates how important it is for us to have things that we like “just because” and to rejoice in them:

The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the Enemy has furnished him. To get him away from those is therefore always a point gained; even in things indifferent it is always desirable to substitute the standards of the World, or convention, or fashion, for a human’s own real likings and dislikings. I myself would carry this very far. I would make it a rule to eradicate from my patient any strong personal taste which is not actually a sin, even if it is something quite trivial such as a fondness for county cricket or collecting stamps or drinking cocoa. Such things, I grant you, have nothing of virtue in them; but there is a sort of innocence and humility and self-forgetfulness about them which I distrust. The man who truly and disinterestedly enjoys any one thing in the world, for its own sake, and without caring two-pence what other people say about it, is by that very fact forearmed against some of our subtlest modes of attack. You should always try to make the patient abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the ‘best’ people, the ‘right’ food, the ‘important’ books. I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions.

QUESTION: What is Your Tripe & Onions?

BE A POLLYANNA

Eleanor Porter’s Pollyanna is actually a classic many people misunderstand. Being a “Pollyanna” today has the connotation of being willfully unaware of what is true, and only thinking “positive thoughts.” (Good vibes only). 

Instead, the novel really shows how Pollyanna fully understanding her tough situation as an orphan, etc., still uses the example and teaching of her (now dead) father to find good in everything she can, while still acknowledging reality. At one part, the town minister, who has been fire-and-brimstone until Pollyanna encounters him, finds this quote and decides to change his tune (and the whole town benefits): 

What men and women need is encouragement. Their natural resisting powers should be strengthened, not weakened…. Instead of always harping on a man’s faults, tell him of his virtues. Try to pull him out of his rut of bad habits. Hold up to him his better self, his REAL self that can dare and do and win out!… The influence of a beautiful, helpful, hopeful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town…. People radiate what is in their minds and in their hearts. If a man feels kindly and obliging, his neighbors will feel that way, too, before long. But if he scolds and scowls and criticizes—his neighbors will return scowl for scowl, and add interest!… When you look for the bad, expecting it, you will get it.

QUESTION:  How can you be a Pollyanna?  How can you encourage?

AIR YOUR ROOMS

Rumor Godden

In This house of Brede

The Story of Holly & Ivy

writing is really lush India 

autobiography

There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.

How can you air out those four rooms each day, or even each week? What can you do to be well-rounded?

RESOLUTION:  

Now is time for you to make a resolution about doing things and making time for things that energize you.

———

Here is one tiny example:  When I climb into bed at night, and after I say night prayer (if we haven’t done it as a family), I open up the NY Times Crossword app. The MINI. 

I don’t think to myself, well, I guess I have to do the Mini. I think, “Ah, I’ve been so busy and done so much today, I can finally fall asleep, but first, I get to take a minute or two to do the MINI, and if I’m still awake enough, I might try the big crossword.” I can’t tell you how restorative it is, in a tiny way.

(2026 notes: my current evening routine includes much more than Mini. This was before Wordle, Connections, the LinkedIn games, and all the other fun games many of us now play).

What are other pursuits like that for me?

1. Daily Mass when I can get there. When kids were babies, I could go every day. When they got bigger, it went down to once a week together. Whatever works.

2. Running:  I am a slow runner but I LOVE long distance running.  I also enjoy races, not because I’m fast or trying to win anything.  I really enjoy the medals you get for finishing a race.

(2026 note: no longer running, but hiking!)

3. Reading: In case you couldn’t tell I LOVE reading and will many ways to get more reading time. When I had nurslings, I read with a book and a tiny flashlight.  I don’t think there were Kindles (at least I didn’t have one) when my youngest was still nursing, but man, the Jane Austen I could get through if I had had. 

Interesting/Notable:

“I Am Surprised at the Conduct of the Young Women” — Letters of Note

This is from a Substack that reproduces interesting letters from history. This particular letter is adorable!

Record number expected for America’s “mini-Camino”

This happens yearly at the beginning of May in Wisconsin, and I think it could definitely be an interesting religious pilgrimage! Looks very cool, and going from a St. Joseph Shrine to the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion (the only approved Marian shrine in the US).

The Mom Weekly Volume 136: March 17, 2026

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes: 

First of all, I just realized that I’ve been incorrectly dating most of the weeklies for 2026 with “2025” so I apologize! I’ve corrected it going forward.

Second: Apparently, last Wednesday (or this past Sunday, Laetare Sunday) was “Mid-Lent,” which is, as it sounds, the midpoint of Lent. So that is good news for me and many others! We have less ahead of us in Lent than behind us.

Finally: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! What a fun weekend we have had celebrating the wedding and family. (I’m writing this well ahead of time, so I’m just going to assume that we did, in fact, have a fun time.)

I’ll be making soda bread and I think we will be having corned beef and cabbage. I hope you enjoy this day too!

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights, Part 2 (From the Vault, 2016)

More Definitions: 

COMMONPLACE BOOK

How many of you know what a commonplace book is?

I’ve always thought of it as a “quote book” in which a person writes down interesting lines. They’ve been around since the 17th century, and certainly earlier, without the name (Leonardo DaVinci’s notebooks in the 15th century come to mind, for instance)

—kind of a scrapbook/notebook combination—a way for a scholar, a writer, or a learned person to gather all sorts of information in one place.  I guess today we call that the Internet.

Here’s a link to John Milton’s Commonplace book.  

John Locke’s A New Method of Making Commonplace Books.

So, from a very early age, I was a lover of commonplace books, but I didn’t know that I was. 

I have loved quote books, which I inherited from my Dad. In high school, I had a folder filled with song lyrics I had written out in pretty handwriting (including, yes, Barry Manilow), and friends would ask to see it. In college I had an index card file filled with quotes from 1. my English major works, from Pride & Prejudice to Frankenstein to Anna Karenina and,  2. again, song lyrics. 

Sadly, at some point in my younger life I got rid of them, thinking it silly for just writing down the quotes of others (I didn’t know that commonplace books existed back then), but I really wish I still had them.

As a mom, I’ve developed a huge love of children’s literature, from great picture books to easy readers like “Little Bear” and novels like Narnia, Little House on the Prairie, and tons of others.

I’ve kept quote books and book logs, and while I don’t have a physical commonplace book at the moment, I do still collect quotes like coins.

So you may be able to tell that a commonplace book is rather varied, and sometimes unconnected. It’s random—the only thread is quotes and great books.

And that’s how my talk will be, but it’s all to get YOU thinking and YOU coming up with ideas to keep you shining like a light all your life.

MAKING SOMETHING

Now we will Make Something

— a hot dog booklet

So, let’s make our own mini Commonplace Books

My oldest sister, artist and book-maker, showed me and my kids how to make books years ago, and it was wonderful.

(2026 note: At this point in the talk, we each made a hot dog booklet. Here is a description of a hot dog booklet so you can see what it is, and make one if you want! )

Now, to get to

(ELEAZAR’s) COMMONPLACE BOOK  

All the time, I want YOU thinking to think about the context of resolutions to make time to pursue thing that energize you.  That you do because you WANT to, not because you HAVE to.  (More on that later)

(2026 note: I read different quotes from books or other places, to inspire questions for each of the attendees to reflect on their own—thus the question after each section).

When I prayed the Office of Readings today, the second reading (this one is usually not from Scripture) is 

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART, FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD

St Gregory of Nyssa on the Beatitudes

(Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God)

Bodily health is a good thing, but what is truly blessed is not only to know how to keep one’s health but actually to be healthy. If someone praises health but then goes and eats food that makes him ill, what is the use to him, in his illness, of all his praise of health?

We need to look at the text we are considering in just the same way. It does not say that it is blessed to know something about the Lord God, but that it is blessed to have God within oneself. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

I do not think that this is simply intended to promise a direct vision of God if one purifies one’s soul. On the other hand, perhaps the magnificence of this saying is hinting at the same thing that is said more clearly to another audience: The kingdom of God is within you. That is, we are to understand that when we have purged our souls of every illusion and every disordered affection, we will see our own beauty as an image of the divine nature.

QUESTION: How is the Kingdom of God Within You?

Being a DECIDER

City of Saints: A Pilgrimage to John Paul II’s Kraków by George Weigel. 

papal biographer, wrote “Witness to Hope”

 He was a moral reference point for his friends and did not hesitate to be a challenging counselor and confessor. But the pastoral stress … was always on personal responsibility. He was not the decider for his friends; they must be their own deciders, he insisted, if they were to be true to the moral dignity built into them as human persons and as Christians.

I love that expression, “DECIDER”

QUESTION: How can you be a decider?  How can you be a good decider, filled with personal responsibility?

WIN HAPPINESS

I am a huge fan of happiness kinds of books. I’ve read dozens of them, from positive psychology people like Marty Seligman to happiness researchers like Barbara Frederickson and Sonja Lyubomirsky, who wrote “The How of Happiness.” There are so many good books to read in this vein, but I’d like to mention one in particular.

I’m going to quote from Rilla of Ingleside by Lucy Maud Montgomery (she wrote the Anne of Green Gables books). I dearly love all of the Anne books, and this is the last in the series about her family, and about Anne & Gilbert’s youngest child, darling, charming and growing up Rilla (named after Marilla). Rilla of Ingleside is such a good book as a coming-of-age story, but also great historical fiction about WWI written close to the time.  Noble and heartbreaking without being completely depressing, as a lot of fiction about WWI is, and rightfully so, since it’s the first modern war.

At one point, Rilla is bemoaning in a conversation with her brother Walter how the war is changing their whole community and family. Her brother Walter says:

“Now we won’t be sober any more. We’ll look beyond the years—to the time when the war will be over and Jem and Jerry and I will come marching home and we’ll all be happy again.” 

“We won’t be—happy—in the same way,” said Rilla. 

“No, not in the same way. Nobody whom this war has touched will ever be happy again in quite the same way. But it will be a better happiness, I think, little sister—a happiness we’ve earned. We were very happy before the war, weren’t we? With a home like Ingleside, and a father and mother like ours we couldn’t help being happy. But that happiness was a gift from life and love; it wasn’t really ours—life could take it back at any time. It can never take away the happiness we win for ourselves in the way of duty.”

QUESTION: What kind of happiness have you won in the way of duty?

2026 note: the completion of this next week! It was a long talk 🙂

Interesting/Notable

How to Break Your Screen Addiction: The Lamp Catholic magazine (UK)

This is (slightly) tongue-in-cheek piece by a British Dominican sister. Well written! I can’t recall how I came across this.

I Make Connections. This is What I’m Actually Thinking—NY Times Gift Article

If you like Connections, you will LOVE this article by the author of all of them. I actually read through some of the comments, and they are hilarious and delightful (the nice ones, that is).

The Mom Weekly, Volume 135: March 10, 2026

You can read this, or any other previous Mom Weeklies, by going to the home page here.

Notes: 

Whenever a certain reading from 2 Macabees comes up at Mass, I think about the title of a talk I gave at a local women’s conference in 2016 called “Finding Your Fiat.” I think to myself, “Darn, that was such a pretentious title for a talk. What was I thinking?”

Anyway, I went looking for it because I knew that I had written about Eleazar and honoring our old age, and I wanted to write about that topic. When I found the text of my talk, and read it for the first time in a decade, I thought (and not for the first time):

THANK YOU, years ago me, for being such a good writer and good thinker. You were way too hard on yourself about your skills or your ideas.

I am remarkably proud of that talk. I am proud of how I was trying to encourage the (mostly) young moms who were in attendance at the conference. I had to edit it down because it was really long, but the gist of it is still there, and I had a lot of solid insights and thoughts to share. You can let me know whether you think the title is pretentious or just right.

Remember how much I love you,

Mom

Eleazar’s Commonplace Book, or Shine Like Lights (From the Vault, 2016)

Finding your Fiat. When I mentioned to my theologian husband that I was speaking at a conference called “Finding Your Fiat,” he had to tell a joke. He reminded me that one of his first cars was a Fiat. (In fact, virtually every car he has owned as an adult stopped being sold in the US after he bought it—first Fiat, then Peugeot, then Saab.) Now Fiat is back.

Anyway, he said,“It’s like an older person wondering where his car went in the mall parking lot (here he used a crackly old person voice)—Where’s my Fiat? I am finding my Fiat if it kills me.”

So, first I’d like to ask for the intercession of two Venerables—really saints, just not canonized by the Church yet.  

Venerable Matt Talbot, patron of those who struggle with addiction. I visited many Matt Talbot sites earlier this year in Dublin, and I just love him.  

Next is Venerable Father Solanus Casey. 

(2026 note: Solanus Casey was beatified in 2018, and I wrote about him here )

Two of Solanus’ great quotes are:, “Gratitude is the first sign of a thinking, rational creature.” and “Thank God ahead of time.” So I’d like to thank God—and Matt Talbot and Father Solanus — ahead of time for getting me through this talk.  

So let’s officially start with Prayer, and Scripture:

Shine like lights in the world,

as you hold on to the word of life. —Philippians 2:15-16

This was the gospel acclamation several weeks back, and I thought, YES! This is exactly it.

Here is the complete passage:  

So then, my beloved obedient as you have always been, not only when I am present all the more now when I am absent, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For God is the one who, for his good purpose, works in you both to desire and to work.

Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among who you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

A little bit more complicated, but, regardless: we as Christians are meant to SHINE LIKE LIGHTS.  (as we work out our salvation with fear and trembling).

What does that mean?  Ponder it during this day and weekend.

My prayer for you?

When my husband and I were first married, sometimes he would say that the Holy Spirit protected me from bad sermons. And I agree! It’s been a great gift.

So, I pray you will hear the things that are helpful and daydream during the time that is not helpful for you. You have permission to take with you what is helpful and leave behind what is not.

What I am going to do today?

DEFINING MY TALK TITLE -oy vey, it’s a little pretentious, I know.

2. MAKING SOMETHING 

We’re going to make something — each of us will make her own commonplace book. You can jot down some notes in it, or just decorate it however you want.

3. MY COMMONPLACE BOOK — Quotes to get you thinking about what energizes you.

I’m going to share some ideas—my virtual “commonplace book,” as it were. 

4. RESOLUTION  — You’re going to consider one or two things that energize YOU and make YOU happy, and you’re going to  make resolutions about being intentional about including it in your life over the next few months.  How can you have pursuits that energize you and help you persevere as long as Eleazar?  

Here’s what I want you to come away with:

1. encouragement

2. a few new books to read or re-read

3. a resolution about one, possibly two, things that you will add to your repertoire to keep you happy and shining

DEFINITIONS

—Now let’s do some definitions:

ELEAZAR

Eleazar: a scribe in the persecution of Jews recounted in 2 Maccabees 6, martyred under the persecution. 

He is martyred just before the seven sons of the mother are martyred, and she urges them on “filled with a noble spirit that stirred up her woman heart with manly courage.” Wow, it is so inspiring to read the accounts of these martyrdoms and their strong faith in throwing away their lives. The mother was the last to die, after her sons.

Eleazar, an old man who is being forced to eat unlawful food, and the people around him tell him to pretend to eat it, but not really eat it. And here’s what happened:

But making a high resolve, worthy of his years and the dignity of his old age and the gray hairs that he had reached with distinction and his excellent life even from childhood, and moreover according to the holy God-given law, he declared himself quickly, telling them to send him to Hades.

“Such pretense is not worthy of our time of life,” he said, “for many of the young might suppose that Eleazar in his ninetieth year had gone over to an alien religion, and through my pretense, for the sake of living a brief moment longer, they would be led astray because of me, while I defile and disgrace my old age. Even if for the present I would avoid the punishment of mortals, yet whether I live or die I will not escape the hands of the Almighty.  Therefore, by bravely giving up my life now, I will show myself worthy of my old age and leave to the young a noble example of how to die a good death willingly and nobly for the revered and holy laws.”

The older I get, the more I realize it can be hard to persevere. It’s easy to want to give up.  

I call on Eleazer to bless this talk since I want to be the person who is “worthy of my old age.” I’m not “old” yet, whatever old is, but I have reached the “gray hairs,” and I want to be able to stand firm all my life. 

To shine like lights all the way to the end. I want us to shine like lights, but not to burn out. I want you—and me—to persevere through not just this year, or this decade, but to the end of your life, clinging to your faith, working out your salvation in fear and trembling, to your last day.

2026 note: (more of this talk next week!)