Isaiah and Calli English: Life Blog

Greetings from the Coraopolis Library! I've got a very handsome pastoral intern working on his morning sermon across from me, the one whom my soul loves. Our current location has become one of Isaiah's favorite places to work on his sermons and Greek study since it's in walking distance from our upper apartment and has windows to see the lovely spring weather. (The Sewickley library is equally lovely, but tends to be a better escape during the Winter season--more cozy and walled-in.) This is my first real visit here, and I must say, I get the appeal (but then again, any library will always hold my heart because they contain all of my favorite things--books, community, and learning!) So, how are we? To put it simply, we are doing great! To attempt to be more detailed, here are some things that have become a part of our pattern or have occupied our time. The pastoral day off (as any good pastor knows) is not the weekend, but Monday. Mondays have become our adventure-date days...

A while ago when working at a Christian school, I created a sub-unit on "Dreams" that fit under the Civil Rights/Harlem Renaissance eras of literature we were studying. We analyzed speeches like "I Have a Dream" and musical pieces by Jazz greats, but two specific poems always stick in my mind, not only because we studied them in this unit, and teaching is the highest form of learning; but also because, I have had more than this one encounter with them, and, as you may know, meaning is discovered through repetition (it's why we're told to meditate on scripture!). "A Dream Deferred," by Mr. Langston Hughes, came into my life during my own high school career. We analyzed it in Sophomore English class alongside Cry, the Beloved Country and A Raisin in the Sun . The poem itself gives a list of possibilities for what will happen when a dream is put off--dry up, fester, crust over, or EXPLODE!, the last being perhaps the scariest and yet best option of a...

We have just returned from the funeral and burial of Isaiah's grandfather--William Ralph English. He was a true family patriarch. In case you're wondering, a patriarch is known as "one who rules a family, clan, or tribe," and the dictionary definitions today still reference the Biblical patriarchs for whom the term is named; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons. In the Bible these Biblical patriarchs share certain similarities in their deaths and burials. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all "breathed their last and were gathered to their people;" they were all buried with their family; and in each account, the patriarch's sons (whether previously chummy or not) bury their father together. I might add that one other noteworthy commonality is that the patriarch's son(s) are blessed because of their father's faithfulness. Genesis 25, 35, and 49-50 all share these common elements. And so it was with Ralph English, the grandfather I barely knew as an in-l...

It's Thanksgiving here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. We've traveled here to spend Thanksgiving with Isaiah's family; and hence, my family. There comes a time when your spouse's family becomes your own, and we have reached and passed that point now, which brings me much joy. Some signs of that point coming upon you may include members of the family starting to appreciate you as who you uniquely are as much as or more than your spouse at times, or perhaps you simply finding your niche in the family and/or those you tend to talk to during the yearly gatherings.  At this point, I'm always open to whatever conversations come my way, but there tend to be specific individuals here in this gloriously large family whom I naturally seek out, or who naturally seek me out. It's a beautiful thing to find your place, or rather, to feel the place you've always had more viscerally in a large family such as the Englishes. It's an interesting paradox, large families, since i...

Greetings friends! It's been some time since I posted a themed blog or a life update. It's high time we remedy that situation. Isaiah and I are currently residing in Coraopolis, PA--an area close to Pittsburgh (20 min. drive). Most of the smaller towns surrounding Pittsburgh are divided via bridges since this is a town of rivers (and steel!). We live in "Cory" (what the locals coin Coraopolis), but we go to church via a bridge since Grace OPC is in Sewickley, PA (9 min. drive), and on Fridays, I often head to Moon Township (one of the only areas I don't cross a bridge to access) to nanny for a wonderful kiddo named Asher. We've crossed some of the bridges leading into Pittsburgh, PA on a few trips there (places we've visited since moving include the Pittsburgh Zoo for a date, the downtown area to vote, a Chris Tomlin concert with our Pastor and First Lady, and the Strip District to have the most amazing cod and crab with Elder Karl and his daughter Bea). W...

Last Summer, I installed an app called Merlin at the influence of my Paw-Paw whom I had seen using it on his back porch at High Rock Lake in N.C. The app listens for bird calls in your immediate surroundings and identifies the birds around you by their calls. The app highlights each bird's name right when the chirp happens whilst adding it the list of your backyard symphony. After a while, as certain birds are highlighted right when they sing their tune, you start to learn the birds in your area via their chirps and music. This experience is quite lovely and immensely enjoyable.  Falling in love with this app right after I finished up another crazy school year got me thinking. I once read a book by Anne Lamott called Bird by Bird in a college writing class, and I remember being captured by her idea that writing is a step by step process (meaning crappy first drafts are part of the fare). You line up the writing "bird by bird" (hence her title), much like my Merlin app c...