Open Hands · Week 2 · Sunday · ANXIETY I am a planner. Not only by trade — by temperament, which is the part you cannot put down at the end of the day. I run two businesses. I build…
A Planner Reads Ecclesiastes 3
He Went Out Limping
Open Hands · Week 1 · Saturday · STRESS We started the week at the river. You know what the line for the whole week has been walking toward? The sun rose above him as he passed by Penuel, and…
Two Handfuls
Open Hands · Week 1 · Friday · STRESS He is seventy-one, and there is writing in every square on his calendar. The board he sits on. The two younger men he meets with. The airport runs, the hospital visits,…
Every Move Was True
Open Hands · Week 1 · Thursday · STRESS He has never lied to her. He wants that on the record, and as far as it goes it is true. He has only arranged things. A message written at nine…
The Work She Redoes at Night
Open Hands · Week 1 · Wednesday · STRESS Her team does good work. She would tell you that herself, and she would mean it. She also quietly redoes it. After everyone has logged off, she opens the files and…
Outside the Field
Open Hands · Week 1 · Tuesday · STRESS He is forty-three, and he took the job because a man he came up with professionally took one like it. That really is the whole reason, though he would not have…
The Fourth Thing
Open Hands · Week 1 · Monday · STRESS She is sixteen. She found out on a Tuesday that her friend got the spot she had wanted since ninth grade, and by Thursday she had signed up for a fourth…
The Night Jacob Ran Out of Moves
Open Hands · Week 1 · Sunday · STRESS I have read Genesis for probably over 20 years and mostly skipped the strangest sentence in it. Jacob sends everything he owns across the river — two wives, two maidservants, eleven…