Author, Tree Street Kids
By Amanda Cleary Eastep As the days grow colder and closer to change in my life– children stepping outside the radius of a mother’s embrace, the loss of income that helped put a roof over our heads, separation from my daughter as she leaves for the mission field– emotions rush beneath my skin, which I wear loosely like a rubber Halloween mask […]
Read MoreWell, I’ve been afraid of changing ‘Cause I’ve built my life around you But time makes you bolder Even children get older And I’m getting older too Oh, I’m getting older too – “Landslide,” Fleetwood Mac By Amanda Cleary Eastep I had been singing these lyrics in the shower for weeks in anticipation of the […]
Read More[A version of this was originally written for a message I gave at my church, House of Saints and Sinners.] By Amanda Cleary Eastep Endless tips for better writing exist, especially when it comes to “cutting the fluff” of adjectives and adverbs that leave an otherwise solid story looking like this: Photo Credit: ozfan22 via Compfight […]
Read MoreBy Amanda Cleary Eastep Recently, I wrote an article for Think Christian magazine, My Daughter’s Muslim-Christian Bible Study, about the coming together of Christian and Muslim students in the Bible study my daughter started at her local public high school. A better title would have been “When worlds collide…or just meet over Dunkin’ Donuts,” which better illustrates […]
Read Moreby Amanda Cleary Eastep It’s thundering. I’m sitting on my patio watching the first drops hit my just-planted hydrangea and clematis, gifts for Mother’s Day from my children. (Well, one picked them out, the other will contribute when she gets paid, and one is working and may have an Indie band mix CD waiting for […]
Read MoreBy Amanda Cleary Eastep They were Easter to me as a child. Aunt Millie and Uncle Roy walked into our living room, childless but carrying two Easter baskets wrapped in pink and purple cellophane, the kind of baskets you bought at the store, not the ones you made yourself out of strawberry cartons. Aunt Millie, bundled in a […]
Read MoreBy Amanda Cleary Eastep “Why are you here instead of writing?” Author Brett Lott opened his session with this deeply disturbing question at the Festival of Faith and Writing last week. In preparation for the three-day event, I had asked God to speak to me through one of the conference keynotes–to clarify his will for my writing […]
Read MoreWhy in the night sky are the lights hung? Why is the earth moving ’round the sun? Floating in the vacuum with no purpose, not a one. Why in the night sky are the lights hung? Why is life made only for to end? Why do I do all this waiting then? Why this frightened […]
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I chose moments this Christmastime to be silent. (Right now my husband is saying, Where was I?) By that I don’t mean I wasn’t DOING something, but they were intentional acts that bring me a feeling of peace. Wrapping gifts while listening to Christmas music, baking my grandmother’s butter cookies. I was longing for some traditional […]
Read MoreI used to watch that 45 rpm record spin on the turntable, the green apple label a blur as Mary Hopkin sang “to everything turn, turn, turn…there is season, turn, turn, turn…” And as my garden finally starts to yield fruit at the far end of this cool summer, a change of seasons is obvious in […]
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Amanda Cleary Eastep 