About Me

Welcome!

My name is Amanda. I’m married to a pretty great guy named Ben and have basically the cutest baby in the world. His name is Macallan. But I call him all sorts of things. I’ve decided that life is too short to settle on only one career. I had a Quarter-Life Crisis and decided that being an RN in a pediatric ICU wasn’t my calling. Studying medieval history was. I mean, that’s an obvious transition, no? No. It isn’t. Anyway, I grew up in the great state of Oklahoma, have lived in Washington D.C. for the last five years, and was looking forward to Settling Down after Mac was born. Instead, the U.S. Army decided we should move to Germany. I’ve always wanted a Grand Adventure. Seems that's what is on the menu. This blog will chronicle adventures, Grand and Tiny. I’ll share stories of all sorts…because being the Narrator of my Own Story is too enticing to resist. Stories of people long gone (the medieval ones). Stories of my time in the ICU (because I need to share them). Things that delight and disturb, my attempts to discern what is True and Truly Beautiful, the random thoughts in my head (lucky you). So grab a cup of your favorite brew (bean or grain) and let’s venture.

What’s in a Name

I grew up watching World War II movies with my family. Our favorite was (and is) a movie called Where Eagles Dare. It. Is. Fantastic. Watch it. One of the best scenes occurs in a pub. A German SS officer tries to ascertain whether or not the pretty blond across from him is a spy. She says she is from Düsseldorf. He asks if she knows where the town cathedral is. She says of course - it's on die gutteral-sounding-vorde straße. And he responds, in the thickest German accent possible (as any good SS officer in an American movie would), “It's funny, I seem to remember ze Cathedral vas on ze ozer side of ze square.” My family and I quote this often in our best Deutsch accents.

Important Things

I believe a few things very strongly. They shape who I am and what I think and love. If you’d like to know what I believe, please read this, this, and this. 

One of my favorite books is The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. In it, a demon teaches his minion how to pull a Christian away from God. Chapter 13 contains my favorite passage:      

“…you first of all allowed the patient to read a book he really enjoyed…you allowed him…a walk through country he really likes, and taken alone. In other words, you allowed him two real positive Pleasures…How can you have failed to see that a real pleasure was the last thing you ought to have let him meet?...that the sort of pleasure which the book and the walk gave him was the most dangerous of all? That it would peel off from his sensibility the kind of crust you have been forming on it, and make him feel that he was coming home, recovering himself? As a preliminary to detaching him from the Enemy, you wanted to detach him from himself… Now, all that is undone…When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever… The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the Enemy has furnished him.”

And so, ultimately, my aim in this blog is to focus on “real positive Pleasures.” The kind that causes the thick crust of constant entertainment and ceaseless noise to fall away. To encourage us all to become more fully human, and in so doing, to become more fully His. This blog is part of my walk through the countryside.