Culture

My New Book: A Storybook of Saints

04.06.2020 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

My children’s relationship with Saint Nicholas is complex and, at times, confusing. When we had our first son we decided not to “do Santa” in the traditional American way. Because of the questioning personality of our oldest son and the deeply secular, often antagonistic-towards-faith culture we live in, we felt uncomfortable insisting upon the down-the-chimney […]

New Book on the Way and Smartphone Vacation

02.10.2020 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 2 Comments

I have not posted on my blog in awhile because I have been focusing all my writing attention on a book that will be published in April. I am very excited to share more details about it soon! I am also revamping my blog with a new layout and name on the way. In the […]

Pregnancy is Strange

04.04.2019 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 2 Comments

This is my fourth time feeling a tiny person kick around in my belly. And it’s not any less strange than the first time. In pop culture, when pregnancy isn’t being stigmatized or avoided at all costs, it’s being glamorized. I think of pregnant celebrities, baring their bellies on the covers of magazines like fertility […]

Life Without Social Media

02.27.2019 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 4 Comments

After mulling over it for months (years) I finally permanently deleted my Facebook, thereby removing all social media from my life. Here’s what I’ve learned: I am shocked by how nosy and gossipy I really was. I had already hidden at least 80% of my newsfeed because the content was either distracting or irrelevant. I […]

Christmas Does Not Belong to Me

12.18.2018 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 1 Comment

I just want to make sure we have OUR Christmas. I’ve said it to my friends and my friends have said it to me. Somewhere between college graduation and thirtieth birthdays Christmas becomes super, super busy. And we feel like it’s all about other people. All about extended relatives. All about work parties or neighborhood parties […]

How We Advent (And Advent Music)

12.01.2018 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 1 Comment

When I was about ten my dad first introduced us to the old custom of Adventing before Christmas and Christmasing until Epiphany. At first, it was quite difficult for me to accept. My dad and I had many debates about how early was too early to turn on the real Christmas songs and all the […]

“There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it academically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and fragments. Then, its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see that it must be true.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

I found this quote well described my own experience– consistently reworking my idealism, being surprised by it, sometimes even losing it only to discover it all the more fully. I know we will never find all the answers, but how thrilling it is to find ourselves getting a little closer to the source and summit of things, a little closer, as we work our way through the “degrees.”