Degrees in Idealism

exploring how we would live if we truly believed life was meaningful

  • Culture
  • Marriage
  • Family
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Celebrating Baby Peace

07.26.2014 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

Throughout both of my pregnancies I feared miscarriage. I tried to commit myself to not entertaining such fears— I tried not to let them prevent me from falling in love. But in the back of my mind the fears were always there. I feared the loss and I feared the sadness but even more than […]

Categories // Family, Marriage, Soul Tags // #babies, #death, #family, #love, #miscarriage, #motherhood, #parenthood, #peace, #pregnancy

Why Home Videos Make Us Cry (And Why They Don’t Need To)

03.17.2014 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

Yesterday my husband and I were trying to fix my computer and, in the process, stumbled upon a slideshow of home videos. We were sucked in. And as always seems to happen with home videos, they roused within me that deep longing feeling, that pervasive, aching bittersweetness. And as always, I asked myself why? I […]

Categories // Family, Soul Tags // #childhoodmemories, #children, #family, #livinginthepresent, #love, #memories

In Defense of Valentine’s Day

02.17.2014 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

Valentine’s Day gets a lot of hate. We call it fake, tacky, manufactured, made up. We say it feels arbitrary to expect romance on one day and that that expectation causes unnecessary pressure and stress—that relationships shouldn’t need such a day to express their love. We say that Valentine’s Day can lead to selfishness and […]

Categories // Culture, Marriage Tags // #holidays, #love, #romance

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About Me

I'm Elizabeth. I'm a wife, a mother to three little boys, a writer, and a lover and seeker of the beautiful, the true, and the good. I am a believer in idealism-- that even amidst the chaos and the confusion, the exhaustion and the sadness of life there is always joy to be found, hope to be clung to, and a better path to be taken. I write my thoughts on this blog. A link to my fiction book is at the bottom of the page.

About The Name

“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.”

sons of God

sons of God

A short novella in which Lucifer talks about his dad.

View Book

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