Degrees in Idealism

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

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  • Family
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  • Soul

When You Can’t Do Date Night

01.13.2018 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 4 Comments

When You Can’t Do Date Night

Scheduled date nights are often prescribed for couples to keep their relationships strong. I don’t think this is a bad thing— I think it’s most often a very good thing! Creating uninterrupted, quality time and space to spend with those we love is essential. Nobody wants their marriage to become a mere roommate-situation. Scheduled date […]

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Categories // Family, Marriage Tags // #datenight, #koselig, #marriage, #parenthood, #romance

Letting Go of Your Health

03.04.2017 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 1 Comment

Letting Go of Your Health

Three years ago, on a beautiful February day, my husband, son, and I hiked Kennesaw Mountain with some friends. A few minutes after arriving home I started feeling very sick. I had had Crohn’s disease for almost seven years but it had never been as severe as it became after that day. Three hospitalizations, five […]

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Categories // Family, Soul Tags // #autoimmune, #crohns, #findingmeaning, #health, #marriage, #nature, #parenthood

The Very Thought of You

11.12.2016 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

The Very Thought of You

It seems to be a generally accepted fate that people who fell in love will fall out of it and that romance within long-term relationships or marriage is bound to die. The usual advice to try to prevent this goes something like: try to make time for each other. Set monthly/weekly date nights. And certainly, […]

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Categories // Marriage Tags // #love, #marriage, #romance

So What if We’re Not Biologically Monogamous?

08.25.2015 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

The fact that 38 million married people are registered on the recently hacked cheating website, Ashley Madison, has come as a shock to many, but not necessarily a real disappointment. There have been plenty of recent articles claiming the situation a mere natural consequence of an unnatural expectation. They point to evidence that humans are probably not biologically […]

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Categories // Culture, Marriage Tags // #love, #marriage, #monogamy

When The Love Letters Stop

06.19.2015 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // 1 Comment

On our bathroom counter there is an old sparkling grape juice bottle decorated with ribbons. It was the bottle my husband (then boyfriend) brought when he took me on a romantic date to the rooftop of our college dining hall. Later, he decorated the bottle for me to keep as a memento. Looking at it today, […]

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Categories // Marriage Tags // #love, #marriage, #romance

Only Sexy People Have Sex?

04.15.2015 by Elizabeth Hanna Pham // Leave a Comment

In my latest post I said that the message “every girl is beautiful” can be damaging and confusing when by “beautiful” we mean “physically attractive.” I concluded that many of us insist on this message because we think physical attractiveness is absolutely necessary. We fear that physical attractiveness defines our worth. But I think that begs the question: why are we so afraid […]

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Categories // Culture, Marriage Tags // #commercialism, #love, #marriage, #reality, #sex

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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.

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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.”

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sons of God

SONY DSC

sons of God

A short novella in which Lucifer talks about his dad.

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