Main Content
About Barbara
I’m Barbara Falconer Newhall and I’ve got a serious case of the human condition.
I’ve done it all: career, family, house, garden, and a prize-winning book, "Wrestling with God." The result: I'm a woman of years, lots of them, who can't help seeing things from the funny side.
Tucked away on this website are hundreds of riffs on life. I hope you’ll seek them out – and keep me company as I discover the humor, if not the meaning, in what life throws my way. Learn More
THE LATEST
Christmas Carols — Listen Here for the Real Thing
Tired of the safe, watered-down Christmas music now playing in shopping malls? Try these Christmas carols, the real ones. Read more.
BARBARA’S BOOK
★ Publishers Weekly, starred review
Any seeker of any faith will be blessed to read the words of this fine author and observer. Read more.
An inveterate doubter for most of her adult life, journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall embarks upon a quest to find a way to believe in God in the twenty-first century.
The result is Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, which details her search for the Divine in the lives of diverse Americans – from a fundamentalist Christian to a progressive Muslim to a Buddhist monk.Seekers of all persuasions will feel represented here, from priests, ministers, and rabbis to engineers, physicists, and avowed non-believers . . . a riverflow of a book. — Phil Cousineau, host of PBS’s Global Spirit
Recent Riffs on Life
The Darkening Days — And My Mother’s Last Hours
In the years since my mother’s death, I’ve often felt regret that my mother’s last hours with me weren’t more meaningful for her, and for me. Read more.
My Little Old Lady Christmas Tree — Showing It Who’s Boss
It’s time to buy myself another little old lady Christmas tree, haul it into the house and stand it on the coffee table — creaky knees and knuckles, notwithstanding. Read more.
DON’T MISS!
Oh-Oh. Is Cabin Fever Setting In? — Sheltering at Home Day 6
Is cabin fever setting in at our house? Staying home and out of breathing distance of COVID-19 is driving me and mine into cranky arguments. Read more.
My Purple Rain Garden: Is the Universe Trying to Tell Me Something?
Lots of rain and lots of purple in our garden this year. Purple nemesia, purple iris, purple pansies. What gives? Is this a Purple Rain message from the spirit world? Read more.
At Orinda Books: The Author Talked — And So Did the Audience
It was an afternoon of lively interaction between author, audience, and Sister Barbara Hazzard, who read from the story she tells in “Wrestling with God.” Read more.