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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!
My Computer is Dead, Long Live My Omputer
I went away for the weekend, and when I showed up in my writing room on Monday morning my laptop had crashed. “It’s not your fault,” said the computer repair guy. “Computers are machines. Machines break.“
Pete Holmes, Stephen Colbert (and God) on Life and Death
At Easter Christians celebrate Jesus’s resurrection — Jesus was dead, and then he wasn’t. Was Jon dead, and then not? Read more.
Purple Bearded Irises — Close Up and (Very) Personal
[caption id="attachment_28388" align="aligncenter" width="500"]
An iris blossom close up. Purple. Photo by Barbara Newhall[/caption]
There’s a heck of a lot of erotica going on inside an iris blossom. Stamen. Pistel. Haft. Claws. And, of course, those fuzzy, caterpillar-like beards. Read more.