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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
Have Americans Forgotten That Humility is a Virtue?
Have Americans forgotten that humility is a virtue? A couple dozen Christians met at my church on Thursday for a reminder. 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
Forget Those Charming Little Forget-Me-Nots. They’re Not as Innocent as They Seem
Forget those charming little forget-me-nots. They’re not as guileless as they look. They have an agenda. Read more.
I Confess. In 2020, I Washed the Potatoes. With Soap
It was April, 2020. The pandemic was underway and you couldn’t be too careful about what you let into your house, including your groceries. Which is why I washed the potatoes, with soap. Read more.
DON’T MISS!
Confessions of a Nintendo Mom: The Day I Unplugged My Eight-Year-Old
Like any normal person with a job, two kids and a front yard full of weeds, I had been sleeping in on a Sunday morning – until the sound of Jon and Peter playing the new Nintendo woke me up. I burst in on them. “HEY. YOU WOKE ME UP.” No answer. So enraptured were they with their dratted boomerangs and Oktoroks they didn’t care that they had wrecked my beautiful Sunday morning sleep-in. I stomped back to bed, covered my head and cried. Read more.
Post-Coronavirus, What Will Happen to All That Hugging We’ve Been Doing? Sheltering at Home Week 6
Personally, I like a little time to pass, and an actual friendship to evolve, before I do any serious hugging with somebody. Read more.
Widowed: My Husband Is Missing Out — On the Sight of Two Galaxies Dancing in Space
I’ve been widowed three years. My husband has missed out on a lot in that time, including a parade of images from the Webb Space Telescope. Read more.