Outside the daylight fades. Inside the five of us gather around the dining room table to play a board game. I went for a long walk with my boy earlier, and he chatted to me the entire hour. We stopped and talked to neighbors, allowing...
I remember the prayers. It was the first time in our nine-month-old marriage that I wished we owned a television. I’m not sure I would have wanted to watch the carnage in real time, though. It was enough to turn on NPR and hear the reporter...
I’ve been hearing it these past few years. That whisper of regret. Of failure. Of dissatisfaction. When I was a starry-eyed teenager, after I’d started writing a historical novel set in 1860, a mentor took me along to a critique group meeting. It was the first time...
Over the weekend, I was blessed to contribute to the lovely website That's What She. I encourage you to click over and read my article at this link. I've also reposted it here to make it easily accessible in the future. Enjoy! [caption id="attachment_17117" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Photo...
I grew up in a church that did not observe liturgical practices or follow the church calendar for the most part. However, my own family always observed Advent, and my mother found a Good Friday service to take us to every year even though our...
I hung suspended over the snowy canyon, the familiar butterflies creating a whirlwind inside me. “God has not given me a spirit of fear,” I whispered to myself. I’ve done it thousands of times, and it only bothers me when something is different about it—or maybe just...
I started two different posts for today, but it's just one of those weeks. I've accomplished a lot of other important work. For some reason, the blog posts are not coming together for me. They will sometime in the next month, and you can read...
Almost my entire life, I’ve been a country girl from the northeastern United States. My first seven years, I lived in a Connecticut suburb of New York City, but after that, my family moved “home” to Northeastern Pennsylvania, and there I’ve (mostly) stayed. During college,...
Panacea It touches shadowed corners. Beckons with rolling thunder. Heart swells, Catching in my throat and breaking Into a salty sob. I’m caught unaware, Broken skin Smarting when the brine hits. Waves soothe. Expansive mother rocks, Reminding This great globe spins, Rises and falls in perfect synchrony, Never unwatched, always held. Just like me....
Last week, the day after we arrived in Ventura, I took all the kids to Target to buy a million and one things. Somewhere in between the granola bars and dry-erase markers, my children began to misbehave. Knowing this would be a challenging outing for...
