cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
I have one more year left in my twenties. Some might say I’m a young spring chicken with barely any life under my belt (but we don’t wear belts anymore, thank you, high-waisted jeans!). That’s not untrue. I am pretty young in the grand scheme of things, but as I consider the seasons that have…
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I sat, four rows back on the right, just behind the grandparents of the beautiful little girls being baptized. My Christian faith tradition practices the baptism of babies and children, and that day a young family was presenting their 3-year old COVID baby and her infant sister for this ancient sacrament. In our practice, baptism…
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In honor of the tenth anniversary of Red Tent Living, we are featuring a monthly legacy post written by one of our regular contributors from the past decade. Kacy Davis was one of our early regular contributors, joining us in January 2014. She filled a unique spot as a young, unexpectedly single woman and tenderly…
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The afternoon air is sweltering as I do a cannonball and make a volcanic splash in the diving pool. I can feel the goosebumps on my arms expand like cones on an evergreen as I sink down into the frigid, dark, ominous water. I am taking my Junior Life Saver test, and I need to…
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Steven climbed into the passenger seat of the Toyota Sequoia. “Let’s take the back way to Holland, Mom.” I back down our angled driveway and head for H Avenue and then over to Sixth Street. The quiet backroads of Kalamazoo are lined with trees and sprawling green grass in the summertime. Hand-painted signs lean against…
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We were almost to Austin, and I needed to tell my boss I was quitting. We had driven from San Antonio together for a women’s leadership panel. I had planned on bringing up my departure much earlier on our trip, but the moment hadn’t felt right, and now as she got on the toll road…
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Someone recently asked me, “How do I even know if I believe in God? What about God is worthy of believing?” Little did I know that the journey I would take the next few weeks would entail loss, and grief, and confusion. Little did I know that amidst that loss and grief and confusion I…
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Last month my 88-year-old mother moved into an assisted living facility located 4.5 miles from my house. This is four miles further than we’ve lived from each other for the past nine years. While it may sound like a negligible change, it feels much more significant, for this half-mile has been traversed far more often…
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I parked on the neighbor’s grass. I was bringing lunch to my daughter and son-in-law, and I wanted to park close to their house. Their car was in the one-car driveway off an alley—the alley that needed to have room left for cars to go through. Their baby was not yet a month old. They…
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One night, sitting in front of the family television, for the first time in my life, I sobbed at the end of a touching movie. The year was 1966, and the film Born Free aired in homes across America. The movie, based on a true story, tells of a lioness named Elsa, an orphaned lion…
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