cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
For the past decade Red Tent Living has been cultivating ordinary spaces where women feel seen, heard and safe. Sharing our tales and our tables together we have built a beautiful space of belonging with one another. Highlights from our first decade include: Reaching women in over 200 countries with our writing, dinner themes, and…
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Shades of pink stretched across the horizon and the air was thick and warm. Mark and I had a plate of nachos between us and had chosen to sit outside despite the heat. Her text dropped onto my phone around 6 p.m., “Thinking of you today, and holding this day 18 years ago.” As I…
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“When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” – Billy, age 4, defining love If you were to come to a Red Tent dinner at my home, we would sit in my dining room. The table, purchased twenty years ago at…
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I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Madeleine L’Engle This afternoon my family and I arrive at the beach for our twentieth annual trip with my parents. Soon after we unload the car and unpack our suitcases, we slip into our swimsuits…
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Brave On was a safe space for my heart to rest and to shift. Who knew there could be a place with (gasp) a bunch of Christian women that also carried the adjective “safe”?!
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I remember the first time I took a pregnancy test and the two pink lines appeared letting me know I was a mother; a baby was growing inside of me. We told everyone, and I began imagining and dreaming for what that coming little person would be like. It was pure joy, until the morning not…
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Released into the sunshine to work in pairs, we were grateful to leave the small confines of the conference room that held 10 therapists for an Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprossessing (EMDR) training. Our exercise was to identify a lie we believed and think of resources that could be internalized to counteract that as part…
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I can’t seem to stop taking a mental inventory of my backpack and suitcase, the one somewhere in the belly of this plane, not the one still holding some of the contents from my trip to Grand Rapids for Brave On over the weekend.
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I busily and excitedly prepared for my first Red Tent Dinner. Invitations, RSVPs, and reminder emails were behind us.
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When I planned to host a Red Tent Dinner in March, I wondered and prayed about who to invite. Names and faces of women came to mind over time and as they did I jotted their names on an invitation list.
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