cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
This January was filled with work, family, friends needing support, colleagues reaching out to share, and a significant, out-of-pattern ice storm in central Texas. On most days I felt overwhelmed, tired, and unmotivated. Some concerns shared with me by friends and colleagues weighed heavy on my heart. I had to relearn how to practice self-preservation.…
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The seven of us had spent a lovely day in picturesque Door County, Wisconsin, honoring one of the women in our fellowship. Now the sun was setting over Sturgeon Bay and our time of reflecting, naming, and blessing was drawing to an end too. We made our way from the rocky beach to the nearby…
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“Crown or no crown, you’re still a queen to me.” I read these bold, black words in a small card with a picture of a silver glitter crown on the cover. My friend, Desire—my coworker and fellow sorority sister—left this card for me at our work. It was a sweet gift: we had just learned…
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Carrie lived seven doors down on the opposite side of our street. We met on the first day of school at Baywood Elementary, and we were six years old. The boy who sat between us, Bill, threw up into his desk. Carrie’s eyes met mine with shock and horror, followed by six-year-old giggling, which got…
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Legends are made this way. Legends are borne in the small, tiny stories, the kind that stick year after year—where there is always more to tell, but you cannot get there because this particular part is just too good.
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Athletes are often encouraged to visualize the finish line and to run the race with the image of crossing that mark as motivation to finish well. For us, the finish line is not death but what comes as a simple greeting: “Welcome, my good and faithful servant.”
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Tears trickled down my cheeks as I walked with a slight limp out of the physical therapist’s office. It was over. I had to quit. I wouldn’t accomplish my goal. Not only was I devastated, but I needed to tell my best friend and running partner, and disappoint her as well. The goal was to…
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I feel nothing changes you like a new city and new people. I remember when I got the news that my family and I would be moving. I had come home from school and was tired and pissed off as I often was, being an angsty seventh grader. When my parents told me our house…
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Sometimes all I can see of my heart is red. Red for the bleeding, the breaking, the pain. Red for the sorrow, the wonder at the way I’m wired. It takes a lot to hold out my heart. To bleed for others, their hopes, their suffering, a relentless concern for those who repeatedly break me…
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Tonight, my thoughts are full of her. It has been seven months since my friend and colleague left. That summer night, as the sun was disappearing behind the basswood tree, the call came. I had finished mowing the lawn and noticed the white letters of a friend’s name across the black screen of my phone.…
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