cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
When I was young, my faith was expansive. I listened as friends told desperate stories of an unplanned pregnancy; of the fear of deportation; of the explosive anger of a boyfriend she couldn’t stop loving; of the courage it took to tell parents of a same-sex attraction. I shared my own fears, desperations, and foibles,…
Read More
This morning, I went back to church. For more than two years, like many, I have been provided with and found reasons to attend church virtually or, truthfully, not at all. It has been a sort of rebellion. Rebellion against decades of church involvement and all the forced Sundays of my youth. A rebellion against…
Read More
Give me a loyal pup and a handful of people and there isn’t much else I need. Other than dog food. And a decent cup of coffee. Sixteen years ago, I received a photo of a palm-sized black fluffball with a white star on his chest. Born in Belize, he was the love product of…
Read More
“Please stop watching.” The round, green eyes of my traveling companion flash as she whispers these words toward me. We are sitting in a crowded, delayed airplane stuck on the runway. Hot, stuffy, and impossibly close. Bodies of all sizes are wadded into same-sized seats like so many sausage parts stuffed into casings. The man next to me,…
Read More
I turned 60 a few days ago. How about that? Sixty. 21,900 days. I am likely about 2/3 the way through my imagined years. I don’t often think about measuring time, but significant birthdays have a way of making more obvious the ways we keep our time. As friends and family called to celebrate with…
Read More
There is a photo I love that my daughter took on a southern beach several years ago. Brown curls float around my freckled face in the sea breeze. Sitting in the sand and gazing toward the horizon, I watch salmon and burgundy-colored clouds float to position for the sunset. Golden hour lights fine lines and…
Read More
And on the day when she comes to the end of all she will learn, she will still be yours. No matter where she runs, no matter if she hides, no matter. She is inescapable to you. You are inescapable to her. Maybe this is what she already knows.* She has “wise eyes.”
Read More
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.—Psalm 46 It’s an odd choice, agreeing to join this…
Read More
“The Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Romans 8:26 I notice the black turtleneck as we meet. As we sit down, I hear her sigh deeply. She looks at me, eyes searching. Neither…
Read More
It had been the sweetest day spent with some of my beloved ones. As our time together was coming to an end, a child whom I adore noticed the bright, full moon outside my east-facing windows. “Oh, look!” she said. “The moon! Can we go outside and look at it?”
Read More