cultivating the beautiful ordinary by sharing our tales and our tables
It’s late. Amidst moving boxes, I’m trying to squeeze a bit of time in to tell you a story about how joy is an act of beautiful rebellion. But it turns out that writing about joy when it feels rebellious is really, really difficult. I’m tired, a little frightened, and sad. And tonight, writing about…
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It’s early. The morning light still feels cold with sharp lines cutting between sun and shadow. I open the blinds and catch the sunrise climbing over the power lines and trees. With its light, I breathe in a sense of possibility as I turn to the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. And then…
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I’m on the hunt for a church community. I can’t in good conscience identify church as a need anymore. Just shy of two years into this pandemic and I recognize that learning, worshiping, seeking justice, and building community with the same group of people, and then weathering disagreements with those people with grace isn’t something…
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It’s a cozy, quiet Sunday morning. I type near the Christmas tree, a sleeping pup curled at my feet and a YouTube fire flickering noiselessly on my TV because my apartment doesn’t have a fireplace. Outside, the world glistens, covered in its first true blanket of snow. These Midwest mornings, the ones that stretch from…
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As the days ticked by until my wedding, morning twilight frequently found me sitting in pajamas with red spectacles and a messy bun, sipping from a large mug of coffee not quite large enough. October arrived, and my days kept starting earlier, often before sunrise as a random thought tied to the coming festivities stirred…
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The podcast mic still shines from the back corner of the closet, wrapped up in chords and tucked away near storage boxes. I purchased it last year with some award money I received for my graduate thesis. I had been determined to put the money towards something that pushed me to keep creating. The only problem–and…
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Waking up is the worst. Not from bed, but from what I can only call “COVID slumber”: the choice I made sixteen months ago to tone down and tune out much of my life in order to shelter in place, as we were told. I, like many others, rocked sweat pants and dress shirts. I…
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It was December 22, and the fire crackled as we nestled up in our sweatshirts, the oldest among us sipping whiskey to keep warm on our parents’ back deck. Beneath the large mesquite tree, we were occupying a new space as siblings: the first of us married and the youngest among us bidding childhood goodbye…
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Once upon a time, in the land of Israel, during the days of the Judges, there came a famine upon Bethlehem. A woman and her husband looked at their barren field and bleak options and decided to risk a move, praying for a chance to begin again. They would take their two sons to the…
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The sun is setting before the low-grade headache from another day spent on my screen fully registers. But now the muddy light of my apartment has sharpened the artificial glow of the laptop, and I can’t help but wince. Note to self: explore blue light glasses. A bit of self-awareness ushers me into my body,…
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