Glad to be alive
I walk every morning. A few miles. Around Fisher Pond, here on Vashon Island. Not far from my house, I pass my neighbor’s field, home to a flock of sheep.Today, I stopped and talked with them. Two of the mamas…
We were made for this
Change messes with us. I wish it weren’t so.You know, messes with the tidy (manageable and predictable) script we tote for mental security. About the way life should be.“Now, we need to think outside the box,” someone posted.“What box?” another…
Hope will not be cancelled
Pandemic.Not an easy opening to follow. But the world has shifted. And the pain and sacrifice are real.But here’s what I know: Life didn’t stop. And the earth still turns. As I write these words, the moon, waning Gibbous, smiles…
How is your heart?
This week, my mind raced. Unsettled. And I know I am not alone.You know the world has tilted slightly, when Costco is out of toilet paper.“What do you do to stay sane?” a reader asked me. “I’m unnerved. There’s too…
To go where it hurts
A mother begins her weekend breakfast routine, pulling ingredients from the refrigerator. Omelets on the family menu this morning. Before she knows it, her two-year-old daughter has climbed a chair and is now sitting on the kitchen counter."Momma, can I…
Alive and well in our heart
The opening battle sequence in the movie Cold Mountain realistically portrays the gruesome nature of Petersburg's "Battle of the Crater." Union engineers created a massive crater with explosives in an attempt to penetrate the Confederate lines. The scene is a graphic depiction of life's fragile nature. A reminder…
Waiting for real life to begin
Sister Lychen had a word of prophesy every Sunday in her Pentecostal Church. She'd stand up and say, "The Lord has revealed to me that I will be caught up in the clouds of glory." Every week, the same prophesy.Eugene's parents would make him take Sister Lychen a…
Let us bless one another
Some days, I wish I was made of stronger stuff. And I don’t want to admit it, as it feels like a defect to be concealed. Some days, I don’t have the words. Some years ago, a homesick dog made…
The gift of today
"This tastes like heaven," my son Zach says, eating from a small bag of popcorn, picking out one kernel at a time. We're at the base of Diamond Head, spending part of the afternoon in a farmer’s market on the east side of…
Reintroduced to wonder
When Thomas Merton “left public life” to join the Trappists, he wrote, “I am not physically tired, just filled with a deep, vague, undefined sense of spiritual distress, as if I had a deep wound running inside me and it…
