Into the thin of night, during those turbulent hours when panic threatens the best of our rest; during those hours when the conversations of young friends become so exposed that with raw, sleepy voices they begin to truly know each other; during those hours when so many souls bound for home finally drift away; into […]

Spiritual formation is renovation of the soul. That’s what I’m thinking as I empty the drawers of an old desk into a tote, as I shake my head over the accumulation of the years. In the deepest drawer, I find a knot of cords, and I smile, thinking this is how my thoughts would look […]

It can be easy, in a whisper, to thank the gift without thanking the Giver. It sounds ridiculous to say it out loud, but in the evening, sitting cozy while the darkness gathers outside, we admit this to each other. I fold my legs up in the chair, thinking of the way my gratitude sometimes […]

“I think I know you,” I say, fumbling only a little because I don’t know if she’ll remember me at first, because the last time I saw her, we stood in worship singing blessings over each other. It was dark; we were masked, but I recognized her that night even though I didn’t know her […]

At the end of service, we pray, a passel of kids of every age, and it feels to me as it used to in the afternoons of my childhood when my dad would stretch out in the living room with his head on a pillow and my brothers and I would come at him from […]

“So for some reason, this verse made me think of you,” my friend says, flicking her finger back and forth on the edge of an index card as we settle onto her porch beneath warm party lights glowing in the cloudy afternoon and ferns gently swaying. I cradle the coffee cup in my hands and […]

We should give this hour a name, when the afternoon swells like a bruise and we all feel molasses-slow, our faces stretched into unending yawns, and still, we have work to do. I want to pour myself another cup of coffee, but I think I have consumed more than enough caffeine today, and something feels […]

When they ask Adam to name his role for the end-of-the-year play at school, he chooses, “Kevin,” says his father’s name in that deep, gravelly voice, just grunts it out like a fact. His teacher smiles telling me this. “I said, ‘Now Adam, you can pick any name you want. Are you sure?’” she says, […]

Zoe turns on the stairs to look back up at me, just a flutter of robe and tassel, a flash of royal blue, that hat crowning her swishing hair, and I think, This is one of those moments I’ll remember. Some moments are like that, so weighted and important and real we can reach out […]

“Mom?” Riley reaches into the cabinet to my right, rising up on her toes behind me, leaning like a shoot. I wash dishes at the sink, my sore hands soothed by the hot water, the soft soap. The bottoms of my feet hurt from standing so long, and at the end of an afternoon spent […]