In the beginning, nothing.  I stand at the edge of a wide, blank canvas.  From the street, as the first light cracks open the sky, I only see a broad, smooth, sandy plain, and beyond this, a dazzling sheet of silver glass.  For a number of days, I disconnect everything and step away, wiping it […]

In the blaze of afternoon, we slide our chairs up to the table, turning coffee mugs with our fingers, light and quick.  Let me look at you, I think, but I don’t say it aloud; my teenager finds overt attention awkward.  I want to say “parenty” things she will not believe until she sits at a […]

When we round the corner, she gets up from where she sits, pushing open the door.  I can see the cold, straight legs of a card table through a narrow opening; I can tell she has hair the color of straw, that she wears a rose-colored shirt.  Even before she stands in the doorway holding […]

In that house on the hill, someone shouts so loud the windows rattle, brittle and tinkling, like chains.  In horror films, that sound–always the glass clattering like shivering teeth–makes me want to hide my face.  My steps slow as I pass by, a rumbling street and a sidewalk between.  “I told YOU,” I hear a […]

It’s one of those days with locked-up steel skies and a chill seeping into my skin; one of those days when time bruises our backs and driving to school feels like slowly untangling knots; one of those days when I wonder what caused all this mess but have no real hope for a sensible answer.  It’s one […]

I settle the game in front of me, sliding off the lid.  The box shudders audibly, a stuttering breath, as though the insides hold more substance than half a dozen glossy, tabbed sketch books, some dry erase markers, cards.  Black smudges and half-erased lines fleck the books, memories of other game nights, memories of us, […]

Into the bowling alley I go, “Saturday me” with her yoga pants and her clean face and her Mr. Rogers jacket (yes, because I wear it around the house).  This is the me that’s only me, the honest introvert; the quiet, swallowed-up, zipped-up me just holding tight to God’s hand, walking through the parking lot.  […]

In the picture, taken all-smiles just after the coronation, our Queen stands twinkling in her strappy, snowy dress.  Somewhere else maybe she would not have been a royal, but here, we celebrate her, and with her the two kings by her side.  The kingdom belongs to such as these (Mark 10:14), and if ever I’ve […]

He presses the cross into my hands, a rugged, delicate thing he pulls from his pocket I don’t know how; it seems bigger than pocket-sized.  I run my thumb over the intricate carving on the stem and then let it rest on one palm so I can dip my fingertips into the tiny ravines.  I […]

He places the card in my hand, lightly fingering the rough fold, the paper blue like a storm in the middle of the afternoon or the ocean in places very deep.  I look at the flat, incongruent edges and see fibers; wet, bruised pulp; dye on someone’s fingers.  It’s remarkable to see the beginnings of […]