She apologizes to Kevin like we autism mamas do, ignoring the sharp, slicing pain it brings just to say the words. I’m sorry, my daughter–she has autism.  She doesn’t mean nothing by it.   She says this gesturing over something Kevin barely noticed, a failure to say hello, a back turned, a little stumble over […]

So many times this week I’ve whispered the words—running under stunning blue skies; exhaling beside grassy spaces where dewey spider webs glow like hundreds of silver threaded veils seemingly abandoned by impetuos ethereal brides; in the dying light of the afternoon, when the work still stretches, teasing at the edges of impossible.  I say it […]

Quiet in the kitchen, except for the sound of my fingers skooshing through flour and egg, sugar, spices; soft-thumping against the sides of the stainless bowl.  These cookies only come together by touch.  They resist the spoon.  Fall comes, and it smells of cinnamon and clove, candied ginger minced fine under the shiny, sharp edge of […]

It only takes a moment for things to crumble. At day’s end, twilight throws last rosy beams across the kitchen table, lighting up flecks of glitter melted into the clear coat years ago during some school project, making Riley’s golden flyaways shine like a gossamer crown faintly visible on her forehead.  She has just finished […]

I walk in from my sweaty work, the pruning shears heavy in one gloved hand, the bottoms of my bare feet stinging with the heat of the sidewalk, the brick steps. Finally, I couldn’t watch the ruined blooms weigh the branches any longer, nor let them continue leaching away the sweet goodness the tiny, emergent […]

Stinging words curl through the grapevine like searing smoke, and I gasp, suffocating.  I am distracted by a black storm, by the flicking tongue of a squint-eyed snake bent on spreading its own dark poison.  The deception threatens the fixing of my eyes.  Except. Except that God is my Father.  And He hasn’t left me […]

“…this not making a name for yourself-—that’s really hard,” Zoe says, lightly biting her bottom lip, tapping the page with an extended finger.  Her hair falls loosely over her ears in sun-lit sections.  She rests her chin on one tender knee, peering down at the Book in her lap.  Her chair spins, but she interrupts its […]

So, I’ve been hurting over something we do to each other.  I say we because I’m guilty too, we because we’re in this together, we because it takes all of us to change our culture. In my life, the repetitive strategy of the enemy often looks like this, just with different supporting details: Flashback nearly twelve years, […]

Help.  I write the word in plum today, and in the curve of the e, the marker squeaks against the whiteboard.  Help really isn’t the right word.  It’s as inadequate as the word serve for describing what we do for God.  Learn would be the better verb if this schedule were truly about accuracy, but from my son’s […]

I really don’t know what to say anymore, she says to me, and I understand, because when you say everything true and it doesn’t seem to make a difference you finally run out of words.  They drain and fall away, leaving only echoes like bits of fluttering ash.  And in the aftermath of a wordy, difficult […]