Riley leans against the kitchen counter, waiting out a two-minute timer that counts down while chunks of chicken sizzle in the pan.  She holds a fork aloft as she alternately considers the cooking meat and the digital display, as she murmurs to herself about what’s next.  I watch her head nod gently as she speaks, […]

“What’s your favorite thing about Christmas?” One of the second graders stands in front of me, twisting slightly on her toes, downy soft ponytail swinging, light as air, behind her. “Ummm,” she says, buying time, looking skyward as though rummaging for something in her mind. As the kids walk in for worship, I ask them […]

“When it’s time for Adam to do his roller coaster move,” my friend says, speaking of this year’s dance choreography, “we do it one by one, in accordion style, and Adam starts laughing and doesn’t stop until it’s his turn.”  She grins, absorbed in the memory of dance practice.  I watch faint steam curl out […]

My friend steps in the house quietly, glancing toward the desk where Riley sits taking an online college course, slipping her arms around me to pull me into a hug. “It’s good to see you,” I say softly over her shoulder, thinking that there’s nothing quite like feeling your arms full of friendship. She draws […]

By the time Riley comes to find me for our prayer, I have slid so far down into my pillows as to be almost completely horizontal, and, to be honest, I keep falling asleep, so the book in my hands keeps lightly knocking me in the nose and waking me up.  I have read the […]

I sit in the hammock swing on our screened porch, waking, cradling my coffee cup in my hands, watching the steam curl and rise out of that mug toward the dark, lacy outline of the evergreen trees bordering our neighbor’s yard.  I smile gently at those trees, at the way they look right now, black […]

At the water park, we wait in a sunny line on a meandering sidewalk bordered by honeysuckle just past the bloom, holding our rafts, rafts that will soon take us down a waterslide.  As a group, we exude anticipation, a chattering hope spurred on by the whooping sounds of delight we’ve heard all along our […]

“I’m concerned about Adam’s schedule for the summer,” Riley says to me, folding her hands in front of her and digging one toe into the outdoor carpet on our back porch. The hinges of the door haven’t yet stopped screeching, and a great wind rustles the leaves of the trees, and I take a deep […]

The moment Adam and his friends take the stage, their faces lighten with sudden recognition, as though with the stage lights beaming and the violins singing and the performance blooming, they have all at the same moment just realized they can dance.   Their mouths relax into broad grins, and gradually their lips slide apart, and […]

Josh hands Riley a gift bag, jolly red and green, plump with surprises and spilling over with tissue, and we all sit forward, anticipating grace. All through Advent, I have been thinking:  On the surface of things, at least according to the understanding of their time, Mary and Joseph should never have married.  I’ve been […]