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 […]

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 […]

When we discover that Adam needs glasses, even his eye doctor has his doubts. “If he’ll wear them…” The doctor says, drawing out the ellipsis as he slowly extends the prescription in my direction. Oh, he’ll wear them, I’m thinking, watching the doctor’s back as he walks away, but it’ll take work. I snap a […]

“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 […]

The first time we walked into the eye doctor’s office, the top of Adam’s head came up to my waist. I remember the feel of his baby hand, the way his soft, stubby fingers tried in vain to reach my own. I gripped his wrist to be sure he wouldn’t wander. At the time, the […]

We walk down the tree-lined sidewalk, pilgrims to Knowing, our bodies dappled with sun and dark, blotting leaves, our feet climbing a shadowy canopy. The air is thick with rain that just won’t fall; we glance up at a few steel-colored clouds backlit and rimmed in sunlight. We have logo-printed ponchos they gave us at […]

I finish braiding Riley’s hair for school; she likes one thick rope down her back, the elastics double tightened, and I smile because already tiny errant curls have begun to escape around her face. Already, the freer part of her has begun to defy strict boundaries. Sometimes when she feels overwhelmed, she pushes those rebels […]

How easy it is to sink to that place where the smallest things we do for love don’t feel like love at all, to that shadowland where we believe wholeheartedly in withholding, where we forget that giving is the means to abundance. Adam sulks over his dinner, flicking his eyes toward me, his look pit-dark. […]

Fresh from the shower on an 80-degree day that feels thick with the promise of Summer, Adam spins–literally–into the kitchen wearing flannel pajama pants–buffalo check–and a salt-washed long-sleeved t-shirt as blue as his eyes. I wonder how he doesn’t instantly feel that sticky prickle of after-shower sweat at the base of the neck and the […]

This cluttered morning, sweaty with exercise, I bend myself into a stretch that makes me sigh with pleasure. Nothing feels better to me after a workout than the patient extension of sore and weary muscles, that resting pull that draws out pain with so much tension. Routinely, I pull my shoulders down, away from my […]