“You’re a healer,” one of my friends says to another, as we sit encircling, an invisible linking of arms. What an absolutely lovely, gracious gift, to heal, and as spiritual gifts are given by God for the blessing of others, I see that my sister lives as a healer for me. I sit in our […]

In the early evening, my friends and I almost curl around a table scattered with puzzle pieces.  We gently share loose bits of our lives while we look for patterns of color and shape, our voices meandering lightly with our fingers, picking up topics and discarding them—laughter tinkling, or a sigh of concern drifting through […]

There’s something about sitting barefaced in the morning flanked by friends, the table strewn with gifts and paper and ribbon, steam curling over our mugs, the conversation like rivers meandering, that has me mulling a repeated snatch of scripture, stacked like ancient memorial stones, down deep below the surface of the living water. The Lord […]

Up the hill and around the curve, our nonpartisan feet beat out a unified rhythm, our graying hair slipping out of knots and flying free of caps, my friends and I speaking of how, during the viciousness of election season, the rotten, tongue-flung mud has splattered us all.  Guiding one another by the direction of […]

Dear friend, our work is worship. My sister-friend, who forever speaks God’s words back to me, sends this text in the early morning, while the daylight is still new, as I rub my eyes and contemplate the day, the work, that I know God has planned well ahead of me. They are burnt offerings. By […]

Adam’s delight. This my friend—my sister—texts after looking at the pictures from our trip, just those two words and a series of hearts, having arrived in seconds at the treasure I will carry with me long after even our memories of summer have faded.  Adam’s delight, that wild smile stretching wide across his lean face, […]

It comes to me, the freedom in not needing to know, like the tickle of a wild wind on my emptied palms, when a friend asks what time our flight, Kevin’s and mine, leaves for Boston. We walk down a greenway trail, around a bend I’ve never seen, in a place I’ve never been, near […]

Unprotected, that’s the word my friend chooses.  I feel unprotected. I cradle my coffee mug, sipping, immediately drawn to that word as my mind spins to its opposite, making a connection, like a jagged line across the page.  My friend has been describing a problematic relationship, how vulnerable she feels every time the potential for […]

In the predawn, I spread my journal open on my lap, smoothing the pages, pressing tape down to affix to the blank page a card I received for my birthday.  Slowly, I reread every word, tracing the curling signature with my thumb, determined to actively take hold of love. There will be days when I’m […]

I know your heart. That’s what my friend says, after I have rattled off a dozen questions at her, an interrogation like bullets flying, too fast, my thumbs shooting out over a digital keyboard. I am working when I see and respond to my friend’s message, sent because she too is working, both of us […]