In the car at night and I can’t see her face, just the blur of headlights and the jostle of cars weaving in and out of lanes, just the green-lit signs labeling exits.  From behind me, she speaks, and the tentative way she shapes her words tells me that she chooses this time for the […]

Afternoon, and the beach becomes another elegant art, a mosaic of striking contrasts.  I love the seascape for the way she changes, for the intensity of her perspectives.  Across the water I see rain, a blue black bruise on the horizon blurring the line God made between the deep sea and the boundless sky.  I […]

Sometimes from the start of a day a dull ache builds, spreading slowly from the curve of my back well into the sharp edges of my shoulders.  It is the sore feel of self dying, the good ache of need, the one meant to remind me that God accomplishes and satisfies (Deuteronomy 8:3).  But the truth […]

In the afternoon, we burst through the door, with three different conversations knotting in the air—one thread hard to follow, one dangling, one darting so fast I can’t keep up.  A general fumbling ensues for snacks, and Mom, I need to tell you, and What I have to do today is, and May I watch Tom and Jerry, […]

“1,2,3…Okay, Mom—I’m going to count how many people signed my yearbook.  Let’s see how many I have.” And she begins again, confident that she has my attention.  “Let’s see, I have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8…and here I have 9, 10, 11, 12,”she says, counting the ones who wrote words and the […]

It’s funny when it’s a game.* I mean, it’s inside joke material that will make us giggle for years, how I got my tongue stuck to a frozen flagpole became Iwo Jima in the space of fifteen minutes.  But the truth is, these strips of paper should be framed as reminders of this: I don’t have all the information. […]

Every day is a feast day, really–the table prepared and gilded, platters piled high, the celebration abundant. All our giving thanks, all our gathering at table, begins with grace. So too, the meal we celebrate as first.  And this the history shared with my children as they dip their forks in richness (I wonder, do you […]

Something about the way he broke that day reminded me that living is cross-shaped. “Adam has been crying for the last few hours,” she says to me, the aide instead of the teacher, walking carefully to my window as I park the car. “The last few hours?” Oh, how the living hurts, how it drives […]

High tide, and the waves curl deep, pounding the sand into a cliff at the break line. I sit watching one shore break after another, absorbing powerful beauty, the explosion of white caps, hard and close. I would love these waves if they broke a little further out and I could ride them in fast […]

As your Christmas cards decorate our mail with friendship, I give thanks.  I walk down the road, swinging my arms, telling God how He’s always provided someone. I read your notes, happy to see the curves of your handwriting, as personal to you as your fingerprints.  I smile when you apologize, thinking your penmanship a […]