I walk through the front room and find Riley and Josh hanging out on Zoom. I see Josh in profile on the screen, sitting sideways as though he’s right beside her; I can’t tell if he’s watching TV or playing a game on his phone. Riley bends over the table, riffling her fingers through a […]

I stand behind, holding Riley’s hair in my hands, twisting the damp lengths into Dutch braids while she thumbs through notifications on her phone. With practiced fingers I smooth the hair, which is honey brown when wet and, in places, darker with shadows. I weave, my hands trapped in the loom, and slowly an elegant […]

Before morning light cracks the sky, Kevin drives away for work. In the headlight beams, I watch raindrops gently fall, but everywhere else, the morning looks blank and still. Coming up behind me, Riley wraps her arms around my shoulders. I lift a hand, folding my fingers into the sign for I love you, and […]

At the dawn of day, while yet the dark of dying night redacts our view, I huddle in the chair by a flickering fire, coffee cup warm on my fingers. The one hand cradling, the other cupped to receive, my heart turns to prayer. I worship; I confess; I give thanks; I ask, withholding nothing. […]

Riley and I sit against the foot board of the guest room bed, Shaker planks pressing into our backs. “How long will the tornado warning last?” She asks me, looking over at my phone, the radar map I’m scrolling. I stare at the blobs of color–red, yellow, green, spreading them bigger with my fingers to […]

My hands lay open in my lap, palms turned up to receive whatever grace God loves to give, somewhere that should feel like home. I bend my head to rest, empty of expectation. This Sunday, round tables replace the rows. Today, we actually worship together; we actually commune. It feels like wandering into a sprawling […]

“You need to get with it,” I say to Riley, like I do nearly a dozen times a day, then I jot down the phrase. Get with it. I taste the words a little, stare down at the shape of them, the jerking movement of the letters. Kirk Byron Jones has me watching my language […]

I remember sitting at a too short Formica table, overflowing a child-sized chair, in the play area where a couple of bright, shiny women evaluated my then two-year-old Riley. Riley, distractedly pushing platinum corkscrew curls away from her eyes, lined chunky animals along a busy, primary carpet in a long, snaking line. It looked like […]

My foot sits right next to Kevin’s under the table; I can feel the warmth of him. I glance away from my book, watching the rise and fall of his chest, noticing that he has begun to pray. His peaceful eyes shut out the world. Years into my own relationship with God, I finally understand […]

Fresh morning and the coffee steams; my pen scrolls over a page in my journal. Out on the porch, by flickering candlelight and the dim glow of twinkle lights, I list gifts–morning stillness, early light, sleep-rumpled skin, a bed piled high with quilts—while the birds sing. Those birds, they’re only this loud at dawn. I […]