As we step onto the path, past the gravel and asphalt and through an arbor of trees to the place where the air grows light and cool, I realize two things: I am not wearing the right shoes for this hike, and consequently, I need a walking stick. Roots ripple across the path, rising up […]

Kevin and I set out for our walk in the early morning, while the air is crisp and new light glows soft pink. We smile over the volume of the birds, how they chitter and squaw from fence post to power lines to the peaks of the trees, sentinels passing messages. We gesture and smile, […]

The moment I walk in the door, all road-weary and distracted and wondering how it is that pilgrims who don’t have to walk everywhere still come home feeling sore and dusty, I hear Riley praying. Her voice sounds clear, an unbound sound traveling the hallway and down the stairs. As I mounted the steps and […]

Zoe turns on the stairs to look back up at me, just a flutter of robe and tassel, a flash of royal blue, that hat crowning her swishing hair, and I think, This is one of those moments I’ll remember. Some moments are like that, so weighted and important and real we can reach out […]

In the last gasp of day, Kevin and I wind our way along unknown streets, all squeaky springs and clacking chains.  These bicycles are the picture-postcard kind, sherbet-colored, lemon and mint, with earthy baskets bobbing at the front.  I imagine mine brimming with trailing flowers like they do in greeting card photographs, except that would […]

Saturday morning, Adam walks downstairs wearing his football jersey, which is blue like the crisp Fall sky, blue like his eyes.  I say walk, but his steps have a certain bounce that matches his wide smile. Maybe autism steals away my son’s words, but Adam’s body has always found its own ways to convey what […]

Early morning and the way feels long, as though I’ve meandered for miles without a full inhale, and my finger pauses over this verse: “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter (Exodus 13:17).”  I imagine the way those freed women felt, wrapping […]

We walk across a plank bridge, our feet thickly thumping, and a thin brown leaf drifts from the overhead canopy and twists down down in the breeze, grazing my arm.   In tiny, hidden places, anticipated Autumn begins to set the woods on fire, just barely.  We pause to admire a smoldering swatch of delicate […]

We are growing stronger here, together. I say this to her as we walk along the beach, leaving impressions of our feet in the sand.  With every purposeful step, the soft shore sinks.  The salty sea rolls over our footprints, filling the heels, the toes, making briny tidepools and minuscule islands—our own desolate Lilliput, soon […]

We will travel a long way to be with family. Dark as pitch in the pouring rain, lights reflecting on the wet road, and our kids settle in with pillows and blankets—two wide-eyed; one quickly asleep again.  I grip a tumbler full of coffee–black and murky like the night sky–in my chilled hands, preparing myself […]