I toast a sourdough muffin golden, two halves, and slather them with butter and mounds of strawberry freezer jam. I love the jeweled color of strawberries mashed in the making. Red to me is the color of hope. I steep a cup of Earl Grey Green, inhale the fragrance of bergamot, and settle at the […]
So We Give All . . . Third World Symphony
She lives in Kenya. I sit down this morning to write to her, her last letter at my right hand. She tells me she was in position 1 in the first term of school and in position 3 in the third term. She tells me that she and her family are in good health and […]
Fuel for the Weekend: Seeing the Country Sights
The farmers still can’t plant. The earth struggles to swallow all the sky continues to deliver. And I think how sometimes it seems to take forever for me to soak up all that God pours in before I notice any kind of growth. The air hangs heavy with the scent of lilacs. I can’t walk […]
Fuel for the Weekend: On Seeing Red
I was never a great fan of red. Until I studied Rahab’s scarlet cord and learned about the towla worm. And now my heart skips whenever I see it. In a bowl of berries. In a cardinal’s tuft. In a downy drop. In a flicker’s blaze. In […]
Fuel for the Weekend: When the Earth Groaned
When the earth groaned. Part of Japan sank two feet deeper into the ocean. And moved thirteen feet closer to the United States. Its land widened. The planet’s mass shifted and changed its axis. Lives shattered. When the earth groaned. It triggered heaves in people across the world. Widening our hearts. Drawing us closer to […]
Textures of Text: Because He Lives
I sat on the choir platform, and my eyes floated in pools as we sang. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, Because He lives, all fear is gone; Because I know He holds the future, And life is worth the living, Just because He lives! It was our last Sunday in this church. The […]
Monday Meditation: Playing with Stones
Grace is uncommonly quiet. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t busy. I go in search of her and find her in the bathroom. She’s washing stones. With her toothbrush and my toothpaste. Water ripples green and blue and rose and yellow and orange from polished pebbles with names like carnelian and amethyst and quartz and […]
Friday Fuel for the Weekend: Light
It starts as a hint of hope, a thin thread of red at the hem of the horizon that gives way to an ever-widening pink streamer. New day birthed in a candle glow that nudges black. The sun climbs the steps of night and peeks over peak. Breath clouds billow and dissolve. Ribbons of light […]
Friday Fuel for the Weekend: Hope
Hope Rises heavy under a misty veil i see dimly until startled by a cardinal on a naked branch and hope rises on scarlet wings. ~Sandra Heska King (2010) Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops . . . at all. […]
Textures of Text: Stone Crossings ~ Rising Above the Mess
I read it last summer. Straight through. And posted about the towla worm here. But there is more, so much more in this book by L.L. Barkat, author of God in the Yard, the book that I am slowly making my way through while I sit in my own yard. I pick Stone Crossings up […]
