My Love Language results will tell you. Any astrology description of my sign, Leo, “the prideful lion,” will corroborate it too. I love gifts. I love everything about gifts. I enjoy the art of finding the perfect gift just as much as I love writing the thank you notes for the ones I’ve received. The…
I wouldn’t call myself a superstitious person. I love the whimsy behind the notion of a lucky penny, but I’ve never held one as a belief. But last week a penny did make me realize again how lucky I am. A penny that got firmly stuck in my son’s throat. Can anything focus your gratitude…
I see the blood before I can register the howls. The bright red liquid streams down the back of her hands and leaves a trail of droplets as she runs towards me. The front wheel of her bike still spins menacingly as it lays on its side. Her hands are clutched over her mouth, so…
How many continents have traveled beneath this flesh Been held in reverence or punctured on demand? How many miles of emotions have rolled like oceans and rough seas Or teased to wonder why? How many stories held safe? How many lies of omission never fully crossed the lifelines, Waiting to be thrown or held back…
I got big into affirmations during a time in my life where I was really searching for something. SOMETHING to ease the pain that I felt, something to be the glue to hold me together, something to make sense out of everything that had happened. In the midst of untangling myself from an abusive ex,…
We sit in the pre-op area. The temperature is cold and the atmosphere sterile. More waiting. There are others waiting too, separated from us by beige floral print curtains, their privacy maintained by the loud whooshing of recycled air flowing above us. Each patient is prepped and eventually escorted through the sliding doors to the…
My phone alarm wakes me. As I silence it, groggy and half-blind, I see a notification that someone has commented on my post. I swipe to see it. And there I am, phone already in my face, inundated by images and words through a luminous screen. Before I’ve even taken stock of my body, said…
I can hear it from our bedroom, that low heavy rumble of a train on its tracks. There is a faint whistle, but we are many streets up and there are rows of trees and a river between us, soaking up its sound. Often only the heaviness of movement is what I can hear, a…
The following is a sermon delivered to seminary classmates and Homiletics professor on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. This week I became aware of a new U.S. border policy. Our country is now prosecuting 100% of those who cross illegally into the U.S. in criminal instead of civil court and separating children from their parents. In…
When she goes between worlds, so do you. This is where I live. ❖ In the days weeks months after my mother dies, the ocean calls. I am to be reverse-born, back into waters. In the true middle of the Pacific Ocean, there is an ancient green rock that juts out, bearing life on its…
I’ve never, ever, by any stretch of the imagination been fearless. In fact, I’ve always had an abundance of caution, too much perhaps, more than the healthy amount that keeps one out of harm’s way. As a child, my mom tells me, I’d always wake up from naps crying—terrified that I was in a room…
It was Saturday morning, and tiny pinpricks of early light had just begun to filter into my darkened bedroom. I awakened to the familiar sound of little feet padding across the hallway accompanied by an unfamiliar sound I couldn’t quite identify. The door creaked open, and I peeked sleepily from beneath the covers. Standing before…
TRACK The Phoenix—Tara Ward with Special Weapons Song and vocals: Tara Ward Song arrangement, synths, and sounds: Matthew D. Chism (aka Special Weapons) Mixed by Lacey Brown at Nervous Breakdance Studios, Seattle WA Artwork: Cecelia Romero Likes LYRICS See her fly above the seas Inexperienced not she Any constraints—she’ll break free And find a truer…
Afternoon sun, cutting sharp shadows on clamshell, white pebble, gray beach glass, green (such familiar things), warms each March beachgoer, including the heartless seagulls dropping helpless mussels from the sky to open them. Down across the sand an unlanguaged man – vocal tic, facial twitch – stands in the mudflats going “hum hum hum”…
I’m celebrating my thirty-fourth birthday. As a parent, I love watching my kids enjoy their birthdays. They’re thrilled by all the “new” that is coming their way: Five means getting ready for Kindergarten; thirteen means you fit in that teenager category, no longer a kid; and sixteen means new independence and the possibility of driving.…
Kindred 