family

Savoring the Simple Things

With every passing year, I grow increasingly thankful for the simplest of things. For blue-gray sky sinking low with snow, for burnished ochre grasses lifting proud rounded heads, for stately tree silhouettes, empty of leaves, but cradling dreams lying latent through cold. For growing children scampering after dogs of gold, brindle, and black with shy…Read more Savoring the Simple Things

Of Birds and Parenting

Scampering around in the grass barefoot, my son suddenly squealed and leapt for the concrete patio.  I went to inspect the source of his alarm:  a quivering huddle of feathers. He assumed it was dead like another hapless victim, a naked nestling, we found earlier that evening on a nearby rock. But as I knelt…Read more Of Birds and Parenting

Witnesses

  A Summer Night at Grandpa's House hot the night air white the hot light dancing in distant moonlit fields drowning in years of gathered emptying skies pouring down our windowpane drumming our whispers into the restless drone of the fan of still musty the dusty presence of settling walls of eyes in photos in every…Read more Witnesses

Summer Has Come

Time and space for painting and writing is scarce this summer. Without accessing those deep creative parts of my being, at times I feel dry and out-of-touch with myself and with God. But I am simultaneously aware that my heart is storing away moments like treasures from a far-away land. Moments in time that, when there…Read more Summer Has Come

For Love of the Game

When the clatter of life presses in, I step through that stadium opening and every worry fades in a sun-wash across my eyes. Like laundry bleached white, the day flaps in the breeze, bright and full of possibility. Rows of metal bleachers guard the perimeter, keeping watch with the outfield fence proclaiming, “Welcome to the friendly confines of…Read more For Love of the Game

Love Conquers All

  I chase you through the tree-tops into sun-soggy memories. Pig-tails flapping, giggling, chased by the strongest man in the world. And when you catch me, the most tender of all. In the meadow there, we laugh, intoxicated by the scent of wildflowers and pine trees, the glitter of morning. For a moment, you are…Read more Love Conquers All

A Beautiful River in Uganda

As most passengers triumphantly hoisted luggage off the belt, my mom and I watched and waited. Finally with a few lonely bags circling round and round in the increasingly vacated baggage claim, we acknowledged the obvious and filtered over to the airline desk to file our claim. Undaunted, we woke the next morning to the…Read more A Beautiful River in Uganda

Painting My Gratitude

Early in the morning, before the sun, I rise in a shadowed sleepy house. Shaking dreams from the edges of my mind, I cradle the Book. Eager, expectant, this my most treasured hour. I listen to steady slow breathing, rising from rooms all around. Overcome, my heart swells and overflows. It seeps and fills every…Read more Painting My Gratitude