A painting I titled Carried captured a particularly poignant moment in the journey of my soul, a moment that returned full circle last week when a pastor I've never met contacted me through my Facebook Art and Writing page. He asked for permission to share the painting with his congregation on Sunday. After I emailed…Read more “Fear’s Antidote”
fear
Soul on Fire
The darkness comes for us all sooner or later. Terror not of our own making magnetizes us like a black hole into unendurable pain. It often starts with an ember, a spark we try to control. But it develops a life of its own, swelling into blinding heat, into raging fire from which there is…Read more Soul on Fire
Quelled
rapid little heart so undone thrashes fragile feathered chest, wings frantically fan fiery fear seen and unseen so in need of just one word held quelled in tender hands cupped and quiet
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
Painting a Place Beyond
I discovered this week that writing about the American/Vietnam War stirred up a torrent of scary emotions. I often “think” in feelings, not words or even images, but currents of emotional energy. After I wrote certain phrases, they tossed around in my head like a bare branch in the wind. Then, as I reflected further,…Read more Painting a Place Beyond
A Scary Day in Kenya
Nairobi, 2005 I was terrified. As a mother of four children, ages 2-8, I was certainly no stranger to the pit-in-my-stomach feeling of holding a sick child. In fact, just a few months earlier in this unexpectedly long sojourn, I placed a frightened call to a driver. In my lap I cradled my five-year-old son,…Read more A Scary Day in Kenya
A Scary Night in Kenya
Drilling rain rattles the metal roof overhead. Flashes of light cast shadows over still forms of sleeping children. My two four-year-old boys stretch out in a bunk bed. The child I am in process to adopt, almost-two-year-old Lily, sprawls in a port-a-crib. Somehow, in the peace that only children know, they sleep through the tumult.…Read more A Scary Night in Kenya
Colleen Briggs Art & Writing 