Thoughts

Little Rock, Arkansas is not a friendly city at night, so you must wrap yourself around your craft cocktail at the hotel bar and not move around too much. My tiny and withered arms pulled together great slabs of lumber and leveled compost. Seedlings are pushing toward light, waiting in starter containers for their true planting. I found God’s Word lying in green grass, covered in dew, and brought it...

Spent the morning with my loves at a cozy coffee shop in Arlington. I wrote in my journal about 2013, about my hopes for renewal and rebirth. My girl began writing in her tiny purple Moleskine, too. Tonight we will light candles, share our writings and craft a family vision for this year to come. Then we will pop popcorn and play a game, and then we will blow out...

I catch sight of them in the store and stop in my tracks. I stand in front of the wooden bin for a long time and use the thick metal scoop to lift and pour pile after pile, watching the cream, mustard and burgundy spin down. I say over and over again in a soft voice (to no one in particular) that these beans, these beans right here are the...

I’m staying cocooned in my home this week, working through each little pain and complication of last week’s surgery. The pain brings clarity of focus, and I find myself considering small details, like the banding on this teeny hand-thrown vase, for long moments.

“…and being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” ~ Luke 22:44 I clear the dinner plates from the table, pile them into the sink and begin to rinse them off when the crushing weight of remembering hits me again, making my heart thump heavy. In three days my mind will know nothing. The night before,...

I stood at the edge of the tracks, very close, maybe too close. But I’d never had a train pass within feet of my body. I did not know what it felt like to be nudged by that great wave of air coming fast in front of the engine, and I wanted to know, just in case. So I stood close and felt a cracking pain in my eardrum when...

I wonder if a butterfly hanging wet-winged and upside down from a slender branch doesn’t look up at the grass or down at the sky and think to herself, “Hello, Grass,” or “Hello, Sky, I have been away for a while. But I am here now.” In June of 2010 started working full-time in order to provide for the family during a long financial dry spell. I found out quickly...

The older men always doze on the evening bus ride back to suburbia. Their heads nod in unison, lowering to their chests, and with each pneumatic sighing press of the brakes, their heads flick upright, as if mounted on hinges, and so they nod their agreement that, yes, their days are numbered.