Loneliness
Loneliness to be home with Him Yes, I have been blessed to call many places home . . . and yet something in me knows they are not home—I merely call them such, because they remind me of the place where...
View ArticlePoverty
Poverty to be crowned by Him We are all blind until we are poor. I find the world is slipping through my fingers, like dust, as I lift my hands to Him. But I do not relinquish what is finite to remain...
View ArticleInsecurity
Insecurity to be rooted in Him I am a writer. We artists are known to stand on shifting sands; one day it is feast, the next it is famine. Is it foolishness to pursue what we love, what we feel called...
View ArticleA Rule of Life
Insecurity to be rooted in Him — Poverty to be crowned by Him — Loneliness to be home with Him — Insignificance to be saint for Him Read more ... The post A Rule of Life appeared first on Catholic...
View ArticleRadiant
She was the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen. My sister, gowned in lace, flowers adorning her hair. My sister, tall and elegant, processing up the aisle. My sister, a princess being offer by the...
View ArticleIn the Space Between
In the space between emotional highs and emotional lows, that is where you discover the Lord’s will. For the highs may sweep you away, like a torrent over a cliff, and the lows may suffocate you, like...
View ArticleA New Day
We go down to sleep, knowing a new day awaits us. Night is not eternal. But it must come for there to be day. Snow has fallen and will continue to fall. Summer is lost to us; winter marches onward, its...
View ArticleSimplicity
Simplicity does not necessarily mean a cabin in the woods (especially since a cabin in the woods is not always possible). I believe simplicity is finding the One in all. Yes, it is to find His face in...
View ArticleWake Up
One day, the world will wake up screaming. It has created a nightmare from which it does not yet desire to escape, because it does not yet realize it is trapped in darkness. Light is a distant sphere,...
View ArticleMushrooms
I was walking with my eyes on the way before me. Moss compressed beneath my feet and tickled my palms where it had spread to cloak the trees. Leaves ruddy with autumn were scattered through the forest...
View ArticleA Hopeless Romantic
Our God is a romantic—truly, a hopeless romantic. We know this by creation: sea creatures that glow electric blue when touched by night, Everest rising ragged above all else, a sky awash with a...
View ArticleAmon and the Bricks
Amon lives in a shrine, and his name means builder. His hair no longer glints as a raven’s wing does in the sunlight, for age and wisdom have revealed themselves. When his hair was black and his back...
View ArticleOne Soul
We live in a world that rates success by quantity: How much money have I made? How many people know my name? How big is my house? Even we as Christians fall into this thinking: How many devotions am I...
View ArticleMemories
Even when I was a child, I knew my childhood was good. A yellow farmhouse, forts, milking, horses, a cabin by the lake, traveling, imagination—I loved it in the moment. But now that I am an adult and...
View ArticleThe Gravity
This life is merely the blink of an eye, but the gravity of the blink is far greater than the blink itself. I believe the eye is in the moment before it will open; we are in darkness. What will the...
View ArticlePotatoes for Meekness
This was supposed to be a very different blog, about how I am working at a potato farm, and though it is a dirt-low job (literally), monotonous, and chilly, I am determined to stick to it—for love of...
View ArticleLike the Monks
I’ve long said that if I had been born a boy, I would have become a monk. This past weekend, I was at last able to take a peek into monastic life. A retreat from my world into another. I can’t say...
View ArticleExistence
Existence is like a mother and her child. She gives him life. Without her, he would never be. But she is as much to do with his creation as with his survival. Yes, she sustains him physically by...
View ArticleThe Edge of the Field
Brooding white sentinels stand in a blood-red mound, where their fallen comrades lie in decay. I can almost imagine wolves appearing from the birch forest to crest the mound, silvery phantoms with...
View ArticleLover
At last I am able to explain my long silence (that is, my astonishing lack of blogs in the past month or so). My first reason is that I decided to engross myself in the sequel to The Tree until its...
View ArticleHome to Be
I have been yearning to create a home. A home of warm simplicity—of hearth and hospitality, of fire and love (or perhaps they are one?). Where family and friends alike feel comfortable enough to curl...
View ArticleLoss and Gain
It’s been nearly three months since my laptop first betrayed me. Alas, when it returned from the repair shop, it had not in fact repented (as I was told) and swiftly reverted to its old ways, leaving...
View ArticleThe Ship and the Stowaway
What words can be used to describe something as beautiful as an everlasting soul? When I flew home to spend two last weeks with my family before I am married and begin my own family, I did not...
View ArticleLiving in a Memory
We are living in a memory, said my youngest brother. He spoke this at random as we sat on the auburn beach of the lake I’ve swam in since I was a child. Quietly, we adults contemplated this sage...
View ArticleA Divine Gift
Driving home one evening from work, I noted an older couple strolling along side by side in the twilight. They were not holding hands, content with each other’s presence. And this image gave rise to...
View ArticleConfession of a Caterpillar
I have a confession to make. I am a caterpillar. I eat holes in people’s leaves. I do not intend to be destructive, for I do not realize what I am doing until I am plucked up by the Great Gardener,...
View ArticleThe Innkeeper in Us All
The bloodied and broken man is slung across the concave back of an ass and carried in this way to the door of an innkeeper. The master of the ass presses a coin purse into the innkeeper’s hand and...
View ArticleOneness
My family is here and I am happy. As I prepare for my wedding day, I’ve left behind my little haven in the country to stay with my family in a cottage by a river. My beloved is staying with us as well....
View ArticleDeepest Love
Love at its deepest is silent, I think. Because often when I look at Nicholas and see who he truly is, my heart is full but my mouth is empty. But if Love Himself is the Word, my love for my husband is...
View ArticleSparks
Human love is not an explosion. It is a series of sparks—and every spark rises to Heaven, for no matter how much you love your beloved, only God Himself can pervade every bit of your being as an...
View Article