submitting to fermentation

3-26-16; Easter Saturday I measure out flour and water and add it with the bubbly, fermenting liquid called ‘starter’ that I keep stored in a jar in my kitchen counter. I could say I made this yeast-mixture myself, but I didn’t; I added flour and water together and then time took over. I add things, …

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love letter for a friend

(for 2-27-16) We sit around this corner table in your favorite Memphis brewery, the four of us, you and your love and me and mine. A few hours ago we were down by the riverside, balancing on a log, balancing each other on a log. Down by the riverside, arm in arm in arm in …

simplicity and farmer’s markets

(from Tuesday, 2-9-16) The canal path is white today and the bare tree branches dusted with snow; the flakes come down and greet my eyeballs with a handshake. The simplicity and the beauty of the snow make me think: what do I really want from life? Where will I find my joy? Because I recognize …

ebbing and flowing

(from 1-27-16) We are asked in class to introduce ourselves and share about our career path. I have been writing my way through my twenties and this writing helps me to orient myself to where I am and where I have been. The story I share comes with ease, though it is a deep reflection …

how we worship

This small congregation of 12, the ones K. tears up for when preaching about them in sermons, the ones who have to close their doors in too few days, too few to allow K. to be ordained in the church building he was raised up in. Where is the line between thriving and surviving? What …

heart-opening Quaker meeting

(January 10, 2016) It is First Day, Sunday, Quaker meeting. Today is his first visit to my holy place, my sacred ground. Only a couple of people are in the meeting room when we arrive and there is something so vulnerable and intimate about that. I’ve learned by now that when I bring friends here …

two weekends in the woods

(January 3, 2016) I like to imagine myself as a deer in the woods; long-legged and leaping from one place to next. This is how I envision my experience. In reality, in the woods, I follow my love (not to the fields, Wendell Berry – the woods are even better) and am so happy to …

new year new me

January 1, 2016 In a wood-floor room with huge windows that look upon the meandering river below, the dancers make a circle. Everybody has a partner and we will progress around the circle, switching partners; no eye will be unlooked upon. I have been coming to these dances long enough that I finally feel comfortable, …

joy, and undoing the knowing

(12-28-15) My friend unwraps Reese’s bells with the greatest deliberation and sets them before himself on the counter. One, two, three, four. He stuffs them all into his mouth at once because they taste better that way. Tears roll down my cheeks, my abs ache, I can’t breathe. I laugh every time just remembering it. …

last of Gethsemani

I may already be back at home, but here are two last shorts about Gethsemani, my friends. I have noticed when I do the things I think I “should” do but do not really want to do, I feel stifled; I want to climb out of my skin. I sit, squirmy, through Christmas Eve mass, …