November 29, 2025 We got a text from our *child’s school alerting us in advance that our child had not been chosen for something for which they’d put a metaphorical hat in the ring. “We’ll announce it tomorrow, and we’re letting you know so you can prepare your child as you think best.” “How should we break it?” I mused to my husband, neither of us looking forward to delivering the bad news...
November 13, 2025 A few weeks ago, my schedule created an accidental interesting mashup of ideas: the Center for Christianity and Public Life conference (which I wrote about here), overlapped briefly with a trauma-informed care course I’m taking. To join a live small group conversation with the course trainer, renowned psychologist Dr. Dan Allender, I step out of the conference, where...
November 8, 2025 Bulbs of light, stories as candles—celebrating a beautiful night co-hosting Ordinary Saints with Church of the Advent & Coracle. One week ago at this time, I was just getting my tired kids to bed, too late, full on afterglow from a delicious evening of new friends, brave stories, and sumptuous cheese boards. I won’t say the next day was pretty, with overtired little bodies...
October 28, 2025 One of the first things I do each morning, before slinking quietly out of the dark room to avoid waking my still sleeping husband, is open the drawer under my bed and remove the workout clothes on top of the pile. Exercise has long been a part of my routine, a thing I get done early for a strong start to the day. I like to push myself, watch the numbers climb on my Apple watch. I...
October 20-21, 2025 Have you ever seen one of those ads that starts off with a supposed brand confession and apology? “We admit it, we were wrong when we said we were one of the best skin care lines. We’re so sorry to everyone who purchased our products.” The big reveal is utterly predictable, even as it keeps you hanging on: “Turns out we’re not one of the best because of our incredible products...
September 30, 2025 I initially wrote this as one long stream of consciousness paragraph, which, upon reflection, felt like a mean-spirited way to convey the experience, though perhaps more artistically accurate. I’m not famous enough to expect people to suffer through such a confounding form, so I decided to revisit the original text with paragraph breaks, the insertion of which changed the...
Nothing in my hands I bring. It’s a line from an old hymn, and a refrain that periodically echoes through my imagination. Any Christian could tell you it describes a core element of our theology, that salvation is not earned, but is a grace freely given. But true as this may be as a matter of doctrine, as a matter of practice this lovely idea wars with the implicit assumption most of my life...
September 16, 2025 “I didn’t want Charlie Kirk to die, I wanted him to be different,” my friend Jonathan wrote in a recent substack. Jonathan is a black man, the kind of person Kirk might have had in mind when he said “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.” –...
Use this as a self-guided meditation to practice finding what matters most in the every day. Gather: Clean, unfolded laundry Something to write with / on A snack (A friend, why not?!) Introduction: Humanity has long held up the good the true and the beautiful as core virtues. For me, these all stem from God, because this is who God is. God, and thus these qualities of God, pervade the whole...
August 29, 2025 In a world where every summer must be christened a new flavor of ___ girl summer, mine for the past few years have increasingly been singing the same melody: one long, hot, potato summer. Sitting down with my breakfast at the appointed time on the first day of school, kids safely dispatched, to resume my discipline of writing. Quiet house, alarm set to remind me to get up in time...