STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

HOPE

Hey there! Wanna go for a walk in the woods together? Afterwords, I have some news I’m eager to share with you today. I’ve been thinking about hope lately. I was traversing our wilds when the thought came to me that maybe hope is something to…practice. In the same moment a flash of remembrance over what we named our little river cottage, when we moved here, lit across my mind:.. Read More

Grow Gently: A Companion

I believe in hidden beauty, and in taking the time to perceive it. I believe if we look, we will find…even as the highway passes by in a blur. We all find ourselves there sometimes—life passing by, “too quickly” or “too slowly”. It’s painful. But, it’s not unredeemable. What a wealth of story lays in the creation surrounding us everyday of our lives, story of a breaking so that something.. Read More

The Faithfulness Writings Begin…

Tears are a language I know well, pain a companion I strive to learn from but often fight. Know that I write to you from a fully human place, it is why I write. “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” – I Corinthians 13:12(b) ESVi So, today, I write with dreams and hopes that as I do, maybe together.. Read More

Love, Part 2

I want to write that it’s taken me twenty years of marriage to become something close to the wife I want to be to my husband. It’s taken all sorts of letting-go-of-old to make space for the now. I simply have not always done this well, often because I was not aware I needed to, other times because I mistook running away from myself for truth-telling, truth-bearing, truth-living. That thing.. Read More

Forever: A Prayer

How is heaven to come down to earth? Often in the prayers of the early church God is referred to as Eternal One. In some records of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray, it ends with these words: Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. God is the forever One—an idea we both cannot comprehend and that the strangest things bear light upon it… Read More

Living and Seeing—Life

There are two doors. I was passing by the other after I had called them for dinner and caught this stacking up in the corner of my eye yesterday. Though I no doubt miss many of these moments, this preciousness caught me. Then this morning I realized I had taken a picture of their three older siblings a little earlier in the day. We had just finished a biology lesson… Read More

Night As Bright As Day: Pre-Eclipse Ponderings

Quick Personal Update With Thanks! I have so many things I want to tell you all. First, I want to say thank you so much to everyone who shared my book re-launch with others last week. I am thunderstruck. For someone who never expected to write a book at this stage of my life, the fact that it is published and actually circulating out in the wide world at all.. Read More

Free…Like Freedom and Free Book

Well, the day is beginning to wrap up as I send this out or maybe it already has where you live. Whether the sun is beginning to peak out or hide-away, here’s a story for you. But first, if you don’t have a lot of reading time tonight—I want you to have this free gift from me—my book is free on Amazon Kindle! Click here to go get it. Once upon.. Read More

How Freedom Sings P.S. It’s not how we thought

When I got married I wanted to dance. I don’t mean I was so in love that I felt like dancing. I mean there was that too. But, really I wanted dance to literally be a part of our ceremony. Or, at least, afterwards? I had grand schemes, all locked away in my mind. For several reasons none of this occurred, but there was a woman I knew who did dance. So.. Read More