STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

Home, and a Pretty Long List that Helped Me Get There

Hello Old Friends Ahh…Hi there, I’ve been wanting to sit down and write to you all for a while now. I have had several people ask me lately for a health status update and it seems like a good time to send out a more personal note, because I have very happy news. After six months of solid fevers, several more of intermittent fevers and basically ten months all together of.. Read More

Dear Lovely Bird Who Doesn’t Know She is Free

Beneath undesired circumstances I was given an opportunity to make a choice. I have chosen to believe that to simply be alive is holy. I choose this, not without a struggle today and maybe again tomorrow. But eventually this will get clearer, I know that because it already has, but not how I thought it would, not the way I expected. A Story A few weeks ago, I asked a.. Read More

Our Stories, Our Needs: Seeing What’s True

Our stories are ours, but when we give them away that’s when they become much more, or maybe better said, that’s when we realize the truth—they are more. The truth is always there. The more we practice this, the more our seeing gets attuned to truth in the first place. Sharing is good, however, it’s scary too, I know. So many places to trip up in this process: comparing, and believing.. Read More

Words: For When Clarity Comes With Confusion

Sometimes clarity has a companion. Sometimes clarity comes in the midst of a cloud, piercing through one minuscule facet of its heaviness and there it is—illuminating myriad colors. But, then it’s just all cloudy again. We’re encompassed, again. So we weep. So we soar. Out of tears, thoughts. —Leon Wieseltier Sometimes we’re immersed in waters, the waters that cleanse us. Beneath—sounds, sights, clarity is muted—a story half understood. This baptism,.. Read More

While I Was Sleeping…

Hello Friends! I’m thinking it’s time for an update! Since I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I’ve been dealing with some illness I wanted to take a few minutes to share on that level. It’s difficult to explain something you don’t understand, so I have not given many specific details about my health journey. One measurable issue however has been a consistent fever basically every day of the past six months, until.. Read More

Dear Dying Heart: A Slight Figure of Speech

“They say you’ve gotta lose a couple fights to win It’s hard to tell that from where I’m sitting They say that this is where the fun begins I guess it’s time that I was quitting A slight figure of speech I cut my chest wide open They come and watch us bleed Is it art like I was hoping now?” —Avett Brothers, Slight Figure of Speech Dear fellow sojourners.. Read More

The River of God: A Poem & Prayer (OR, How Needs and Limitations Invite)

And now for something completely different 🙂 — kinda. It’s been a long time since I’ve shared my own poetry, and these days my poems take the shape of prayers, or at least help me find the way to deep heart prayers. I have hesitated so often in sharing these due to many voices who say heart prayer need be “nothing more” than simple cries, such as “help!”. I get that… Read More

Finding Faith Through Fear, Finding Jesus Near: A Prayer

I know it’s been awhile. I have much to tell you all—and I hope I can find the words in time because it’s a good story. I’ve been ill for a little while and I’m finally on the better side of it, stretching towards recovery, wholeness and health…I opened up the computer to figure out where to begin and found a draft I never let fly. It seems like a good time now:.. Read More

The Truth About Trial

The truth about trials is that, in time, their appearing monumental reality crumbles and whirls away like dust in the wind. The lasting things though? That’s what we are planting consistently in the midst and passing seasons of trials and successes, disasters, distresses, the celebratory and oh most of all, the ordinary, days. It seems to me that, at first, we discover by “accident”, the way things come to us… Read More

The Liminal Space of Prayer

Friends, How to capture the essence of the largeness of the tiniest details that completely reinvent our days is sometimes—beyond words. I’m writing to you from a different state, address and perspective than I last wrote. This past month, in my mind I’ve written you a hundred thoughts. My hands, however, have been a wee preoccupied; working to unpack, and recreate the warmth of “home” for my family of eight. Today,.. Read More