STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

To See Hope, To Find Contentment

It occurred to me this week the way the river can have a similar illusion as an airplane does when you look at it from the opposing direction. If we didn’t know better it could seem as though both were moving in slow motion. How similar this is to family, to life. Sometimes from certain angles, we can look at our lives and buy into an illusion that it’s going.. 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

Such a Thing as Glory

In the Pacific Northwestern United States there are four distinct seasons, two with incredible contrasting “glory”, that is, presence—summer and winter. It strikes me as something to behold because it is new to me that the marked difference is not hot and cold as I have been accustomed to in the Midwest, but rather dry and wet. This year from the late Spring and throughout Summer to early Fall we.. Read More

On Wonder, Gentleness, Wholeness, and Other Such Impossible Possibles After You Have Been Torn (Hold the Miracle)

Hello friends, I hope you’ve had some time to seek gentleness lately. If you don’t know what I’m talking about click that link later, but for now travel with me a bit? I felt the wind and let things fly away. Weights flew. Hair flew. Concerns about my abilities…flew. Certain ways of eating, seeing, thinking, praying, seeking, flew, flew, flew, flew, flew. All at once, I feel light and like.. Read More

Digging Into 2018: Honest Reflections for Clarity, Resolve, & Life Giving

It’s the sting of the words that we can’t form, the ache in our chest and our throat searching for the relief of understanding, of being understood, that makes us freeze sometimes. There’s a sense of paralyzation even while we’re still fully functioning—going, doing, being—but still no relief. Then when come the hard things up on the horizon, it can be enough to send us into hiding. Tired, we wonder.. Read More

Looking for Purpose, Finding the Ground

Dear Tired Heart, You were brave and opened the cabinet of your self looking for purpose, calling, but found pain there where it seemed purpose was supposed to live. You are right. So, maybe linger a little longer? Please, don’t turn in disappointment because what is supposed to look shiny on the shelf is lying there in the soil while night falls ’round. Watch a minute? You thought it would be tidy.. Read More

How Love & Pain Mingle. How Clay Get’s Formed.

Living by a river this past month has been an experience to savor. At any part of the day we can hear it’s crashing. This has been true since we moved here but even more now that the rainy season has begun. It seems on the conservative side to say that the more stream-like river that we’ve been playing in rose by ten feet in a few days time. There is.. Read More

Only Time: A Sabbath Prayer

Did you know that the word for holy in the Bible, kadosh, was first used in reference to time, a day? “And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…”—Genesis 2:3(a) There’s a song we’ve sung, “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might. Heaven and earth are filled with Your glory. Hosanna! (Save me!) Hosanna! Hosanna! In the highest.” My husband and I sang this at our.. Read More