STAY, in the Breath

letters from a writer & photographer's journey

The Deepening Gaze of Faithfulness

In the early morning, of this fairyland I live in, the air is brimming with sound. The roosters remind me I live in rural America but the other bird songs are still so newborn to me that it persists to feel as my first morning here, like the stuff of dreams. In a reverie it feels like I’m enclosed by tropical forest and its reverberations. The bright blue wing of.. Read More

Love, Part 4

Our family had an opportunity to partake in an event recently that I felt deeply moved by, yet as it moved closer I recognized an old drive within me peaking its head out, one that was afraid of missing out (FOMO); me—on the look-out for the next-great thing. The anticipation that brings joy is not wrong, but sometimes I have let it blind me to the participation in the present.. Read More

Walking in Health, Listening to The River: Simple Helps to Detox From Stress

The intensity of the river can be heard from our front road, an entire acre away. Its continual word, shh. It’s shushing us. Even as we turn to leave the drive, we’re being reminded. Shush. Maybe we’re learning. We’ve been practicing putting our hands over our eyes while we pray. We’re taking our sense of sight away briefly in hopes to notice it better when it is returned. Maybe, with.. 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

The Wilds: Live Awake in Wonder

Wild, wilds, wilderness…these words have been calling to me for some time now. I see them everywhere I go. I feel them. I want them. Then I wake here. I put another book in another box from one of our many bookshelves to go resell it. We are downsizing, eliminating, purging—from a large house to a small house in the next few weeks, one step at a time. One. decision… 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

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