|the class of ’23|

a graduation speech Well, you did it. You made it, and I am so proud of each and every one of you. Thank you from all of your teachers for working hard and persevering to the end. We are thankful to have taught you, and we celebrate with you as you step into the next …

|the same ordinary sameness|

The trick, she told me, is to rejoice in the sameness, because the unexpected isn't the ordinary and most days are just that: the same ordinary lived one after another. Maybe it feels like the unexpected is what keeps life interesting, but it's all the ordinary ways that make a life keep going. Neglect a …

|stumbling into love again|

Some mornings, it's near impossible. The tiredness and soreness of heart are both so heavy on the soul that the thought of righting yourself as the day begins yet again sends your whole self back under the covers where the darkness of sleep shelters you from what you don't want to face. That's the way …

|letting the light in|

"The heavy rifeness of honeysuckle," Faulkner wrote as the boy running into freedom felt the starlit road unspooling like a ribbon beneath his feet. And now, whenever our feet pass by the honeysuckle in early May and the heavy rifeness fills our lungs, the light pours in with it, because this scent -- this arresting …

|expand my love|

We walked through the damp field after a night of rain and wind that kept us on the edge, never quite awake, but certainly not asleep. The whole field was one long puddle, sodden beneath the mist still hanging in the cool morning air. "People," I thought aloud, and Charley listened, "People say the meanest …

|book friends on World Book Day|

When I was a child, I discovered what so many before me already knew: within the pages of a story you can be. You can be daring or just adventurous enough to make your heart skip a beat. You can be safe, sheltered from fears in the comfort of a familiar place. You can be …

|here within us|

"We was going fast." That's what the boy at the end of the story said as the tears finally began to fall. "We was going so fast." How is it that at the same time, time can move at the pace of a snail yet also faster than we can blink? How do the days …

Glory in the Morning

When my grandmother, Audrey Faye Gossett, was little, she was in a parade. It was 1936, and the CCC men were digging an 80-acre lake on part of her family’s property they deeded over to the state for a park. The days were lean, but the Gossetts were still at it. That’s the way it …

|reforming|

I know a lot of us "need more time," but here's the truth, y'all: we can't get more time. It isn't possible.  Before my kindred spirit, Holly, died, Abba started speaking to my husband and me about how we were stewarding our most finite resource. It was terribly convicting, so we began this life-long journey …

a life of coming Home.

There is a brisk winter wind today. It stings a little when I breathe, and I am glad. I am glad to have been born in winter, bleak as it often is. This season, as Thoreau once said, encourages us to "lead a more inward life," which is the life I live best. We aren't …