13 Jun 2015

Swing low, sweet compact car

by | posted in: Nature, Uncategorized | 0

I don’t remember whose idea it was to climb into a strange car in the middle of the night and drive around Boulder, Colorado looking for flowers to steal. On our direction, the driver would stop and several of us, all students, bolted to the flower beds that lined the streets in a posh section of town. We tore stems, dozens at a time, free. By the time we decided we’d gathered enough, we were buried under piles of irises, peonies, daisies, zinnias, snapdragons.

Once home, we dumped our haul onto our long, scratched, fiftieth-hand dining room table. They smelled incredible, filling our dank little rental house on The Hill with the wheeze of tender summer, just beginning to unroll. We didn’t own vases or containers that hadn’t or wasn’t currently holding alcohol…read more

18 Apr 2015

Shoplifters of the World, Disband and Get Jobs

by | posted in: Faith, Uncategorized | 0

He walked through grocery stores and I followed him. I was his ride, the driver of his getaway car. He wore a black leather jacket a few sizes too large so he could load an astonishing array of items inside. He managed to slide apples, bags of chocolate, packs of meat, and medications into the coat. They rode nestled next to his back and under his arms. The first time he revealed his talent for stealing, I nearly vomited as he hustled me out of the store. I was alarmed, disgusted, appalled. I drove away from the store as he laughed and proudly pulled each item out, waving them in my face. Could I believe it? It was too easy…read more

18 Feb 2015

Blessed are the Light Packers ~ A Lenten Reflection

by | posted in: Faith, Uncategorized | 0

Pilgrims had to pack light. There is no such thing as a pilgrimage that takes you one block down and two to the right. That is called walking to the corner store to buy a gallon of milk. It might take one song pounded through earbuds to get there and another home.

A true pilgrimage demands sacrifices of time and distance, of comfort, of familiarity. The journey is just as important as the destination. There are mercies and hardships. There is movement. There is rest. There is camaraderie. The pilgrim prepares before embarking by considering what must be packed and what can be left behind. Some of these decisions are simple and obvious: A pilgrim will need water and nutrient-dense food. A pilgrim will not need a 5-pound sack of sugar-free gummy bears…read more

2 Dec 2014

The Ministry of Mrs. Clean Jeans

by | posted in: Parenthood, Uncategorized | 0

I stalk denim and I know why.

In the early 1980s, nothing was more fashionable in my small town than Levis 501s paired with Chippewa boots and a powder jacket. My elementary school was overrun by kids with parents who thought it totally awesome to outfit growing children in expensive leather work boots and expensive jeans topped with expensive ski jackets. My parents didn’t. Perhaps they could have if my dad didn’t drink the clothing money…read more

13 Nov 2014

The Porch Rabbit Lives

by | posted in: Faith, Nature | 0

Every time we have stepped out the front door the past few days, a small rabbit was hunkered a few feet down, trapped. Earlier in the week, one of the kids saw the rabbit dart into a small hole under the concrete front porch. It would have made an excellent home, but my husband filled in the hole with dirt and packed it tightly. The rabbit’s only hope rested solely in digging itself out.

I wasn’t happy when I heard. I have a soft spot for rabbits. My first non-fish pet was a rabbit I won at work when I was a senior in high school. I worked at Target and they were giving away a rabbit as a prize in a trivia contest at the store’s Christmas party. As an adult, it occurred to me a co-worker must have wanted to unload the rabbit and believed the Christmas party was just the ticket. There is no way they obtained a rabbit to be a prize when they had an entire store of items to choose from. That’s why God invented Requisition Forms… read more