It’s All About the Agenda

  Tomorrow I leave for Mount Hermon.  Mount Hermon is Christian-writer-speak shorthand for the Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference. It’s a bona fide big deal. It’s a place that makes me sigh into my mug and whisper maybe next year. But last November I entered this contest. And the contest sponsor created a second prize just so I wouldn’t walk off empty-handed. By the […]


Another River, Another Prayer

The Ocean Calls Her Rivers Home. Oregon, 2014.  Another Thin Place Does fresh water, running towards the sea, stretch a place thin*?  I’ve written before (more than once) about Laity Lodge and the tranquility that inhabits the air on the campus along the banks of the Frio river.  Last week, my husband and I visited Oregon to watch […]


Poverty, Dignity, and Peanut Butter Sandwiches

  Last weekend, an earnest, freckled Cub Scout approached me outside our grocery store and asked me to help with his food drive.  He gave me a list of especially-needed food items for the food pantry at South County Outreach and invited me to fill up the special red plastic bag that marked “food drive food.” […]


Comfort, Baked: How a Casserole Becomes Famous

It Started at Shipmates When I was a small child, my family worshiped at First Congregational UCC in San Bernardino. Our parents belonged to Shipmates, a couples’ fellowship. Many of my most enduring memories of that congregation stem from Shipmates-instigated activities. Notable among these events were Pal Week (a secret-friend type weeklong adventure that must remain […]


Horror and Outrage

Cadence, Sawyer, Elaine: Group Hug Beyond Imagination We mourn together for lives cut short in an ugly blast of gunfire. One moment, twenty beautiful young students and the adults entrusted with their education were studying the chalkboard, perhaps, or bent over worksheets.  And then suddenly, we were all robbed of their lives. A nation grieves […]