In Faith and Gardens and Appalachia
In 2017, I wrote my first novel. Pfft, first and only. It’s the longest thing I’ve ever written, obviously, but BY FAR. For three years I have half-heartedly worked on the second draft. I hate almost every moment of this. The book centers around multiple characters over roughly four decades, and while it is centered […]
Here she is again, on about trees. I do not understand many of the decisions previous owners of this house made, but the one to plant a flowering dogwood tree was a good one. This one isn’t squat and perfectly shaped like a lot of the ornamental ones I see out and about. I imagine […]
I have never dreaded a winter so terribly. I suppose in part because so much of the year has already been spent in this quarantine quasi-hibernation, the coming lack of sunlight and warmth feels darker than ever. But, too I have never felt so many parts of myself die than I have this year. Deep […]
I wish I could write anything as beautifully as Luke 6 is to me. Jesus in Luke 6 comes out swinging. If Luke 6 ain’t hurting you, you ain’t listening. If Luke 6 doesn’t seem like a direct rebuke of our times, you ain’t watching. Foxes may be calling “Lord, Lord,” but they do not […]
You can stand on the banks, just watching the river, and think you are safe. The current is so strong, though, that the longer you watch, it pulls you in, sweeps you away, and miles downstream you realize you have been taken, realize you are gulping in water. There’s no rescue mission. Well, not exactly. […]
The electric company came and cut down my favorite tree. I was mad at them and at my parents for agreeing. My dad took the wood, made boards from it on Pawpaw’s sawmill, and built me a desk. Now I write on it. I study God on it. The tree and I both grew up […]
The months of great discomfort continue on. I find no peace in my heart and no peace on earth. A drop of clarity came this morning, as I read more of “Me and White Supremacy” by Layla F. Saad. In this secular book, written by a Muslim woman, I find the traps I’ve fallen into. […]
I am working to bring together and organize ideas I’ve jotted in multiple journals and notebooks, on receipts and hotel paper. I am going through files on an old hard drive that has carried over stories and poems and essays from computer to computer for the last two decades. Revisiting the heartbreaks and pain of […]
An experiment in microfiction, wherein I try to tell a story in under 250 words. June would have no children. “Lord, you alone are my inheritance. You are my prize, my pleasure, and my portion,” she prayed over the petunias spilling from the pots on her porch. She plucked the dead heads with no great […]
A Meditation This morning, I told Jesus, “You are tricky. You know you are tricky.” Jesus said hard things. I’m not a theologian. God has built in me a love for words. I am trained to analyze words. I was trained to micro-analyze words. Put your finger on the poem and focus on that word […]