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It sits prominently way up on the third shelf to the left of our fireplace. It’s a robin’s-egg-blue 1961 Chevy pickup truck and trailer with white trim made by Tonka at 1/18th scale. In the trailer is a plastic Black Angus steer with one horn slightly chipped.

These days, for example, many of us use social media to rush curated expressions of our life into public space. We can equate visibility with significance.

It’s as if my whole life I’ve been trying to learn a language, and it wasn’t until I started to write that I could finally speak it.

After I’ve set up each room, made sure the stories are complete, and accounted for the snacks and cups, then I get to pray.

The room was quiet as the two men shared their stories. Both told of heartbreak and loss. 

Uncombed gray hair falling down over wild eyes. The stench of the streets on unkempt clothes. He ordered coffee and sat in the booth next to me.

It was one of those oppressively gloomy mornings—the kind where it’s difficult to rouse yourself from sleep,

One word and she knew him.

Each Sunday at the Village Church we ask people who are celebrating birthdays to come forward and let us help them celebrate. 

Expectations are the enemy of contentment. On face value, this seems like a harmless platitude: Manage your expectations, and you’ll more readily avoid being disappointed.

Night after night, I listened
to my father's voice as it crept
up the stairs to my cold bedroom...

I’ve always known that you can’t get cleaned up for church, so to speak;

Lord, are you the one? Who summons a friend when darkness descends and hope is lost, and we need someone to talk to?

In the heat and humidity of a July afternoon,

A time will come to sit

The girl sitting at the front of the bus had gotten sick all over the sidewalk just before boarding.

When I was young and sitting in church we used to sing, Faith of Our Fathers

Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths,

We neared the diving cliff and surveyed the dark blue water of the Mexican cenote lying about 20 feet below.

I live in the desert, in a valley plain surrounded by four distinct mountain ranges.

I have five sisters.

For the first time in my life, I opened a Dutch dictionary.