I got off the bus at my new school and saw the parking lot filled with cars. This was nothing like my former crowded, noisy, urban Philadelphia high school with the dark stairwells and constant police presence. I’d never seen so many Ford Tauruses in my life. Some even had monograms on the doors. I […]
Beauty
Finding God in Fairytales
As a child, I blurred the lines between fiction and reality. After reading twenty of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books, I imagined that every step in the garden was part of a Great Adventure, and looked for clues for treasure everywhere: in twigs and castles. I fell in love with novels, which is to say, […]
Portrait of A Both Girl
I am not black. I am not white. I am somewhere between the ink and the page, the word that is blurred out. I am not what you assume She speaks Spanish… can’t quite place her…. definitely not from around here I am from around here. I grew up down that stone road […]
The Welcome of What Is
There are many rhythms that carry me through daily life and into the presence of God. As a Midwesterner, the four seasons have become a perpetual joy and sometimes annoyance, but a cadence upon which my body, mind, and soul have come to rely. As an Anglican, the liturgy, Eucharist, and church calendar have carried […]
Does Your Church Smell?
I had read two books on Orthodox Christianity. That’s it. So obviously, I had no idea what to expect when I visited St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Church for its Sixth Hour Prayer service. What I did know was that for some time now, I’d felt a deep desire to silence myself before the Lord, and […]
Stirrings
This is an excerpt from Suanne Camfield’s new book, The Sound of a Million Dreams: Awakening to Who You Are Becoming. The stomach flu was a bad one. Eric was sick. Clay was sick. Sadie had just gotten done being sick. It was the eighth time we’d had the stomach flu in four years, one of […]
A Conversation I Never Expected to Have
This poem was performed at Deeply Rooted: A Gathering in May 2016. I was made with more than flesh in mind; A mind! Imagine that. A mind that reasons & wonders why All you see are body parts; Mountains & valleys that you can walk over & conquer. Not afraid of rough terrain or how […]
The Sexually Pregnant Mind
I see the curves of my breast and they please. I see the round of my rump and it entices. I see the button of my belly & giggle at its cuteness. I rub the bulging bump that sustains my daughter it is tight but lovely. My legs are thick pillars supporting the […]
Out of My Wildness
This lyric poem was inspired by these two Bible verses: Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Song of Solomon 8:5 “I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called […]