Preparations and Feast We start early. Dressed in layers that reflect the cool spring morning, and the day of feasting to come. Waiting for the sun to rise. We are a faithful few, gathered and quiet – maybe a little impatient – steam rising from our cups, waiting. As the light blinks above the tree-line, […]
Community
We Were Never Meant to Walk Alone
Charting a Course Alone “You can be anything you want,” they said. “If you can dream it, you can be it,” we were told. My generation grew up believing we could follow our bliss, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and every other cliche of the American dream. We were led to believe we were […]
Post-Reflections on the Buffalo, New York Shooting Massacre
Discerning the Content of my Heart As a little girl, the Walnut Park Fred Meyer’s felt more like church or a mini family reunion rather than a grocery store. Centered at the heart of our small Black community—laughter, joy and service stocked shelves and overstuffed aisles. I witnessed the practice of unconditional love and collective […]
Podcast: How Shattered Expectations Lead to Hope with Tatyana Claytor
Native Bermudian Tatyana Claytor is a writer, academic, and mother of four. A navigator of multiple cultures and life experiences, Tatyana meets us in The Mudroom today for a discussion on how expectations shape us and our perception of God. Lean in for her extraordinary story . . . http://mudroomblog.com/how-relational-expectations-shape-our-vision-of-god/ Tatyana’s Website: https://tatyanastable.com/ Links to Tatyana on the […]
How Relational Expectations Shape our Vision of God
Editor’s Note: Catch our recent conversation with Tatyana, where she unpacks more about expectations in the context of her own incredible story, on The Mudroom Podcast. Click here. For good or for bad, the relationships we have in our lives create our image of God. These include the important ones like our parents, spouses, and […]
Of Thorns and Skin
Listen to the audio recording of Prasanta’s words here, or read her piece below: Of Thorns and Skin Your Task Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.* A long wind brushes its fingers through the trees […]
Seasons of Community
The summer sun is high, although the afternoon clock inches toward six. The sprinkler water play in my front yard has turned into mud soup creations. I watch my children as they gather ingredients with the neighbor kids. Buckets hold their pulled-up weeds and mud. Garden tools turn into mixing spoons. I yell towards the […]
Under this Same Sun
It wasn’t cued to play today. It’s been years. But somehow between My Chemical Romance, Green Day, Imogen Heap, and all the other music encroaching the playlists of parents with teens, it surfaced: This fragment of life Lora gave me a lifetime ago. I listen to The Weepies, as the Steve Tannen from 16 years […]
Lead Me by the Right Road
The package of letters is staring me down. I finally took them out of their hiding place from my dining table chair. I couldn’t look at them the first couple of days, couldn’t acknowledge their existence. Tonight, I moved them into sight. I eye them warily while playing solitaire and listening to the second book […]
Podcast: Finding Grace in the Middle
Season 1 Episode 5 This podcast is a companion piece that goes along with the previous post of the same name. In this episode, writer Nicole Walters narrates her latest Mudroom piece, “Grace in the Middle,” with pauses throughout where she speaks deeper into the meaning of her text. If you find yourself in the […]
Stifling Order or Cataclysmic Chaos: A Lesson on Institutions from Loki
“Stifling order or cataclysmic chaos” are the two options offered in the finale to Disney Plus’s new series Loki. This stifling order comes in the form of institutional reign with little regard to the individual needs of people. The alternative, however, with nothing in between, is the horror of anarchy. At least this is what […]
Podcast: What Are You Afraid Of?
Season 1, Episode 4 Catherine McNiel is asking this question of herself and others: “What are you afraid of?” Why, she asks, are we, as Christ-followers, often taught to fear our neighbors, withhold hospitality from strangers, and vilify the “others”–those whose beliefs, appearances, and lives look different than our own and perceive them as a […]
How Do I Stay in the Church?
Sitting cross-legged in front of my boombox, I pressed “rewind” on the tape deck, carefully navigating to the right spot on the cassette. The radio was tuned to the Top 40 and I was dying to capture my favorite songs when they aired. Once my cassette tape was queued up, I sat and listened for […]
Podcast: Soul Care and Transformative Power
We interviewed Suzanne about her new book, The Journey Toward Wholeness: Enneagram Wisdom for Stress, Balance, and Transformation, published by InterVarsity Press. It was such a beautiful time with her and we know you all will love it!! Suzanne Stabile is a highly sought-after speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of […]
Podcast: The Gifts of Liminal Space
We interviewed Suzanne about her new book, The Journey Toward Wholeness: Enneagram Wisdom for Stress, Balance, and Transformation, published by InterVarsity Press. It was such a beautiful time with her and we know you all will love it!! Suzanne Stabile is a highly sought-after speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of […]
Inverting Transformation: How Encanto Shows Weakness Is Good
In Disney’s recent release Encanto, the concept of transformation is inverted. Our typical view of transformation is akin to our superhero origin stories. For example, Captain America is weak and scrawny, but once he is injected with a special serum, he becomes the muscle-rippling hero we all know and love. As a culture, we tend […]
Celebrate by Bearing Burdens
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 On any given day, my husband and I have a list of tasks we need to accomplish for our family, even more so during this time of year. There are kids to drive to school, pick up from school, take to practice, […]
Cloud by Day (Fire by Night)
Walter Breugeman talks a lot about the pharaoh the Israelites left behind. He says pharaoh is a stand-in for all the empires that have ever been: Egypt. Rome. Western capitalism. I remember being shocked in college when I first heard somebody question capitalism. You can question that? I thought. Boy, can you! As an economy, […]