Singleness & the Myth of Scarcity

“I’ve never known a love like this.” The refrain often found below posts of diamond rings and starry-eyed kisses. A declaration in the midst of thoughtful vows said in white dresses with peonies as far as the eye can see. “I’ve never known a love like this.” Printed on picture frames with tiny squishy baby […]

For the Single Ladies

She walks in beauty, like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that’s best in dark and bright Meet in her aspect and in her eyes; Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies. -Lord Byron   I think of you as I sit at my desk this morning. […]

Drunk in Love

I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. Song of Solomon 6:3 KJV And We are Drunk in Love.   When Mr. & Mrs. Shawn Carter hit the stage of the 2014 Grammys their appearance was about more than collaborating on another hit. As Laura Turner wrote for BuzzFeed at the time, “Their performance […]

The Math of Friendship

Math has always been my hardest subject. I still count on my fingers and only know my times table by rote. If my life depended on solving a quadratic equation, I would be absent in the body and present with the Lord. But no math vexes me quite like the math of friendship with my […]

Does God Love My Body?

I’m half-crouched on grass at the base of a wood pile. As an eleven-year-old, I take care of the chickens in the nearby coop. I’m sucking in breaths, and so is my little sister as we stumble over the knobs of black walnuts fallen from the tree above and make occasional lunges at the pile. […]

Sexual Redemption in Community

Not many of us can find strength to resist temptation, perseverance in purity, and lasting forgiveness without community. Shepherds, teachers, mentors, leaders: You have people under your care who are engaging in self harm and dangerous behavior to externalize pain, and contemplating suicide to end pain because they are being crushed beneath suffering and sin. […]

Sex: a Work in Progress

Scene from a popular television show: Two characters, having previously flirted for several seasons with will-they-or-won’t-they tension, figure out they are sexually attracted to each other. They grab each other, bodies grinding against each other, hands tearing off clothes, mouths practically consuming the other’s face. Cue moaning and grunting. He pushes her up against the […]

This Is Why I’m Single

You, who likely do not know me, probably have a guess as to why I’m single. Maybe I’m afraid of commitment. Maybe I’ve never been in a serious relationship. Maybe I come from too troubled of a past. Maybe I’m “just not really trying.” Here’s why I’m single: because I just am. I’ve gone to […]

Black Love: A Sacred Oneness

In this country the Black body has always been subject to the breaking and the taking—yet we’ve clutched tight to the promise to love. Against all odds we willed our oneness. Finding the other half of ourselves in moonlit fields, dimmed juke joints and strobe-lighted clubs. Safe places allowed us to wash away the touch […]

Can Opener

When I think about you trying to open me I think of a can of tomato soup It’s the only thing you can afford when you’re so broke You let strangers into your body. I think of my can opener, how I can never find it in the gore of underused utensils. I think of […]

Skepticism and Singleness

“God? If you’re real, please be real to me.” I had prayed this prayer before, but much more calmly, confident God would come through. But he hadn’t, and this time it was with much more anguish that I cried out to him, or maybe to nothing, in my head. I kicked off my bed sheets […]