This piece was originally presented as a breakout session at The Upside Down Podcast Gathering in Chicago, September 21-22, 2018. It has more of a talking feel than a reading feel, so please forgive the lack of polish. Identifying the Wilderness When I was 4 I was placed in foster care because my […]
wilderness
Sometimes Leaving Is Just the Beginning
The Sunday that changed everything started like any other —wrangling kids into their car seats and rushing to leave the house on time. But as we drove the seven minutes to church, a fist of anxiety squeezed the middle of my chest, making it hard to breathe. We dropped the kids off at Sunday school, […]
To Dwell in the In Between
The sounds of bicycle bells, car horns, and rickshaw motors are my constant companion. They intermingle with the clanging of construction in a city that always seems to be expanding and the Call to Prayer five times a day reminds us that we are in an unfamiliar place. As foreign as these things feel, these […]
The Middle of the Wilderness
In the dreaded five minutes of saying hello to my neighbor every Sunday, I know we’ll come to a point where I’ll be asked the questions, “What brought you here? Why did you move?” I give them the one second answer to why we uprooted our lives in Las Vegas to move back to Southern […]
The Paradox of Unity
The last few months of my life have been an unexpected time-out. I’ve taken a (somewhat) self -induced sabbatical. This past July I lost my job. Two months later after nervously taking another job, I was unemployed again. Somewhere between all this employment drama, my grandmommy died—and that’s only a very small sampling of the […]