Listen to Nichole Woo read this anonymous piece by clicking below. She scuffs over sidewalks toward heavy high school doors, (always locked) with dauntless steps that prick my heart. One thing I know: Her feet will forever fall on roads in want of wear.1 Frost – he got to choose. But not my girl. […]
Ascendancy: Losing My Mother & Finding My Way
To hear Chelle read her piece, click the link below. As I write this, one friend has just entered hospice care, as we anticipate the death of yet another parent. I am tired. Nevertheless, I press on. It is what I do. Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart […]
Freeing Myself {Part 2: Belonging}
To hear Nicole read her piece, click below: Trust in the slow work of God… Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.-Pierre Teilhard de […]
Freeing Myself {Part 1: Awakening}
Click here to listen to Nicole read her piece: “For my entire life, it seemed that people had been shouting at me—telling me what to believe and how to act…’There is a new voice,’ Mary Oliver wrote of the journey of awakening, ‘which you slowly recognize as your own.’ Until my mid-thirties, I did not […]
Lost Girl
I can’t smell it, as a pack of coyotes do when they corner trembling prey. But I can always see fear. It swept across her face like a time-lapsed eclipse: First, panic in those tiny, azure eyes. Then the floodgates burst forth. Tears barreled down her cheekbones and mingled with stray, blond hairs that matted […]
Announcing our Fall Themes!!
We need your voices! This September, The Mudroom is launching a four-month series titled “Lost & Found: Stories of Belonging in a Bruised and Broken Body.” We desire to amplify the stories of those who’ve ever felt unseen, untethered, or set adrift from the Church—and those who have found or are finding, their way back. […]
Following the Thread
I want to tell you a love story. Simple, yet multi-layered–woven of many threads over twenty-four years–and true. *** We are standing at a playground alongside the creek carrying clear snow melt through the arteries of my small town. I watch my seven-year-old grandniece, Sarah*, struggle to puzzle out what I am telling her about […]
Generational Divide
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a teaching conference during which I attended a session specifically geared toward identifying and breaking down generational barriers. Many educators in the room could share the same story – frustrated by colleagues of various other generations who had different modes of teaching and learning, who could access teaching […]
Let’s make family genius
Lately, I’ve been obsessed with the word “genius.” I’ve always thought a genius was a person who’s both extremely smart and spectacularly innovative. Pablo Picasso. Roman Polanski. Erwin Schrödinger. A genius is a person who single-handedly transforms our ideas of art, story, or science. And then I started researching creativity and that inspiring image got […]
What Strong Women Do
None of the ladies in my family shrink back. Distinctly southern, full voices fill the room when we enter. We’re known for our loud laughs and warm embraces. We aren’t afraid to speak our minds and take the lead. We see a space and fill it. We see a need and fill it. I never […]
Because of You
Because of you, I yearn to be alive.Because of you, ‘till death (you) must realize.In my heart I know there is only you.And ask my heart, you’ll know that this is true. Ang hirap at pasakit, ng pusong umiibig (Tagalog): The pain and sorrows from love arise Each time I say goodbye to my […]
Will We Weep?
One clings to a flagpole. The other wades in a cistern’s mire. She, a black activist in South Carolina. He, a Jewish prophet from Jerusalem. Bree Newsome Bass climbs thirty feet from the ground. Jeremiah wallows almost as many below it. To Grieve is to Anguish, over nations who turn from God to idols of […]
Grief – Inseparable
She knocks on the front door, but she really didn’t have to. I saw her crouching there a few days ago. I can feel her presence before she announces herself. I didn’t invite her; she simply comes. She isn’t a respecter of persons; she visits you, too. She visits us all. Sometimes, I feel […]
I’m Sad I Can’t Watch TV
Here are my TV and movie rules, as I understand them: No lying, at least not sustained lying. It’s okay to fib occasionally, but if someone is “going undercover” or “pretending to be someone they’re not,” I’m done. No fantasy. No sci-fi. Let’s have the universe operate under the known rules, which are already unpredictable, […]
The Mathematics of Life
“I just wanted you to know I hear you. I see you.” I received this voice message from a friend in response to a long, rambling complaint I sent the day before. “In walking with people through grief and loss, I’ve recognized how powerless I am to rescue anyone, said Aubrey Sampson. “And I’ve been […]
River Untamed
Walk slowly along the path this morning. Listen to the soft collapse of dry earth and loosened rocks under the wasted rubber soles of shoes deeply imprinted by the bones of tired feet.. The pathway and the riverbed are dry today. Dry rocks, like Elijah’s dry bones, cry out for water, for life – for […]
The Good Catastrophe
And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb and went away. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting […]
A Hope that’s Hidden in Grief
My father and I had stopped at his office so he could pick up a few things before his flight for his business trip. We were in no rush—his flight didn’t leave until after 1pm. We planned to get some breakfast in town before leaving for the airport. He stood looking at some papers while […]