Waiting in the Graveyard

In the first half of 2017, I was restless. I’d left my job as a teacher the previous year to write full time and though I’d written countless words, nothing seemed to be going anywhere. My blog was still a regular thing, but the book I thought I had in me wasn’t taking shape. There […]

A Reflection on Failing Lent

Last year was the first time in my over half-century life I’ve observed Lent. I didn’t grow up in a church that acknowledged it, and only in the last few years have I begun to experiment with living by the liturgical calendar. Rather than think about giving something up, I chose to frame it as […]

Turning Compassion Inward

Amy sat with me on my screened porch at the lake, listening the way only a woman who has spent thirty years as a cloistered nun in a monastery, then three more years training to be a therapist, can listen. “You have compassion fatigue,” she said. “What?” I asked. “There’s an actual name for this? […]