“To wonder is to stand in the towering shadow of God however frightened we are of our own smallness. Like Moses, let us pause at the bushes that burn. Like Tomas, let us bend for a closer look at Christ—even if, paradoxically, it’s doubt that reaches to touch his side. Let us have certainty when […]
Her intense gaze met mine, or so I believed. When she turned toward the audience the feathers of her tail responded in a dance of their own, winding around her slender form. She wasn’t a ballet dancer on a stage; she was the exotic bird, emerging from her cage to capture my imagination. Time ceased […]
Maybe it’s the desperate hope that somehow the tide of the pandemic will finally turn and we’ll see a return to some semblance of the life we knew before. But I’ve been feeling the need to mark the days lately, to remember. As summer unofficially ended in the U.S. with Labor Day, I noticed something […]
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth. –The New Zealand Anglican Lord’s Prayer I wanted to savor each sip of chai in the tiny aluminum cup. I didn’t mind its heat on my hands even though my scarf already stuck […]
Shame was a language I learned early, right along with how to say “please” and “thank you.” There was an unspoken etiquette we learned growing up in the Southern United States. The tea should be sweet. You should address people older than you as “ma’am” and “sir.” I knew the taste of collard greens and […]
The heaviness that settled over my chest that morning was as dense as my husband’s weighted blanket tangled around my feet. I kicked off the covers but the anxiety wouldn’t lift. It was one week into the Coronavirus crisis that had settled over our country like a dense fog. It started on a normal Thursday […]
You’d think she was a celebrity, the way I watched her from across the room. I tried to work up the nerve to speak to her but the taste of salt in the back of my throat gave me pause. I didn’t want to embarrass her and I didn’t want to cry. But I wanted […]
Our eyes grew wide in disbelief at the yelling, shoving crowd. We had been warned, to be fair, that our trip to the Mogamma, the towering government building in Tahrir Square, would be difficult. But this was something entirely otherworldly. We clutched our passports to our chests and braced ourselves against elbows to the ribs. […]
When we settled back in the U.S. last year after our living in South Asia, it felt like the world had moved on without us while we occupied another plane of existence altogether. We might as well have been returning from outer space. My family got used to living in partially packed houses or out […]
“It was such a God thing.” It’s our way of saying, God ordained this; it must have been the will of the Lord. That’s why it all worked out, right? But then, it doesn’t work out. Something that seemed so clear gets fuzzy. Dreams die. Plans change. Wasn’t that God’s plan, too?
They felt litter thicker than matchsticks in my hands; her tiny fingers seemed like they could snap in an instant. I was mesmerized by her smallness in my arms though her presence filled my entire life. As I held my firstborn in the dark of her bedroom, humming a song to her in the same […]
“I accept whatever He gives and I give whatever He takes.” – Teresa of Calcutta It’s not something you talk about in polite company—not being quite okay and being willing to admit it. When people ask how are you, they don’t expect an honest answer. I know; I’ve been answering honestly for months, unable to […]
I bristled when I received a message from an editor at a publishing house asking if I was working on any projects. “I can’t write a book now,” I thought. “I’m still living in this messy space of transition between Asia and America, between old dreams dying and not yet discovering the new. Standing on […]
They were the kind of sobs that you feel like rock your whole body in such a way that something must certainly shake loose from your heart. They were the kind of tears that feel like they reach back years in time, pulling up issues you didn’t know you were concealing. Those tears snuck up […]
Life is not a matter of creating a special name for ourselves, but of uncovering the name we have always had. – Richard Rohr My sense of the self I try to project, the name I hope to make for myself, started to unravel one day when I was deep in my own thoughts, walking […]
My breasts and bottom were fair game for open discussion; I learned this early in life…Always the message was clear – your body is ours to look at, to scrutinize, and to judge. After years of my body belonging to others, I just want it to be mine.