We are noisy, we cousins gathered around the long wooden table smack in the middle of the restaurant. Melissa leans over our shoulders to place multiple plates of fresh lumpia down in the center. We clamor over each other, elbows flying, to grab the freshly fried spring rolls between our fingers and dip them into […]
Hope
Prepare the Table
Preparations and Feast We start early. Dressed in layers that reflect the cool spring morning, and the day of feasting to come. Waiting for the sun to rise. We are a faithful few, gathered and quiet – maybe a little impatient – steam rising from our cups, waiting. As the light blinks above the tree-line, […]
Come and Feast
We are God’s creatures, created ones, who harbor inside us a Spirit-inspired love of reveling.
Osso Buco
I woke up from surgery, my throat sore from the ventilator, and I immediately reached to touch my face. I smiled. I gritted my teeth. I rubbed my nose. Gloriously I felt nothing. Not the familiar electric shocks or burning sensations that ultimately led me to let someone cut a hole in my head and […]
Prepare the Table
Preparations and Feast We start early. Dressed in layers that reflect the cool spring morning, and the day of feasting to come. Waiting for the sun to rise. We are a faithful few, gathered and quiet – maybe a little impatient – steam rising from our cups, waiting. As the light blinks above the tree-line, […]
Peering Through Fog
Fog rolled in last summer, hovering outside my window above the Puget Sound for weeks. It obscured what is familiar, the landscape of the everyday. I could not see two feet beyond its heavy curtain. In the distance a foghorn bellowed, “I am here” to boats, creatures, people displaced by limited vision. From the shoreline […]
Podcast: How Shattered Expectations Lead to Hope with Tatyana Claytor
Native Bermudian Tatyana Claytor is a writer, academic, and mother of four. A navigator of multiple cultures and life experiences, Tatyana meets us in The Mudroom today for a discussion on how expectations shape us and our perception of God. Lean in for her extraordinary story . . . http://mudroomblog.com/how-relational-expectations-shape-our-vision-of-god/ Tatyana’s Website: https://tatyanastable.com/ Links to Tatyana on the […]
Opening to a New Way to Bloom
Early in the healing process of a severe manic episode related to my bipolar disorder, I felt the nudge and a voice I believed to be God’s. I heard, “I want you to share your story. This story you are living now.” The only emotion I felt was terror. I quaked in my sneakers as […]
A Procedure for a Clean Heart
I did not have any idea what to expect. Anticipation of the unknown filled me with fear. My body trembled uncontrollably. Unsure if the shivers were from the cold, metal table or from the overwhelming dread, a tear formed on my left cheek. The kind nurse wiped it away. “It’s alright […]
The Unlived Life
You go there. I do too, sometimes. Here’s mine: I’m in a packed-out bar sitting at a table, elbow-to-elbow, with my closest friends. The burly man on stage does tap-“check-check” as he tiptoes around some electric guitars, an upright piano, maybe even a few drums, and then slips into the spotlight. “C’mon down!” he proclaims […]
#Wait(ing) in Expectation-Broken I Came to the Cross
“I accept that for now, my life is to be lived in the crucible, a hard but beautiful place where He leads me away from the world in order to draw me near to Him.”
Of Thorns and Skin
Listen to the audio recording of Prasanta’s words here, or read her piece below: Of Thorns and Skin Your Task Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.* A long wind brushes its fingers through the trees […]
The Space Between Darkness and Dawn
The space in between darkness and dawn….. the space where the morning star hovers and the sun’s rays have not yet touched the sky where the wash of a rising canopy warms the earth this space is where God restores our stories. Yes, there was pain in the darkness in places concealed: the […]
Finding Peace in Transition
There was a time in my life when I was more comfortable in the midst of transition. I remember once in my twenties sitting on my suitcases in the airport in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. I was wearing a long, billowy skirt, a t-shirt, and my favorite Jesus sandals looking like the quintessential Christian […]
Under this Same Sun
It wasn’t cued to play today. It’s been years. But somehow between My Chemical Romance, Green Day, Imogen Heap, and all the other music encroaching the playlists of parents with teens, it surfaced: This fragment of life Lora gave me a lifetime ago. I listen to The Weepies, as the Steve Tannen from 16 years […]
Podcast: The Secret to a Life of Words
Writer Nicole Walters meets us in The Mudroom today to share some highlights of her journey of words. She elaborates on the absolute necessity for collegiality in her writing life and describes her strategy for theme writing. References: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Nicole’s most recent Mudroom piece: “Grace in the Middle” http://mudroomblog.com/grace-in-the-middle/ Mudroom Podcast, Episode 5: Finding Grace […]
Grace in the Middle
Editor’s Note: Don’t miss the audio addition of Nicole’s piece below – where she narrates her journey into liminal spaces and delves deeper into finding grace there . . . in the middle. (The Mudroom Podcast, Episode 5) I was falling behind, dragging them down. I glimpsed it on their little faces—the fear gathering in […]
Space for Transformation
The world is such an odd place these days. But as I write, I realize I have always thought it to be. However there was rhythm and routine to my days. A certain flow and consistency to my life. Just a few short years ago, there was measure of assurance or at least perceived assurance. […]