Look to the Margins
When we stand in between two spaces, we see things we wouldn’t see otherwise.
The Church Flag at the Pride Parade
The churches that speak out hatefully against gay people—as well as the churches who, smiling, offer the poisoned chalice of church community only at the cost of any possibility of lifelong romantic love—miss out incalculably.
On Living Happily During the War
I train the hose on our seedlings and think about the rains that have failed over and over again in parts of the Horn of Africa.
Let’s Get a Little House — Remixed
In another country and another time when I was only twenty-two, I somehow spoke this life into being.
Nobody Wants to Do the Dishes
No one sits for hours at an information booth because it is their passion.
Why I Stopped Writing
The girl who had spent her teenage years wearing Lord of the Rings costumes to the grocery store grew more polished and careful, but then the mask started to fit a little too well.
The Heart Is a Muscle
It wasn’t a bleeding heart that sent me overseas for those years.
Mopeds
As her name suggested, Libertad would be freedom for me.
Living in Liminal Space
In between is an uncomfortable space that is more often “neither/nor” than “both/and.”
The Poor You Will Always Have With You
Yet, I remembered over coffee, a broad view of justice may sometimes include simply “giving people a fish.”
Prepare for Re-entry (Part 2)
It is so good to get back into a crowd, but it’s harder and stranger and lonelier than I expected it would be.
Rutherford and Me
Separated from his historical context, I saw him more as a punchline than either a hero or a villain.
The Water Rose Slowly
The current pulls them loose and I watch helplessly as they float out of sight.
Keep Your Friends Close
As much as we hope to find friends where we land, I wonder how many of us simply direct our energy into things we can better control.
They Call Her a Siguanaba
Some say she kills the men; in Honduras, she usually makes them go crazy.
The Heresy of American Exceptionalism
“This isn’t who we are” rings false in a country that has yet to fully wrestle with its original sins of colonization and slavery and its ongoing sins of racism and imperialism.
Preparing for Proximity
The turn of this year feels too fragile for plans.
To the Future, with Love
If our imagination is wild enough and our compassion strong enough to invent radioactive kittens that will protect future generations, what other innovations might we create?
For Those Who Feel Numb
I don’t want to think about the election right now.
What Is It You Plan to Do?
The moment I began to slide, I thought of nothing.
Our Earth’s Magnetic Fields and Stars
Birds feel the pull of the compass, and they also cast their eyes upward for a map.
This Year According to the Notes App on my Phone
Here, lightly edited, are a year of the mundane and serious and baffling things I felt the need to save.
Place-starved and Home-lonely
I am from this place as much as I am from anywhere, and it’s this recognition that helps me know that I can feel this way again.
The Ten Cheesiest Lines from My Teenage Morality Poetry
I managed to stretch this weak joke (reach for the stars but, like, “the actual stars”) for far too many lines—all rhyming, of course.
The World in Pieces, We Are Planting Trees
I feel caught up in a collective urge to tend things.
One Day We’ll Tell the Story
But one day we started to tell the story, and as we heard it coming from our mouths we knew it meant the story was behind us, and we had lived through it.
Prone to Wander, Lord, I Feel It
A robin pulls a fat worm from the ground in the middle of a traffic circle and life suddenly feels too grand, too expansive, too beautiful to possibly come to an end.
A Case for the Color Red
How much do we love red? We crush rocks for it. We smash bugs for it.
A Thrill of Hope, the Weary World: Meditations on Advent
Hope does not exist in a moment; we must create hope.
The Four Most Important Things I Know
What I mean is that we must be skeptical of solutions that simply throw money at complex issues.
